Sonic X Shadow Generations


🚩 Spoilers For Sonic Generations And Shadow Generations 🚩

Shadow Generations

This might just be the best 3D Sonic game. It's such an exceptionally fun experience through and through. I'm quite surprised because only about 9 months ago, I didn't even know what to make of the announcement trailer. Did anyone else think it was weird that none of the trailers seemed to show gameplay of the hub world? Perhaps some did, and I just missed them. I guess hub worlds usually aren't a notable selling point, but I was pretty interested when I heard it was gonna be kinda like Sonic Frontiers.

To touch on that hub world, that was actually the part I was most disappointed by. The general UI was weirdly downgraded from Frontiers, in ways that just make it way harder to find collectables. Collectables don't show up on the map unless you pass nearby them first, there's no collectable compass or whatever it's called,
 

you can't scroll around the map while it's zoomed in, and worst of all I think is that the nuts and bolts just aren't marked on the map at all. I still had fun with the hub world though, and thought it was pretty good overall. It just couldn't replicate the satisfying experience I had when completing Sonic Frontiers, because it doesn't feel like all the tools are there to comfortably find everything without a guide. On the bright side, the draw distance is way better in this game, I never had any issues with it. I don't know how much of the draw distance getting better was an actual optimization thing, or just a convenient result of this game's setting being a void, so I don't really know whether or not to expect this refinement again in the future.

I have very little problems with the actual levels. As someone who's most familiar with Sonic Forces and Frontiers, it was pretty eye opening to play levels so dense and complex. When I really like a game, sometimes I'll wanna replay a level over, and over, and over again, but usually that only happens for like 1 level. For example, I love Pizza Tower, but the only level I particularly love repeating a bunch is WAR. In Shadow Generations though, I've been wanting to replay every single level a ton. I still have a favorite though, Sunset Heights Act 2:
 

The whole Sunset Heights zone in general was actually the most excited I was while playing this game. Sonic Forces is actually a game I'm quite attached too, so getting to play a rendition of it that was this fun made me so happy. I guess it's probably what a lot of people felt when playing the original Sonic Generations, and maybe also Sonic Mania, getting to see a thing you love so much get celebrated so perfectly is quite the joyful experience.

I've actually came to realize, I don't necessarily mind 2D levels in Boost Sonic games, because the ones in Shadow Generations are just sooo good. In fact, I actually liked some of them more than their 3D counterparts.

I'm not a big fan of how Radical Highway's included. It breaks the mold by being the only stage that's placed out of the series's chronological order, and little Radical Highway themed chunks are interspersed throughout the other stages. Those midlevel chunks, while I wouldn't say are straight up bad, do feel like they make levels overall worse. The cutscenes that play when transitioning in and out of them slow levels down more than I'd like, the level design itself tends to have much less to explore than other parts of levels, and it just feels repetitive to see the same level theme appear in half of the stages. As a climax, I guess it makes sense, it's the most iconic Shadow stage, and from a story standpoint it's Shadow's first taste of freedom or something, but also I feel like the Black Comet would've made way more sense since the game puts so much emphasis on Black Doom and his army. The Radical Highway entrance being a giant orb in the sky also feels like it would've fit the Black Comet better.
 
 
The general lack of Shadow The Hedgehog (the video game) stages was really odd to me. It's the single game most about Shadow, surely it makes sense to include an area from it in this game about Shadow's past. I guess Space Colony Ark kinda represents that game, but that moreso represents Sonic Adventure 2.

Mechanically, this game is amazing. Shadow is the best boost Sonic gameplay I've ever felt. Spoilers for later in this post but, Shadow turns so well compared to previous boost games, he retains the double jump and air-boost mechanics from Forces and Frontiers that I really like, and his stomp recovers really quickly which is great for fast and precise gameplay. That's just Shadow's general controls though (and not even all of them). There's more level specific stuff like Doom Morph which is a lot of fun. An absolute highlight of this game in my eyes though is Chaos Control. There's so much decision making involved when routing stages to effectively utilize Chaos Control. What enemies you go out of your way to destroy matters, how you destroy them matters, and when you use Chaos Control matters. I will say though, the minutia of it is pretty unintuitive. There's still moments in which I get Chaos Control meter for reasons I don't really understand.
 
