Allowing the original-style Sonic to stand next to modern-day Sonic just shows how ugly the newer, lanky character designs are. Even in 3D, the shorter, chubbier Sonic looks so much nicer. Character design is about the only thing Sega needs to embrace about its Sonic past, though. I actually like—in theory—the 3D Sonic games. I think it’s totally possible to make a good 3D Sonic, and past games (like Sonic Colors and The Secret Rings) have had their moments of greatness. The problem seems to lie with Sega’s reluctance to drop the platformer pretense and double-down on the “super fast auto-runner” style of gameplay.
There are several instances in Generations where Sonic’s “gotta go fast” mentality is brought to a halt to do precision platforming, and it couldn’t feel more wrong. This happens more often in the 2D sections than the 3D sections, but it’s still pretty much everywhere throughout. I do like the idea of revisiting levels in 2D and 3D, though, but then the 3D sections periodically switch back to 2D. Sega just can’t bring themselves to go all-in on the 3D aspect, and yet those sections were my favorite parts. You can’t run super fast in 2D without fear of crashing into something you can’t see ahead of you.
Fortunately (or unfortunately perhaps?), Generations isn’t that punishing. If you miss a jump, because it came up on you too quickly, that doesn’t necessarily spell instant death. You’ll just fall to a different section of the level and miss out on some secret content. The levels definitely feel very big and branching. If I cared enough, I guess it would be fun to replay them and try to see all of the paths that I missed the first time around. But I don’t and won’t. I had a few hours of fun, but my main takeaway from this game is that I need to go back and play some of the other 3D Sonics to see if they can provide what I’m really looking for.
Reviewer
- I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.
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