Sonic X Shadow Generations announced, releases Autumn 2024

They would redraw the assets if they could for the next five years.

 

Need someone to remind me, but did previous couple sonic games had "Deluxe upgrade" option available only after launch? I was already planning on getting Deluxe edition since it's only $60 and would prefer to get digital, but also Gerald's journal for Day 1 editions looks tempting, but there doesn't appear to be a physical deluxe edition
And while sure the content of the Gerald Journal appear to be available in the game itself, i just like a nice "launch edition" bonuses since they get rarer and rarer

 

Yes. SCU, Origins, and Superstars let you buy the components of the deluxe version all separately. I think Frontiers might have been an exception, I don't remember though.

 

Frontiers it's an exception as far as I'm aware. It's also got the least amount of "digital deluxe" context, being a few consumable items for the first island and the craptacular brown boots and gloves skins. I don't think we need to worry about the Shadow Generations deluxe content not being available to purchase post-release, considering the breadth of content it includes.

 

To be clear I don't like any remasters costing £60. I think it is really ridiculous. To be fair I didn't realise Gens x Shadow was only £45. That's a bit more reasonable.

I do think you raise an interesting question on wbat should be the standard for asset reuse which has unfortunately been ignored. I actually agree with you that a lot of games are equally as guilty as Sonic Forces but get away with it. I really disliked Tears of the Kingdom being a glorified expansion remake of Breath of the Wild. Complete map re usual like in Tears of the Kingdom....I do consider it just a bit pathetic. Especially considering how imaginative Zelda has been as a series. I disagree thar the additions to the game made the blatant asset re use justifiable since I considered most or the new content to be gimmicky and shallow.

For me, the standard for asset reuse is bow much the game is offering something substantially new. Something like Majoras Mask I find more acceptable. That reuses a lot of assets but does ultimately make a new world and new stories. Although the NPC model re use is pushing it a bit. But it just feels like a much more new game experience than Tears of the Kingdom. I dunno. Hard to explain.

Sonic really has been at the extreme though. Re using the same maps, levels, and even level layouts for ten years.

 

I've pre-ordered the PS5 version for now. Was originally being gifted a PC copy, but steam screwed up the gift code and my friend is refunding it and saving the cash for a different gift later.

Going to get a physical copy for now for the bonuses, a digital copy at a later time when it goes on sale after a trade in. That's pretty much what I did with Frontiers, and I'm okay with it since I still have the main Generations on PC already and the new game's mod scene will still likely take some time to mature.

I know the shadow portion will be a lot shorter than the original campaign most likely, but it still feels like I'm getting the Gens 2 game I hoped for way back when. What a time to be a fan...

 

That's your take and that's fine To me Yakuza is far more guilty of reuse of old assets ,

The development team even talked about it even recently.


https://x.com/GenePark/status/1837246124458967048?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1837246124458967048|twgr^|twcon^s1_&ref_url=

I also find Atlus look to reuse assets on P onersona so I don't get the issue with Sonic Team , other than it's Sonic Team.

I agree mate . I think Atlus & Yakuza team do it more and well I also felt like Zelda Tears of the Kingdom felt more like DLC.

 

I kinda have to agree here, if other games are doing the same thing and no one cares about it then, why in this case?

Like, I get that seemingly new visual assets were created for each game up until Generations, but around the time that game came out the first time, the industry had changed. I believe that was around the time that Unreal Engine and it's asset store took off right? No doubt companies then, Sega included, would look at that and say "why aren't we recycling and saving ourselves time, effort, and money?" There may be other reasons for why it became an industry standard, but clearly no one had a problem with it.

If we're holding Sonic and Sonic Team to a higher standard in that regard, maybe we should stop and ask why. Is it because we're sensitive to the wholesale reuse of old levels in Frontiers and Forces? If so then really Shadow Gens is nothing to worry about and a sign that, that particular problem is lessening.

