Sonic Generations Review

I beat Sonic Generations last night, I downloaded the PC version because it was cheaper and because I don't have a 360 or PS3. The game is programmed very well and it's overall fun, I love the voice acting in it, it's the best voice acting that any Sonic game ever had and have no complaints on it whatsoever. The music is amazing, the remixes of the old songs are done fantastically.

They break the fourth wall in a very subtle way. After completing Green Hill, Sonic asks if it's familiar to Tails, who says that it's not to him, as he wasn't in the first game. In the final confrontation, modern Sonic and Tails refer to Robotnik as Eggman, then classic Tails calls Robotnik, Dr. Robotnik, who in turn says that no one calls him that anymore.

I do have plenty of nitpicks though...

The level selection is sub-par, Sky Sanctuary, while it looks great, could of been substituted for Death Egg or maybe even Launch Base. There's Speed Highway and City Escape, which are rather redundant as they're both taking place in a city. Lost Temple would of been a better replacement for Speed Highway. Seaside Hill is also the worst choice from Sonic Heroes, as Hang Castle or Egg Fleet would of been better choices. The modern selection is good, but I don't think it was really needed as those games are really recent, Crisis City is alright to have but Rooftop Run and Planet Wisp are too recent to have included.

The level design is good, but some could be better, like City Escape should of been longer, it was way to short for what is the middle of the game, especially when you look at Speed Highway and the Seaside Hill. Seaside Hill is a poor excuse for an underwater stage, it wasn't an underwater stage in Sonic Heroes so why now? And Planet Wisp is just too fucking long.

There isn't enough Robotnik, ever since Unleashed he's been a really awesome villain, he's funny and is more active in his plans. You only hear his voice twice, before and after the first boss and only see him twice, after the third boss and before the last.

Now onto actual criticisms,

There's only 4 boss fights. Death Egg Robot, Perfect Chaos, Egg Dragoon and Time Eater. All the bosses only take about 4 or 5 hits, with the second to last hit being the actual final blow with the last one being for cinematic purposes only.

Super Sonic is handled very poorly, after you beat the game you get Super Sonic as a skill. It takes 100 skill points, effectively making it so you can't use any other skills. As Super Sonic your ring count drains faster than one ring per-second, it's about one ring per .75 seconds. Using the boost sucks up your rings at about 10 rings per-second. Super Sonic also moves a lot slower than normal Sonic so it's not really worth it.

There's very few rings in the stages and they're far and few between. And there's too many spikes in the game, they're in every stage even in stages that had no spikes in their original incarnation. Classic Sonic will loose rings the most because they put enemies on the edges of ledges, so jumping onto that ledge will enure that you're going to lose your rings. While you don't lose all your rings when you get hit, you lose a ton of them and you can only pick up a few. So if you drop 20 rings, you can only pick up about 5, even if you're touching them.

If I were to give my usual ratings, it would be a Decent game. It's pretty lazy that they're using time travel as a basis for a story again. The game is a nice attempt to please Sonic fans, giving the old school gameplay and the modern gameplay, although the modern gameplay is essentially classic gameplay with a few tweaks. While not suffering from any of the problems that previous games like Sonic 2006 or Sonic Unleashed had, it just feels like they were just being lazy, as if they wanted to show 20 years of Sonic and make a game out of it.

But Sonic Generations is prime real estate for DLC levels. Sega would be fools not to have more levels added in like Starlight Zone, Death Egg or others as there are certainly more memorable levels than the ones they chose for this game. But since Sega are fools and are no longer the once mighty gaming company they once were, I don't see this happening. I know Casino Night is coming as a DLC, but that's just a pinball mini game and no one really cares for Sonic pinball games.