Review: Sonic Generations
By Miodrag Kovačević | November 8, 2011 | Reviews | No comments | Share
“I doubt Sonic Generations will be good, not because I’m a pessimist, but because I’ve seen all the bad things you can do with the franchise.”
Those were my words when I wrote about Sonic the Hedgehog 8-bit. In all honesty, I expected this to be bad. I’ve heard friends tell me it was good, but I didn’t want to believe it. These things just don’t happen. And yet, here I am, reviewing the latest installment of the franchise that more or less got me into gaming and later on disappointed me with each new title. It’s not the trainwreck I expected, but it’s not the return to glory I had hoped for. It’s something in-between, more closer to the latter.
A Tale of Two Sonics
Did we ever care about the story, I have to ask? It used to be nothing more than a recap on the back of the retail box, but it soon evolved into quite the handful. What with the Archie comics, cartoons, Adventure series and the whole onslaught of gimmicky characters.
It starts off quite timid. Some big purple evil spectre thing (because purple is the color of evil) attacks Sonic of the Classic 
Era and Sonic of the Modern Era. The Modern Blue Blur is attacked during his birthday party of all things and his friends are kidnapped before he receives all his presents. Of course, he does the heroic thing and goes on an unforgettable adventure with the power of speed, cool and friendship.
Honestly, the story is neither bad nor good. The dialog isn’t as cringe-worthy this time around, but even with the “big reveal” near the end, it doesn’t engage you beyond “Hey, it’s that place from Sonic Game X,” feeding off your nostalgia quite successfully. However, the interaction between the two Sonics seems to have been written by someone who had a lot of fun doing his job. I couldn’t help but chuckle when Modern Sonic brofisted Classic Sonic. I just have to wonder how many times the blue hedgehog will turn the tide of battle around thanks to the power of friendship.
Gotta Run Fast
The gameplay is divided into two types, Classic and Modern, or as the game calls them, Act 1 and Act 2 of a level. In Act 1, you control Classic Sonic who can jump and spindash. The levels take place on a 2D plane, but still offer routes which lead into the foreground. Act 2 contains Modern Sonic and is a mix of 2D and 3D areas. His repertoire of skills is also greater, as he can use a homing attack, slide, grind, boost and so on.
While one would expect Classic Sonic to handle like in the Mega Drive/Genesis games, this is not the case. Rather, it’s inspired by the gameplay, but the handling is quite different. The most noticeable difference is that the engine seems to dislike rolling. 
While the old titles would let you cover quite a bit of ground while curled up into a ball, Classic Sonic in Generations seems to get back to his default running stance quite fast. Rolling up in front of enemies can also be unreliable and surely affect your speed, so you’re encouraged to jump on or just plain avoid Robotnik’s robots. However, the speed mixed with platforming is still there. It offers a slightly different experience than one would expect, but the intention of it being a tribute rather than mimicry is obvious.
Modern Sonic’s gameplay shows that SEGA has vastly improved Sonic’s handling in a 3D environment, but it’s still obvious that it will never be completely reliable. When it works, it’s very fluid, fast and enjoyable, but when it becomes confused, death is quite likely. Thankfully, the times when you die or make a mistake because the unreliability of Modern Sonic gameplay are far and few in-between now, unless you’re really a jinx. However, it is slightly annoying how the game keeps yelling at you to press various buttons at certain times. I admit, I’d likely miss the visual cues on my own were it not for the extremely obvious “PRESS BUTTON NOW” messages, but there are certain sections where there are too many consecutive splash screens.
One addition that seems a bit odd is the skill system. You can unlock and equip various skills along the lines of letting you 
climb up slopes faster, giving you more time to collect rings you lose or increase your boost bar. Each ability has its equip price, and you can equip a maximum of 100 points, so it’s all fairly well-balanced. The option to create skill loadouts which you switch between at ease is a nice touch. But thankfully, if you don’t want to bother with them, the skills aren’t essential. They only offer a slight edge and finishing the game without employing them is quite reasonable.
I’d also like to suggest turning off Omochao in the options menu. He offers advice mid-levels, but some of it actually manages to ruin any challenge at all. I can’t vouch for the most of the game, but the first rival fight was more or less completely ruined for me because of Omochao’s “hints”. It felt like an integrated walkthrough and I promptly turned out the annoying little Navi wannabe.
I Want Your Architect
If the details about the gameplay seemed a bit scarce, it’s because it goes hand-in-hand with the level design, which deserves a section of its own. Those who’ve spent plenty of time playing the Sonic games of the Golden Era know that the usual approach to design was offering a few different paths (high, medium and low usually) with various intersections. Sonic Generations builds upon that formula and takes advantage of the capacity of modern systems.
There are multiple paths, rarely hidden, but often out of reach unless your speed and timing are good enough. You will pass through certain sections every time, but for most part, finding the optimal route will require that you master the level.
The beauty of the level design is that it rewards good performance while at the same time not making every mistake an automatic failure. If you miss a jump, you are likely to fall down the lower sections of the level. Only the lowest routes actually contain spikes, chasm and other dangerous hazards where making a mistake will be fatal. But if that happens, it’s likely because you’ve previously made too many mistakes anyway.
