Why Sonic Generations (PC/360/PS3, 2011) is My Favorite Sonic Game

 NOTE: This review is part of a retrospective of the Sonic franchise. Feel free to read the other Sonic reviews I’ve done here - https://expithecat.blogspot.com/search/label/sonic%20retrospective

Throughout this Sonic marathon I’ve done over the past year, I’ve played and reviewed a bunch of Sonic games - some I’ve played before, others I’m playing through for the first time, some popular games, some obscure games - but now it’s come to Sonic Generations, my favorite Sonic game.

Background and History

Sonic Generations’ development began not long after the completion of Unleashed in 2008, with the desire to develop a title for the series’ 20th anniversary that celebrated the history of the series by incorporating what was seen as the best levels of previous games and incentivize replay value. It was decided by Sonic Team to split the game into two playstyles - one representing the 2D ‘classic’ gameplay, and one building off the ‘Boost’ gameplay as seen in Unleashed and Colors. 

Surveys were done among both Sega employees and the Sonic fanbase to decide what levels would represent each major game release. The game was also planned to have utilize the Hedgehog Engine introduced in Unleashed and would be released on PC in addition to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The game was ultimately designed around the core Sonic audience (compared to Colors’ more casual approach) and with replayability in mind, and was announced in April 2011 and released in November of the same year. The game was ultimately well received by both critics and fans alike, even becoming potentially one of the franchise’s fan favorite titles. And between the release of it and Colors Wii the previous year, to many fans it seemed like the Sonic series was on the right track again.

Personal Experiences

My personal experiences with this game are actually somewhat interesting. This game came out right around the time I played the rest of the classic games through the DS Classic Collection and from there started to become more invested in the franchise and community. 

And between being the newest Sonic game and the positive reception it got, Generations was a game I really wanted to try for myself. I watched a lot of footage of the game on Youtube, tried out the demo on my brother’s Xbox 360, and it definitely came off as a game I would really enjoy - just seeing ‘classic Sonic’ reappear and all these references to previous Sonic games, it really came off to me as a love letter to the fanbase and Sonic’s history in time for the series’ 20th anniversary.

That said, outside of the demo and footage of the game, I didn’t get to play the rest of the game for a few years. I had asked for Christmas the next couple years, but I never ended up getting the game. It looked like a really good game, and I really wanted to play it, but I never got the chance to.

That is… until the start of 2015. I had made a Steam account in August the year before, and during the Steam Winter Sale that lasted from late December up to a week or so after New Years of 2015, I noticed the game was on sale - pretty substantially at that, available for $7.49 compared to the game’s normal price of $29.99. And since I still had some Christmas money left over, I figured… well, let’s do it.

And so I bought the game. Unfortunately my computer at the time wasn’t the best - it was a pretty standard Dell prebuilt with a Celeron processor and no graphics card (just Intel HD Integrated Graphics), and as such the game frankly ran like shit on that PC (averaging below 30FPS, dropping to single digits during intensive events), but I was so happy to finally be able to experience the rest of the game for the first time. And boy it was fun.

Still, after a while, I wanted to be able to play the game at a higher resolution and framerate. And my chance eventually came - towards the later half of 2015, my brother decided to build an entirely new PC in preparation for the release of Fallout 4, and he ended up sparing a lot of his previous PC parts from before - a Core 2 Quad, 8GB of RAM, a GTX 8800 - which, while a bit dated by then, was still an improvement over the Dell Inspiron, and after buying a case and heat sink for the PC, I finally had my own custom build by February 2016.

…okay, well, technically we set up most of it in December of 2015 but at the same time we reused an old Dell Dimension case at first which… didn’t exactly turn out as well as I expected. Either way though, Sonic Generations was technically what got me into PC gaming and custom PC builds.

Anyway…

I didn’t actually beat the game until around this time - although I do remember getting pretty close (at the very least I remember playing classic Rooftop Run) but I was sort of put off by the low framerate with Planet Wisp having the worst of it. But after building my own PC, I finally got around to beating the game, and I loved it. In a way, I feel like this game led me to find more appreciation in other 3D Sonic games, especially the Boost titles, and has become the Sonic game I’ve gone back to most.

