Spoiler Thread - SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS (SPOILERS!... Obviously.)

(@33:35)

Now that it's actually been incorporated I wonder if any of the ARK leaker details/Black Arm goop on the Artificial Chaos metal housings will result in anything

 

Just read Gerald's diary.

That's the best written thing to come out of the series. I'm in awe.

+ - Genuinely choked up reading parts of it. I'm so sorry, Gerald.  

 

I just read it myself and I'm absolutely impressed. We knew Gerald was under a lot of pressure and stress trying to save Maria while navigating some complex politics, but never once did anyone stop and consider Maria's parents here or how their relationship with Gerald could have been damaged. It also seemed a bit much that Gerald went insane because he lost his Granddaughter, but considering that his whole world came crashing down because of her death and that he in some way was responsible for all of it... I can't blame the guy for hating humanity so much that he'd create the program used in SA2. Say what you will about Ian's writing, but he really humanized Gerald here.

Maria's story is a bit more fleshed out, but she still kinda suffers from the "solely exists for motivation" problem people have recently discussed. Honestly though, I don't think that's as big an issue as people make it out to be though. People like her do exist who are kind and caring and optimistic in the face of an incurable disease, especially children who deal with terminal illnesses. That's just who she is, and I do think what little we got in the journal helps her feel more real.

Getting info on Gerald's two sons, especially Eggman's father, was incredibly unexpected. I believe Sega mandated a long time ago that Sonic characters should not have family shown, at least in Archie, so seeing Ian win that fight and show the two off is surprising to me. There also seems to be an indication that Eggman's father supported Gerald a lot more than Maria's father did and it caused a rift between the two. It further adds to Eggman's backstory and why he looked up to Gerald so much, even helps reinforce his motivations a little. That said, maybe we've opened up a can of worms here, people are gonna want to know what these two sons were like and how they tie into the series lore. We now know Maria's father helped find Emerl, how did Eggman's father and expertise in Robotics help shape Eggman?

Also a little nerdy thing I really like, the time switches from Cannon's Core were invented by Gerald based on his research into Chaos Control. I did once wonder what purpose they had in-universe, but always chalked it up to story/gameplay segregation. Making it an invention in-universe makes it so much cooler for me.

 

Although I never liked Pontiac and Graff’s writing, the original Generations is old enough that I feel a fond nostalgia over it, cheesy writing and all, so I’m somewhat disappointed that they’re making these seemingly pointless & insignificant changes to the cutscenes that look like YouTube fan edits at most. I’m gonna miss lines like “enjoy your future, it’s gonna be great!”, “let’s beat him Super Sonic style” even though I cringed at them when I first heard them all these years ago. I guess I’ve just grown to like it in a “it’s so bad it’s good” kind of way.

I’m also gonna miss Sonic being mute in the character rescue cutscenes, which lead to (perhaps unintentional) hilarious interactions such as when Cream rants about how scary being trapped was and Sonic’s response to that is just “… :D (thumbs up)”

 

Actually i finished the base gens earlier and those specific lines you mentioned are actually still in the game, they didnt rewrite everything, only some of the lines, though they are ALL rerecorded

 

So the pacing in Shadow's campaign sucks. You have to beat Acts 1 and 2 of two levels. Then you have to find a boss entrance to unlock the challenges. Then you have to beat all the challenges in order to unlock the boss. Seems like it has to be done in that order as well. Challenges should just be optional - they suck.

 

Any sight of a marathon mode of some kind aka the Egg Shuttle in Colors?

 

I can rest easy now, knowing that they didn't ruin Generations ending.

(While you're here, did they change the Robotnik line? Or Shadow's text bubble pre-rival fight? Just curious lol)

 

Kingdom Valley Act 2 remix is insane, holy fucking shit.

