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

Come to think of it, we never did find out how Doom actually came back. Like yes it’s handwaved as just being a time travelling thing, but the full version of Dark Beginnings shows him aboard the ARK before Time Eater starts fucking shit up. Well, I’m still going to stick to my larva theory/headcanon.

Also disappointing that we didn’t get a full version of Without You for the game’s credits. Was very much ready for more of that song and if it was only made for Dark Beginnings, it’s all too likely it won’t hit Spotify with the actual OST.

 

Time traveling thing? This version of Black Doom is definitely not from Shadow's past, as Gerald mentions that he's from Shadow's present when they talk about Doom learning from their "last encounter". Shadow then goes on about avoiding any further mistakes and "crushing every last one of them", which to me implies he realized he wasn't completely thorough with killing all Black Arms aliens after Shadow'05.

I think the Death Leech "larva theory" remains the correct interpretation for his return, and nothing in the story we see contradicts it. Dark Beginnings shows him opening his eyes as he finally "awakens" after slowly regrowing since StH'05. The Time Eater then turbocharges this process for the rest of the Black Arms (Doom later mentions this to Shadow when he tells him how the "temporal anomaly" accelerated his plans to revive his forces.)

 

We just have to assume the larva (and the G.U.N. Space Fleet) has been hidden away on the ARK for 50 years. Without any notable food sources, even though half the reason for invading Earth in Shadow the Hedgehog was to turn the population into livestock.

Now I'm envisioning the larva as a happy little farmer in space while Shadow chases down Sonic aboard the ARK in the background...

I'm just going to stick to my headcanon of Black Doom himself being immortal, hence why his DNA specifically was needed for Shadow.

So a thought occurred as I was trying to sleep last night: Gerald mentions Maria had a healthy sister. A very common headcanon I've seen is that the President's Secretary in Sonic Adventure 2 was Maria, having survived the events of 50 years ago, due to factors like similar appearances and her prominence as a menu theme and such.

What if said Secretary wasn't Maria, but her healthy sister?

 

The implication I got was that Black Doom went "I lived bitch" after the end of Shadow the Hedgehog

 

Whatever the reason, it's one criticism I'll put towards Shadow Generations' story. Much like Frontiers, another supposedly story focused game, there really isn't much story to tell.

The game starts with an optional overview of Shadow's history, presented in a cutscene that's honestly got to be pretty welcome for newcomers. Then we get all the events of Dark Beginnings, simply details how Shadow returned to the Ark (and casts a little more light on his back story). This stuff isn't part of the game though. It's prequel material.

Once on the Ark, Shadow finds the fake Emerald and quickly chases after Black Doom, which is the premise for SCA Act 1. Black Doom then magically warps Shadow into a weird Radical Highway dimension thing for a couple of minutes (How? Why?). After that, the Time Eater shows up for reasons unexplained and Shadow is now in the White Space. Shadow must then surrender the rest of his time clearing a random assortment of levels and bosses from the timeline, occasionally picking up Doom Gears and his own emblems until Black Doom says he wants to fight. Some other characters show up along the way, but none of them contribute to any story developments. Some of them mention Black Doom sphere in the sky, but it's not really made clear what the point of it is. The characters exist just to provide some good character interactions that flesh out their relationships and dump a bit of lore. Then you fight Black Doom, Maria dies again and Shadow buggers off. The end.

The lone exception in all of this is the way that the game ties into Sonic Generations, with the fake Emerald and Shadow losing to Sonic.

Frontiers was much the same. A scenario was set up right at the beginning, and then the rest of the game was simply "complete the levels to beat the guy". Nothing really happens in the interim. Its the standard for Sonic stories these days. Forces is, ironically, the only exception since 2010. Even Unleashed basically fails into this category actually, but it at lest has some plot up until the point that you rescue Professor Pickle. Lost World also has the courtesy of waiting until the second zone before the story stops progressing too.