Why do enemies give way more Chaos Control when destroying them (roughly) in-between Chaos Control uses?
 
Another good part of this game is the bossfights. Neo Metal Sonic and Mephiles in particular stand out to me as incredible, they both have great style and substance. I'd say gameplay-wise and stylistically Neo Metal Sonic was my favorite (his fight has the song What I'm Made Of playing, which is one of my favorite vocal themes in the series), but I thought Mephiles was the coolest story beat. Mephiles is the most in need of the time travel shenanigans in Sonic X Shadow Generations, and his dialogue and voice acting reflect his desperation, mixed with his usual delightfully evil and arrogant attitude really well.
 
The Challenges were pretty solid as well. Aside from the timer items I guess, they don't really introduce much to the gameplay, but they use what's there and tweak level layouts pretty well. Similarly to the stages, I liked all of them, which is pretty nice since you have to beat most of them to beat the game. I had more issue than I feel I should've though when nabbing the collectables "Cross Over With Doom Morph", but that was due to the initial Doom Morph tutorial not really demonstrating a thingy properly. If I were to pick favorites, off the top of my head I'd go with "Aim And Fire With Chaos Sphere" and "Beware Of The Spinning Spikes".

The Black Doom abilities were a little more underwhelming than I had expected, but I still thought they were cool additions overall. The first Zone, Space Colony Ark sets a really weird precedent, seemingly giving you 1 new ability per Act, but it turns out you actually don't unlock the Doom Wings until way later. Your use of them in Act 2 were essentially just a trial, and nothing like that ever happens again. Instead you actually only unlock Doom abilities in between each Zone. I also figured they'd all be universally available, but Doom Surf and Doom Morph are tied to level specific terrain. I wanna shout-out the Doom Wings for being a really neat twist on the Super Sonic formula. Being able to hover with the Doom Wings really changes how you can go about some areas. It's pretty clear though that Space Colony Ark Act 2 and Radical Highway had a lot more consideration for the Doom Wings than other levels, since they're the only one's that actually have Doom Wing specific paths (*Note: You can actually get onto some of the paths without Doom Wings, but it tends to be awkward), but even without those specific paths the Doom Wings still have their uses.
 
When replaying levels, for the most part I've just been speedrunning. I would try to play for points more, but this game rewards speed so much more than Rings that my High Scores are just from my fastest times. The game also tracks highest Ring values, so I've at least been able to dabble in that when I don't feel like speedrunning.

It's a odd that you have to play a sperate gamemode from the main campaign in order to upload times to the Online Leaderboards. It makes sense in Sonic Generations since that game's "Online Mode" restricts Skills, but Shadow Generations doesn't have Skills so its Online Mode seems kinda arbitrary. It sucks that in the Online Modes of both games, you aren't allowed to choose what song you wanna listen too. It also sucks that you can't mix and match the default level themes with each other, you can only swap them out for songs from other games.

Lastly I guess I'll touch on the story. The entire premise of Shadow facing his past feels really redundant, because that was already the premise of Shadow The Hedgehog (the video game). Sure, Shadow has more history to pull from now, and there's time travel shenanigans so he can actually talk to Maria and Gerald again, but I didn't really care for how most these elements were utilized. As said before though, I liked Mephiles's inclusion, even though it was just for a 1-off boss fight. Seeing a bunch of stuff from the past laid out chronologically in Gerald's diary was also quite nice I guess. As with a couple of Sonic games up to this point, it's weird that the 2D promotional animations aren't a part of the game. I don't mind this game not doing it as much though Sonic Superstars though, the story isn't really messed up without it so I can better see the value in not bloating the game's file size.
 
