Sonic Generations - Sonic Was Always Good
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- This is probably one of my least interesting Sonic reviews yet. Because my thoughts here are basically identically to everyone else. How can they not be? Sonic Generations rules.
You can tell how good the game is because I didn't even talk about any fan enhancements or mods. There are some. But they game is already excellent on its own without any changes. That's a first. But still, here's the link to my spreadsheet for some mods to make it even better.
docs.google.co...
btw, I am aware about the Classic Sonic Improvement mod. But after testing it quite a bit, I gotta say, I don't like it. The altered physics breaks some of the level design. And that's pretty unforgivable to me. So I can't recommend it.
/ pariah695
ko-fi.com/pari...
One thing I appreciate about gens is that classic sonic still utilizies the 3d camera at certain sections, later games just negelected that
Yeah. A big shame they dont do that ever since. Maybe Superstars 2?
I'd say the 3D camera sacrificed level design for spectacle.
@@Izak_KlarkIt's true, but there is no 2D Sonic game that doesn't have an automatic section, and it would work even better, because generally automatic sections help you access a hidden path if you break the sequence. It means that if you make a jump in the middle of a hill, the camera angle can be positioned at the most comfortable angle to show another path, they simply have not seen that opportunity yet.
@@harryenchiladas8826 I'm not talking about that though. I'm talking about things like Classic Speed Highway, you take that helicopter and you're cut off from the earlier part of the level. I just think having a point of no return like that is a bad idea.
@@Izak_Klark Though I praised it, I can definitely see what you mean. It shows its flaw when you are hunting red rings and you just go "Wait shit it may have been right before this location, gotta restart the level from the beginning now". Modern also has this issue.
30:25 Pariah was so confused of the game's high quality he literally broke his own rule of not having noticeable edits in his videos.
Worth it for a great gag.
I feel the camera in Classic Sonic stages aren't given enough praise. They went all out, tilting it to see below, having it pan to view Sonic and current hazards or just for spectacle.
I still remember seeing it for the first time in Green Hill and my mind was blown despite it being such a simple thing.
Splash Dash made a video discussing this, a few years back.
Splash Dash video was amazing. And that's what I've been saying about generations.
"Oh cool, it's Green Hill, there goes Sonic- wait wtf, the camera zoomed out. Oh well, that probably was for the- **turn before the first checkpoint** OH WHAT, THAT ANGLE TURN, WHAT?!?!? That was weird, but was probably just some- **goes down the spiral bridge** WHOOAA THAT WAS SICK, WHAT!??!?! Ok, this game is gonna be peak"
Gens on PC has to be the golden standard for modding Sonic games. Mods have extended this game's lifespan by over a decade, and there are still ongoing projects for it. While Frontiers might be popping off with mods recently, I think that Gens PC is a must have for any Sonic fan, specifically for its massive amount of content.
It's kinda ironic that nowadays people is asking for a Sonic game made by another studio that is not Sonic Team when in reality we used to have so many different dev teams working in the franchise under the same name.
You had Dimps working on the handheld spinoffs, then another team working on the mainline games, then another team working on the Riders series
@@minty6623 and they all were under the Sonic Team branding (except for Dimps, that is)
That seems to be a common thing with Japanese publishers, they'll have a BUNCH of internal dev teams but unless you pay attention to the credits they're all under the same studio name. Like Kingdom Hearts 3 was NOT developed by the same guys as the Trials of Mana remake, or Forspoken, or even Kingdom Hearts 2, but they're all "Square Enix".
Reminds me of the early 90s and before, where publishers were scared of other publishers poaching their devs so everyone had to go by nicknames in the credits, which you can actually see change between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, for example, Bigisland in Sonic 1's credits becoming Naoto Ohshima in Sonic 2's
@@aortaplatinum Yeah and funny thing is that it's happening all over again with Sonic X Shadow Generations which from what we've been shown in the gameplays recorded by people at SGF it just shows how different the level desing, budget, animations, setpieces is compared to Sonic Frontiers. And it's also been confirmed that is being worked on by another branch inside of Sonic Team which i would prefer it over the people who worked on Frontiers lol.
Crazy how it's been over 10 years since Generations released, doesnt even feel like its been that long since my childhood...
It’s actually 13 years old which makes it even more unbelieving
@@michaelg4981Oh, it's 2024, thanks for reminding
You can thank 2014 for that.
Unleashed and Generations feel like they could've come put today. Seriously, put them side-by-side with Forces or Frontiers and you'd think Unleashed was the newer game.
The fact that this was your childhood is even worse for me as this was the celebration of my entire childhood up to that point and we’ve only gotten 3 mainstream titles (5 now if you count Mania and Superstars.) it feels like we haven’t done much since Generations. Same voice casts. Same basic model. Graphics are just slightly better. I mean SA1 - Generations feels twice as long. So my childhood also only feels 10 years past.
Heroes being 20 years ago is just not true in my mind. lol
The one hiccup I know about this game's development is that release had to be delayed from June to November of 2011? It really does feel miraculous that sonic team had the time and resources to create a good product for the 20th anniversary considering how the 30th went a decade later.
What happened for the 30th anniversary? I know a virtual concert happened
@@magma_fire_bagwancolours ultimate
@@skeLPCgamez ah
@@skeLPCgamez That along with Frontiers being unfinished until like 2 months ago 💀 when it was supposed to come out in 2021
The game that is the ultimate counterproof to the whole "Sonic community is so diverse that they dont know what they actually want" statement.