Like a few other games I’ve talked about in this retrospective (including the classic games, Adventure 2, Unleashed and Colors), this isn’t my first time reviewing Sonic Generations - I technically reviewed it in 2016 on the 25th anniversary of the Sonic franchise, and even there I considered it to be my favorite Sonic game of all time. But as you can imagine, my writing skills have generally improved in the past half decade and especially as part of a Sonic retrospective, it makes sense to go back to it and review it again.

Story

During a surprise birthday party set up by Sonic’s friends, an entity appears, seeming to kidnap all of his friends and leaving them in a time limbo, while also bringing back Sonic and Tails’ younger(?) selves to the present. Classic and Modern Sonic proceed to run through these old stages in order to rescue their friends and bring the timeline back to normal.

In the process, they discover this entity, known as the ‘Time Eater’, was discovered by Dr. Eggman following the events of Colors, and used to undo his previous defeats while also bringing his younger/classic self into the present as well.

Now, I’ve said in previous Sonic reviews that story doesn’t matter too much to me as long as the gameplay is good, and I feel like no game demonstrates that more than Generations. And while I will touch upon why I think the gameplay of this game is really good, I do have to admit that the story… isn’t great.

I don’t think the story is awful or anything, but it’s definitely pretty shallow and not really much goes on in it. It’s definitely the kind of video game story that basically just exists to put the gameplay into context, and outside of that, there’s really not much else going on. I do like how Sonic and Tails reflect on Green Hill and Chemical Plant when you play those stages, but I kind of wish they did that for every stage and every character. I also like how Sonic reacts when he rescues each of his friends, and hell, how they change their reactions depending on whether you play as ‘classic’ or ‘modern’ Sonic second for each zone.

But that’s really the extent of it with Sonic Generations’ story - there’s not a lot going on here, and while it does what it wants to do fine enough, it also doesn’t really ‘want to do’ very much and as a result, it’s pretty forgettable and nothing to write home about.

The story presentation, again, is fine enough, but I feel like there’s only so much they could have done with it considering what I just said about the story, so I don’t really have much to say about it either. 

I don’t necessarily feel that Sonic Generations’ storyline is terrible or anything, but it definitely feels like the bare minimum when it comes to Sonic stories, even if the minor character interactions are pretty entertaining. Especially the post-credits scene with Dr. Eggman.

Presentation

As I mentioned, Sonic Generations uses the Hedgehog Engine introduced in Unleashed, and a lot of the Unleashed art style carries over to here, combined with modernizations of the previous levels and level themes that Generations holds.

The models of the characters still look good, and I like seeing the “modern” versions of classic Sonic, Tails and Eggman, but the stages and environments are really what make Generations stand out to me - feeling extremely vibrant, full of life, and faithful to the original styles of the stages while still feeling new and fresh. Green Hill looks better than it ever has, arguably still feeling like a video game version of Green Hill in the 2020 Sonic movie, with added details and a lot more just going on in the background that really set the “natural” aspect of the level.

Even Rooftop Run, which already was a level created under the Hedgehog Engine and in a game that generally has a pretty similar art style, looks even better here - feeling overall more colorful alongside added elements like the balloons, confetti (the party setting in general, really) and even a nod to Flying Battery in both acts.

And frankly, even now, I still feel Generations still looks pretty impressive even with later Sonic releases, and frankly… probably the most visually pleasing Sonic game of all time. 

(yes i said it, fite me unleashed stans)

What also helps is that Generations feels better optimized in general. And this isn’t just with the PC versions, but I feel like even just the console versions feel like an improvement to Unleashed on that front. Like Unleashed, I own the game on 360 (or One X in this case) and PS3 in addition to PC. Unfortunately the game is still capped at 30FPS and seems to run at the same resolution on both console versions, but I feel like Generations has the advantage in that it generally seems to do a better job of keeping a stable framerate. I did notice some stuttering and frame drops here and there on the PS3 version, but it definitely wasn’t near to the extent of Unleashed’s constant frame drops on the same version.

