Sonic Generations!

[Rocketshipper]

So, the brand new Sonic Game, Sonic Generations, came out last tuesday. Anyone here checked it out yet? Judging from the trailers I think it looked pretty fun, and its been getting pretty good reviews from what I've heard (IGN gave it 8.5 ^^) Anyone here playing it, or planning to play it? comments or reviews on it so far?

[Popyman]

I've got it! It's the best Sonic game ever, IMO. The only thing that could have made it better was if the Chao Garden was in it (WHY HAVEN'T YOU BROUGHT THAT BACK SEGA WHHHHY). They finally nailed the gameplay that started in Unleashed and continued in Colors.

[GrubbTheFragger]

It looks pretty awesome. The demo while really short played really well. I plan on playing it when the price drops

[Rocketshipper]

So I finally finished Sonic Generations today, so I am ready to give my full review.

When I started playing this game about a week ago, I was very enthuisastic about the whole thing. Sadly, I must admit that the longer I played it, the more and more my enthuisasm waned. From a pure gameplay perspective, it is pretty good, but the longer it went on, the more I found myself focusing on all my negative nitpicks and things. I may even go as far as saying I'd find this the most dissapointing Sonic game since Sonic 2006 (for different reasons though. and Sonic 4 doesn't count ^^)

To at least talk about the good aspects of the game first; as I mentioned, it is pretty good just on pure gameplay of the main levels, and from a graphical perspective. The new HD-ified nostalgic levels all look gorgeous, and there were many a time where I felt myself tempted to stop running and take in the nice backgrounds that seemed to go on for miles. And those backgrounds are taken advantage of, especially in certain levels were you can often see other parts of the level in the background, either parts you'll get to later or other paths you havn't gone down yet. Paths are also a big thing; Like any good sonic game, the levels are filled with tons of hidden and alternate paths for the hedgehogs to take, and you can easily play most levels 3 or more times and probably still find something new. Controls are great for both "classic" and "modern" sonic, the only real complaint I had with them was that sometimes Sonic's jump height seemed a little small. I know he's not supposed to be Mario, but there were still many times when I found myself wishing he could just jump a *bit* higher. I must admit (sorry purists) that I liked the modern sonic levels WAAAY more than the classic sonic counterparts. They just felt more creative and exciting. I also feel almost naked without the homing attack, seriously. Some of the challenge missions were also pretty cool, like the skateboarding ones, and most of the ones that would unlock new power ups in the shop. Also enjoyed most of the bosses, and the cutscene just before the final boss did take me by surprise.

Unfortunetly, These good points ended up being eclipsed by a lot of other annoyances very quickly. If I could some up one of the biggest problems with the gamne, it would be by saying that Sonic Generations is an old school Genesis era game trying (and somewhat failing) to masquerade as a modern era game. The main thing about that is this game is SHORT! it only has 9 zones, with two acts each (one for clasic sonic and one for modern) and 6 bosses. That right there isn't much longer than the old Sonic games. You could finish that in a single playthrough. And there isn't anything wrong with that really. But in this day and age you can't get away with releasing a game that short as a full price hard copy "buy it at EBgames" type game. Thats like a DLC lenght game. And I'm sure the developers knew this, which is why Sonic Generations is padded out all to heck with a metric TON of "Challenge Missions" and oddles of unlockable extras for all the crazy people to spend hours hunting down for 100% completion. I know that I said earlier that some of the challenge missions are fun, and some are, but mostly they're just annoying and distracting. And yeah, I know that they are mostly optional (you only have to beat 9 out of 90 to advance the plot) but I still find it a bit insulting that they would throw in all these tedious side missions, that have you going through the same areas as you do in the main level, to try and make the game longer. If they wanted the game to be longer, why not make MORE zones!? We don't have any levels representing Shadow, Secret Rings, or Black Knight, there's three more levels and a boss right there! The challenge missions just seem like such a lazy and blatant short cut to filling out the games lenght, and it drives me crazy.

There's also the story. In short, Generations has the most pointless, dumb, pathetic "Excuse plot" of a storyline since, well, the old Genesis games ^^. And it was fine back then, but things have changed. I know Sonic isn't exactly Final Fantasy, but I have come to expect at least some descent plot development in the games since Sonic Adventures, and the creators this time just wasted a lot of potential by failing to flesh this out into a better story. There was a lot of potential for interactions between old sonic and the modern characters, and chances to revist plot events from old games, and stuff like that. Sonic 06 has a better time travel plotline than this. It DID get better right at the very end, but before that the plot was so thin as to be almost non-existant.