At the end of the day all we want are great games. Wow who would have thought huh
Late reply, but I feel like the issue with Sonic fans & wut they want is actually the opposite. If a game doesn't appeal to their personal preference, the game is criticized for it. Colors didn't have ambition so it was criticized. The Dark Age games had stories so they got criticized. Sonic's 3D games are not 2D (NO WAY 😱) so they got criticized. Fans do know wut they want, but it's to such a degree that they criticize games for not appealing to their preferences 110%. For as much discourse there was surrounding Frontiers I feel like that is one of the only Sonic games that people were just open minded about. No one was really complaining about "physics" or "no story" or anything of that matter a whole lot, they just focused on wut it is & found it fun.
@user-xy3gs4in7z, you're simplifying, but yeah; also, Colors being unabitious and SA1 being 3d wereand still are seen as good things, and half of the stories in the dark age sucked. Also also, what do u mean frontiers had no story?
Now that you've mentioned that the quick-step sections remind you of infinite-runners on mobile. I must say that it is surprising that these sections are actually even more primitive than that, considering that in infinite runners you actually make a bunch of choices per second. In Sonic you just quick-step left or right no need to even jump or slide.
The GOAT finally reaches the best Sonic game
Edit: after finishing the video, I'm surprised he didn't even talk about the mods. Not that he needs to to prove it's the best Sonic game though
It really demoralizes me just how many fans have turned their backs on this game, or worse, have hated it this whole time since 2011.
I'm very glad that even as late as 2024 do I manage to find some voices that actually still have a brain and some common sense with how good Generations really is. Thank you very much for being one of those voices.
Those people are in the minority. If Generations came out today I guarantee it would still be met with the same positive reception it got in 2011.
It's a popular game so there will always be detractors, especially from the crowd that gets peeved that their favorite 3D sonic game isn't as well regarded thus calling the game overrated
Of course not liking generations is fine since the boost formula isn't ideal for everyone
Well the thing is at the time this game came out people didn’t really care or just hated the stories in sonic games in general until the started miss them years later so if this game was released today then there will be a lot of negative things about it actually
So because someone doesn't care about Generations means they're brainless? Gee, thanks for your kind words, you condescending prick.
@@milesstorzillo7650 That was not the point
I grew up with the classic series and SA1 and 2 but I'll always be proud to say Generations is my favorite Sonic game.
Think one of the reasons for the inconsistent quality of Sonic Team games was the rotating staff members. I remember reading that a lot of the people who made this game later moved on to work for Nintendo on things like Zelda or Mario Odyssey.
Still undoubtedly the best Boost era game out of the bunch. The level design was creative on both styles, the replayability for faster times is welcome, the amount of content for memorabilia, it had it. I wouldn’t really call it a “main” series game, but it’s one hell of a celebration for Sonic. Just wish the game was longer with an actual story and character interactions that are more than just standing around.
But it’s criminal that this game out of all Sonic games didn’t get ACTUAL DLC.
On the topic of input weirdness, Modern Sonic in 2D doesn't instantly turn around when you tilt the control stick - he *starts* to turn, but if you let go too soon, he will stop and snap to the nearest valid direction in 2D, which will very likely be your original facing direction. You have to hold the stick for a little bit before letting go.
That's because he's still just a 3D character controller that's just getting slapped into a 2D level and blocked from moving forward and backward by external factors, he himself is not built for a 2D platformer.
I swear Classic Sonic does the same thing too sometimes.
@@sehtuk3953 That's because Classic Sonic is also using the same 3D character controller as Modern Sonic, though with various physics properties altered. He's also still a 3D character at the end of the day (hence why he works in 3D if you mod him, though I believe the spindash is sometimes broken).
@@legoboy7107 so THAT's why mario feels so different. he's not built out of sonic's limitations and thus just snaps to where he's going, though, ironically, that makes him a better pick for classic levels.
@@ehhorve857 You talking about the Mario 64 mod for Gens? Yeah, ironically enough Mario 64's Mario is better suited for 2D than what they have here, because in Mario 64 Mario pretty much instantly snaps to whatever direction you push the joystick in (hence why ironically playing the N64 version of Mario 64 with a Dpad feels more responsive than playing actual Mario 64 DS, because he doesn't do that in the DS version), unless it's the opposite direction of what he's currently running towards, in which case he'll do that skid that you can sideflip out of.
30:27 And here we finally see some actual real-time editing in a Pariah695 video, it's now become an actual UA-cam video and not just an audio essay with some gameplay footage playing in the background. I feel like the Fourth Wall just got shattered and I will never be the same again after this...well played joke, dude, definitely subversive and got me. 🤣
Oooooohhh my god I didn't think this would come out already. So excited for the companion episode, and as a fan of your Rewriting Colors vid, I wonder if you had something similar planned for this game
Even in recent years, where I have fallen out of love with the Boost style Sonic games, I do have immense love and respect for Generations. It's telling that my only wish for the game would be more levels, not for the sake of length or anything, but for fun. Like imagine Misty Lake or Float Night Palace as DLC levels. Sonic Team could have gone crazy with the DLC/Free Updates(akin to Vallaha) and made a ton of money
On a side note, I really do hope that devs and gaming as a whole abandon the whole "length/run time= price value for a game." A lot of genres like platformers, survival horror, spectacle fighters, rougelites,etc are naturally short, and can't really make themselves longer without padding themselves out.
I'm really impressed Pariah, you have more guts playing this game than I ever could and you've found so many cool new routes I never knew about too. 6:41
i did not know you could grab that rocket a second time in Speed Highway Act 2!