But again, there’s also the PC version, which while having some issues of it’s own (that I’ll get to later), is able to run at 60FPS on a pretty run-of-the-mill gaming PC while also having a higher resolution. I did notice the FMV cutscenes ran at a lower resolution, but I guess that’s about to be expected. Either way though, it looks really damn good on PC and feels really smooth at 60FPS.

The game is also not just backwards compatible on Xbox One, but X Enhanced, with the game now being able to run at 4K. While I don’t own a 4K TV, this game manages to look surprisingly sharp even when just playing on a 1080p screen - oddly enough looking somewhat sharper on my One X than on my PC with a monitor that also has a 1080p resolution. Unfortunately, again, it’s still capped at 30FPS (even if you play on *Series* X), but it still looks surprisingly good with the One X enhancements and running at a higher resolution.

The soundtrack is also really good. I’m not sure I would consider it my favorite Sonic soundtrack (to be honest it partially feels like cheating since most of it is just remixed versions of previous themes), but the remixes sound really good - with my favorites being Green Hill Modern, City Escape Classic, Rooftop Run Modern, and the remixes of Open Your Heart, Sonic 3D Blast Saturn’s theme and Super Sonic Racing. And either way it’s one I enjoy listening to on my own time, especially with it being available on Spotify. That reminds me, a word from our spons-

Gameplay

As I also mentioned previously, Sonic Generations’ gameplay is split into two playstyles - ‘classic’ and ‘modern’ Sonic. Both being, well, two different variations of Sonic’s gameplay, and having a focus on speed-based platforming in different ways.

‘Classic’ Sonic takes the form of an entirely 2.5D platformer, similar to that of the classic games as one would probably expect, but with tweaked physics to sort of blend in better with the modern ‘Boost’ style. He can’t use any of modern Sonic’s moves like the Homing Attack or Boost, but he does have a Spin Dash ability like the classic games.

I know some people don’t necessarily like ‘classic’ Sonic in this game, and I can sort of understand - his physics and movement definitely isn’t 1:1 with the classic titles or Mania, and his jump especially can feel pretty floaty - but at the same time, I kind of find myself liking Generations ‘Classic’ Sonic more as time on. He still has a good amount of fluidity here, and the levels for the most part definitely feel well designed around his physics and control. 

These aren’t just the classic levels remade in 3D either - while some elements reappear, they’re largely completely redone with new level design with the original style and mechanics in mind, while still feeling designed around classic Sonic’s more modernized physics. They all mostly feel pretty organic, smooth and fluid and really allowing the player to take advantage of this take on classic Sonic’s movement. And of course, they still feel open, having multiple paths and routes to take advantage of - especially prevalent in stages like Sky Sanctuary.

It’s also just nice to see ‘classic’ versions and interpretations of modern Sonic’s levels, and it feels like they definitely used the ‘spectacle’ aspect to their advantage. City Escape Classic in particular has a new touch of having the GUN truck stalk you throughout the level while “taking down” parts of the level design if you’re not fast enough, in some cases even spawning robots, making this small detail add to the dynamic feeling of this level rather than just a background element. A lot of the levels also have classic Sonic going “in and out” of level design elements based around the level themes with the camera also zooming in and out of the stages.

‘Classic’ Sonic also has a pretty overpowered spin dash and it’s fun as hell to use. Again, not one to one with the classic games, but it definitely makes speedrunning levels all the more satisfying especially when you’re able to time moves right. It feels like Adventure 1’s spin dash translated into 2D and I really like that, giving the player a way of ‘mastering’ it and using it to their advantage in order to speed through each level and get the best times.

While I will admit that I do prefer how classic Sonic plays in the classic games and Mania, I still find myself enjoying Classic Sonic’s levels in Generations, between his fluid and fun control and just the well designed levels in general.

