It's taken an uncharacteristically long time, but Sonic is finally back
As I said in my preview of Generations, I ended my review of Sonic Colours on a fairly bum note. As much as I liked the direction that Sonic Team had taken, I felt that the core gameplay hadn't stepped up its game enough to stop the series sliding back into mediocrity as time goes by and standards continue to rise. I wanted to see Sonic Team stripped of development privileges and to have the series turned over to a third party developer, on the assumption that Sonic Team weren't capable of learning any more lessons. Now, I'm not so sure.
My criticism of Colours was based on the assumption that its flaws were endemic to the gameplay style itself; raw speed seemed to inevitably lend itself to unfair deaths, endless collisions and reaction times beyond the reach of man. It made the new pseudo-racing style feel like a dead-end, one that didn't offer any opportunity for further development and only really had the option of getting faster and more linear. Let me tell you, for a long-term Sonic fan it feels good to be able to say that that is now, very apparently, not the case.
Generations is testament to the difference that a bevy of minor tweaks can make to the core experience of a game; enemies are no longer dropped in your path, except when the game is constantly replenishing your energy bar and nudging you in the direction of the boost button, and while the game still switches between speed and platforming segments, it always gives you breathing space to take in your surroundings before you push relentlessly onwards. If all else fails, big, bright, glowing signs clearly mark out danger zones, and the incongruity of seeing road signs sprinkled about quickly becomes a blessing, sitting in the periphery of your vision as you navigate around them at speed. Where Unleashed and Colours punished you for blazing through at top speed, Generations positively encourages it, rarely slapping you with more than a few dropped rings as penance for dull reactions and robbing you of better routes instead of robbing you of all routes and plunging you to your doom.
Which isn't to say that Generations is without its annoyances, but this time it is that special kind of annoyance that you won't allow to beat you, the kind that sees you hitting the restart button time and again, pushing through game over screens just to see that shiny golden S-rank as reward for your efforts. The game really only punishes you for over-extending yourself; in one side mission Sonic has to traverse part of Crisis City while under a time limit, calling Blaze to extinguish the pillars of flame that block your path. I played and replayed until my thumbs ached, cursing the endless death plunges and flaky homing attacks that blighted my efforts, only to eventually clear the level with thirty seconds left for the S-rank time.
It was only then that I realised that while the game rewards you for speed, it only does so if you approach it with a measure of sensibility; if I'd spent a half-second longer lining up my homing attacks and letting off the boost button when it wasn't needed, I would have blown through the level in comfort and happiness. The game can be punishingly hard, but, aside from the occasional mad rush brought on by unfair time limits, it treats you fairly. Tweaking the game with this in mind has made all the difference, and it may just be the crux of what has truly crippled the series these past few years.
It's a pity, then, that the game is happy to present itself as a fancy retrospective rather than a complete adventure in its own right; the story is rudimentary and the cutscenes mostly fail to justify their existence, which is an enormous shame given that the series found its sense of humour with Colours. The dialogue was charmingly funny in that game, and it's only during the final moments of Generations that the story kicks up a gear and starts to entertain. The back-and-forth between Eggman and his old-school counterpart are full of smart little nods to the franchise as a whole, but with no attempt to tie the classic levels and boss battles to a wider narrative until the dying moments, much of the story falls flat. After the fun scripting of Colours, I'd have thought that Sega would be more confident when rolling out their entire cast for its follow-up.
This is a missed opportunity, and it is a symptom of the structural flakiness that pervades the game. There's no sense of a grand adventure, just a handful of entirely unconnected zones, bosses and rival battles chucked on to a blank canvas with nothing required of you other than to zip through and unlock the side missions. It is, in all honesty, an inevitability of the very concept behind the game; that we got a story at all is a miracle, and as a series retrospective Generations is concise, thorough and very well realised. I suppose this isn't a criticism of Generations itself, per say, but it has definitely made me hungry for the next game, when we can enjoy a well-paced adventure once again. In a way that was the key purpose of Generations, so job done on that particular front.
But what Generations also set out to do was to tie the whole franchise together and present it as a unified whole, and it does so with enormous passion and vitality. Every zone is stunningly realised, a particular highlight being the opening moments of the Chemical Plant modern stage. The twisting tubes of the 2D original surround you in an imposing spiral, barrelling into the distance where a dark dystopian plant lies in wait, a haunting and echoing intro riff drawing you in; it puts a fresh and incredibly sinister twist on a cherished childhood memory to become a classic moment all of its own, and blends elements of the old and new to great effect.
