Sonic X Shadow Generations announced, releases Autumn 2024

Yeah but the thing is that regardless of how people felt about it, it proves my statement: White World as a weird amalgamation of areas and geometry from the respective represented stages...

Besides, we're all gonna have to do all that stuff again... (if your only intention with this Remaster is to play the Shadow content exclusively, wait for a major sale)

 

Speaking of, I hope Shadow Generations gets those kinds of missions, or at least bonus stages akin to Forces. I know a lot of people were pretty down on these challenges in Generations, but I think the issue there is that were padding in a game that was lacking primary content. Meanwhile, we’ve already got our expectations in check that Shadow Generations won’t even have as much content as the original game, so it’d be a pleasant surprise and a good way to maximise content without needing to create a bunch of new assets. Hell, even just providing alternate missions in largely unedited levels a la the Adventure games would be nice.

 

They don't even have to go too far. Obstacle courses within the white space area now that it's actually in 3D would be more than fine. Chasing musical notes in crappy 2D layouts with stiff 2D controls was anything but fun, but chasing musical notes in a crappy 3D layouts with serviceable controls? Now we're talking.

 

If Shadow Gens is inspired by Bowser's Fury, and it has a comparable amount of content, then it's my belief that there will be 3 stages (which we've already seen) with 3-4 acts each, not counting the extra digital deluxe level, which may only have 1 act, or White Space itself.

The question comes down to what the extra level will be. If SA2, Heroes, and 06 are already represented, that leaves either Shadow 05 or Forces.

 

If there is a Shadow 05 level (Which, with all the references to it I'd hope so), I'm hoping for Digital Circuit or Lava Shelter.

 

Oh i forgot they did this! Yeah that was a really good change.

 

I doubt there'd be a Forces level because that's after Generations and Shadow Gens takes place during.

Though I'd love to surprised. Any Forces level ould make for a nice final level too.

If there's a Shadow 05 level, it absolutely has to be the Black Comet.

 

I hope Shadow has a PTSD flashback of finding the computer room

 

I mean, generations is about time travel.... They could totally pull stages from Forces if they wanted to. What I'd be more interested in however is a stage that takes place in shadow's past but we haven't actually played before. If they run out of games with shadow to pull from it would be cool to bring back an Unleashed inspired level where we play as Shadow and shed light to what the hell he was doing during the whole gaia thing. I doubt they'd do that but it'd be more interesting than forces IMO.

If they do bring back a specifically 05 stage (the ARK level is sorta standing in for both SA2 and 05 from the looks of it) I wonder if they'd canonize a path or not. I don't think they will because it's impossible to have one route that fully lines up with the last story, would be fun to see them try though. If they do bring back a stage I'd go for circus park as that trope isn't in Generations. Prison Island would also be fun, I love dilapidated reclaimed by nature settings. If they're really being creative they'd have Act 1 be how it looks in SA2 and Act 2 be how it looks in 05.

 

Has anyone talked about how there appears to be different background tracks going on for these levels?

Listen to Gamecage's clean music recording of the full stage and boss. Very EDM:



Now listen to Choctopus, it appears that everything has a heavier metal style to the music (which I'm absolutely in love with):

 

There's clearly a pathway here but nobody takes it because the camera turns and takes you to another part of the level

 

I've been thinking, maybe they'll actually do direct remakes of stages for Act 2s or 3s, I know that's something even Generations didn't play with but it would be an interesting extension without needing to make more assets.

 

That first video isn't a recording, it's just overlaying tracks from previous games. The Radical Highway/Biolizard remixes are from Generations 3DS. The second video is from the actual game.

Also, I'm sorry but Shadow's voice is just terrible. Good lord, Kirk, what is going on here? Even I could do a better Shadow than that, and I suck.

 

The problem is the dubbing studio (Studiopolis) is still there. It should have been a different dubbing studio. (or not)

 

I've been hearing people say Kirk is good though, so I guess its just one of those subjective things.

 

What got me is phase 1 was already very Metal, but then decided to go EVEN harder in phase 2.

Thinking now, that could be a Tyler Smyth and Jun Senoue duo combo.

 

Isn't the music in Fadel's video this track from Sh05?


Sounds identical to me unless it's a subtle remix of that track. Kinda surprised no one else noticed.

The other video seems to have a remix though.

 

Yes, it's The Ark music, used as placeholder. Choctopus' video actually uses a remix of Highway in the Sky.

 

Honestly, looking at multiple videos, and inclining that this is the first major stage of the game, this completely blows the pants off of things like Forces Green Hill and the like; I'd even go so far as to say it's better than Generations' Modern Green Hill in terms of its core design, aside from the top path that demanded you pay attention in that one, mostly because it actually has things happening that require the player to do more than jump and boost.

"Inorganic level design", when Final Rush and Final Chase were entirely floating platforms and rails with just ARK walls surrounding them, is one argument that bothers me. Are things a bit simple and overly wide, feeling like they used the assets in a way that boils down to being the modern Sonic Team box design? Yeah, but that's literally inherent to the trope of the very stage itself, and they can't exactly go recreating how small Adventure 2's pathways were for it with how much berth a boosting hedgehog needs. Hell, the fact that there's indoor sections that has elements of the Tails/Eggman stages and StH's take on the Ark means it has more visual variety easily than one would even expect.

Really, it is just that angular, boxy presentation people are so annoyed by that's dragging things down, and it isn't even that bad here.

I'd need to see other acts, which are more likely to be the box cube hell of lazy level layouts, and the other zones, which may or may not be more organic, to really get a taste for things. But it looks reasonably solid and honestly longer than the average early stage has been in Sonic games for a while. Some folks out there keep getting aggressive about how "anyone will eat up this slop" and they seriously need to chill out on first impressions.

 

Shadow can past through the lasers. That's a really cool attention to details.