Generations of mistakes crushed into one game - Sonic Generations Review

A brief warning: this review contains some very minor spoilers – mostly one or two bits about how the game systems work, a few level name spoilers, and the amount of levels in the game. You’ve been warned.

Also note PC gamers – you really need a gamepad for this. The keyboard controls are atrocious.

Sonic Generations is Sega's latest (at time of writing) foray into showing us the amazing things they can do with the Sonic franchise. Unlike their other recent attempts, which merely show how badly an experienced company can mess up a well-known franchise, Sonic Generations shows you a step-by-step on how exactly to do it yourselves!

I don't know either, Sonic. I just don't know.

The game is made up from a bunch of Zones, each containing two Acts, much like ye olden Sonic games of the distant past. The gimmick here, however, is that each Act 1 is played by retro Sonic, the small podgy pigmy of the Genesis/Mega Drive era,  which each Act 2 is played by the spunky new, taller Sonic from such successful  games as Sonic Heroes and Sonic Unleashed. Those sparkling gems of gameitude.

  

Past the title screen, the game drops you in as retro Sonic playing through the Green Hill Zone. You can run, jump, and even spin dash. The graphics look splendid, Sega really managed to recreate the magic of Green Hill Zone in HD. But, what's this? It's Omochao, the incredibly annoying (and thankfully, disable-able) small chao robot from Sonic Adventure, sitting on the ground in front of Sonic. That doesn't seem right.

From there on, the game is basically a downward spiral. After beating Act 1, the "story" is revealed - a giant time eating shadow monster is destroying time and space, somehow retro and new-age Sonic are catapulted into the same time zone and must work together to stop it. They do this by playing through levels from older Sonic games, collecting... well, nothing, really, there's no reason to complete the levels other than "it makes the game progress". Once the levels are done, you go 

back and do some challenges, grab some keys, unlock a boss, then do it all over again.

Me too, Tails. Me too.

Also introduced is a strange skill system. As you beat levels, you are graded, as per normal for modern Sonic games, and are given an amount of points based on your grade. You can trade these for skills in Omochao's shop. These skills do a range of things, from giving retro Sonic a shield to start the levels with, to the ability to get a free boost as new-age Sonic, to a simple extra life. You also get 100 skill points - not to be confused with the points you get for finishing levels - and with these 100 skill points you can equip up to 5 of the skills you've  purchased, so long as the total "complexity" of the skills doesn't go over your limit. For instance, the first ability I listed up there costs 70 skill points to equip, so you won't be equipping much else with that one, whereas another skill that makes lost rings bounce around for 10 seconds before disappearing only costs 10 points to equip. It's rather complicated and unusual, and the screens for purchasing and equipping skills feel bloated and clunky, and the whole system feels unneeded since it's very possible to play through the game without touching Omochao's shop at all.

There are a total of nine full levels, three boss levels and three mini-bosses. Each full level contains two acts and several "challenges", little things to warrant replaying the levels for added bonuses. These range from racing a shadow of yourself to playthroughs using the elemental shields from Sonic 3 & Knuckles. These are fun, to start with, as you play through the first three levels (Green Hill, Chemical Plant and Sky Sanctuary) but quickly become frustrating and repetitive as you progress to the later levels (Crisis City from Sonic 360 and Rooftop Run from Sonic Unleashed strike out to me in particular - these levels were not good originally, why would I want to revisit them several times?).

I too felt a little sick later into the game.

That, I feel, is the major problem of the game. Once you are past the first three levels and the first boss, you are plonked into a bunch of levels you probably don't care about. Hell, if you are younger than 20, you probably don't care about the first three either. Who looks back on Seaside Hill from Sonic Heroes with positive nostalgia? Who remembers falling into the water for the 24th time because Sonic decided to clip through a platform with fondness? Playing through the game just made me sad as I remembered just how much Sonic has fallen.

I do feel I need to make a special shout-out to the music: much of it is remixes of older Sonic themes, with each zone sporting two versions: a more classic-feeling remix for retro Sonic's act, and a modern pumping remix for the new-age. They did a really good job on many of these - for instance, retro Sonic's remix of Escape From The City contains elements of the Endless Mine tune from Sonic 3. It was so unexpected I had to listen to it several times to make sure I really heard it, and it wasn't merely the little kid inside me desperately trying to hear something it liked.

You also unlock music as you complete challenges, and can change the music of any level to any of the tunes you've unlocked. There's something satisfying about playing new-age Sonic's frustrating Crisis City's act to the tune of Angel Island Zone. But it's not really satisfying enough, unfortunately.

Regardless, once you have beaten the game, you unlock a few bonuses to entice you to replay, but as of this review I haven't bothered. I have no doubt I will, eventually - I honestly enjoyed the first 3 stages, even if I didn't enjoy the later stages nearly as much - but I expect it'll end up depressing me to the point where I just uninstall it and try to forget the game existed in the first place.

Just like Sonic and the Black Knight.