(Update) The Sonic 3 Movie DLC released, here's my thoughts on it: I'm disappointed that there's only 1 level, and that it's not very long, but it was a pretty good level. There were some particularly fun implementations of wall-running and rail-grinding. The Tokyo environment and the Westopolis remix were both very aestheticly pleasing. My largest gripe with it that there's a minute of cutscenes, from what I tested they take up about 34% of the runtime which I find makes replaying the stage way less fun. While I don't prefer the movie Shadow design and voice, I'm disappointed that it can't be used outside of Tokyo. The 2 missions were pretty solid, I especially liked the balloon one. I'm not disappointed by there not being much to unlock from the stage or its missions, frankly I'm surprised there's even those pictures to nab. Surprising, but not particularly disappointing to me is that you can't use the Doom Wings in Tokyo or play the stage in the Online Mode.


Sonic Generations

I've heard boost Sonic get compared to a truck before, since he's very fast, but steers very poorly, and I thought I understood those complaints pretty well from playing Colors and Forces, but oh man. Now I really get it. The opening of Chemical Plant Act 2 highlights this especially well, because even pre-turning doesn't seem to change which walls you get slammed into.

For some reason the hardest jump in the entire game is just ahead.
 
Sonic's air actions are also more limited compared to later games. My least favorite part of how he controls might be how he can't use air-boost to change directions.

 
In this specific scenario also, I could've used the air-dash instead, but only because this is a 2D segment. For some reason, the air-dash doesn't allow you to turn nearly as well in 3D.

I don't just totally contempt this game though. It does have good aspects. Just like Shadow Generations, the levels are incredibly in-depth reimaginings and celebrations of older Sonic stages. I also wanna stress also that the game is well designed around the way Sonic controls, it's not like his control scheme doesn't work, I just don't prefer it. I will compliment Sonic's sheer speed, he feels so fast, and it feels good to feel so fast (except when I fail to react to incoming obstacles, but when I'm not blaming myself, I could also fault the camera and heavy motion blur for that I think). I'm well aware of how Sonic games tend to be way better received by experienced players, so I've been giving it more than a single chance, and I do feel it growing on me. That doesn't change that I have had issues though, and that I wanna document them.

Unfortunately, Classic Sonic also surprised me in a somewhat negative way. Perhaps I just missed the initial song and dance because I wasn't as in touch with Sonic discourse back when Generation initially released, but in my head the general consensus was that Sonic Forces really screwed up the physics on Classic Sonic, but to me it seems like they were already screwed up in Generations.

Pictured in order are Sonic 2 | Generations | Forces.

As shown in the video though, there is a difference that makes the Generations version of this ramp kinda work, the speed boosters. This is kind of a recurring trend in this game, certain things make Classic Sonic go really fast, which kinda makes up for the shortcomings with his momentum physics. Particularly the Spin Dash (when revved) and Fire Shield are insane.

I could list off a couple things wrong with my examples here, but hopefully they get the idea across anyways. It's hard to find equal ground to demonstrate this stuff with.

Also, I feel like both Classic and Modern Sonic have weirdly poor air-acceleration.
 
On some more positive comparisons, Classic Sonic's top speeds do feel really nice, just like Modern Sonic, and his levels are similarly dense and intricate. I didn't actually mind his quirks as much as Modern Sonic since I'd say he's overall more similar to what I'm used to. The unpleasant surprise I felt from both characters was moreso due to my high expectations being broken, rather than me actually thinking they're bad.
 
Something I have much harsher feelings towards is Classic Sonic's design. I don't quite know how to describe it but his proportions look off to me. In general I think the round/pudgey Sonic 1 design might not directly translate well into 3D, and I also don't like him being light blue.
 