 

yeah as Andromeda pointed out, Atlus also does a lot of reuse, with demon/persona design and rig reuse not just between games but in the games themselves being their bread-and-butter for getting things done as far back as the PS2 era if not more. The DS games also reused sprites pretty often, and Strange Journey and Persona Q both straight up crib the Etrian Odyssey engine For Reasons. Persona 4 is mostly made up of Persona 3 reuse, some of which you'll notice within the first five minutes (Dojima is just a reskinned Akihiko with the same "jacket over the shoulder" animation).

IMO reuse predates Unreal. This thread has some pretty fun examples of reuse and I think one of my faves is the mention of a "light flicker" object in Half-Life Alyx tracing its lineage from Quake. But also consider that we used to get sequels that hewed much more closely to prior games much more quickly back then - the original Spyro and Crash games, which obviously reused a lot from their prior entries, come to mind...or, say, the in-game asset reuse Sonic 2 had, and re-use of assets between all classic games.

Also right now on my other screen as I type this, I'm running FFXIV, a game that is absolutely rampant with both blatant (the standard MMO "this zone had a brown frog and now this one has a blue frog") and creative ("so this robot from outer space who wants to kill all of us is using the frog rig") asset re-use, because that is the only way to actually make content at scale in a reasonable timeframe these days. But also it's just plain smart development work. There's no reason to start over over and over again, and also it's harder to justify budgeting all-new assets that a player is never going to really pay attention to because a boss is actively trying to kill them.

Even funnier: a series like Monster Hunter reuses assets mercilessly for the very monsters you are hunting. Flying wyverns tend to have similar animations within the same game. Apparently the Lagiacrus rig has been reused the world over for the past few games. I spotted an Insect Glaive animation in a trailer for Wilds that matched one from Generations Ultimate, a re-release of a 3DS game. Who cares tho? The games are fun.

 

All I ask for is to see a bamboo or a rock from Chun-nan. I don't care if they reuse assets, but could they broaden their library a little? Tired of seeing the same set of level themes of city, refinery, or floating ruin they keep doing.

 

I do think they could do a little more to mask the asset reuse in the Metal Overlord fight but to be honest I think it's fairly minor and not something that I'm gonna lose sleep over. I can live with looking at spray painted Forces/Frontiers assets for a single four-minute boss fight.

 

I feel like this isn't even anything worth talking about. As far as we know the Metal Overlord arena is the only instance of relatively poorly utilized asset reuse, and even then its something most won't actually pay any attention to once the game is in our hands being played.

They could stand to reuse other assets for once though, Green Hill and Chemical Plant assets gotta go.

 

I wouldn't even consider it poor, i didnt even notice on my first few viewings of the boss fight and i LOVE the same game they were lifted from (frontiers in this case they seem to be using those Chemical Plant assets specifically).

 

I think once the game is out, even the most vocal asset reuse detractor will go from a hawk to a mouse

 

Jun Senoue and Teddy Loid had played a remix of Westopolis at TGS.
(Audio capture)

Doesn't necessarily confirm the level's inclusion, of course. It probably wouldn't work given Radical Highway's already here in the ARK, and Sunset Height is also present, with Tokyo coming as DLC so adding another city level would put it on par with...Sonic Gener- Oh.
Either way, I'm just thinking this is a bonus track or mission song.

 

Iizuka was actually lying when he said that Shadow Generations would be slightly shorter than Sonic Generations, in reality Shadow Generations has double the run-time due to needing to replay Westpolis Act 1 over 326 times in order to unlock the true final boss against Black Doom fused with the Time Eater

 

Yeah, but it's also obvious that only path #044 can be considered canon.

 

The DLC stage teaser used the original Westopolis theme so I’m guessing this is what the final version of the level will use.

 

I don't want Westopolis to be the stage from Shadow the game anyway. Our red-tinted Radical Highway looks similar enough already. I'd much rather have Black Comet.