Sonic X Shadow Generations hands-on preview [SGF] – From the Shadows, a hero re-emerges

Sonic Generations blew the fan base out of the water mixing the old school Sonic with the new Sonic. Generations was a lot of fun to play through with a wonderful combination of speed and platforming, perfect for Sonic the Hedgehog.

I had the chance at Summer Game Fest to meet the team at Sega to take a look at the brand new Sonic X Shadow Generations. What I didn’t realize walking in is that this is a combination type game. Not only are you getting a complete remaster of Sonic Generations, you’ll have a full Shadow the Hedgehog story to play through.

These games can be chosen in the main menu and have completely different tones as you might expect from Sonic vs Shadow. Sonic Generations has the bright colors you expect from Sonic while Shadow has the red, black, white, purple, and yellow you can remember from Shadow the Hedgehog and his other moments in the Sonic canon.

During the play time, I was able to play through Green Hill Zone acts I and II, and they were as wonderful as you remember from Sonic Generations. There has clearly been a graphical upgrade from Sonic Generations to this edition of the game. I played on a giant screen and that’s something that might be interesting to discuss. I suffer from extreme motion sickness. Driving in cars and boats and anything that moves makes me sick pretty quickly. During my time with the original Sonic Generations I could only play a level or two before I started to get sick due to the speed of the game. Considering how big a Sonic fan I am, this made me sad I was unable to play longer than that. However, the updates to the game came with additions to the graphics and with that, the movement. I played four levels back to back with no issues whatsoever with my motion sickness! Thank goodness!

Sonic Generations seems very straightforward, so let’s get to the brand new content, Shadow the Hedgehog.

I played two levels that will be in Shadow’s story including Space Colony Ark Act I and Biolizard. Space Colony Ark Act I is the Sonic style movement and mission but with the Shadow colors and vibes. I really loved the movement they have for Shadow and his heelies. I did ask, and it doesn’t appear like the actual group will affect his movement during the stages, but it all looks good overall. My favorite aspect was the Chaos Control which allows Shadow to stop time to use things like missiles and more as new platforms.

For example, in one section you’re flying downward and as you are, you see flying drills coming from either side. If you time your chaos control correctly, you’ll be able to use the drills as a platform to run by and get a secret. This is a fun difference between Shadow and Sonic.

The other big difference is simply the tone. Shadow includes the new Doom Realm which feels like a Doctor Strange fever trip dark world version of the regular Shadow world. This was super fun to experience the first time and I cannot wait for more of it.

The Biolizard stage was where we got to see some great combat including the new abilities of Chaos Spear and Doom Spear. Chaos Spear is an electric bolt that can help with deflecting attacks from bosses. For Biolizard, it was big purple balls of energy. The Doom Spear, a charge up style attack, is anytime you use more than one Chaos Spear. The boss fight was multiple stages of the boss but never felt tedious. It was fast paced and exciting from start to finish.

Sonic x Shadow Generations seems like it will be everything that Sonic fans want from a Sonic title and is very clearly a love letter to fans the same way Generations was originally. I want to thank Sega and Sonic Team for letting me play the game early and keep an eye out for more information as we get closer to release.

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