 
Thankfully, there was a (limited time 😔) DLC released that allows you to play with one of his old Sega Saturn models instead, and I like this way more. This is actually one of my favorite Sonic models, since I'm a big fan of how angular low-poly stuff is.
 
 
The animations from Neko Productions for Sonic Mania and Origins also feature a very angular Sonic (which I find reminiscent of Sonic CD), so the rounder design hasn't totally encompassed Classic Sonic as a brand.
 
Sonic CD | Sonic Mania

And while I'm in the midst of Classic Sonic's evolution, I guess I'll also mention
his Superstars design also feels like an improvement.
 

Shout-out to the other DLC skins in this game also. The Sonic Adventure 1 design is also one of my favorites, so I'm quite glad to see it here as well. As for the Terios Shadow design, I don't actually like it much, I've largely just stuck with normal Shadow instead, but it's neat.


Possibly the weirdest part of Classic Sonic's reimagining however is that he doesn't talk. I don't see Sonic as someone who canonically didn't talk in the classic games, to me the lack of dialogue was simply part of the format of the older games' storytelling. It's especially weird since Classic Tails and Robotnik do talk, so Classic Sonic is the odd one out. I've heard this was due to Sega trying and failing to cast Jaleel White as Classic Sonic, but I've never seen any proper evidence for that. The best I can find is this Aron Webber quote which could easily be taken out of context to trick people:


Here's a tweet from Jaleel also that disproves the rumor:

Later Classic Sonic media would be a lot more consistent and simply not have dialogue for any characters. So again, I'm glad things didn't just stay the way things were in Generations.
 
Something I don't see brought up very often, despite massively warping my initial perception of the game, is the Challenges. This isn't actually my first time playing Sonic Generations, I played through like half the game on PC years ago, but aside from messing around with mods, the thing I remember most from that time was that some of the Challenges were really really bad. After getting around to finishing the game years later, and even finishing all of the Challenges, my outlook on them isn't actually that harsh. A lot of the Challenges were actually quite solid. I do think some of them are bad though, in particular "Knuckles: Buried Treasure" was the one I remembered thinking so negatively on, and while I'm not as much of a hater now, I still don't think it's good. After playing through all the Challenges, I realized that back then, I pretty much only played the friend-based Challenges as Modern Sonic (they're not in a category, so I'm not sure what to call them), which is unfortunate because I think there's where I think a pretty sizable portion of the bad Challenges are. Thankfully, you only need to beat 9/90 Challenges in order to beat the game, and with most of them being alright, there's a lot of room to avoid the bad ones. For a safe pick, you can just do Doppelganger Races since they're just the normal levels under time limits. As for some Challenges I particularly liked, all of the High-Speed Hijinks ones, Lord Of The Board and Rooftop Railgrind, and Trick Island were cool.

I'd also recommend "300% Boost Gauge Challenge",  and the Flame, Aqua, and Thunder Shield Challenges, because they unlock some of the most fun Skills in the game. The Skills are another thing I'd give this game credit for over Shadow Generations (since that game just doesn't have them), they add some neat buffs. Super Sonic is one of the Skills so I'll mention now, Modern Super Sonic's boost is kinda wack. Depending on where you are in a level (I don't think the rhyme and reason to this is very cleae), it's either a normal boost, or it drains Rings way faster while makes him start flying really fast on a set track similarly to Chaos Control in Shadow The Hedgehog. It's interesting, but it comes off as very weirdly designed, especially since where lets you fly over areas, and where it lets you save on Rings is oftentimes out of your favor. Classic Super Sonic on the other hand is pretty normal. Also I wanna note that the Skill Customization menu is really cumbersome for some reason, it makes swapping Skills kinda annoying.

