Right from its announcement, Sonic x Shadow Generations sounded more than a simple remaster. While the Sonic segment of the adventure would be left virtually untouched, besides some visual improvements, the all-new Shadow segment promised to bring something new to the table, with brand new levels and mechanics unavailable in the original portion of the game. After playing the game during Gamescom 2024, I can say that the game will indeed be more than a simple remaster, feeling closer to an actual direct sequel to the original.
My time with Sonic x Shadow Generations was not particularly long, so I focused primarily on the new Shadow content, only playing through the two Green Hill acts with Sonic. The game was exactly as I remember it, and had no trouble going through both acts fairly quickly. Those who never played the original are in for something rather good, as Sonic Generations is, in my opinion, one of the best 3D Sonic the Hedgehog games ever released.
The new Shadow content in Sonic x Shadow Generations seems to be as well realized as that of the original game. The Gamescom demo featured two full stages, including the Kingdom Valley stage revealed in the latest trailer, and two full boss battles - the Biolizard and Metal Overlord, the latter made more epic by Crush 40's What I'm Made Of playing in the background. Compared to Classic and Modern Sonic stages, Shadow's stages were way longer and more complex, featuring a lot of different paths to the end goal and what felt like a higher number of enemies, giving these stages a slightly higher combat focus. Shadow's moveset also felt a little more complex than Sonic's, with a clear influence from Sonic Frontiers. Still, the level design for the Shadow stages was still deeply rooted in Generations philosophy, so the new stages definitely did not feel out of place in the experience. Setting the character apart further is the Chaos Control ability, which allows the player to slow down time on command, which has a few interesting uses.
The Sonic Frontiers influence was felt in the two boss battles as well. Both the Biolizard and Metal Overlord have multiple phases that require players to expose weak points and use Shadow's abilities to win, and they both felt decently designed, although the Metal Overlord battle was much better due to the soundtrack and bigger scale. The Biolizard battle felt a little more clunky, but it's almost tradition at this point to have clunkiness in a Sonic the Hedgehog game.
The Shadow stages in Sonic x Shadow Generations also looked more visually advanced, as even Shadow's model sported greater detail, better fur, and so on. Sadly, it seems like this comes at a cost, as these new stages did not run well at all on PlayStation 5. One of the stages ran at a very unstable framerate that felt closer to 30 than 60 FPS, so there could be some performance concerns in the final game. As we are a few months away from release, however, these issues could be solved with proper optimization, which is definitely possible, as Sonic x Shadow Generations doesn't exactly feature cutting-edge visuals that could have trouble running on current consoles.
While I would have been satisfied with just replaying Sonic Generations with some minor additions, the new Shadow content will likely bring the Sonic x Shadow Generations to heights that the original did not reach. As such, the game is setting out to be the one to get for fans of traditional Sonic the Hedgehog games that did not like Sonic Frontiers' open-world approach.
Sonic x Shadow Generations launches on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch on October 25th, 2024.