I've said it once and I'll say it again: Sonic Generations is the Sonic game with the most polished gameplay to date, and with the best level designs in the franchise (although I'm not going to disparage the level design of other Sonic games either). It's so fun and so good that I find it unfortunate that Sonic Team hasn't managed to replicate that feeling of fun in other Sonic game. Yes, Sonic Frontiers exits, It's good, But there's something I just don't know how to explain. Like I said, Frontiers is good, but I feel like it's missing something... I don't know, maybe it's just me.
Maybe you think it’s the most polished, due to it being short and have boost to win gameplay, no story and no playable characters
Which, to be honest is something not to be proud about
@@iceman92211I understand that people like you want this game to be like Unleashed which had a great story and good characters, but this is not the time. I know it shouldn't be like this, but sometimes a game can work well without having any story.
"But the story is what makes a game special" Yes and no...
@@iceman92211Not everyone plays Sonic games for story. You know. Even if you take out it's story & characters, Unleashed as an game is mid at best and it's pretty unpolished as well. I once glitch when playing the Holoska stage and went straight through to an wall dying. And there's more to that and other problems it has. Like the levels being obnoxious and long, the Werehog sections, the Sun & Moon medal, the pacing, etc.
to me this game genuinely felt like a AAA game, made by a competent company.
and then... compare this to Forces. just take solid look.
Frontiers is lacking in so many areas that I'd struggle to even call it decent, much less good. It feels more like a beta build of a much better game, rather than being good in its own right.
With that charge attack in the Time Eater boss fight with the charge attack with the Sonic you aren't using you can destroy obstacles and the drills the boss shoots out. This really helps with the not get hit achievement. It is still very challenging though.
A thing I really like about generations is how fun is it to play regardless of your skill level. It was my first game as a kid. (I theoritically played sims 2 before that but shush) And as a kid who never had any other platformer in my hands (with expectations of some flash game) i could beat it on my own. I didnt 100% or anything but I did finish it. And when nowadays I came back to the game after playing some other sonic games and stuff I am having still so much fun discovering all the alternative routes in the levels I never got to see as a kid. Collecting all the red rings I missed (it's still the same file), finishing the side missions.
And now I also get to see my 7 years old brother playing it too. And I can see how fun it is for him too. Hes managing to do the levels pretty much in his own at this point. And it's just really cool.
That the game is available and fun for such a range of skill level.
other sonic games proabbly do it too but as I said I had this game as a kid so I really felt it on myself.
14:22 tbh they kinda had to include the truck in city escape because it’s the most iconic part of the level in sa2 and in that game it’s also essentially a quick step section atleast in gens it’s better because there’s actual obstacles you have to dodge
Idk at least in SA2 you can just finish the section quicker by rolling down hill to optimize your time, but in Gens you basically cannot optimize shit and go through super shallow obstacles, they ruined this stage in Gens (and Frontiers as well)
Tbh, the main reason why the spin dash in generations was powerful is because the devs decided to buff it to make players have a feel of blasting through
Sonic Generations is the only 3D Sonic game I can give to non-sonic fans and be sure they'll like ALL of it.
Not 33.3%, not 50%, not 75%. All of it.
i'm a sonic fan and planet wisp makes me pull chunks of my hair out
Planet Wisp act 2
@@Eriko.Christy Nah, Generations 2D controls aren’t made for Precise 2D Platforming and that level FORCES you to use the Wisps. The Gun Truck Section of City escape is terrible but the other part is great.
Calling this game “3D” is an insult to what a 3D video game is
@@iceman92211Yes, but, who care? It's a good game, there's nothing to discuss my friend 🚬🗿
30:27 Holy shit! A major edit in a Pariah video! It shocked me!
Anyway, While This game is freaking awesome… Y’know what’s NOT awesome?
“No stranger than rescuing genies in magic books or saving aliens in an interstellar Amusement park”
The story…
It's incredible how Colors had so little story to itself, but Generations somehow managed to have even LESS story than that game.
@@felipe_drawmania1604 I'm pretty sure that was the point of the game with it being a celebrating gameplay game from what I remember at the time.
can you even call generations' story a story? it is literally nothing lol
@@jaretco6423 Sonic fans care about Sonic stories, since they like the characters.
@@felipe_drawmania1604 Even if that's the case, doesn't make up the gameplay because that's way more important than the story or characters has.
Thank you to you, Pariah, for bringing up the input reading issues with this game. It's infuriating when Sonic just walks off a dang cliff when I am jamming my A button. Lightspeed dashes, I tend to mash Y 3-4 times to get those to work.
Do you also find that turning Sonic (both of them) around is obnoxious? Sonic seems to have an even longer 'turning around 180°' animation than in Unleashed, and I find myself rocketing off in the wrong direction because I'm jumping or boosting and pushing the stick in one direction, but Sonic is facing the other direction.
I'll never understand how some people decided to turn on Generations and calling it a bad game. It was legitimately a great game with very little flaws. The 3DS version is fair to criticize since it really is an inferior version despite having different zones, but the main HD version? Excellent piece of platforming right there.
Gee, it's almost like taste is subjective. Shocking, I know.
Fun fact: Sonic is actually faster in Generations than in Unleashed. However, Unleashed 'feels' faster since the game cranks up the FOV to make it look like Sonic is covering more ground than he actually is, and this effect was toned down a lot in generations.
