Generations is arguably a bit rushed but still filled to the brim with side content and stuff to do for replayability. And Its absolutely not crazy buggy like other sonic games. I'd consider it polished
Replay value is subjective. Imo, Generations' short length means that its replay value is sorely lacking. My preferred way to replay Sonic games is just to go back the the story/main campaign from start to finish. I take a very chilled approach to replays, so time attacking simply doesn't do anything for me. Generations it's very much built to be speed run and time attacked though. I just want to have fun making Sonic move around the environments in a natural and fluid way. But Generations has way too few levels for that and they're all fairly short. Compound that with the fact that controlling Sonic in Generations is clunky and rigid, I can't see Generations as anything other than a "just okay" experiences that never beckons me to return to it. What does "polished" even mean in this context? Generations is generally very stable and functional. In that sense, yes it's polished. Sonic Team polished up the end product to work about as well as it could without bugging out. But the underlying mechanics, referring to how Sonic controls and interacts with the environments and objects therein, feels like it's just 'passable'. It's not a polished framework. I think the simple fact that Sonic Team have been unable to maintain consistency in controls for any of the most games speaks to a lack of polish in the mechanics. Each game they bodge their system further. Generations' side content is forgettable at best, and pretty bad at worst. When the side missions aren't pretty mindless AI character races, they're hastily repurposed level layouts with mild to severe asset spam and janky co-op moves. Generations is like "fine". But it's way overrated and I will die on the lonely hill.
Generations Planet Wisp Act 2 is a great level and I don't agree with the hate it gets. It is a pretty steep difficulty spike and has a lot more 2D than the other modern levels, but I found it a great challenge and it's extremely satisfying to go back, find shortcuts, and shave huge chunks of time on repeat runs. It puts every technique you've learned throughout the game to the test and I've always found it really fun. I think the worst modern level in Generations is easily City Escape Act 2, mainly due to the colossal stretches where the only thing you do is press X to boost. I think it's especially weak compared to the original stage, which is much more energetic, varied, and involving.
Couldn't have put it better myself. I don't get how City Escape Act 2 escapes criticism when it has a full minute of nothing but side-stepping and a very forgettable 2D section, things that fans will bring up regularly for other levels and games but this one level gets a pass? Sad. On that note I think Chemical Plant Act 2 is pretty weak as well, its not as dull as City Escape but aside from the cool shortcuts at the beginning with the tubes, the 3D gameplay is really underwhelming here and the 2D sections are fairly boring and samey too, especially compared to Green Hill where the 2D sections were faster paced and felt like there was more going on
spamdashing is cool and good, actually. in almost every analysis of sa1 the spamdash is almost always discussed derisively, but i think those analyses totally ignore the way that it actually interacts with the level design in the game. sa1’s levels open up immensely with its use, and there is absolutely an art to mastering it at a level where you can use it for big skips (the skyscraper in speed highway, the ramp underneath the castle in twinkle park, and the button puzzles in lost world, etc.) it is obviously not superior to a fully momentum based approach ala sonic utopia, but its absence in the rest of the adventure era games (and the lack of an equivalent replacement) is keenly felt, and makes the levels in sa2 / heroes / shadow less dynamic, less engaging, and less interesting.
What you describe here is just the Spin Dash itself, not the spammable component of it that people hate on. I'm pretty neutral on the spammability of it, but I do love using it for big skips.
the levels being less engaging is down to the level design. Toning down rolling/spindashing so it's more thoughtful wrt when to employ it is only a good thing. you can achieve similar stunts in SA2 with a little more thought. it mostly doesn't happen as much because the level design trends away from vertical and multilayered.
What was the point of toning down when we should roll/spindash if we were expected to boost constantly for an entire era of games anyway? Isn't Sonic fundamentally designed to be able to roll into a ball?
the people who made sonic unleashed are not the people who made sonic the hedgehog, or even sonic adventure, so this aspect was not thought through much at all sonic after the third game is mostly a car pileup of "why don't we make it like (other game/movie/show/etc) without much in the way of consideration for what came before
Generations is my favorite Sonic game. It might even be my favorite video game. So from one lonely hill to another, I respect your unpopular opinion. <3
I don't get how toning down SA1's rolling/spindashing was "only a good thing", especially if that means a somersault that's only good for opening doors. Overuse of moves that make you go fast obviously wasn't a problem for Sonic Team going forward anyway, even in games that don't let you roll at all. Sonic was fundamentally meant to go fast by curling into a ball, he should always be able to actually do that if you ask me.
I think it is more interesting to have to charge the spindash for a second before being able to unleash it, instead of being able to mash the button to go at full speed. It's still powerful, it's just less easy to abuse. That's really it. I like SA1's spindash, just not the spam part.
He's meant to go fast by curling into a ball and using the ball physics to exploit the level design. That second part of the equation goes out of the window if he no longer has to use the level design to gain speed. The spamdash was a bad call for a lot of the same reasons the boost is, the level design just hadn't completely caved in on itself yet so the problem is less noticable
Yeah going fast without level geometry started long before SA1, I don't even think it's particularly relevant to the spamdash's problems. Sonic 2 already threw all that out the window, not to mention Mania's drop dash. My problem with the spamdash is that it has too high of a skill floor to expect little kids to use it proficiently. Heroes' Rocket Accel move ALMOST gave us the perfect mix between it and SA2's somersault, but the caveat of needing your team behind you just completely ruined it.
A "curl" function should be reintroduced, and you should be weighting the option between a well timed curl at the right point and stopping and wasting precious seconds to charge(!!!) a spindash. That can't happen as long as the spamdash covers both lanes. Neither Sonic 2's Spindash or the Drop Dash are strong enough to completely undercut downward slopes the way the Spamdash or the Boost do. They also don't give you as much freedom to skip chunks of level as long as Sonic is still locked to 2D. I never really had problems leveraging the spamdash even at a young age. I'm also not sure what rocket accell has in common with it, but I haven't played Heroes in years.
The Rocket Accel is dogshit. It's basically just the SA2 spindash with a really uncomfortable activation method and way less useful situations.
It's straight up worse than SA2's spin dash, but still a far better spamdash replacement than the somersault. It at least attempts to be an actual movement option.