Another thing I don't see brought up much is the hub world. When simply traveling between Zones it's fine, albeit slower than I'd like, but I found it quite annoying when going to play Challenges. I found it kinda confusing, especially when you have to go up and around Crisis City to access a bunch of Rooftop Run and Planet Wisp Challenges. It wasn't terrible, but I was quite bothered by it nonetheless. It sucks that (outside of the Online Mode) I can't select Acts and Challenges through a quick menu. There is the ability to cycle between Zones when you have 1 selected, but even that is slower than I'd like.
 
I didn't really care for most of the bosses in this game. The only ones I particularly enjoyed were Perfect Chaos and Shadow. I could see myself wanting to replay some others, but in the moment I was generally just tolerating them. I've heard very negative things about this game's final boss, suggesting it's a horrible dip in quality, and well... yeah I didn't like it either but I don't think I'd even call it my least favorite part of the game (that probably goes to one of the Challenges). The main issue I think is that it just kinda feels bad. Boosting doesn't feel relatively fast compared to the Time Eater, which in turn makes the fight feel slow, and for some reason Modern Sonic's poor handling is cranked up to 11. You ou can get moments like this where you absolutely have to let go of boost or else the game will keep forcibly slamming you against a wall in a way that feels incredibly unnatural.

Yes, I am holding straight right.
 
I didn't really care that this game was supposed to be a remaster, so whether or not it actually looks better isn't really a big concern of mine, but I was surprised anyways that some stuff looked this bad.
 

There's quite a few glitches, and jank interactions. I'm not sure how many of them are new or old though, or whether or not any old one's were even fixed in the first place. One type of jank that stood out to me are these level transitions that are supposed to change your direction. They're actually quite a bit more visually interesting than the one's in Shadow Generations, but they frequently just don't seem to work right.
 
This clip isn't what I'm talking about, but it's another jank moment I recorded so I feel like throwing it in anyways.
 
As for the additions of this remaster, the Drop Dash was implemented a little weirdly. Modern Sonic just has it (granted it's awkward to use since its input overlaps with his air-dash), but for some reason as Classic Sonic it's a Skill that you start off with (and it's also secretly enabled with the Super Sonic skill), which in turn means that Classic Sonic doesn't always have it enabled, particularly while playing any of the Challenges, or in the Online Mode since they disable Skills. There's an option to play with infinite lives now, which while I'm not lives hater, is something I appreciate. The Chao were disappointing, I was hoping, especially back when they were teased, that there would be something big like an Adventure style Chao Garden mode since the Chao are prominently displayed on the game's boxart, but no, they're just a random type of collectable that decorates the hub world.

The 2 most notable removals in this version, at least as far as I can find, are the stereoscopic 3D, and the emulated port of Sonic 1. I don't really mind either of these features being missing since while I do like stereoscopic 3D, I don't have a TV for it so I wouldn't be able to use it anyways, and Sonic 1 is a very readily available game that I have quite a few versions of already.

For some reason the game was rewritten, and in turn re-voice acted. I figured it'd be changed to line up better with the Shadow Generations plot, but from what I've seen that just isn't the case. From Sonic's perspective, Shadow never mentions needing the Chaos Emerald, he just fights Sonic for the sake of fighting Sonic. Regardless, I don't see why the rest of the game was rewritten, especially when all of the actually relevant plot details seem to be the same. To sum up my thoughts on the story, it's barebones, but it works fine, and Sonic having his 20th birthday party as 15 year old is pretty ridiculous, which makes it kinda funny in my eyes.
 
 

Sonic Generations 3D

To my surprise, I like the physics in this version quite a bit more. Both Sonic's have improved air-acceleration, Modern Sonic can use his Boost to air-turn, and he use his Boost and air-dash separately in a single jump, while Classic Sonic actually gains momentum from downward slopes. The Classic Sonic physics in general are much closer to the original Genesis game, albeit still noticeably different to me. The strangest quirk I noticed is that when rolling on flat ground, Classic Sonic seems to actually gain a tiny bit of speed at the start, before decelerating like normal. His Spin Dash is also a lot more normal, but I don't have a way to record it so you're just gonna have to imagine a comparison.