Sonic Generations is the younger brother that did a better job learning from the mistakes of its more ambitious older brother. It did a good job with the boost formula, but it could've given us more of the spectacle of what unleashed provided.
0:06 Basically Unleashed 2
1:35 A neat compromise
3:18 Minor Improvements
5:12 Sonic the Rhythm game
5:52 A slight regression…
7:17 …Or is it?
12:29 Preach. Please stop with this
15:01 In summary of the main game
15:14 Oh no…?
16:44 “Classic” Sonic
19:50 Star Coins
20:35 Skill system
22:04 Ranks
22:58 3D Sonic curse lifted
24:29 Level geometry
25:07 Muh 3D
27:28 Um… Pariah?
30:09 The search continues
33:29 When the Stars aligned
Pariah being so completely flabbergasted that a Sonic Team game has no achilles heel that sours the experience that he breaks character in terms of the editting is simultaneously depressing and hillarious (just like the history of Sonic as a franchise, badoom ching)
Jokes aside, I do believe that Sonic Team still has it within them to reach or top Gens' heights. They just have to be allowed to cook like they were with this game. Kishimoto has said that he wants to experiment with more momentum based mechanics and if we get a Frontiers style game with Utopia style level design and physics, it could very well happen
W pfp 🗿
Sonic Generations is a very memorable game for me. I don't have 10000 hours on it or anything but I remember watching people like Cobnermani456 play the mods growing up.
30:22
He never edits his videos like this. So him doing this is like he’s searching so hard to find the problem with Generations that makes it bad, that he’s breaking the rules of his videos just to do so.
Which is a really funny way to do that joke.
21:34 honestly super sonic playable in normal levels felt like a last minute addition given how super sonics animations are also pretty lacking he doesn’t have a animation for getting up to speed or quickstepping and a lot more
It sounds like you're having quite a bit of fun recording this one, Pariah. Gens is definitely up there for one of my favorite Sonic, glad there are many other fans who enjoy it too, haha
Not a lot of people know or remember this but around the time of Sonic's 20th Anniversary the social media account made a poll for each asking fans which levels were their favorite. The levels that won all the polls were the ones that became the levels for Sonic Generations (except the Shadow/SR/BK stages that won). Thats why you also only see certain levels returning all the time.
And yes I do also wish Generations DLC for more 3D levels got added to the game I think about it all the time. Even bringing the game to modern consoles with more levels from Day 1 would sell so well its criminal they havent done this.
You can Fix the input reading problem with hedgemod manager btw. There is a code for that. And i want to say, this is my favotite game of all time. İ love it so FUCKİNG much.
It's also my fav game!
30:27 is the first time I've seen you edit the screen like this. Please, more.
37:39
I think they chose Seaside Hill because of an online pull they once did, where Seaside Hill got the most votes.
democracy sucks
All the zones were chosen based on internet polls SEGA did back in the day
fantastic review pariah, you said everything. some days ago i remember telling you in a stream of yours that i tried generations after not playing it for a while and really didn't like it because i wasnt vibing with the physics but I've recently tried it again and started a new game, completed it 100% and yeah this game is fantastic. in this review I particularly like when you say "I don't know what went right with Sonic Team" It's funny because not only it sounds off (normally one would say "what went wrong") but it's also sadly the truth... what the hell went right with sonic team lol
16:15 The RTS final boss in Frontiers 2 is gonna be crazy
Sonic Generations is my first sonic game I remember playing alongside Sonic CD on my PS3. Truly the best game to start with.
Same. It hooked me like no other game before, this is where my journey with sonic, heck, with games in general properly started
It is, and it isn't because very few games reach the level of Generations especially on the 3D side.
On the subject of piss-easy rank times. You get an achievement for clearing Green Hill Act 1 in 50 seconds. The S-rank time for it is 2:40. Why. If they know it can be cleared in 50 seconds, why is *that* not the S-rank time?
People were also fuming about rank times of the Unleashed Project, saying how it's unfair and it requires "speedrunner-tier reflexes", and there's even a mod just to make them easier. This mentality just strikes me as nonsense. You can already clear the stages and progress, that's the best extrinsic reward the game can give you. The point of a ranking system is to say that there's more to the game, that more can be done beyond what's already done. The letter grade itself is not the point, the effort you put in is, the grade exists just to guide and motivate you. Making grades easier to get with less effort just defeats the point of the system entirely, it's just vapid
Sonic Generations was the first game in the series I enjoyed once, but never really went back to. I've replayed the others more times than I can remember, but this one...I just never felt like going back to it.
Jokes on you. My first game was sonic unleashed and my second one was sonic generations. ☝️🤓
@@lil_s24We didn't ask.
@@hazelbagels024👁️👄👁️
I'm planning on replaying it on PC and then start playing a lot of Stage mods.
Same.
Around 37:51 Exactly Egg Fleet leading into final foretress just amazing stuff, the blue sky jumping from ship to ship until you arrive to the giant aerial fortress where you fight your way through Eggman defences, it's what everyone wants after unleashed to play something similar to that opening.
“It’s a Sonic Team game! There has to be something bad!”
this was MY Sonic game growing up, I've done everything i've possibly could with it, i tried to get all the best times in all the levels, get all S Ranks, all codes for the trophy room, this game... i could not get enough of it...
Just a reminder that they marketed Sonic Forces with the words "From the team that brought you Sonic COLORS and Sonic GENERATIONS!"
Generations is fantastic, almost flawless.
Forces is terrible and there is almost nothing redeeming about it to me.