 

beat the whole thing this morning. quick thoughts:

Spoiler

+the MAIN levels are pretty fun on the whole. less setpiecy and stylish than gens but more open with a lot of places to cut down on time.
+controls are similar to frontiers but there's a big step up in terms of responsiveness. It feels a lot better to play now, and Shadow is closer to controlling the same in all modes of play.
+the scenes bookending either end of the story are pretty strong, not much in the way of new developments but it's good crash course for shadow that reaffirms his mission.
+step up in quality for the character animation this time around. This is probably the first Sonic since Unleashed I'd say is a step up here, from big action setpieces to smaller character tics there was a lot to like just looking at this game. there was even some good visual storytelling here and there
+doom crashing the level tends to be super amusing each time, without being a total bore on the gameplay side of things. good idea for a setpiece that maybe regular gens should have leveraged more
+Shadow's powers make him feel different without being super intrusive like previous gimmicks in the series. I liked how chaos spear and the doom blast were used in particular. Chaos control has a lot of potential but some clunky implementation holds it back.
+The hub world trims a lot of the fat that defined Frontiers. You end up with something more akin to a larger Unleashed hubworld with better controls which goes down a lot easier.
+The finale is a huge step up from Gens and IMO crosses into Actually Good territory. Saving the ACTUAL Radical Highway for the end was genius and the type of clever thinking the original gens needed.
+Unlike Generations none of the bosses were outright bad. There was a surprising amount of ways to eek out extra damage through smart use of Chaos powers. I'd say the closest thing to a stinker is Mephilies(shocker) because his is based around the game's worst gimmick.
+There's a lot of "Shadow doing and saying cool things" which is great. I hope the series continues to feel celebratory toward it's characters like this.
+Since this is a Generations game level gimmicks are a bigger focus than they have been, especially coming off Frontiers.
+Journal gives us a very interesting look into Gerald's psyche.

-In-between the underwhelming "act 2"s and the side missions there's a lot of 2D gameplay in this game, and while the controls are improved the level design is still kinda underwhelming and the camera still sucks.
-the story leaves a lot to be desired in the middle part. There's a strong kick off but most of the middle part is Shadow getting cornered by increasingly aggrieved villains from the past game before he effortlessly beats him up and carries on with his day.
-Maria feels a smidge underutilized here when all is said and done. Shadow barely has a reaction to seeing her again and she stays far away from the action for the majority of the game. That much is obvious, but a couple of quiet moments to see them reconnect and how their dynamic has changed would have gone a long way.
-There's an opportunity to add another wrinkle to characters like DOOM, Metal Overlord and Mephilies here that they take a hard pass on. They're mostly the same characters as before airdropped into the story as haphazardly as the guest bosses were in the original game. Wouldn't have bothered bringing it up if Iizuka wasn't so fixated on pitching the story to folks this time around.
-Sunset Heights is much more linear than the other levels, but some cool setpieces at least make up for it some. I have no idea why they bothered with Chaos Island though. none of the cool memorable parts of Frontiers make it over. It's just a lame, clunk, ugly mess based around the game's most boring gimmick. I could see an even leaner version of this game that's only 4 stages long being better.
-The Doom Powers feel pretty clunky and underbaked, from weird omissions like not being able to boost during Doom Surf to Doom Morph being about as messy as Frenzy in Sonic Colors despite dominating the game's later stages and bosses. They're snappy, don't take up as much real estate as I expected, and are well intergrated into Shadow's moveset in a way that puts them above other "Wisp" type abilities but I'm still not 100% sold on this angle. When it comes to Sonic less is usually more.
-It feels like there's more padding of gens despite there being less stages. Outside of the bizarre boss door interaction outlined earlier they don't twist your arm to scour the open world that much though. There's lots of hidden treasure but most of it is optional. The challenge acts are leveraged more here instead, you just have to complete twice as many as before and while none of those levels stuck out as bad they aren't super memorable and some of the DOOM power centric ones felt clunky. My least favorite part of the boost games are the mandatory "junk" stages they throw at you and this isn't an exception.
-Soundtrack is underwhelming compared to Gens proper imo. There are some cool remixes here but usually they either lean on the conservative side(Kingdom Valley) or just completely fuck it up(Chaos Island) This note is HIGHLY subjective tho because I have friends who enjoyed the soundtrack a lot more than I did.
-Like Generations there's more of a clear focus on level gimmicks but not to the same degree, this one tends to skim out on anything that would be too complicated to implement and leans on gimmicks focused on Rails, wall running, or the doom powers. Anything that's brought on here is usually simplified, like the infamous spinning Final Chase platforms. Doesn't feel as well realized as Gens in that department.
-This was the Switch version so I'll eat crow if this doesn't apply across the board but the environments were highly inconsistent in terms of visuals. Normal for post RoL Sonic but stings a little harder next to gens which looks as good as always.