Like any good speed-based game, those who are skillful will be rewarded with very fluid gameplay. I actually managed to get through Modern Sonic’s Rooftop Run without making any mistake for most of the level, and the feeling of speed combined with the acrobatics was astonishing, but most of all, rewarding. Regardless of the rank I was given at the end of the level, I couldn’t believe how much fun I was having.
However, the level design doesn’t rely on the architecture alone. Generations probably has the most exciting scripted events I’ve seen in a while. It starts off timid with the giant robot piranha in Green Hill Zone, but then evolves into something amazing as you run from the truck in City Escape and climb the clock tower in Rooftop Run. There are even little details, like a damaged Eggbot in Sky Sanctuary trying to reach a button before you and closing a potential route if you aren’t fast enough.
Really, the only level I didn’t find myself enjoying was the one from Sonic 2006, and only Act 2. The reason being that it seemed to have made very little use of the successful formula of all the other stages.
From what I can tell, the PC version seems far prettier than its console counterparts. There’s so much going on at any given time 
and stages like Sky Sanctuary are just beautiful. It’s no new benchmark for game visuals, but it’s quite enjoyable. If your configuration is the bare minimum required to run Generations, though, expect things to slowdown in the more graphical intensive levels like Chemical Plant. I will note that it actually takes a bit getting used to to discern foreground from the current plane you’re on in 2D mode, but this confusion never caused me to die or fall down to a lower path.
Oh, and whoever got the idea of putting big floating warning signs above lethal pitfalls deserves a medal.
All the Things!
Even if the main game takes about four to five hours to complete, Generations has a considerable amount of side content. While each stage has two acts, there are also plenty of challenges for both Classic and Modern Sonic. Challenges are missions 
which use the elements from the level they belong to (either the whole level, sections or just the background and enemies) and give you special missions. It can be anything from mastering a new skill, racing against your own shadow, using your friends and their abilities or collecting a certain amount of rings. There are some standard mission types which only have a different environment and layout, but for most part, they are unique and varied. While I haven’t completed them all, I wouldn’t be surprised if they made up two thirds of the actual content.
There’s a ton of artwork and music you can unlock both by completing challenges and collecting special red rings hidden around the regular stages. The music tracks actually have a purpose in the sense that any stage or challenge you play gives you the option to play any song you’ve unlocked. Meaning if you’re addicted to Sonic Boom, you’ll be able to play it during the whole game. The default music tracks are remixes of the levels they represent and are actually quite good. Rooftop Run is likely the one that will be stuck in your head forever.
And if that all isn’t enough, then you can try getting an S rank on all the stages and challenges, as well as trying to top the online leaderboards or at least do better than your friends.
Bugs and Gripes
Of course there are bugs. I don’t think I’ve ever played a Sonic game without some serious bugs. Sometimes you’ll stop in your tracks if you roll up a slope. Sometimes you’ll fall through platforms. There’s even this extremely odd bug where Sonic will move in the direction of the screen on a 2D plane, result in what looks like a jogging demonstration for the player. As previously mentioned, Modern Sonic doesn’t handle completely well either. There are a lot of technical issues, but far less than what you would expect from a Sonic title.
'It's a love letter to Sonic fans'
It wouldn’t call it unplayable by a longshot, but I did manage to lose all my lives in the second boss fight thanks to Modern Sonic handling extremely poorly when he’s not running, which is certainly worth a mention. It’s hard to give an objective verdict in regards to this. I’ve played plenty of buggy Sonic games, and actually ragequit Sonic Heroes because of them, so seeing this gives me a “not so bad” impression. Although I do assume that if this was my first foray into the franchise I would consider it fairly buggy.
Also, the lives system is quite redundant. If you reach a game over screen, you are prompted to “try again” which puts you at the start of a level with five lives. If the game had completely omitted the system, I doubt anyone would notice a change in gameplay.
Yay or Nay?
As I’ve said before, it’s not the return to glory. I’ll be honest, I don’t think the return to glory will ever happen short of SEGA starting a new console line with Sonic as the lead franchise. What I also believe stops it from being pushed into legendary status is that it seems to have a lot of unused potential. Mind you, I used the term “unused” rather than “wasted”. Everything that’s in the game is quite good, but I can’t shake the feeling there was room for more. Maybe this will be addressed with DLC in the future. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing remakes of old levels using the same formula present in Generations.
But it’s quite good. There are some obvious flaws and it just brings nothing new to the table. I think that’s somewhat to be expected from a tribute game. Revisit the things that made the franchise so great. I know you can say this for every game, but a lot of love was poured into Sonic Generations, with proportional effort. You can just feel that the people behind this game wanted to celebrate a great character and franchise.
And the result of that effort is the game before us, a love letter to Sonic fans. I thought I would despise it, but I liked it. It brought a smile to my face and made my day better. What more could I want from a game?
Score: 8/10 | Read our Scoring Policy |