What went wrong here? Well, everything.
First of all, it's a lie. Forces was not worked on by the same team as Generations and/or Colors.
Secondly...they retroactively dragged Sonic Generations and it's reputation through the mud with these words. Nowadays you sometimes (not often) see people who actually think that Generations is overrated and I think that is because Forces just hurt people so much it retroactively dragged Generations down with it.
You can see that even better with Sonic Colors. Overall, the game was pretty popular and pretty beloved and I think most Sonic fans still like Colors to some extent.
But since Forces came out SUDDENLY people started hating on Colors.
Forces and the marketing they used just burned so many bridges with the Sonic fanbase, it is insane. All the trust towards Sonic Team which was build up by Sonic Generations just got...completely destroyed with 1 game. And it's sad. Why? Because Generations is fantastic.
What you say is true. I still remember how from 2018 to 2021 Sonic fans shit on Colors and Generations, to the point that no one could say anything positive about them because then they would tell you things like: "Unleashed has better levels than Generations"; "Colors ruined the franchise"; "Generations is just nostalgia" etc... Curiously, it was during those years when the community began to overvalue the games of the 2000s, so much so that you could see stupid comments like: “I'll take Shadow the Hedgehog over Sonic Colors any day!” I mean… Really? come on!
@@sebastianmartinez5963 I honestly don't understand how people say Colors ruined the franchise. Every problem we are facing now came from the disaster of Sonic Boom. Like less games, and smaller budgets for said games. It isn't Colors that severely crippled Sega to the point where they put him in the back burner.
@@spritvio639 They say it because after Sonic Colors, the following games began to have simpler stories, without nothing ambition and any seriousness like in the 2000s. On the one hand, I understand it, but really, it is an exaggeration to say that Sonic Colors "ruined the franchise", because Colors is not the reason for all the problems the games of the 2010s had.
For example, the fact games like Forces having bad stories is not because of Colors, it's simply because of the bad writing of Forces itself, not because of Colors. On the other hand, the fact that the characterization of the characters has changed was not because of Colors either, on the contrary, the characterization of several characters was already being affected before the release of Colors. Tails began to be useless starting in Sonic Unleashed, Knuckles left behind his duty as Guardian of the Master Emerald since Sonic Heroes, and so on with several characters.
I agree with everything you said here, but just to add 1 thing to support your statements a bit more:
The writing style in Colors is clearly different in comparison to previous Sonic games and the series clearly departed from what originally made it popular. The reason for that, however, is NOT Colors itself but Sonic 06 and the massive failure it was + the massive hate Sonic Unleashed received.
SEGA and/or Sonic Team just took the wrong lessons out of these failures. They made the decision to hire new writers and completely change the tone of the series. The fault for that decision does not lie with Colors but with Sonic 06 and (most likely) with the Werehog in Sonic Unleashed. @@sebastianmartinez5963
I think what they meant by that is the writers that wrote colors and generations lol
I feel like the only really "bad" part would be the nothing story, but then again that means theres nothing keeping you from the gameplay for so long, so maybe that's a good thing
I'm glad that this is the Sonic game that made me a huge fan of the series. It's the closest to a perfect Sonic game we'll ever get.
The best parts of the Boost trilogy:
Unleashed: Story
Colors: Aesthetic and Presentation
Generations: Gameplay
Peak Modern Sonic
In what exactly ?
@@iceman92211 Watch the video
@@SonicTheCutehog I watched it and it doesn’t make it peak
@@iceman92211 Pretty much the best levels in Sonic history with no downsides
@@SonicTheCutehog oh really ? Are these levels fully 3D ?
Got so many good memories playing this game from sunrise to sunset every day from the moment it came out, this is sonic at its peak
This game was my 2nd Sonic Game that I owned. I absolutely LOVE this game SOO MUCH. THIS IS MY CHILDHOOD
32:32 and another thing i like about these missions is that they will sometimes include a level gimmick not seen in any normal level like those big spinnig wheel things or those springs you have to bounce on mutiple times to gain hight on from sa2 they also sometimes change the time of day of the level to make it feel fresh like seaside hill at night or rooftop run at sunset or speed highway during the day
When I look back at Sonic Generations and the games that came out immediately before & after, I have to wonder what happened?
Well, it’s the praise for this game that caused all of that to happen with stuff such as the boost to win gameplay
@@iceman92211 That may be true. Honestly after Frontiers I'm wishing Sega would take the boost gameplay out behind the barn & put it down.
@@CrashWeezerman well they probably won’t do that because they are some fans who still want this gameplay despite how outdated and repetitive it is and even Sega are too scared to even get rid of it and they want to keep using it even if it doesn’t make sense anymore
@@iceman92211 You are not making sense
@@iceman92211 Because its a great game
None of Sonic Generations issues matter at all because it gave us the BEST PINBALL IN THE SERIES FUCK YEAH BAYBEE WITH THEM PHYSICS AND TILTING AND A GODLIKE BOARD DESIGN YEAAAHHHHHH GIMME THE PONITS
It hurts to see how utterly blind SEGA was with Generations' success.
It wasnt successful cz of Sonic's goofy friends being there, or classic Sonic being there, or the returning zones, it's cz it was actually a great game.
Too bad SEGA didnt learn anything from it.
I believe it's because Sonic Colors received better critic reviews, so they ended up bringing Colors' team to make the next big Sonic game instead of Generations'
@@bonnymel4506If you see that your game was very successful, obviously you are going to try to replicate that success. It is something very normal in any video game company. Especially considering that before Sonic Colors, Sonic games were not having a good time with all the criticism they had been accumulating.