tldr: its fine, exactly what they said it would be on the tin.

 

The robotnik aand Eggman dialogue is slightly changed but *most* of it is intact, including the "Nobody calls me that anymore!" And such, the highlights have remained

Shadows dialogue in the text bubble is also the same, or at least if it is changed, its almost identical. Silvers is the same too

 

Spoiler: Mephiles

Voice acting and personal feelings about the character aside, I love that Mephiles is actually well aware that he's from a timeline that was erased and believes that by defeating Shadow he can finally exist again.

 

Apologies if someone pointed this out, but

Spoiler: Spoilers for Gerald’s Journal

the note to Commander Tower preceding the journal proper is from a subordinate identified simply as “T” - a cheeky nod to Topaz?

 

I actually downloaded the game shortly after making this comment.

PS: Don't worry, I bought the game on Steam, but I wanted to test it first so I looked for the Switch rom to download.

 

I haven't seen anything like that so far.

 

Dude, this game made Chaos Island looks so epic, what the hell.

 

So I read Gerald's journal and did they also tweak Maria's backstory? The English localization of SA2 didn't help, but in the original JP version and in Sonic X I always got the impression she had not been on earth.

Though I think the only thing that mentions she was born on the Ark was the SA2 press kit. Seems there is also a point before she got sick now while she before she was described as being born weak and sickly.

Spoiler

Though I guess that could still be the case before she got worse.

I guess it's one of those things that I thought was established but maybe not.

I do think it was more tragic Maria and Shadow were both born on the Ark and had never been on earth, with only Shadow making it because of the actions of GUN and Maria's sacrifice.

Not that we got is bad, I do agree the journal does a good job of putting you in the shoes of Gerald and all the pressure he was on as things were spiraling out of control.

 

Earliest memories.

How would they know being on the Ark stabilizes her condition if it developed while she was already there?

 

This does appear to be a slight retcon. Though SA2 is vague on this, there is one scene where Maria acts as if she's unfamiliar with life on Earth. On the other hand, Dark Beginnings makes it clear that she was from Earth.

Spoiler

Gerald's journal seems to acknowledge this discrepancy. There is one part where Gerald mentions that Maria's been living aboard the ARK for so long, that other researches now mistakenly believe she was born there.

Spoiler

 

As far as I'm remembering the Ark stabilizing her condition is something that was recently revealed. I think the first time was the Encyclo-speed-ia.

Before that I don't remember any other media mentioning that.

They are also scientists, they could just know that bringing her down to earth could make disease worse. (Even though in real life it's the opposite and it would be worse for someone like Maria to live in space)

It could have always been the case that was the reason she was living there though and was never revealed until recently.

I do remember the scene from the SA2 English dub, though if I'm remembering correctly in the original version and in Sonic X I think she tells him something like "You/Shadow like to watch that planet/the earth" and then Shadow tells her about what Gerald told him and him looking for his purpose on earth. Though there are other moments where it can kind of go both ways if she's been on earth or not.

I guess that's why I'm wondering if maybe her not being born on the Ark was an official thing or not since the only thing I can find saying that is the press kit.