Sonic X Shadow Generations thread, movie level out on the 12th

you know what, I think I can get behind this. Like a really unhinged and modernized take on Sonic R.

 

They build upon lessons they've learned from Frontiers. Their next goal should be to encapsulate the magic of Sonic's world, while also maintaining the momentum they've gained from Cyberspace and so on. Again, a step in the right direction, If you'd ask me. Make it feel more natural and believable.

 

Environment design aside, to me it looks a lot like the game is using the same lighting approach as Frontiers Cyberspace stages where there's only baked AO maps and no GI at all, which likely plays a significant factor in the flatness of everything.

Generally it feels like Sonic Team has started putting a lot less money/effort into stage terrain and visuals since Frontiers; even the flatness and blockyness of the level layouts are a symptom of this, because like Cyberspace the stages are being deliberately designed this way so the devs can just extrude the same few prefab road and platform models to create every part of a level. Versus Gens or even Forces, where there were tons of unique assets created for specific sections of levels.

Even then I think Shadow Gens is looking better gameplay-wise than basically any 3D content we've gotten since the original Generations (not a high bar admittedly), but I can't help but notice the ways that they've been cutting corners with assets and level design as of late

 

Imagine thousands of microscopic doom morphs swimming towards Sonic’s womb… that’s the Sonic X Shadow Generations™︎ experience.

sorry, sorry, I’m trying to delete it

 

This point. Absolutely this!

It kind of worked artistically in Cyberspace, due to the artificial nature of everything there. But it still felt cheap. And it's definitely not as egregious in ShGens because it's masked considerably by the fact that these environments aren't just floating highways in a mess of other digital highways. But it's a problem that's been becoming more evident for sure. Forces even had it quite a lot, and you can really see it in Cyberspace when you compare remade layouts to their originals from Unleashed/Gens/SA2 etc. The difference between Windmill Isle 1-1 and Cyberspace 1-1 is insane, even though the layouts are supposedly the same. The hill at the start in WI feels so natural, with bumps and dips and big boulders. The Cyberspace equivalent is a uniform corridor with crates perfectly stacked to replace the boulders. It's just a corridor, exactl like the paths in ShGens Kingdom Valley and Ark.

Slap some textures and a few decorative objects on the Sonic Simulator levels from Colours and you've almost got the modern type of level design. I'm not saying that such levelscan't be fun. But Sonic Team have streamlined how they go about making levels and the end results feel super cheap. ShGens is the next step in this simplified process.

 

The lack of GI (or at least GI that's effective) sticks out like a sore thumb when put beside Generations. The shadows and lighting in that game are so colorful and lush, and give a lot of life and depth to the game. Everything about the visuals feels lived in and purposeful in Gens, a game that is now two console gens ago with a remaster that only has to mildly clean up it's blemishes.

Compare to Frontiers and now ShGens and you have really grey, really desaturated lighting that makes everything appear really muddy and low contrast. I can tell they're aware things aren't popping, too, since this game is also decked to the nines in Wii-era-esque rimlighting to make up for it. So many white edges around Shadow and the stage geometry, it kind of gets blinding when combined with all the added laser lights and explosions flashing across the screen.

Overall my complaint combined with Blue Blood's is that the graphics department of Sonic games tanked hard somewhere around/after Forces*, and while this is clearly a step up from Frontiers, I'm not sure it's that impressive when the original Generations looks as stellar as it ever did. Hope they continue to polish up for future releases, is all I can say.

EDIT: Okay maybe it tanked around Lost World. Sorry, I forget that game exists sometimes. lol

 

Yeah, it's kind of bizarre to see how most of the 06 and onward levels in Shadow Gens aren't really even improved from their original appearances, and at times actually look worse. Even the Forces city sections we've seen look really stripped down visually when compared to the underground sections that were in the original levels, where you had a bunch of stairs, tunnels and passageways going into the background and connecting with the level layout, not to mention the lack of GI and almost any extra light sources which Forces had tons of. Meanwhile with the original Gens even the stages that were pulled from then-current gen releases had improved lighting and a lot of extra detail added into them that didn't exist in their original counterparts. I mean, if Shadow Gens continues to have decent gameplay and level design I can accept the tradeoff of weaker visuals, but its still disappointing nonetheless

 

Or is it a limitation of Hedgehog Engine 2?

The original in the context of Unleashed and Generations did work because the levels were more naturally-proportioned and had variety in the shapes and environment, though. It would make sense that flatter environments would lead to flatter lighting.

 

Hedgehog Engine 2 is in fact NOT as limited as HE1 , if anything it manages to fulfill the original vision of HE1, and can calculate light paths in-game on more powerful systems instead of having pre-baked calculations due to hardware limitations/ optimization

this video does a good job illustrating the origin of the engine ans what HE2 did improve on



so yeah basically it’s a matter of art direction and environments, not engine

 

That’s very sad that they’re not taking full advantage of the engine. Unleashed art direction + HE2 might look great.

 

The fact the Shadow Generations fidelity mode looks just OK and runs at 30fps on PS5 isn't a very smart tradeoff though, especially vs 60fps Generations.

 

I thought HE2 was no longer baked lighting. Did Frontiers make more compromises to support a day/night cycle?

 

Wait - Shadow Generations runs at 30 fps on PS5? Seriously??

 

On fidelity mode.

 

So… this game is basically like Switch port of Super Mario 3D World, where Shadow Generations is a bonus like Bowser’s Fury?

I hoped for some story content, crossing over with Sonic Gens.
I guess we’ll see.

 

It seems a quite bit more elaborate than Bowser's Fury at this point, but something like that sure. Considering how little we know about the story so far, it's too early to say what they'll do with it though. At the very least Iizuka did confirm we're crossing over with Sonic's side of the story at some point in that IGN interview.

 

This is still absurd since it'll be on much weaker consoles like the Switch, Xbox One and PS4.
Shadow X Generations should be running with max settings at 60fps on both PS5 and Series X

 

It's hardly unprecedented though. Frontiers was the same; a stable 30FPS @ 4k resolutions on when in fidelity mode and 60FPS @ dynamic resolutions (around 1800p I think?) when in performance mode. This applies to both PS5 and XSX.

 

Running games at 4K is very resource heavy. I don't think there's any PS5 game that can actually run at 4k 60fps, aside from games that utilize 2D art of course. I have to imagine that the performance modes will be able to run at 1080p 60fps without issues on all consoles, aside from Switch.