What's kind of cool about the elemental shields is that there is a mod that does re-implement them into the level design. It's level specific, though. Like, only the bubble shield in Seaside Hill or only the fire shield in Crisis City. but it's still cool, and imo a must-have for the game!
How did you go through this entire video without even mentioning the skills you can equip, that's one of my favorite things about time attacking this game, it adds an extra layer of depth and decision making to an already stellar time attack experience
Facts!!!
Agree
11:42
those gun robots went into creative mode
💀💀💀
Sonic Unleashed is made around score but generations is made around just time
However, you will have a lot of fun speedrunning levels from both games (imo)
@@AdamWright-t7w In sonic unleashed you speedrun the score run and it's awesome
It was so funny in the review where it’s like “where’s the gimmick to ruin the game” and I was like “Oh no classic sonic isn’t as solid as I thought” only to have the rug pulled under me
Classic Sonic is very fun, imo
This like one of the few Sonic games that has had the same reception since launch and stayed the same, it’s crazy, Unleashed was hated at launch but now beloved, Colors was beloved at launch but now hated, nah this game was great and still great to this game it’s wild
I think it’s because of the time it came out not because it’s a great game
@@iceman92211 I get that but most Sonic games have had different receptions overtime regardless of how they were received overtime, like I said above Unleashed & Colors are received differently now compared to when they first came out, in fact the opposite
@@instinctive3066 these two games are just normal games so obviously opinions will change over time for them but generations on the other hand is it anniversary game so that’s why it’s still praised for the concept more than anything else
@@iceman92211 You're not making any sense.
"It's basically just a level with a big enemy in the background, so it feels kind of like cheating to say it's a 'decent boss fight.'"
On the contrary, I think that, if your platforming game has a character with an incredibly basic moveset, this is the _best_ kind of boss fight you can have. You're not playing a platforming game so that you can experience cool boss fights. You're playing it because you want to have a fun time overcoming platforming challenges, or collecting a bunch of shit, or what have you. This is why in 2D Mario games, his primary form of "attack" is to jump on enemies. His moveset is designed for _platforming_ not combat. Sonic (especially in 3D) has a bit more than just jumping into enemies, but at the end of the day, his tool kit in most games is designed for moving forward and platforming.
Therefore, if a game is going to throw in boss fights (like I feel a lot of games do purely out of obligation more than anything), the most logical "boss fight" for a platformer is a big platforming challenge. It's cool if a platformer is capable of providing an interesting, engaging boss that doesn't boil down to a platforming challenge of some kind, however I feel like that only really happens when a character's toolkit is designed for more than just "move forward and jump" (like Megaman or Kirby, for example) which isn't really what Sonic has. At least, not in Generations.
I mostly agree. But I think a platformer boss should still be a fight. But a fight that has you platforming around. Not just a level. At that point, just don't have bosses.
This and Colors are my absolute favorite 3D Sonic games
You mean your favorite 2D games
@@iceman92211 Did you read what they said? Lmfao
@@iceman92211 🤡
@@iceman92211That would be their handheld counterparts
@@AdamWright-t7w yes and I’m correcting him because these two games are 75% 2D
I appreciate what Sonic Generations was for the time it came out, even if im personally not a big fan of most of what it did.
Even if I'm bias, I just find Unleashed to be the better game overall.
It's SO FUNNY to me to think on how such a WONDERFUL game is sandwiched between two terrible Sonic Team games released before and after it, Colors and Lost World. It really IS an unusual peak.
Colors is far from terrible tho
@@dbw2587 I disagree tho
I might even say that Lost World is the less terrible game
Colors is better than Gens tho
@@mrpro538 I think Forces is better than Colors, personally
@@bonnymel4506 respectfully disagree. Colors(not Ultimate) is great.
However, I respect your opinion
Oh god next is lost world
Amazing game, Sonic 4 ep 2 was the first one of the series I completed and I loved it at the time, but when I tried this one later... I even completed all the missions. Damn, I even completed the version of sonic 1 that was present as an unlockable, just to erase my save file and do another playthrough of the game for my fictional youtube channel back then. I even enjoyed the cutscenes/story as a child lol. Generations also served as a presentation of the rest of the sonic games for me, since I then bought a genesis mainly to play the classics whose levels I saw on the creditss of gens. It's maybe the best sonic game to start with if you haven't tried Sonic yet.
FINNALLY, somebody appreciates Gens for the same things I do. The level design, classic sonic and the bosses too. And also, with your take of Gens possibly being the best Sonic game, I whole heartedly agree. But I think there is another game that can also hold that title, Mania. And its because they are so similar. Hear me out:
Reused level themes
Original level design
Short and sweet (I can beat both in 3hrs, I'm sure you can too)
Beautiful art style (Seaside Hill and Press Garden Act 2's are GORGEOUS)
Fun Level design all around
Extremely repayable
Very little story
Praised by everyone including critics
"Sequels" aren't as good (a stretch I know, and I luv Superstars)
No bs as Pariah stated
Awesome music (YES Jun's remixes count)
Ui is straight eye candy
and more I can't remember.
This obviously isn't the blue print for the perfect Sonic game (ESPECIALLY the reused level themes, these are ANNIVERSARY TITLES SEGA), but just seems to a big coincidence.
