Sonic Generations Review

Sonic the Hedgehog is twenty years old now, can you believe it? Gosh, they grow up so fast. Seems like just yesterday he was hauling his chubby little self through various islands and airships, saving woodland critters from being turned into killer robots and collecting those silly Chaos Emeralds or Time Stones or what have you. Next thing you know, he’s too cool for all that, he’s lost the weight, moved to the big city and gone all glitz; he’s facing down ancient monsters and unearthing forgotten atrocities; he did that stint in Europe (Boy, did that change him, guy had hair growing in all the wrong places) and then he went through that unfortunate gloomy, apocalyptic phase where he ran off to another dimension with that tart princess and started writing angry poetry that didn’t rhyme.

As is the case in any story and all relationships, there have been ups and downs and loop-de-loops and now, twenty years in, it’s the perfect time to sit back and reflect, look at all we have done and celebrate the good old days, the simple days on those lazy old islands messing with that mean old Doctor Robotnik. And that’s what Sonic Generations is all about: reliving past glories, pushing beyond modern ones and indulging in the tattered memories of lost childhoods, right?

Wrong.

Actually – and surprisingly – Sonic Generations is less about reliving its title character’s former successes and instead about fostering and celebrating his modern style; it’s not so much about revisiting his past as it is about refining his future. And that is surprising because ostensibly, this is a game composed of levels from previous games that charts a course through three distinct eras of hedgehog history: from the early 2D Genesis days (as represented by levels from Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles), to the largely urban and hyper-cool Dreamcast/Gamecube days (represented by Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes) to the Rush-based and frenetic modern era (Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colors). And, according to promotions, the idea is to first play as “Classic Sonic” in recreations of his original levels in a 3D graphics engine (but still on a 2D plane), and then shift over to “Modern Sonic” in full 3D, high-speed re-imaginings of those same stages.

The problem is, though, that only one of those three eras can be attributed to Classic Sonic: the Genesis era. And it is cool to revisit a relatively faithful version of Chemical Plant Zone and then dash through its update, but that’s only three levels; and in the other two thirds of the game you’re reliving levels that were originally played closer to the modern formula, and so it’s actually Classic Sonic’s varieties that are the re-imaginings; and they instead take the naturally 3D levels and compress them into a 2D space.

That’s not to say they’re bad; in fact, some of them work surprisingly well. The 2D City Escape for example seems to yank a play from Donkey Kong Country Returns and stretches the famous G.U.N. truck chase from the original stage across the whole level, which in turn modifies your environment as it passes, forcing you to adjust how you progress. But still, the 2D levels cease to be relevant after the first boss and while some are great, others (like Speed Highway) show how this idea sort over-extended itself.

It doesn’t help either that Classic Sonic’s gameplay is really more of a superficial reminder of how these games used to play, rather than a direct emulation or – God forbid – a direct enhancement. You get to use abandoned mechanics like force fields and the spin dash, while lacking things like the homing attack and the rush ability. But some fans will notice wild discrepancies in the physics and functionality of these moves (like being able to initiate a spin dash half way up a ramp). Again, they’re not bad by any stretch, but they aren’t what they were promoted to be and despite the Crisis City fire tornado and the City Escape truck falling into a similar design philosophy as much of Donkey Kong Country Returns and demonstrating some remarkable use of a 2D plane within a 3D space, Generations never gets half as clever with it, never does anything nearly as exciting and sort of fails both in its attempt to either recreate or enrich the past.

So basically Classic Sonic’s fun, but he’s clearly not the point. And you can see this in other ways, too, like in how you have to fight four of the six bosses as Modern Sonic or how Classic Sonic never speaks even though both Classic Tails and Classic Robotnik seem to have no trouble. There’s also this one telling scene where Modern Sonic tries to teach Classic the rush ability (which is the defining move of the modern formula) and Classic just falls flat on his ass. Because in the end, Generations isn’t about a nostalgic return to where we’ve been, it’s just a reminder of how far we’ve come. And while that might seem blasphemous to those who hate where we are now, who will insist to their dying days in increasingly hoarse gasps that somewhere, somehow, Sonic has been corrupted by forces so dark and malevolent that to merely speak their name would usher in a new age of blood and taboos, Generations does earn its bragging rights in being undeniably the best utilization of the modern Rush formula to date.

By now you either like this approach or you don’t, but either way it’s nice that the jumping and movement controls are much tighter here than they used to be. Sonic Unleashed was great at hurtling you forward at impossible speeds, but when you stopped and tried to jump across a few slow-moving platforms, demons roared, violins played and controllers were repeatedly smashed. Now thankfully, those portions are smooth and simple and don’t lead you to declaring an unholy war on Japan that would claim millions upon millions of lives on both sides because of that one goddamn ledge that seems intentionally designed by geopolitical masochists specifically to evoke this very outcome.

Generations also removes some of Unleashed’s more questionable additions, like quick-time events and the double-button homing attack. And the filler levels are handled better, offering you plenty of options and yet only making you do a tiny handful to progress the game. And since some of these missions recruit the friends you rescue from the main levels to help you, it gives those rescues some added weight.

