Sonic Generations PS3 Review

Sonic Generations is a celebration of the Sonic the Hedgehog 20^th Anniversary. The game spans all the way from the original Sonic the Hedgehog, up until the most recent game Sonic Colors. Elements of certain games within the franchise are ingrained within sonic Generations, such as level design, characters, and gameplay elements. Sonic Generations follows modern Sonic celebrating his 20^th anniversary birthday when suddenly a creature called the Time Eater, swoops in and kidnaps all of Sonic’s friend. Time Eater also drains the life out of all of the stages and creates a time warp that brings in classic chubby 2D Sonic. The goal becomes restoring all of the stages back to life, rescuing Sonic’s friends, and defeating Time Eater. Sonic Generations has 9 stages not including the 4 boss battles the player will encounter. Each of the 9 stages is further divided into 2 acts, one in 2D like the old side-scrolling adventures from the Sega Genesis, and one in 3D like the modern games from Sega Dreamcast console onward. The boss battles with the exception of the final boss are remixed instances of bosses from Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis, Sonic Adventure from the Sega Dreamcast, and Sonic Unleashed on multiple consoles from the current generation. In addition, once a player clears all 3 stages in an area, player challenges are available that unlock artwork, music, and Chaos Emeralds. Sonic Generations requires the player to collect all 7 Chaos Emeralds in order to reach the final boss, as the player will be in Super Sonic mode. The challenges for collecting three of the seven emeralds pits Sonic against Metal Sonic from Sonic CD, Shadow the Hedgehog from Sonic Adventure 2, and Silver from Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. The battles consist of running around an infinite track and timing attacks on the enemy until each is defeated. The other 4 Chaos Emeralds are acquired by defeating the boss battles at the end of each three stage area. Other challenges include time attack, beating Sonic’s doppelganger in a race, collecting a certain amount of rings, and specific character related challenges. For example, with Knuckles, the challenge is to treasure hunt for coins on the level for a set amount of coins before reaching the goal. Other character specific challenges include music mini-games, platforming with a certain ability, and more. Two challenges per stage are required to be completed to unlock one of three keys needed to the area boss.

Sonic Generations is a very short game that can be completed in about 5 hours if the player skips all of the miscellaneous challenges. If the player decides to complete all the challenges and unlock everything, the time would probably be around 8-10 hours as the challenges can become quite difficult. There have been many reviews complaining about lag and frame rate issue, but I experienced none on the PlayStation 3. I did experience a bit of a blurring effect in Green Hill Zone due to the 3D effect that was being created by the alternately moving backgrounds. The story in Sonic Generations is laughable at best, but then again who plays Sonic games for the story or Mario games for the story. The game is played for speed and platforming, nothing more. Some of the challenges are fun to try such as the doppelganger and time trial races, but the character challenges are boring at best and frustrating at worst (I’m looking at you RUN DMC wannabe crocodile!). There is quite a bit of nostalgia playing Sonic Generations, but with enough change and variety to spice things up. Stages have multiple routes to the goal, which add to the replayability as does trying the game out in Super Sonic mode after beating it once. Boss battles were a bit too easy once you remember how you beat the boss in the original game. If this is where Sonic games are headed in the future, I look forward to seeing a new Sonic game. Sonic Generations is the best 2D Sonic since Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and the best 3D Sonic since Sonic Adventure. Go buy Sonic Generations andsupport Sega in publishing a new and improved Sonic.