Idk why u have only 20k subs you deserve more bro
Completely 100% agree. Gens, while not as hard as Unleashed or anything and while having a pretty nothing story, is just flat out a fantastic video game. The main two things I see people complaining about this game are 1.) it’s mostly 2D, and 2.) Classic Sonic doesn’t play EXACTLY like he does in the Classics. Meanwhile I’m over here having Gens as my all time favorite Sonic game, other than 3&k and Mania which I find to be phenomenal, for its amazing level design, great gameplay for both playstyles, and for being consistent at that quality throughout the ENTIRE game. This feels like a Sonic game where a ton of passion and love was put into it, and I can’t say that for a lot of Sonic titles. For me the only low point is the final boss, I love EVERYTHING else about this game.
I really like the name of this series. Sonic indeed was always good. Many people like to say that Sonic was never good, and I very readily disagree with them.
People that say that are either rage baiting or genuinely clueless. There’s really no reason to have discussions with them on the matter lol.
@@sauce987654321 Facts
My biggest problem with Sonic Generations is It's over in like 2 hours. That made it a bummer to pay full price for. I understand if you go for red rings and time attacks you can increase playtime tenfold, but I didn't really feel compelled.
Well, I mean that’s what happens when you guys want a game with only Sonic playable and boost to win gameplay lol
@@miadatenshi9903the boost to win gameplay have been a thing since 2008
@@iceman92211*2005
I think the quickstep sections in these games have/had the potential to be just as engaging as any other part of the Boost gameplay; the problem is that Sonic Team (whichever version of it that made Generations, anyway) failed to realize its full potential.
For example, when Sonic is going through one of the big loops in Green Hill, they could’ve easily turned that bit of short-lived cinematic spectacle into an engaging bit of gameplay by incorporating a quickstep section into the terrain of the loop. Have Sonic hop over small rocks, smash thru enemies popping out of the ground, slide under holes in bigger rocks, stuff like that.
And then, they could’ve built off of the quickstep from there.
Add more obstacles that require increasingly faster reaction time from the player, sure, but also…what about making it so that in order to optimize your performance in these sections, you have to think quickly and actively choose which obstacles on which path you want to tackle? What about incorporating staple level gimmicks like cannons and springs that let you find alternate routes or skip certain parts of the quickstep sections? How about adding unique timing-based elements where the level geometry/terrain can block off or destroy certain paths thru these quickstep sections if the player/Sonic doesn’t reach them/get thru them fast enough?
Hell, what about finding new ways to utilize the quickstep as both an attack that destroys enemies and as a “side ram” of sorts that can alter specific obstacles or open up new paths?
…Do you see what I’m getting at here?
There’s so many good ideas here that could utilize the quickstep to its fullest potential; Ideas that not only add some much needed challenge to the Boost gameplay, but also allow for a unique kind of spectacle that no other Sonic gameplay style could really offer.
And this is on top of the overarching level design philosophy that’s already present within the levels as a whole. (Which, if you’ve been paying attention, is something that I tried to incorporate into the suggestions I put forth.)
The only thing that would've made sonic generations is adding reskin characters like shadow for sonic and charmy for classic sonic or switch to tails.
I think we can all agree that Generations was the last game 99% of fans agreed was REALLY damn good
Nah it’s just a product.
@@iceman92211 you too, are a product
@@iceman92211 Naw, its a great game
when you play this game, especially first time, for lots of shortcuts you have only one chance. i like this "if you want this shortcut you need to be better. oww did you miss? then you missed it buddy, try again next time." design. it somewhat makes up for the lack of difficulty for me. This logic in level design also adds extra difficulty when hunting for red rings.
The only thing the game was missing when I played it was a marathon mode, like the Colors 'Egg Shuttle'.
It would be really nice if a remaster or mod existed that allowed you to choose to pick-&-choose to play Modern, Classic, & Boss Levels(maybe with option to skip final boss?)
And then you could play what you want in one go, and get a time/score tally at the end~
I wasn't expecting you to hop right on to the biggest pre-BOOM boost game right away on Sonic speed!
still amazing how the spin dash will have you taking of like a rocket more than the rocket wisp will ever take you
Sonic Generations is one of my favorite Sonic games. Like at least in my top 5. Boost Formula is not my favorite style, but the level design really helped out this game a lot. Classic Sonic is also really fun. Back in the day I thought "Do I think it's this good just because it has a lot of references to the great games that came before this one?" But I do think it's the overall game that just makes me love it. Having nostalgia does help, but even if these were all new zones with the same level design, I'd still love it. To me, this was peak use of Boost Formula and "Classic Sonic"...and other than Mania, this should've been the end of the use of Classic Sonic and the classic style (like the overuse of Green Hill, Chemical Plant, etc). But yeah, other than the issues you brought up and the story (which I'm sure that video is coming sometime soon), this is a solid Sonic game and solid game overall.
Really ? Cause the level design felt all over the place especially with all the 2D sections
@@iceman92211 The level design is good
Colors was my first sonic game but generations goes hard af.
24:35
Technically the reuse level design from previous games. But one, that’s the point. And two, they were able to still make great level design out of remixing these older levels.
They don't reuse the design. Just the themes and set pieces.
Why is this game so good? Answer is most likely money. Around 2010 to 2012 Sega had an unusual record break in revenue from game sales, after a decade of operating near red. SegaSammy didn't saved Sega, they just gave them a ceiling.
The 2010's was when Sega started seeing the return of all those restructuring and firings from the 2000's, coupled with the deal with Marvel to produce tie-in games for their Super Heroes - the hot brand at that time. I imagine Sonic Team got a nice injection of cash into their studio, and Sega would like to do well for Sonic's 20th birthday.