Of course, that brings me to ‘modern’ Sonic. These stages once again utilize the ‘Boost’ gameplay as seen in Unleashed’s Day Stages and Colors Wii, having a hybrid of 2.5D and 3D gameplay with the camera shifting perspectives and Sonic himself retains a lot of his moveset from those games - the Drift, Wall Jump, Stomp, and Quick Step. All of which I definitely feel are improved compared to those previous games, especially in the case of the Drift, which feels a lot tighter and actually useful compared to Unleashed while not being limited to certain sections like in Colors Wii - giving the player an ability that is easy to understand, but also leaves room for experimentation with how one can take advantage of it throughout modern Sonic’s level design. I guess my only real gripe on that front is that the Light Speed Dash is limited solely to specific trails of rings as indicated, but it’s not really a huge deal for me.

Sonic’s core movement also feels really good. I’d still say I prefer Colors Wii’s movement to an extent (feeling a bit more fluid to me overall), but Sonic still feels really good to control here especially alongside his ‘Boost’ moveset. Sonic’s sensitivity feels toned down from Unleashed, making platforming just feel tighter and just better overall while also feeling smoother and more fluid in exchange for feeling just a tad slower. 

While again, I still find Colors’ movement a tad better, it really feels like they perfected Sonic’s Boost control overall in this game and arguably made for some of the best 3D Sonic control in the series overall. The air control could be improved (the air dash especially feels pretty weak), but otherwise I definitely feel like Generations’ control is some of the best the series has to offer.

But the main thing that really makes Generations great for me, over anything else, is the level design. I did touch upon it somewhat with Classic Sonic, but I feel like Generations’ levels are almost consistently great for both classic and modern Sonic - having very high highs with even the lowest lows not feeling too bad, and even then pretty infrequent.

Each level to some extent feels pretty open, being full of alternate pathways incentivizing replay value and rewarding the player for risk and exploration. There’s various times throughout the game where you’re offered with a route that requires more precise movement and timing, but if you manage to achieve that, you’re rewarded with a faster route that helps you achieve a better time, new scenery and/or some bonus items.

But at the same time, the game doesn’t punish you too much for screwing up. You can still choose to use the safer, but slower path, and a lot of the time, the worst that tends to happen is that you’re sent along the slower path if you mess up. But if you want, there are paths that are riskier to get to, yet offer a good reward as I mentioned. You may die sometimes, you may screw up, but it definitely feels satisfying when you manage to find a new path, achieve it and then proceed to make for better times.

And that’s the thing I really think this game does well. The game’s levels and mechanics are easy enough to understand for most players, but offer a high skill ceiling and room for others to experiment with the level design and Sonic’s control for the best times. In layman’s terms, Sonic Generations serves as a good example of “easy to learn, hard to master.”

Probably the best example of this in my opinion is Seaside Hill Modern. Just at the start, there’s three separate paths you can traverse - the left one takes you to an area containing a grind rail where you end up in the first 2.5D section. But you may notice there’s a small patch of sand around that area, and if you can time your jump off the grind rail right, you can go there and find a cannon that allows you to skip most of that section. But that does require somewhat precise timing, so you can also choose to ignore that, and just go through the safe route that may also appear more interesting, containing more platforming. But that cannon still offers a nice risk and reward if you want to go for those best times. And that’s just within the first 30 seconds to minute of the level.

And on top of that, Sonic Generations’ levels just feel really dynamic. Unleashed’s Day Stages also did have a few alternate paths here and there, but I kind of just tended to get the impression that they felt about the same as the main paths and just as linear, even if a bit faster. Once I’m able to achieve those routes, I don’t really have much of a reason to play those slower, ‘main’ routes. 

In Generations’ case though, I still get the impression that it’s alternate paths and whatnot tend to just feel a lot more substantial and give me more of a reason to “want” to explore these other areas.

Let’s go back to Seaside Hill Modern. Immediately after the section I talked about, with enough speed and height you can jump through a couple rainbow rings that will guide you to another path involving a quick step section that you can run through to find another side of the level compared to the path you would take on the ground on top of giving you better time. But that safer route, while slower, still gives you a bit of substance on it’s own and actually feels, well, different compared to the other paths.