It's a choice. I don't know if it's because Sonic Team don't want to tell stories, if it's something to do with game design or simply because they want to maintain the status quo and not introduce any of the world building we saw in games like the Adventures, Shadow, Battle, 06 etc. But Shadow Generations is morning) nothing if not made up entirely of callbacks to those games in its premise (and again, the fake Emerald from SA2 forms the one major plot point here). Twice now they've managed to get me pretty interested in the characters involved, so big thanks to Flynn for that. The next step is daring to make a story where where shit actually happens instead of an excuse plot.

 

I also wish there could be a little more meat on the bone here, but in this case I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt that they didn’t want to put a really involved story next to Sonic Generations to keep the package relatively even in that sense. Granted I hope this trend doesn’t continue, but I’d take this kind of thing over Forces, which did have a substantial plot but the characters weren’t doing or saying anything interesting.

 

Just like the Classics

So something that still confuses me: Gerald's Journal mentions that Abraham Tower is the ARK's 'happy little accident', suggesting he was born aboard the ARK.

Spoiler

Yet Maria, in that very same game, mentions that Abraham was brought aboard the ARK.

Spoiler

So... which is it? Was he brought or born aboard the ARK?

 

Maybe he somehow snuck aboard without his parents noticing, and they just were ok with it, hence "accident"...? From the sounds of it, Abraham was on the ARK before Maria, so it's possible that Gerald knows he was born there, but Maria thought he was brought up to it? Throwing out possible ideas, but this definitely does seem like an oversight.

 

I feel like that would make him the ARK's 'happy little stowaway'. Also, that would mean his parents were going to abandon him on the Earth while they worked on the ARK? (Since they're still using shuttles I assume space travel is tricky, even if the space fleet throws off the bell curve.)

His nickname of the ARK's 'happy little accident' suggests his being born on the ARK isn't a secret, so I don't know why Maria would think that. Especially since his being brought aboard the ARK is suggested as a key factor in her parents letting her be brought aboard.

I mean, you're talking to someone whom made an entire headcanon thread. I very much enjoy throwing out ideas and discussing them, the only reason I'm discussing this here is due to it being a new game with spoilers.

 

It's definitely just an oversight. I'm the kind of guy who can't deal with headcanon and unofficial explanations personally, so it just has to sit on the pile with Blaze, Eggman Nega and some other shit. Best guess is that one of those lines was written before the story was finalised and somehow it slipped through the cracks.

 

catching up on this thread after finishing my 100% run. my assumption is that there would be a lot of totally unfounded hate from people reflexively refusing to engage with the game (and there is definitely some of that), but i'm glad to see that for the most part folks are liking it.

i honestly think that shadow gens is blow-for-blow better than sonic gens - and i say that as someone who really loves sonic gens. i very recently replayed sonic gens (right before the shadow gens announcement lmao), and while for the most part it still held up, the ten extra years of action platformer experience i've had since playing it for the first time really threw its shortcomings into sharp relief. it's main problems really center around the 2d sections - the lack of a double jump makes those sections much more tedious than they otherwise would be, and in general modern sonic's low-speed handling (in 2d and 3d) is kind of total dogshit. the game gets away with handling so bad at low speed only because you are so rarely at low speed, but when the game slows down - either for a platforming section or for one of the challenge acts - his horrifically stiff movement really rears its ugly head. this has really bad knock-on effects because as the game goes on the 2D to 3D ratio gradually shifts in favor of 2D, and the platforming gets way more demanding - but the handling stays awful.

shadow gens not only completely fixes the low-speed handling (and shadow has both a double jump and an air boost), but the 3d sections are vastly expanded in scope - in contrast to sonic gens, the game is mostly 3d. furthermore, it's not trivially 3D - there are definitely still some subway surfer hallways lingering around, but in general every single 3D level in shadow gens is filled to the brim with alternate paths, many of which were not initially obvious in the trailers. the game ramped up its difficulty nicely too - in levels like the ark and rail canyon, most of the alternate paths are tied to homing attack targets you need to get. then, in kingdom valley and sunset heights, they start taking the targets away (or tightening their timing) and start forcing you to manually land jumps onto larger platforms. finally, by chaos island and radical highway, the fast paths start to totally take the training wheels off and demand fully manual jumps onto pretty narrow surfaces (at high speed!). it's been a very long time since i've had to "lock in" to a sonic level as hard as i had to get the wingless S-ranks for radical highway - there are just so many skips, so many tiny optimizations to make, so many shortcut jumps that seem impossible but are just within the realm of achievability. really stellar stuff all around

