Sonic Generations (2011) Review
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played on ps3
developed by Sonic Team
published by Sega
review published on 28/06/2024
Sonic Generations, two blue circles, mirrored in space and time.
You are not mistaken, you are seeing double. One short and stocky, the other tall and slim. Sonic Generations (2011) is a celebration title marking Sonic the Hedgehog’s 20 year birthday. By this point, the latest Sonic game was Sonic Colors (2010), a relatively decent game after the mixed bag that was Sonic Unleashed (2008) and the bafflingly poor Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). Fast forward, in the year 2024 [CURRENT YEAR] and Sonic the Hedgehog is still a turbulent series. However, for a brief moment at the end of 2011, Sonic Generations gave fans a shining spark of hope, delivering the ultimate fan service game. Until Sonic X Shadow Generations (2024) releases (making its older brother redundant), let’s make good use of this opportune time and revisit Sonic Generations.
Sega Mega Drive joins forces with ps3/xbox360/pc to offer a classic modern video game about the speedy blue hedgehog Sonic the Hedgehog named Sonic Generations. A birthday party crashed, space and time stand still, but the memories of these are intact. Both hedgehogs muster the energy to save all their friends from Dr. Robotnik, Dr. Eggman, and their new plaything Time-Eater who wants to eat time? The story is nothing to write home about, but the plot’s only objective is to situate itself with what the game wants to be, a Classic and Modern gameplay commemoration of everything Sonic the Hedgehog.
Trapped in a time purgatory, memories are manifested into dioramas, a gateway into different worlds. Staged like a stage, you run along the monochrome hub to perform your role as Sonic the Hedgehog, blitzing through the acts of each memory following the chronological logic of the Sonic canon. Attacking these memories and passing through the goal posts will somehow save your friends and restore colour to this limbo world. Do this enough times and Sonic Generations ends, prompted by a credit roll, a great thing coming to its formative finish.
Sonic Generations reminds us that going fast can be possible and through its many memory stages we can act fast. All stages are segmented into two acts, for Classic and Modern Sonic. While on paper, Sonic Generations houses 9 stages, it is actually 18 due to how completely different the level design is for each act. More Sonic in your Sonic game! The stages poignantly covers the mainline Sonic video game catalogue with stage representatives. For example, Green Hill Zone for Sonic the Hedgehog (1991, a no brainer), City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2 (2001, a dreamcast classic) and Crisis City from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006, a bold choice). In all cases, both Sonics want to go fast while differentiating themselves from themselves. The 2D Classic acts have more mandatory light platforming segments, while Modern has a nice blend of 2D and 3D moments mixed with a more reactionary playstyle in its boost and homing mechanics. It is lovely to see both Classic retro Sonic and Modern boost Sonic experience each other's games. Sonic loves himself, a bonding experience to behold.
Each stage is a multipath obstacle course, propelling you forward with its many dash panels. The immense sense of speed, gorgeous level aesthetics, and exhilarating music makes you feel like what Sonic should be, an absurd anime-like supernaturally fast colour of blue. Stage geometry and platform placement can make or break your speed. In your first attempts of stages, you will most likely momentarily lose all your gathered speed from getting hit by an enemy hiding offscreen jumpscaring you, or awkwardly bumping into terrain. Picking yourself back up and re-collecting your pocket change takes a noticeable amount of time to perform, reaffirming that maintaining a freakishly fast speed makes you feel good and stopping for any unnecessary reason makes you feel bad. Sinking down to the bottom path after failing a one time jump feels immediately awful and the thought of that missed opportunity lingers until the end of the stage. What was beyond the higher plane? A building desire to retry the stage so badly, egging yourself on to try it again in order to achieve a perfect highpath run. Sonic is the car always in the overtake lane because speed is in his blood. You cannot afford to break down in the slow lane because you will die inside. Achieving a great runthrough of any stage unmistakably hits hard with big dopamine, and you will yearn for that hit again. This design makes you keep playing in order to unearth all the possible paths of Sonic Generations.
Issues arise when progressing through the game. Later stages slowly diminish in quality, most notably Crisis City and Planet Wisp for being the most annoying stages. It is apt that these specific stages are some of the worst because it only confirms, in its own reimagined reflection, why this tumultuous period in Sonic’s history was so confusing. Planet Wisp (Act 1) has to be the worst stage in the game thanks to the unfun pink wisp ability butchering the level design, congratulations! In addition to this, seriously unpacking the movement of each Sonic shows some concerning problems. You are chasing the sense of speed, but sometimes with no remorse, the rug gets pulled from under you. Over or under shooting jumps and odd momentum quirks when encountering slopes, boost drifting too close to a corner only to clip through and fall out of bounds, unfair deaths due to unfortunate set piece glitches yanking control away from the player and forcibly pushing them into a pitfall, the video game literally freezing up just before a jump only to resume without you jumping and falling to your death. These small issues culminate to create an environment that can instantly kick you out of the game space. It mechanically falls short in being a completely tight platformer. While with enough practice you can avoid or circumvent these issues, it cannot be ignored that they are inextricably hard coded into its control, making it feel like you are constantly pushing against a stubborn wall. For some players, this might break them. Thankfully, taking the game as is, the core of the game is still very fun.
Even when the game is finished, you can choose to eat all the little snacks. Collect all the Red Star Rings, achieve Rank S in all Acts, clear all Challenge Acts, it is all there to be eaten. Overall, the collectibles and ranks are all totally doable with enough persistence. Challenge Acts remix each stage with specific tasks. While they are simple alterations to the standard stages and most of them leave as soon as they arrive, the Challenge Acts offer small rests to chill out to. A special mention needs to be made. Being able to choose what music plays in each stage is wonderful. Playing Free from Sonic Free Riders (2010) in Chemical Plant Zone (Act 2) brings music from other, less favourable, Sonic games and allows them to have a new lease of life. Collecting Sonic music to play in my jukebox was one of the most enjoyable aspects to Sonic Generations and an aspect that players/writers often overlook.
Sonic Generations is a lovely romp for Sonic fans. Grown adults decked in all blue parading that ‘Sonic is BACK’ cannot be blamed, because for a moment he was. Sonic Generations ranks itself as itself, simultaneously looking backwards and forwards to see how far it has come and an optimistic treatment of a Series’ history that asks you to join in the fun. While the mechanical and technical performance quirks oppose its polished potential, this Sonic game still treats us right, like old friends meeting up at the local spot for a catch up.