Strangely, neither Sonic starts off with their full moveset. Modern Sonic unlocks the Stomp midway through the game, and Classic Sonic unlocks the Homing Attack. The Stomp has a different input in this game, being Down+Jump instead of its own button, but other than what I've just mentioned, it isn't too weird. Classic Sonic gaining the Homing Attack though is an incredibly weird choice, since that's generally the main thing people see as differentiating Classic and Modern Sonic, so giving it to Classic Sonic kinda undermines his existence as something distinct from the Modern gameplay style. Note, the console versions actually do have a Skill that gives Classic Sonic a Homing Attack, but it's completely optional, and uses up all 100 Skill Points when equipped which makes it more of a novelty. Looking past it being "weird" though, the Homing Attack, and the air-dash tied to it, do actually compliment Classic Sonic's moveset quite nicely, so I did enjoy it.

It actually caught me off guard to not have the Drop Dash in this game. Ever since its introduction in Mania 7 years ago, it's been such a staple in the series that it's even been retroactively added to games through the rereleases Sonic x Shadow Generations, and Sonic Origins (not Sonic Colors Ultimate though), so it actually threw me off a little bit to play this game without it.

I'd say the level design is the biggest thing holding this game back. I wouldn't call it bad, but it struggles to stay super interesting. Also, there's a weirdly different design philosophy for the first 3 Acts as Classic Sonic, where instead of having remixed layouts like Generations normally has, they're just straight up recrations of the older stages. While at the end of the day I do think Green Hill, Casino Night, and Mushroom Hill Act 1 are all good levels, it feels redundant to play them in this game instead of just playing the originals instead, so I'm not a big fan of these recreations. I assumed the devs would've done the same thing with Water Palace and Tropical Resort Act 2, since Modern Sonic in this game resembles Sonic Rush gameplay, but to my surprise Water Palace is remixed, while Tropical Resort has a pretty original layout.
 
The Zone choices are a little weird, especially in retrospect. All of them, except for Green Hill are different which is pretty cool, but some of them feel kinda same-y theming wise to some of the console versions' Zones. In particular, having Radical Highway when the console versions have Speed Highway and City Escape feels a little disappointing. The 3DS version at one point was planned to actually focus on more handheld Sonic games (source) which I think would've been really cool, but alas, the only handheld Zone ended up being Water Palace. Also unfortunately, there's just 2 less Zones in this version compared to the console versions.

The music in this really good. The music in Sonic games tends to be really good, so it slipped my mind until late into writing this, but the point I actually wanna make here is that it feels equal to the music in the console versions. When just listening to the soundtracks, the console and 3DS versions feel united as one game which I find to be quite unique for a handheld port. Usually handheld ports either have the same soundtrack as their console versions, the same but worse, or radically different soundtracks. I feel Sonic Generations is a unique case, because its handheld port's music feels like a part of the main soundtrack, even though it's literally different music.
 
I found the boss fights to be an improvement in this version. Aside from Shadow and Biolizard (who takes the place of Perfect Chaos in the 3DS version), I prefer the 3DS fights over their console counterparts. My favorite is Egg Emperor. I will note though, I still didn't like Time Eater. It controls way better in the 3DS version, but it has this one melee attack that it just seemed to just spam at nauseum. I think I was doing something wrong because it was using the attack 10+ times in a row against me, but when I looked up a video of the fight, Time Eater only ever seemed to do 1 at a time. I don't really understand what I would've been doing wrong, I swear I was dodging the attack.
 
The Special Stages were an alright addition. They play like the Sonic Heroes Special Stages, which are my favorite style. They're quite easy, but I don't really mind that, especially since you're required to beat them in order to beat the game. Unfortunately you don't unlock Super Sonic for the normal stages. In classic Dimps Sonic fashion, Super Sonic only for the final boss fight.
 