It becomes apparent as you play that the basic visual design really hasn't changed as much over the years as people sometimes assume; the angular quality of Green Hill is short-lived, making way for the smooth curves of Chemical Plant and gentle mossy vibe of Sky Sanctuary, but as the game moves on to more real-world cities and the bright but distinctly less cartoonish Planet Wisp, it provides a good opportunity to see that Sonic Team always had their heart in the right place, even if they couldn't live up to expectations. Aside from the grotty Crisis City, of course, but there was little to be done with that train wreck than to make the best of it.
Strangely, I found classic Sonic to be inferior to his modern counterpart; it's partly due to the physics, which still lack consistency (although nowhere near as badly as Sonic 4), but it really boils down to being spoiled by the lightning speed, impressive move set and feather-light handling of the modern hog. Being given the opportunity to play the very first Sonic game through the in-game shop allows for easy comparison, and it's simply a fact that Sonic has evolved into a very different beast over the years. Generations makes a strong case for both classic and modern Sonic, and provides a stage-by-stage, hog-versus-hog comparison that shines a favourable light on the much-maligned modern era.
Despite all of this, I can't rate Generations that much more highly than Colours; as a solid game in its own right it is simply too loose and unstructured to create the feeling of adventure that is essential to a good Sonic experience. But therein lies the point; Generations isn't meant to be an epic adventure. It is a compilation, a snapshot, an interactive gallery that casts a loving light across a franchise that has gone through enormous change and finds a way to bring these many evolving styles into one fold. For anyone who feels the series has lost its way, Generations invites them see for themselves. It shows that Sonic Team are very much in control of their franchise, that they have evolved their mascot without truly losing sight of what makes him so consistently popular and, most importantly, that there is very much a future for one of the most enduring icons of gaming.
Generations certainly isn't without its faults, but it acts as an entertaining jumping-on point for a franchise that endures to a mystifying degree in the face of an evolving medium that should by rights have left it behind by now. Not essential by any means, but full of that strange magic that keeps Sonic alive, Generations is a fun little game that finally lives up to fan expectations.
As I said in my preview of Generations, I ended my review of Sonic Colours on a fairly bum note. As much as I liked the direction that Sonic Team had taken, I felt that the core gameplay hadn't stepped up its game enough to stop the series sliding back into mediocrity as time goes by and standards continue to rise. I wanted to see Sonic Team stripped of development privileges and to have the series turned over to a third party developer, on the assumption that Sonic Team weren't capable of learning any more lessons. Now, I'm not so sure.My criticism of Colours was based on the assumption that its flaws were endemic to the gameplay style itself; raw speed seemed to inevitably lend itself to unfair deaths, endless collisions and reaction times beyond the reach of man. It made the new pseudo-racing style feel like a dead-end, one that didn't offer any opportunity for further development and only really had the option of getting faster and more linear. Let me tell you, for a long-term Sonic fan it feels good to be able to say that that is now, very apparently, not the case.
Generations is testament to the difference that a bevy of minor tweaks can make to the core experience of a game; enemies are no longer dropped in your path, except when the game is constantly replenishing your energy bar and nudging you in the direction of the boost button, and while the game still switches between speed and platforming segments, it always gives you breathing space to take in your surroundings before you push relentlessly onwards. If all else fails, big, bright, glowing signs clearly mark out danger zones, and the incongruity of seeing road signs sprinkled about quickly becomes a blessing, sitting in the periphery of your vision as you navigate around them at speed. Where Unleashed and Colours punished you for blazing through at top speed, Generations positively encourages it, rarely slapping you with more than a few dropped rings as penance for dull reactions and robbing you of better routes instead of robbing you of all routes and plunging you to your doom.
Which isn't to say that Generations is without its annoyances, but this time it is that special kind of annoyance that you won't allow to beat you, the kind that sees you hitting the restart button time and again, pushing through game over screens just to see that shiny golden S-rank as reward for your efforts. The game really only punishes you for over-extending yourself; in one side mission Sonic has to traverse part of Crisis City while under a time limit, calling Blaze to extinguish the pillars of flame that block your path. I played and replayed until my thumbs ached, cursing the endless death plunges and flaky homing attacks that blighted my efforts, only to eventually clear the level with thirty seconds left for the S-rank time.
