Review: Sonic x Shadow Generations, a prelude to the cinema

Like Sonic Generations, the campaign consists of revisiting reimagined Acts from previous games, such as Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes (2003) and Shadow The Hedgehog (2005). But it’s not just better visuals and sound, it’s a reinvention of routes, obstacles and collectibles to adapt the experience to contemporary standards of processing and on-screen action.

Shadow’s adventure immediately contrasts with Sonic’s: the greater length of the Acts (which lasts around five minutes), the inordinate amount of threats along the way, along with the exaggerated (but exciting) visual and sound spectacle at hand. Through explosions, angles and camera movements, they turn this experience into a stampede of adrenaline that gives you little time to catch your breath and blink; comparable even with the games in the series Bayonetta and Devil May Cry.

There are also small challenges you must overcome to make your way to the big bosses. These scenarios last approximately one minute, and consist of reviewing a fragment of the Acts passed, but with conditions such as collecting a certain number of rings, defeating a minimum number of enemies, among others.

Instead of being an obligation to progress, these small missions are a blessing that enriches the replay value; They are compact, but above all they are ingenious, as they recover fragments of the Acts and give them such a special twist that you forget that you are repeating a known area.

The HUB map that you navigate to access the Acts (and other challenges) is a three-dimensional space that you unlock as you progress in your mission and defeat titanic enemies. In fact, the exploration of White Space feels like a tiny version of the open world of Sonic Frontiers.

At first glance it seems that said map is absolute emptiness, and that is the first impression it wants to give to the player; but in reality it is full of mini challenges, old acquaintances and secrets, making it imperative to use Shadow’s skills, (old and new) to collect the treasures necessary to reach the end of the campaign.

Beyond his tough personality, Shadow is defined mechanically by his extreme strength, his ability to teleport over small distances, his telescopic spears, and his power to slow down time (“Chaos Control”). To these well-known abilities, new powers are added that you unlock, called “Doom Powers”, which in addition to facilitating your confrontations, allow you to access new routes and make Shadow a fearsome creature to his enemies, but also to his loved ones. From this base, Shadow feels much more powerful than Sonic, but that doesn’t make his journey any easier.

The combination of Shadow’s powers with the most unbridled and danger-saturated level design makes Shadow Generations one of the best adventures of this genre in the 33 years that Sega’s stellar franchise has had, even superior to Sonic Colorsand it should be the new bar by which Sonic’s future is measured.

If we add to that that in December Sega will release special downloadable content inspired by the new film, which will include the actor’s voice Keanu Reeves like Shadow, we can only recommend Shadow Generations without reservation.

Conclusions

It’s not hard to say: Sonic x Shadow Generations is one of the best recent games in the franchise.

Sega’s bet was as successful as it was practical: intelligently rescuing one of the best Sonic games, and combining it with an original adventure starring one of the most beloved characters in the saga, taking advantage of the technological power of current platforms.

The result is a sublime celebration of what makes Sonic wonderful as a character and as a universe, and also an experience that will delight fans of all generations who grew up with his video games, comics, animated series and movies.