Sega is slowly making its way through Sonic’s history and remastering all of the Blue Blur’s 3D efforts for modern consoles, albeit with the very obvious exceptions of Sonic 06 and the handful of outings he had on the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nintendo Wii. Colours Ultimate launched to a mostly mixed reception, and now Generations is following in its footsteps with not only a remaster, but one with brand new content featuring everyone’s favourite edgy eไrinaceidae - Shadow.
Ignoring the fact that Sonic x Shadow Generations is spelt like some sort of lewd fanfiction c💙ompilation, it will be exciting to revisit what remains a great game in an updated package in which there is also appropriate reverence for comparative mediocrity. Shadow the Hedgehog for the PS2, Xboxꦓ, and GameCube is not a good game. The story follows a lab experiment with a love for chaos emeralds and fully-automatic firearms as he navigates the apocalypse and becomes good friends with the President. It’s an absurd game which has rightfully become enshrined in meme culture, and one we never expected to see receive an official revival.
But here we are, with Sonic x Shadow Generations set to include a new campaign that will follow Shadow and Black Doom on a standalone adventure. The original isn’t receiving the remaster treatment, and I don’t think it deserves it, but the fact Sega is leaning into playful dema๊nds and actually having fun with what Sonic has become is amazing. Don’t try to weirdly pretend any of us take this talking animal who runs rꦛeally fast at all seriously.
The resurfacing of Generations however, brings up a fascinating conversation about where Sonic is in the modern era, and where he will go in the years to come. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sonic Frontiers was billed as a new beginning for the platforming mascot, trying new gameplay ideas even if most of them are terrible. It thrusts existing characters and story elements into a new layer of mythology, one that leaves behind its past and explores something unknown. That’s exciting, and hopefully we’ll watch this mature into bigger and better things in the years to come. On the flipside, Sega is gradua🔯lly remastering every single game in its Sonic back catalogue with mixed results. We are running out of options, with Generations feeling like one of the very last games of its era worthwhile to revisit. I certainly wouldn’t pay full price to see Sonic Unleashed at 4K on PlayStation 5.
By its very definition though, Sonic Generations is intended as a celebration of the history of Sonic, with its story following the 2D and 3D versions of the Blue Blur as they work through levels of classic environments and stories all revived with modern sensibilities. Sega created what is arguably the best 3D Sonic game in recent memory ♑by acknowledging how far it had come, and addressing all the glaring flaws. The nostalgia also helped, with great music and charming visuals doing much of the heavy lifting when you weren’t completing stages.
That was 13 years ago, and Sega hasn’t created a new chapter in the Sonic lineage worth celebrating in the same way since, so this nostalgia is being repackaged once again before being sold to us for an inflated price. Games take longer to make nowadays and cost more than ever for a bunch of reasons (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:read: capitalism), but it feels especially macabre to see a love letter like Sonic Generations, one formed on the very basis of our nostalgia, brought out yet again to do what is effectively the exact same thing. Except this time, it’s willing to dig just a bit deeper, referencing bad games that Sonic fans have developed a new apprꦏeciation for.
There is something strange yet cynical about the whole thing, and whether the cultural cache that Sonic wields will cease to exist when Sega runs out of remasters and is suddenly forced to come up with new ideas instead of constantly relying on the past. A decade from now,﷽ are we going to be playing remasters of remasters on new hardware, marketed in a way where it is only worth our time because of the emotional investment we formed in a different time?
In all video games, we are approaching an endpoint of this strategy, where developers and fans will be forced to consider their own creations and why we fell in love with them to begin with. Sonic x Shadow Generations is a celebration of a celebration, mountai🐽ns of nostalgia atop one another that is seconds away from crumbling.
