Shadow Generations (2024)

Despite a few issues around the edges, the core of Shadow's new adventure is the most fun I've had with the Sonic franchise since I was a kid, a very solid set of rollercoaster-like platformer levels that deliver high-speed fun and a surprising amount of spectacle.

The level designs are pretty cool, unexpectedly lengthy at times in a good way, with constant forward momentum but still some routing you could do with a lot of alternate paths to take. Even the side-scrolling levels feel very dynamic in their 2.5D presentation in a way that feeds back into the actual fun of the level design, but like in Sonic Generations the 3D levels are even better. Shadow's ability to temporarily freeze time further expands the possibilities of each level and has some fun challenges designed specifically around it. There's not much challenge if you just blast through the game, but definitely some replayability if you want to practice and experiment with different routes for an S rank.

It's a pretty short game making up around 40% of this remastered Sonic Generations package, which is fine by me but does make it a bit harder to forgive smaller things I didn't like which make up a notable portion of the brief playtime. Shadow is fundamentally fun to control, but a some of his unlockable powers feel awkward to use compared to similar area-specific gimmicks in Mario games or this year's Astro Bot. The bigger problem though is the game's hub world known as "White Space", a very bland area similar to the hub in Sonic Generations whose exploratory feel and mini challenges aren't nearly as fun as the structured levels, and which is full of museum-style rewards that hold no real interest to me.

Otherwise, the game plays out largely as expected. It runs smoothly in performance mode and looks pretty nice in the levels, and it has some decently-fitting music. I don't care about the story whatsoever, but I don't think that was ever really on the table for me in the first place, so it's not really a complaint. It's a nice game that I'm not sure offers much memorability or replay value for me personally, but which I still had some solid fun with and can recommend.