An iconic Sonic video game gets a reboot

It’s important to disclose right at the onset that I am not a fan, or a long-time loyalist, of Sega’s iconic Sonic franchise of video games. Despite it being one of the longest-running games and one of the most successful around the world, I never took to it heavily. This proved to be a boon after all this time, since when I started my Sonic x Shadow Generations journey, it was a run on a relatively clean slate.

The latest edition of Sonic the Hedgehog is actually two games fused into one, with both Sonic and his frenemy Shadow getting their own ‘Generations’ run. You get two acts in each level of the game, and each level culminates with a ‘boss’ fight. The objective is simple—go on a rampage and reach the end. And, while Sonic and Shadow do intersect in their trajectories through due courses, you can very well treat them as two individual remakes of older games that were likely deemed to be too small to be individual games themselves.

This works, since fans of the series have taken to social media platforms to call it at least the best Sonic game ever made—and in certain cases, the best platformer ever made.

For us, however, there was no context to this praise, since our gameplay of the latest title didn’t come off the back of fond memories from the standalone Sonic Generations game from a decade ago. Yet, even as a standalone title, Sonic x Shadow Generations turned out to be eventful, cathartic, joyous and thrilling—everything that you’d want from a video game.

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Straight-up, the game is not strictly new, but a remake of some of the most popular Sonic game levels from history—revamped with modern mechanics and graphics. But, the revamp is sharp enough to not feel like an aged game at all. You can choose to take it easy with a super-easy difficulty setting, but the manic joy of the Sonic series is to blaze through enemies while collecting enough coins for power-ups—which you’ll only get in at least the medium difficulty setting.

Interestingly, Sonic feels very maturely designed, laden with ample thoughts on challenging a gamer’s mechanics just enough without stressing them out. There’s also something inherently great about a classic, old-school platformer—where the game is almost entirely about the game itself, and not collectible loot-boxes that need you to at least be a paying subscriber to unlock.

In the game itself, Sonic’s combination moves and pace take advantage of new-generation ray tracing graphics to look suave and fluid, while the simple control layout makes it easy to play at breakneck speed. You can, however, lower your pace to enjoy what are interim worlds within the levels of both Sonic and Shadow—what you get here are side quests that give you additional items to acquire new skills on your characters. For instance, there is a rather enjoyable round of Casino Night Pinball, which is fun and also helps you rack up ‘shop points’—which you later use in Omochao’s Skill Shop to ‘upskill’ your character.

Personally, Shadow has a more thrilling gameplay sequence, and also the better share of graphics if you will. The character’s boss fights are more intricate and challenging, and it also gets additional abilities that make combination moves a whole lot of fun. For instance, Shadow’s ‘chaos spear’ helps the character levitate and attack a faraway enemy, taking them down at pace. It truly is great fun, indeed.

Metal Sonic and Silver, two other popular hedgehog co-characters of the franchise, also make appearances throughout the levels as characters you can battle with, giving old fans of the series additional easter eggs. For the most part, multiple old-timers of the franchise vouched that the redesign of these popular levels were drastic enough to look nearly brand new.

The one key thing to note is that Sonic’s boss fights are intricate enough to make it worthy of a flagship game’s moniker. The overall narration, spacing out of levels, elements that are interactable and the amount of time and effort that you spend in playing the game all come together in a well-balanced way to make it a fantastic game to play.

The one qualm about the game, however, would be that Sega may have had bigger opportunities to tie in Sonic and Shadow’s levels more closely, or present them as a single game with more levels in terms of gameplay time. In some ways, the feeling of the two Sonic and Shadow worlds being distinctly different is well preserved here—but, there is a sense of disconnect between them that feels like an opportunity lost.

Nevertheless, the title is undoubtedly enjoyable in the long run, and has enough panache to become a staple that gamers would come back to for casual runs in between more taxing first-person shooters. Fans of the franchise would also be thrilled to note that Shadow, a much beloved character in the Sonic lineup, finally has a gameplay run worthy of its abilities—all of which makes this game justifiable as the best Sonic game ever made.

As for the platformer argument, however, there is the looming threat of supercharged Italian plumber Mario, as well as the likes of modern-day story-driven indie titles such as Playdead’s Limbo and Inside—both of which could potentially be deemed as better standalone games outside of Sonic’s world.

As far as Sonic is concerned, though—this is indeed the best game that you can play on it.

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