It was only then that I realised that while the game rewards you for speed, it only does so if you approach it with a measure of sensibility; if I'd spent a half-second longer lining up my homing attacks and letting off the boost button when it wasn't needed, I would have blown through the level in comfort and happiness. The game can be punishingly hard, but, aside from the occasional mad rush brought on by unfair time limits, it treats you fairly. Tweaking the game with this in mind has made all the difference, and it may just be the crux of what has truly crippled the series these past few years.
It's a pity, then, that the game is happy to present itself as a fancy retrospective rather than a complete adventure in its own right; the story is rudimentary and the cutscenes mostly fail to justify their existence, which is an enormous shame given that the series found its sense of humour with Colours. The dialogue was charmingly funny in that game, and it's only during the final moments of Generations that the story kicks up a gear and starts to entertain. The back-and-forth between Eggman and his old-school counterpart are full of smart little nods to the franchise as a whole, but with no attempt to tie the classic levels and boss battles to a wider narrative until the dying moments, much of the story falls flat. After the fun scripting of Colours, I'd have thought that Sega would be more confident when rolling out their entire cast for its follow-up.
This is a missed opportunity, and it is a symptom of the structural flakiness that pervades the game. There's no sense of a grand adventure, just a handful of entirely unconnected zones, bosses and rival battles chucked on to a blank canvas with nothing required of you other than to zip through and unlock the side missions. It is, in all honesty, an inevitability of the very concept behind the game; that we got a story at all is a miracle, and as a series retrospective Generations is concise, thorough and very well realised. I suppose this isn't a criticism of Generations itself, per say, but it has definitely made me hungry for the next game, when we can enjoy a well-paced adventure once again. In a way that was the key purpose of Generations, so job done on that particular front.
But what Generations also set out to do was to tie the whole franchise together and present it as a unified whole, and it does so with enormous passion and vitality. Every zone is stunningly realised, a particular highlight being the opening moments of the Chemical Plant modern stage. The twisting tubes of the 2D original surround you in an imposing spiral, barrelling into the distance where a dark dystopian plant lies in wait, a haunting and echoing intro riff drawing you in; it puts a fresh and incredibly sinister twist on a cherished childhood memory to become a classic moment all of its own, and blends elements of the old and new to great effect.
It becomes apparent as you play that the basic visual design really hasn't changed as much over the years as people sometimes assume; the angular quality of Green Hill is short-lived, making way for the smooth curves of Chemical Plant and gentle mossy vibe of Sky Sanctuary, but as the game moves on to more real-world cities and the bright but distinctly less cartoonish Planet Wisp, it provides a good opportunity to see that Sonic Team always had their heart in the right place, even if they couldn't live up to expectations. Aside from the grotty Crisis City, of course, but there was little to be done with that train wreck than to make the best of it.
Strangely, I found classic Sonic to be inferior to his modern counterpart; it's partly due to the physics, which still lack consistency (although nowhere near as badly as Sonic 4), but it really boils down to being spoiled by the lightning speed, impressive move set and feather-light handling of the modern hog. Being given the opportunity to play the very first Sonic game through the in-game shop allows for easy comparison, and it's simply a fact that Sonic has evolved into a very different beast over the years. Generations makes a strong case for both classic and modern Sonic, and provides a stage-by-stage, hog-versus-hog comparison that shines a favourable light on the much-maligned modern era.
Despite all of this, I can't rate Generations that much more highly than Colours; as a solid game in its own right it is simply too loose and unstructured to create the feeling of adventure that is essential to a good Sonic experience. But therein lies the point; Generations isn't meant to be an epic adventure. It is a compilation, a snapshot, an interactive gallery that casts a loving light across a franchise that has gone through enormous change and finds a way to bring these many evolving styles into one fold. For anyone who feels the series has lost its way, Generations invites them see for themselves. It shows that Sonic Team are very much in control of their franchise, that they have evolved their mascot without truly losing sight of what makes him so consistently popular and, most importantly, that there is very much a future for one of the most enduring icons of gaming.
Generations certainly isn't without its faults, but it acts as an entertaining jumping-on point for a franchise that endures to a mystifying degree in the face of an evolving medium that should by rights have left it behind by now. Not essential by any means, but full of that strange magic that keeps Sonic alive, Generations is a fun little game that finally lives up to fan expectations.
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