It also benefits from some the lost ideas of the 2D days. One nice thing about the old Sonic games and one thing that made them stand out from traditional platformers was how ridiculously hard it was to fall to your death. Levels were layered with multiple paths bending around each other, so if you fell off a ledge you’d probably just land on a lower one and have to take an alternate route to the finish. Generations embraces this approach and nestles branching pathways even into some 3D levels that were originally reliant on bottomless pits.

They go so far with this that even in levels like Sky Sanctuary (where one could reasonably expect a number of instant-death plummets), there are only a few places where you can fall with nothing to catch you (and these have these nifty little signs warning you to be careful at those parts). Also, the different paths can alter level progression far more radically than expected. On a recent replay of Seaside Hill, I discovered a cart-racing segment (an homage to that part in the original Sonic Heroes level) that I never even knew was there in my first playthrough.

Another nice touch is level personality. In the olden days, each Zone was themed and distinct from all other Zones, with its own environments, music and even enemy types that just seemed to belong there. The different levels were essentially hostile ecosystems unto themselves. But this was diminished in the 3D games, starting with the bomb-happy monkey bots of Sonic Adventure and coming to total fruition with the generic clone bots of Heroes, Unleashed and Colors.

But even though the levels within individual games have become increasingly homogenized, the games themselves remain wildly distinct from each other. There was the space carnival theme of Colors, the juxtaposed heavy urban/ancient Aztec setting of Adventure, the quaint Hallmark real world vibe of Unleashed, the doom and gloom of 2006 and Adventure 2’s very San Francisco chic; the only truly bland one was Heroes, but even it manages to contribute a pretty (if basic) level to this collection.

Each game had a personality all its own and those unique styles are infused into the levels that represent them. So each stage has its own environment (seemingly chosen to represent the general aesthetic of its game), its own music (usually remixes of the original track) and its own enemies (You only fight police drones in Speed Highway, G.U.N. bots in City Escape, demonic underlings in Crisis City, etc.) and even sometimes its own unique gameplay contrivances (like Color powers in Planet Wisp).

In doing this, Generations not only instills itself with variety – thus furthering it as the best Rush-based Sonic yet – but reminds us of all the different things Sonic has been (both good and bad) and how versatile he really is. This is one of the things I always liked about Sonic when compared to Mario. While Mario games almost always repeat the same basic aesthetics with the same basic threats and same basic music (Galaxy 1 and Sunshine excepted) with King Koopa’s capturing of the Princess becoming so ingrained the latest game just informs you of this via postcard; each new Sonic game takes place in a new world with new rules and new dangers (albeit focused around some repeating elements) and Eggman at least has the good grace to come up with a different over-the-top scheme each time, always yielding unique consequences. The quality of the games isn’t as consistent, but a new Sonic game generally means a new Sonic game and that alone is worth celebrating after twenty years in existence.

That said, I do wish they had done more with this, that they had the time to include better incidental touches or even additional levels. As it is, only the core series is represented. Sonic CD is relegated to a minor boss fight and Sonic and the Secret Ring and Sonic and the Black Knight are nowhere to be found. It would have been nice too if – for old time’s sake – Tails was following you through Chemical Plant Zone or if Tails and Knuckles were with you in Seaside Hill.

But that’s nostalgia for you; it always comes in too small a dose. And really there are only two major flaws with Sonic Generations:

1. The story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Sonic games don’t need stories, blah, blah, blah. Actually, I don’t really have a problem with the plot or the setup and in terms of development the only issue is how it has to randomly toss you a freebie Chaos Emerald because there aren’t enough bosses in the game. The problem I have is the humor: there isn’t enough of it. The game seems to understand that this is an inherently absurd premise and there are moments when you can tell it’s trying to have fun with it – like Tails not recognizing Green Hill Zone or the Classic characters referring to Eggman as Robotnik – but there aren’t many of these moments and what’s there is written and delivered so flatly you have to remind yourself to laugh at it. Sadly, the only truly funny character this time around is Amy… and… yeah… that’s a little weird.

2. The last boss. This is the worst Super Sonic boss yet. I’ve said this with every Sonic game after Adventure 2, but then it’s been true with every Sonic game after Adventure 2. I don’t know what they were thinking here or what the point of being able to switch between the two Sonics is, but god there isn’t a single thing right about this and it leaves you with a bitter taste after an otherwise enjoyable game.

But this gives way to the ability to play as Super Sonic in levels again (Hooray!) and to end credits that take us through original versions of each of the featured levels, thus after showing us how great the present and future of the series can be, finally truly reminding us of how great it’s always been…

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…Except for the parts that weren’t.

But hey, it’s Sonic’s birthday party. This isn’t a time to dwell on the bad days, this is a time to just enjoy the ride. So, yes, Crisis City came from one of the worst games ever designed, it’s actually pretty good this time around. So, yes, Ice Cap was awesome and a worthy contender for the Sonic 3 spot, but you really can’t hate this version of Sky Sanctuary. And, yes, Sonic Generations gives preferential treatment to a gameplay formula that isn’t twenty years old and, yes, it treats as equals all the different aspects of Sonic’s long tenure – from the grand old elegance of Sonic 2 to the glory of Adventure to the disjointed blandness of Heroes to the unmitigated disaster that was 2006 – but for this one day, in this one space it really doesn’t matter because, here and here alone, it’s all good.