it's not perfect - with the exception of radical highway, the S-ranks are still way too easy. i think the bosses and challenge acts are way better than their sonic gens counterparts, but many of them can still feel fairly uninspired or mildly tedious. i've seen people complain about doom morph, and while it definitely grew on me as the game went on (the morph boost is incredibly powerful and opens up many shortcuts that are otherwise impossible), it's definitely poorly explained and unquestionably janky. i also agree that the "doom illusion" sections in the 3d levels can start to drag on repeat playthroughs. but overall? i really struggle to think of any boost-era games that have a package of levels this solid. frankly, i struggle to think of any 3d sonic game where the levels are this solid across the board, and i'd challenge anybody to show me one.

 

Clearly the Radical Highway segments should've been Westopolis solely because you get sent back to each several times.

 

I actually really love Radical Highway as a thematic end stage and the one Black Doom traps Shadow in. Isn't it the first place that Shadow visits on earth? It's significant to him in his memories is my headcanon I guess. It makes me think that a Sonic game with a messed up Green Hill at the end would have been awesome too...Forces would have been perfect that, but we all know how that went.

My favourite story moment was Shadows little tear...

And are those rough concept sketches new to the public? I really love the Shadow the Hedgehog sketches of Casino Carnival, with a tiny shadow using a turret gun lol.

 

Hmm... I do remember him warping reality in StH'05, thought it was only during the Dark path, iirc. There was that one time he teleported(?) Shadow into space to show him what happened on the ARK 50 years ago. Shadow then saw "himself" running with Maria.

Frankly, I can't say whether he's really warping reality during the Radical Highway segments, or just messing with Shadow's mind and perception.

Well, it can be both too. They may have originally thought to return to Earth after he was born, but ultimately decided to remain after it was concluded it to be safe to raise a child on board of a space station.

 

Honestly, I feel like the levels should've been split into two acts covering two different areas of one place, and Black Doom is corrupting them, filling them with Black Arms to show 'what could be'. Then have a boss at the end, where he similarly interferes and gives them a Doom Power that Shadow assimilates after the fight. Little oldschool, but Shadow's never had a game where he had that formula, so it'd be novel for him.

 

Oh yeah, that's right. I always thought he was just messing with Shadow's mind in ShTH to make him remember the events of 50 years ago. It's still not what he's doing in this game though.

Handwavey plot, rule of cool. It's pretty easy to accept whatevers happening in this game.

 

It suffers from the same execution as Frontiers where most of the meat and development is buried away in collectible lore dumps you can miss, or collect and never bother to check. I understand why it would be like that in this side game as it's just a stop gap until the next big game, but this is twice in a row. I have my doubts about the follow up game breaking the trend.

 

Now that I remember, there's actually two times when Black Doom teleports Shadow to space. In my previous post, I was specifically referring to that one CGI cutscene where Shadow is walking confused through a forest, when suddenly a red flash gradually changes his surroundings into outer space and Black Doom appears to show him GUN attacking the ARK.

The Radical Highway segments in Shadow Generations start a similar way, with Shadow going through the level when out of nowhere his surroundings start to change and he appears somewhere completely else.

 

Am I missing something with some of Shadow's White World challenges? One of the hard mode clock chases seems borderline impossible. And apparently beating challenges with at least ten seconds to spare turns the node rainbow. I wanted to start chipping away at completion, but if I might literally not be good enough to get 100%, that's... kind of discouraging. Especially if there's no easy way to restart them.

 

Have you been using Chaos Control? It's kind of annoying but that seems to be what they intend for you to do... Even though the challenges don't give you enemies to build it up.