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

Oh no don’t let the Zavokheads find out, the game will never sell a zavillion copied if it doesn’t have Frozen Factory

 

Give it another 13 years and we'll have Sonic X Shadow X Silver Generations for the PS7, Xbox We Gave Up on Names, and the Nintendo Doohickey.

 

Can't believe we missed out on another Green Hill clone.

 

Xbox First Original (not to be confused with original Xbox that was first)

 

Because 90% of the Sonic Lost World Love are in Sonic Rumble.

 

Wait, where did shadow show up in lost world

 

He didn't but he also didn't show up in Frontiers, so anything's on the table I guess, except for a Shadow 05 level.

 

That's true...I don't know if there's some character conversation stuff going on that I missed but I could buy that the reason it was included was that it was relevant to the history of the black arms somehow as the aliens that were pursuing the koco in frontiers. I wish there'd been something a bit more explicit to justify it, because the stage otherwise sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

That boss was probably the highlight of the game for me for all these reasons. It feels like Shadow Gen's version of the Metal Sonic/Shadow/Silver mini-boss fights. Between Sonic and Shadow Gen, they basically covered all the main big villains of the series and did them all proper respect. I also enjoyed the animation of Sonic and Shadow racing, it kind of reminded me of the cutscene at the end of Sonic CD.

 

Frozen Factory would have kicked ass as a stage. You have the snowy forest, you have the factory, you have the casino, you have the gorgeous nighttime setting (complete with AURORA BOREALIS) honestly you even have a better place for Gerald and Maria to hang out by than Sunset Heights. Throw in a few encounters with Zeena just for the hell of it and because it'd be funny because she and Zeena share a voice and we'd have perfection.

 

I finished Shadow Generations tonight. Dammit I wasn't ready for the feels, I knew they were coming though. Radical Highway was a mind fuck, it's the most off the wall fuckery I've experienced in a Sonic game! It was difficult but damn it was a fun level to play! I need to get a bunch of S ranks, and collectibles that I missed but I went ahead and started playing the Sonic Generations portion afterwards.

 

You know, with the idea of other timelines being pulled into the Time Eater's shenanigans, I wonder if there's an excuse to be made for Storybook levels. I'm specifically looking at Shrouded Forest, which is the designated Shadow, or Lancelot, level in the latter half of Black Knight.
This level is already beautiful as is on the Wii, AKA 2 Gamecubes taped together. Imagine how insane this would look in Hedgehog Engine 2.

 

Honestly, I'm not bothered by the fact they went for a Frontiers level even if Shadow wasn't in it. You're trying to get a game out on time? Why *wouldn't* you re-use a bunch of environment and enemy assets you already have ready to go?

 

I'm fine with them using it, the game needed every edge it could get as far as length, I just wished it was addressed in the story at all even if it was just a small nod

 

Ngl I like Radical Highway but I feel the stage Black Doom was sending you should have been Westopolis. After all it would have been much more thematic that the stage you get sent back multiple times is the stage where the promise Gerald had with Doom started to be fulfilled. Maybe its because Westopolis is a bit boring to make a level compared to Radical Highway...

 

Everything they did with Radical Highway they could have done with the Westopolis/Lethal Highway combo. They just went with what was more significant to the players over what's significant to Shadow and Doom's rivalry.

 

Hmm… I think Maria having named Shadow makes perfect sense and is really cute but I don't buy the heady light-and-darkness rationale she gives for it… she was just a kid who didn't know Shadow was going to go on to have world-saving adventures; I don't think she would have put that kind of forethought into it. I know, I'm nitpicking.

 

I mean, Gerald did technically address it.

"So you say you've seen regions you're not familiar with? I would speculate that you've experienced places in the future. Time has very little meaning here. It's reasonable you'd glimpse 'tomorrow' as much as 'yesterday'."
​

I rationalize it as both a thematic choice by the devs (i.e. bringing it to an end where it all began) and an intentional choice on Doom's part, bringing Shadow back to where his crusade for vengeance started, when his anger was the strongest, in an attempt to bring out that same anger and let him become consumed by his powers, making him easier to control. But I'm probably reading too much into it.

 

That sounds feasible, and a little bit of asset cheating as well. It'd have made sense too that Ark's Doom Zone (as they call it in-game) could have also referenced Cosmic Fall. But I hear a lot of folks have a little latent trauma about that stage despite how cool a concept it was. And I don't mean Vector directing us to locate where Gerald's wifi modem and router and are.

 

It did feel a bit weird that Doom was suddenly so obsessed with Radical Highway. He didn't seem to have any of these reality warping abilities in Shadow 05 either. But this time around he created the "Doom Zone" and it's entirely based on a location he's never been to. Surely recreating the Black Comet would have made more sense? He's attempting to take control of Shadow, after all.

It's just a case of gameplay and themeing before story. Radical Highway is to Shadow as Green Hill is to Sonic. Although I wish they chose another level for the game to end on, there's no question as to why Radical Highway is so prominent.