Ultimately, my point here is that Generations’ level design still feels really dynamic and full of replayability due to how different each path feels and how much the game gives you to both explore and perfect Sonic’s movement. With the classic Sonic games, I notice a lot of people talk about how when replaying them even now, they sometimes find stuff that they didn’t before, and that’s precisely how I feel regarding Generations’ classic and modern levels. 

Just a few months ago, I found that in Crisis City Modern, if you stomp just before that 2.5D section following the moment with Sonic being sent vertically up the tower, you will find that there’s another platform with a few enemies - something I would’ve never even guessed was there if it weren’t for people pointing it out on Twitter. Stuff like that really makes me appreciate the amount of effort that was put into Sonic Generations’ level design, and how much depth there is to it that makes Generations’ levels still some of the most fun to replay.

That isn’t even considering how this game remixes elements of previous games from which each level is based off of. During my playthrough of the game for this review, I decided to go back and replay each level that was represented in Sonic Generations in their original games (Green Hill in Sonic 1, Chemical Plant in Sonic 2, etc) prior to playing their respective Generations variations (...rhyme not intended) and just see how elements of those original games were represented in Generations, and that’s another thing Generations does well.

I did kind of go over that with Classic Sonic already - particularly in City Escape Classic - but on the Modern equivalent of that level, we have of course keep the snowboard section with a bit more room to experiment with it’s movement, and in addition to that another truck chase. But it isn’t the same as Sonic Adventure 2’s GUN truck chase where you more or less just run in a straight line with a couple ramps that show up, rather it’s transformed into a Quick Step section as the truck tries to *LITERALLY TRIES TO USE SAWS TO ATTACK SONIC BEFORE DEFYING ALL LAWS OF GRAVITY AND CHASING HIM ALONG THE SIDE OF A BUILDING.*

I mean, holy shit, is this where the US’ massive military budget is going?

Anyway, that’s also an aspect of Generations’ levels I really like - not just sharing the level themes of the original games, or even just sharing the setpieces, but in some ways, expanding upon those setpieces and better integrating them with the level design and gameplay. I could go on and on with more examples of that sort of thing - the Wisps reappearing in Planet Wisp, the split between the ‘turtle’ and ‘car’ sections in Seaside Hill - but if you’ve played both the original levels and Generations’ equivalents, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about.

...also another minor aspect of City Escape Classic I like is how there are wanted posters for Mighty, Ray and Fang - a nice touch and nod to those obscure characters. Hopefully they reappear in a “Plus” version of another Sonic game at some point.

To be honest the only level I don’t really care for in this game is Planet Wisp Classic. I don’t think it’s an awful or unbearable level or anything, but it definitely feels pretty slow all around and also has some pretty blocky platforming that feels worse than any of Colors Wii’s levels in that regard (as someone that doesn’t really have that much of an issue with that game’s platforming). I feel like part of it is that they nerfed the Spike Wisp and it doesn’t feel anywhere as satisfying to use, mostly just utilized for some pretty dull puzzle elements.

But on the bright side, it’s Modern equivalent is one of the best stages in the game.

Yes, I’m serious.

Truth be told I never really got the hate for Planet Wisp Modern. It provides a decent challenge, and the platforming still feels pretty good, and I really like how well the Rocket Wisp is incorporated into this version of the level. It’s especially one of the most satisfying to replay and speedrun. The first half especially, taking place in the fields of Planet Wisp, continues to feel open, but even after that the level contains some really good and satisfying 2D platforming combined with Sonic’s ‘Boost’ movement. The level still contains a lot of the design elements I really like about Generations and provides a decent challenge with a lot of good platforming.

To go on from there, the bosses are in my opinion some of the best in the series. Which, honestly, isn’t a very high bar, but they are pretty solid all around - the Death Egg, Perfect Chaos, Egg Dragoon and even the minor character battles - Metal Sonic, Shadow, and Silver. Hell, Metal Sonic and Perfect Chaos I would probably consider among the best in the series.

So it makes it kind of a shame that the Time Eater is kinda trash.

