Okay, let's cut the crap here. This is a review of Shadow Generations Sonic Generations is almost 13 years, and if you want to play it, this is the best way. It runs great, plays great and looks better than ever before. Both Sonic's now have the drop dash, for some reason. Some new challenges, some dialog changes. That's about it. OK, time for the real deal.

Shadow Generations has, objectively, some of the best level design and gameplay implementation in any Sonic game. Level design has been evolved from base Gens, opening up multiple pathways and skips at almost every turn. Most of these pathways can be accessed through Shadows new Doom powers, all of which, except one (Morph), are a joy to use. The 3D stages feature all the bells and whistles you'd expect, flashy action pieces, high speed platforming and fun new gimmicks every time. That said, there really aren't that many levels. Sonic Team has clearly chosen to put great effort into these select few stages and deliver longer and more meaty levels as a tradeoff. It is up to you to decide if this was a good decision. Having 100% Sonic Forces, I say yes.
Bosses are also great and deliver the sceptical you would expect. These also sacrifice numbers for run time, however.
Gameplay, predictably, weakens in ACT 2. While still good, playing these fully 2D stages continues to be a real bummer after the treat that is an ACT 1. I understand that it is harder and more expensive to create fully 3D stages, but you start to dread them almost as much as you do in the regular Gens by the end.

Now seemingly using Hedgehog Engine 2 and Sonic Frontiers as a base, Shadow Gens is the best looking Sonic game, bar perhaps Unleashed. Every environment is rendered to perfection and cleverly updates level assets to match modern expectations. This is maybe best seen in Kingdom Valley, now given a much clearly visual direction compared to 06. And Sunset Heights is a particular highlight, finally accomplishing the destruction and action Sonic Team... attempted, in Forces. Special shoutout to the Black Doom transitions in most ACT 1's, they are all amazing. Anyway, it looks amazing.

I played Shadow Generations on a NVIDIA RTX 3050, a AMD Ryzen 5 4500 6 Core CPU and 8gb of RAM with all settings set to HIGH or above.
I experienced a perfect 60fps throughout, with no noticeable framedrops in any scenario. 'Nuff said.

Predictably, Shadow Gens sounds amazing. Almost every music remix sounds great. Space Colony Ark and Kingdom Valley in particular is stellar. Sound effects are crisp and sound exactly how they should. It's not all perfect though, Chaos Island Act 1 is a real stinker, and in my opinion, the voice acting throughout is notably poor. Gerald just being Mike Pollok again is a bit a cheap out.

I've long stopped bothering to care about stories in the Sonic videogames. Any exploration of interesting ideas of concepts can be found exclusively in the Comics (Shoutout IDW Metal Virus Arc). As the name of the game might suggest, this new story follows Shadow's journey through the events of Sonic Generations. I'm not going to go into to much detail (neither does the game), but the story does, frankly, nothing to evolve Shadow as a character. He doesn't get enough time interacting with Maria to facilitate it. That said, the story is serviceable. Just don't expect no Sonic Adventure 2 (unless you expect to just see, in which case, the game is sure to shove that games lore down your neck, don't worry).

It's not often you can unequivocally recommend a Sonic the Hedgehog game, it's always "a step in the right direction" or "a bold idea executed wrong". This game is neither. Shadow Generations takes a bold new approach in the Sonic franchise, and is just more of the good stuff. I experienced zero glitches, zero grinding, zero artificial roadblocks and zero moments of frustration. It's a short game, yes, but a damn good one from start to finish. It's clear throughout that Sonic Team is no longer set on "reinventing" Sonic. Frontiers gave them the blueprint of what a good Sonic experience could be, and this is the evolution of that game.

[h1] The best Sonic "Boost" game yet. With an added bonus of Sonic Generations. [/h1] [h2] A review of Shadow Generations, by Camad203 [/h2] Okay, let's cut the crap here. This is a review of [b] Shadow Generations [/b] Sonic Generations is almost 13 years, and if you want to play it, this is the best way. It runs great, plays great and looks better than ever before. Both Sonic's now have the drop dash, for some reason. Some new challenges, some dialog changes. That's about it. OK, time for the real deal. [h3] Gameplay [/h3] Shadow Generations has, objectively, some of the best level design and gameplay implementation in any Sonic game. Level design has been evolved from base Gens, opening up multiple pathways and skips at almost every turn. Most of these pathways can be accessed through Shadows new Doom powers, all of which, except one (Morph), are a joy to use. The 3D stages feature all the bells and whistles you'd expect, flashy action pieces, high speed platforming and fun new gimmicks every time. That said, there really aren't that many levels. Sonic Team has clearly chosen to put great effort into these select few stages and deliver longer and more meaty levels as a tradeoff. It is up to you to decide if this was a good decision. Having 100% Sonic Forces, I say yes. Bosses are also great and deliver the sceptical you would expect. These also sacrifice numbers for run time, however. Gameplay, predictably, weakens in ACT 2. While still good, playing these fully 2D stages continues to be a real bummer after the treat that is an ACT 1. I understand that it is harder and more expensive to create fully 3D stages, but you start to dread them almost as much as you do in the regular Gens by the end. [h3] Visuals [/h3] Now seemingly using Hedgehog Engine 2 and Sonic Frontiers as a base, Shadow Gens is the best looking Sonic game, bar perhaps Unleashed. Every environment is rendered to perfection and cleverly updates level assets to match modern expectations. This is maybe best seen in Kingdom Valley, now given a much clearly visual direction compared to 06. And Sunset Heights is a particular highlight, finally accomplishing the destruction and action Sonic Team... attempted, in Forces. Special shoutout to the Black Doom transitions in most ACT 1's, they are all amazing. Anyway, it looks amazing. [h3] Performance [/h3] I played Shadow Generations on a NVIDIA RTX 3050, a AMD Ryzen 5 4500 6 Core CPU and 8gb of RAM with all settings set to HIGH or above. I experienced a perfect 60fps throughout, with no noticeable framedrops in any scenario. 'Nuff said. [h3] Sound [/h3] Predictably, Shadow Gens sounds amazing. [i] Almost [/i] every music remix sounds great. Space Colony Ark and Kingdom Valley in particular is stellar. Sound effects are crisp and sound exactly how they should. It's not all perfect though, Chaos Island Act 1 is a real stinker, and in my opinion, the voice acting throughout is notably poor. Gerald just being Mike Pollok again is a bit a cheap out. [h3] Story [/h3] I've long stopped bothering to care about stories in the Sonic videogames. Any exploration of interesting ideas of concepts can be found exclusively in the Comics (Shoutout IDW Metal Virus Arc). As the name of the game might suggest, this new story follows Shadow's journey through the events of Sonic Generations. I'm not going to go into to much detail (neither does the game), but the story does, frankly, nothing to evolve Shadow as a character. He doesn't get enough time interacting with Maria to facilitate it. That said, the story is serviceable. Just don't expect no Sonic Adventure 2 (unless you expect to just [b] see, [/b] in which case, the game is sure to shove that games lore down your neck, don't worry). [h2] Conclusion [/h2] It's not often you can unequivocally recommend a Sonic the Hedgehog game, it's always "a step in the right direction" or "a bold idea executed wrong". This game is neither. Shadow Generations takes a bold new approach in the Sonic franchise, and is just more of the good stuff. I experienced zero glitches, zero grinding, zero artificial roadblocks and zero moments of frustration. It's a short game, yes, but a damn good one from start to finish. It's clear throughout that Sonic Team is no longer set on "reinventing" Sonic. Frontiers gave them the blueprint of what a good Sonic experience could be, and this is the evolution of that game.