The unlockables in this game are especially lackluster. The Skill system in general just wasn't brought over, and the unlockable songs can't be used to replace level music, so most unlockables just don't affect the gameplay. The Challenges of all things (mostly) have to be unlocked via Play Coins or Streetpass, both of which don't involve playing the game. The Play Coin prices are insane also, each Challenge costs 5, which for those who don't know, you can only get 10 Play Coins a day (unless you mess with your 3DS Calendar settings), and when there's 100 total Challenges, that means it takes multiple real life months to unlock all of the Challenges. I didn't bother with that. I've heard there are other ways to unlock Challenges, but I haven't seen any specific guide for that sort of thing, so I just didn't unlock most of them. It's a shame the unlocks are like this, because they make this version feel way more barebones than I think it actually is compared to the console versions.


Forces + Frontiers

Since it would be such a quick process, only taking a few hours each, I decided to play through every level in Sonic Forces and Frontiers (including bonus and challenge levels in Forces, and DLC levels in both) to see how they compare to Generations. While I considered replaying Sonic Colors Ultimate as well, I decided not too simply because I don't like that game as much so I didn't feel like it. I won't go completely in depth on Forces and Frontiers here, I just wanna talk about their general gameplay.

Control-wise, Forces Modern Sonic turns better than Generations Sonic, but it's notably worse than I remember. The level design largely masks the steering though, by providing way less opportunities for steering to actually be important. Boosting to air-turn isn't as reliable as I remembered, sometimes it just fails to turn Sonic. As for Classic Sonic, I think he actually feels more accurate to the Genesis games than Generations. I remember and still think his Spin Dash is a lot more normal compared to Generations, and his air-acceleration being faster than what I just played with in Generations was a pleasant surprise. Still though, not gaining momentum from slopes really screws over Classic Sonic's accuracy to the Genesis games, and generally just makes the way he interacts with his environments less mechanically interesting to play than those older games.

As for the level design, it's not great. I think there are some good moments, but so much of the Modern Sonic and Avatar stages are flat, style over substance sections. I had an inkling before that Classic Sonic's levels might actually be the best since they rely the least on basic hold forward segments, but after playing the 2D levels in Shadow Generations, I'm a bit more confident in thinking that. I also wanna note that the levels are loaded with such a relatively high number of Rings. There's levels that force you to collect like 50 Rings right at the end, just to make you feel good I guess. And y'know what, I do think it feels good.

Frontiers only controls slightly worse than I remember. Particularly the turning is just a little worse than Shadow Generations, but it still feels really good. I forgot about the Stomp Jump until right near the end of my replay. It felt pretty good to use when I remembered it, I'm a little surprised that it didn't come back to Shadow Generations. The Spin Dash also felt really good, but it felt especially silly, and redundant in its core design, so I'm not as surprised that it wasn't in Shadow Generations.

I still quite enjoy the levels in Frontiers, but I see why a lot of people were unenthralled by them. They feel less complex than the Generations levels. One complaint I've heard for Frontiers is that it feels really same-y due to reusing massive level chunks from Generations, but I didn't really notice a ton of them. Theming-wise though, I do feel it being quite same-y, even though when actually analysing them, the levels do have uniquely stylized backgrounds.
 
I also wanna note that wow, the screen filters in Frontiers really stick out when playing these games back to back. I imagine some people think they're excessive, but I like 'em.


Conclusion

Hopefully I didn't come off as too negative, I like all these games. Shadow Generations is my Game Of The Year so far, so I voted for it in round 1 of The Game Awards Players' Voice. I doubt it'll win in a popularity contest like that, but I don't really mind. I had a great time with the game, and that's what matters to me. Sonic Generations was pretty cool as well. Hopefully this series keeps up the good quality in the future.

I hope to get around to a lot of Sonic games in the future. I'm a big Sonic fan, so I've already played a ton of the games, but there's still a handful of games I haven't, or have barely played.


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