To be honest I don’t think the Time Eater is the worst Sonic final boss, let alone the worst boss in the series, but considering the rest of the bosses in this game were generally pretty solid, the Time Eater, in comparison just feels lame. Pretty much every time I go back to it I feel like all I’m really doing is holding down the ‘Boost’ button while occasionally switching and slowly dodging attacks, and after a few minutes I just… happen to beat it. It’s a pretty lame final boss, and in a game with pretty solid bosses overall I feel like I would’ve expected something better if I hadn’t already known about it beforehand.

Outside of that, I do have a couple criticisms towards this game. One of them being the ranking system. Admittedly, this isn’t something I really care much for in Sonic games regardless, but I can see why it appeals to some people and how it incentivizes replayability. And while Sonic Generations does have a ranking system, it’s very weak - you can pretty much get an A rank just by playing the level normally and an S rank if you do so while not dying. Sometimes it can be a bit harder, especially towards the end of the game, but even then it doesn’t take too much effort to get good and manage an S rank even on some of the more challenging levels.

Of course, it’s not a big deal to me personally considering it’s not really something I care too much about, and Sonic Generations gives me enough replay value as it is without the ranking system, but I can understand why others would have liked to see a better version of the game’s ranking system that didn’t just come down to “beat the level without dying.” At the very least, it definitely feels like it was added in just to put it in line with other 3D Sonic games and doesn’t exactly feel tuned around the gameplay and level design itself.

But my biggest issue with Generations is that… well, I wish there was more *of* it. What’s there is really good, and I’ve already established that as it is, it is my favorite Sonic game, and one I go back to a lot, but I do wish there were more than 18 stages in total counting both the classic and modern stages individually. The missions in this game do add a bit to that number, but I feel like this game had potential for DLC that was never really fulfilled. Both 06 and Unleashed got DLC, and it would’ve been really nice to see them recreate other levels from the franchise - perhaps from the Storybook games, the Rush games, the Advance series, maybe even the Game Gear games - but we didn’t get that. 

Okay, we did technically get one DLC level, but all it really was was a mini pinball game based off of Casino Night which, while fun a couple times, isn’t really substantial. I guess there was also the 3DS version that did have it’s own level themes outside of Green Hill but… well, we’ll get to that one.

Either way, I feel like Sonic Generations provides a concept that really has a lot of potential to build upon, and if it was longer or even just DLC… I mean, considering how much I love the game as it is, it’s kind of hard to say how much more I would’ve loved it, but at the very least, it would’ve made the experience even better and given me even more of a reason to keep going back to it.

It’s a good thing that the PC version has mod support so people can create their own levels.

Conclusion

Regardless, Sonic Generations is a game I still feel holds up 10 years later, and served as probably the perfect anniversary game for the franchise.

Even for how short the game is, it still feels like it has a lot to offer in terms of level design and replayability, topped off with how well the game controls and, well, just looks. Whenever I play it, I always come out with the impression that a lot of love was put into this game, and the level design especially is still some of the best in the series in my opinion. And okay, maybe Classic Sonic became overused after this game, as did Green Hill Zone, but there’s a good reason why Generations remains well loved after it’s release. Not only is it a good tribute to the franchise as a whole, but offers probably the best gameplay in a modern Sonic game.

Do I recommend this game? Well, yes. The game’s available on Steam and Xbox One and can also be played on PS4/PS5 with PS Now, in addition to the consoles it was originally released for, and isn’t too expensive either. I will say the PC version is somewhat unpolished - sometimes the controller seems to disconnect or the game crashes for no reason (Online Mode especially I have a lot of problems with the game crashing and whatnot) - and playing the game on Xbox One is probably your most stable bet when it comes to playing it on a modern platform - but aside for the issues I would still say the PC version is my preferred version to go to overall. It’s kind of hard for me to go back to the console versions after playing the game at 60FPS in addition to mod support and higher resolutions.

But either way, I think it’s safe to say that Sonic Generations is my favorite Sonic game, and frankly… one of my favorite games of all time, at least in Top 5, and the Sonic game I currently go back to most, just by replaying various levels whether through trying to beat my previous best times or just to experience the levels again.