Choice of levels I think is also a little suspect. Green Hill zone is a given, but out of all the levels in all the sonic games, they end up choosing two "ancient temple" themed levels, two industrial type levels, and FOUR city levels (and yeah, the one from Sonic 06 is tecnicly a post apocalyptic ruined city, but still. And the levels from Adventure 1 and 2 and Unleashed just seemed too close to me) Would have liked a bit more variety.

But maybe in the end, one of the games biggest assets, at least in some people's eyes, is also its biggest weakness. Nostalgia. Just about EVERYTHING in this game is designed to run off Nostalgia, from the concept, the levels, to the different collectibles and a lot of the challenge mission themes. But in the end, pure nostalgia is a pretty shallow thing to base an ENTIRE game off of. Once that feeling of "OOOh Green Hill Zone in shiny HD! OOH Classic Sonic in Modern Sonic locations!" wears off, its just a string of levels we've already played before in other Sonic games, with only the slightest tissue-paper thin thread of a plot to connect them all together. In the end, its not much different than all those HD collection re-releases that are coming out (MGS HD, Silent Hill HD, DMC HD), just mining and ressurecting the old material to draw in gamers out of nostalgia.

And as the final bit of nitpickyness; Generations also has pretty noticeable load times (not as bad as Sonic 06, but maybe the worst since then) and as far as I can tell, the game only has one "save Slot", so you can't have multiple games going at once, which sucks for the people in household with multiple gameplayers, or people like me who might want to save a file with 100% completion and still be able to start a new game on another file.

so in summary, I thought Generations was pretty dissapointing. from the pure mechanics of gameplay side, it at least doesn't have any control issues, and the main levels are well designed and fun to get through. But its also a shallow nostalgic 3 hour fluff piece, padded out to "full lenght" with mostly tedious side missions and collectibles. I was expecting more substance than that.

[Popyman]

"I still find it a bit insulting that they would throw in all these tedious side missions, that have you going through the same areas as you do in the main level"

Um...how many did you play? Sure they may take place in the same level, but the design of said level can be COMPLETELY different. I've played one where you hit music notes back and forth with Victor, raced Tails in his plane with a track that felt like it came straight from Sonic Rivals, and tons of other different things.

And as for the story, ever since Colors they've been working their way back to more simple, cartoony plots. Modern Sonic stories have been complete train wrecks with terrible writing, this new approach is a lot better for now until Sega hires some people that know how to write the big and epic story that they've been trying (and failing) to tell since Sonic Adventure. Heck, they should let Archie do it for them! Their comics are way better than anything they ever came up with (which is sort of sad in a way...).

As for your other complaints, this game just wasn't aimed at you. :/

[ABlipinTime]

It's interesting to see Sonic come to PC (yes, it came to PC). Not sure I'll get it, but that does make it rather tempting.

I don't care about story. Sonic wasn't meant to have story. Yay, nostalgia!

[Rocketshipper]

Um...how many did you play? Sure they may take place in the same level, but the design of said level can be COMPLETELY different. I've played one where you hit music notes back and forth with Victor, raced Tails in his plane with a track that felt like it came straight from Sonic Rivals, and tons of other different things.

All of them, as far as I know. what level involved racing Tails in a plane? are you playing the 3DS version? Cause I don't remember any like that. And I hated that level with Vector ><. The other one where he throws classic Sonic around was way more fun.

We can all have our own opinions, but personally I loved the storylines from the previous games (well, except maybe for Heroes.) I actually thought 06 had the best one, but I thought they were all pretty cool. And that includes Colors. It wasn't super complex, but it was really funny. But seriously Generations is a big step down from Colors storywise, even after Colors was a step down from the previous games.

Edit: And what do you mean its not aimed at me ? I've been playing this series since the very first game on the Genesis all the way up till now. I'd say people like me are the main demographic of a Milestone celebration title like this. But I still recognize that making a *whole* game out of "Hey remember when this happened? wasn't it cool!?!?!?" is kind of shallow.