Sonic Generations (Xbox 360) Review

Posted by Adam Larck on 12.04.2011

Can Sega finally get the Sonic formula right again? Find out inside.



Title: Sonic Generations
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sonic Team
Genre: Platformer
Players: 1
Rated: E for Everyone

Sonic’s stint on the 360 has been problematic, barring the DLC title released.

2006’s Sonic the Hedgehog should never be mentioned, while Sonic Unleashed wasn’t terrible, it just didn’t need the Werehog levels.

The Wii’s Sonic Colors seemed to be getting the formula right, but, as it was on the Wii or DS, wasn’t played by most.

Now, for Sonic’s 20th birthday, we have Sonic Generations. Generations may not be a full return to what made Sonic great years ago, but the team is getting better at it.

Generations starts with the modern Sonic having a party with some of his friends throughout the series before being sucked through time by an unknown evil and meeting his past self. The two Sonics then set out to rescue all of Sonic’s friends and try to stop the evil disrupting the worlds.

The game features nine different worlds: three set in the Sega Genesis era, three set in the Sonic Adventures through Sonic Heroes era, and three in the current generation era. Every era is separated by challenges to do, along with a boss battle.

The biggest draw for the game is the two different acts each level has: an act for the classic Sonic and act for new one. The classic acts are a bit easier, and keep the side-scrolling action that he was known for. Meanwhile, the modern acts have the ever-changing perspective, homing attack and more.

The classic acts are some of the better levels of recent years. It really gives that feeling of speed the earlier series entries had while keeping the (mostly) simple nature of the levels. Later levels add new elements and even one of the Wisps from Sonic Colors to use.

Meanwhile, the modern levels aren’t bad, but they do have its share of glitches. Sometimes, I found myself homing towards an enemy, just to stop right before them and take a hit. Other times, Sonic would miss a rail I directed him towards or just not want to jump between platforms.

I found quite a few of these during the Crisis City level towards the later part of the game. There’s a lot of platform jumps between lava, and Sonic would sometimes jump once and then just want to run straight into the lava. Sonic also became very familiar with the enemies, as he would home in just to stop right before them and get fire breathed on him.

After beating a set of three levels, each level gets 10 challenge missions, five for each act. The missions range from beating a doppelganger, to beating a level with only a ring, to trying to beat a level while your friends help/harm you and more. In addition to this, each group also has a rival battle where you face off against Metal Sonic, Shadow or Silver for a Chaos Emerald (more on those later).

After beating at least one challenge for each level, you’ll get a key that is used to unlock the boss battle to progress on. The bosses are also bosses that have been seen in previous entries, such as Perfect Chaos. Like most bosses, they follow a pattern that you can learn pretty easily.

Now, back to the Chaos Emeralds. The emeralds aren’t optional in the game. You need all seven to get access to the final battle by restarting cogs. Three you get from rival battles, three from boss battles and one from a cut-scene. As you may expect, the final battle is fought by Super Sonic.

Now, this may not sound like a lot, and if you run through the game, it really isn’t. You can finish the game in about five-eight hours. However, fans can find plenty more to do.

There’s a total of 90 challenges to beat between the two acts, as well as getting a ‘S’ ranking in each level and challenge, done by beating within the set time and without dying (at least in the standard levels).

Beating these can get you points you can use to buy skills, extra lives and even a Sega Genesis controller to play the original Sonic game. The skills can be equipped to both Sonics, but I never noticed a huge change (minus the Super Sonic skill and extra life skill).

There’s also plenty of artwork and music to collect to check out. Other than that, there’s not much else to do here. The core game is what you get, and Sega expects the nostalgia factor to be enough without adding a ton of bells and whistles for replay-ability.

Pros

Side-scrolling Sonic is great.

Plenty of levels for fans of the series to reminisce over.

Challenges will keep you busy after beating the game.

Cons

The main storyline is fairly short.

Modern Sonic levels have glitches that they’ve normally had.

Difficulty curve seems to bounce in places.

The 411:

Generations is certainly the best retail release this generation. It offers plenty for fans of both the classic and new series to enjoy, while remembering past levels they’ve played. However, when you focus on the past, nothing new can be added to enhance the series. It’s a solid entry for Sonic fans, but a game that many other gamers will ignore for other games out right now.

Graphics	8.0	The levels look good and will bring back plenty of memories.
Gameplay	7.5	The classic gameplay is solid, but the modern gameplay occasionally gets hampered by a bug.
Sound	8.0	A lot of classic tracks are back and have been remixed. In addition, the voices in the game are well done as well, and aren’t used outside of cut-scenes.
Lasting Appeal	7.0	The game will take between five to eight hours, with plenty of challenges to do after. However, there’s not much else to do after that.
Fun Factor	8.0	I enjoyed mine time with the game, but a few more levels would have been nice. Still, there’s a lot of fun here.
Overall	7.7   [ Good ]

Screenshots
All 5 Sonic Generations Screenshots