I would argue Sonic Lost World also had a lot of investment from Sega, but that game suffered from being designed for Nintendo players in mind, and being tied to the flop that was the Wii U. Then Sonic Boom happened and you know the drill.
After this brief period of success Sega's yearly reveue plummeted back to what it was before, around 2 billion USD. Sounds a lot, but Sega is one of the least profitable game studios in Japan, there's no compassion between Sega a giants like Square Enix and Nintendo. Also, don't mix Sega and SegaSammy. SegaSammy is the parent company that owns a gambling business and they make a shit load of money, but they don't invest much in game development.
I knew you wouldn’t like the truck sequence, but it also gets worse, because when I play it I just dodge the first saw and then I don’t have to do anything, just hold boost until the level’s over. But I found out that you can get on top of something and run on a wall for a little bit and that made me entertain myself cause it looks cool, so that takes the problem away a bit for me.
Can't believe how someone can find Adventure 1 and 2 better than Generations. I can see how you can prefer and like the adventure games over generations, but not how you can find it better than generations.
also crazy how the same time has passed between SA2 - generations as generations - frontiers. level of quality hasn't improved in the same way tho
@@miadatenshi9903 And it still is better than both adventure games. Classic sonic is still much better than both mech and treasure hunt stages. I don't get what you mean by modern Sonic has more depth, having more moves doesn't mean more depths, they are both platformes where most of the depths comes from the level design. The game being short and not having story are not negatives, or else people would complain about Sonic 3&K and Mania. The Adventure games are extremely unpolished and clunky, not to mention the padding and awful pacing, things that Gens don't have. The game not having originality is a problem, but a small one in the grand scheme of things.
I remember coming back to it, thinking it wasn't as fun as I remembered. Maybe it was the overly familiar nostaliga pandering worlds. Controls were fine but the content kinda lacks. there are side missions, yes, but only some of them I found interesting.
I really liked how classic Sonic allows you to spin dash with the action button and also do it by pressing down and jump.
Because it’s clear that one of them is catered to people who either only know the Spindash from 3D games or at least expect some other move to exist on a different button from a jump button and will likely press the same button they boost with as Modern Sonic.
Meanwhile, you can press down and jump as well. And people who don’t know about that might not even think to do it. But actual classic fans will primarily think to do this naturally.
I have never had the bost meter emptyed in generation but often in unleashed (specially early game when you dont have much bost). How on earth could you run out of bost in generation?
Yeah...Generations really is amazing game and deserve the praise it gets.
Agree
36:39 maybe it was because this was made during a time sega was moving things around in the company so sonic team had a higher budget than usual
Fuck yeah. I loved this game so much when it came out but I haven’t been able to play it since! I’m glad you gave such a good review
I heard Adventure Sonic was meant to be added to this game or smth. Which would explain Modern Sonic's 2d-3d gameplay. Classic was all 2d, Adventure was all 3d, Modern was both
Technically that’s because of the boost to win gameplay
@@iceman92211this game isn't Boost to win. There is a lot 3d and 2 platfroming and you can't pass through them by just boosting.
@@BricksterMan oh, so you’re admitting that there’s actually 2D sections I guess that’s a proof that the boost to win gameplay is so inconsistent and messy
@@iceman92211 w-what? Game switcthing from 2d to 3d isn't messy. İt always happens smoothly. And olso you say this game is Boost to win but, entirety of the Boost levels in generations is 10 times more angaging than all of the adventure games atleast, this game in its boost levels has 3d platforming adventure 2 speed stages doesn't even have Any platforming olmost at all in its speed stages. İ really don't get your point like, what are trying to say💀 Becasue i seriusly don't understand.
@@BricksterMan because a 3D game should be a 3D game if I want to play 2D sections I can just play an actual 2D game instead of this
And obviously you think it’s not boost to win because of all the 2D and the random stuff in it and can you please stop mentioning adventure because I don’t even care about that game anymore since it’s so incredibly old and I’m even judging this game on its own
So my point is, they shouldn’t put any 2D sections in any way if the game is supposed to be 3D and I think this is a game is the dumbest one to use them because there’s already a fully 2D Sonic, so what’s the point of putting 2D for the other one?
And let’s be honest this boost to win gameplay is just really repetitive
I didn't expect you to like classic Sonic
As someone who started with the classic games, I don't like the classic levels in this game, I don't hate them but I don't feel like it's good level design, those have a lot of problems, I mean, 80% of the time it's waiting for the level to do it's thing, waiting for a platform to lower or enemies to move, a lot of basic blocky platforming and scripted levels, I like the spindash but I feel like I can't use it, if I do a crazy jump instead of skipping a good chunk of the level, I die or I "break" the path I was doing, also physics usually don't help with platforming, for some reason Sonic controls better when he's underwater
I LOVE Classic Sonic!
Man, this was an interesting video for the "Always Good" series.
It's surprising to see that for this game, there was actual boss fights you liked.
I know that TECHNICALLY, Perfect Chaos is more of a level than a boss fight, with the attacking of the boss just being the equivalent of transitions you have between portions of SA1, but... Honestly I would prefer that to actual boss fights, since it means it's a naturally spectacle-driven stage and the engagement of the boss in the story feels natural to Sonic? Rather than take us out of the speed-based game loop, just make it where the stage is the story of how this character handled the fight.
As for the rival fight, I wish we had more fights like the Shadow fight in Gens, since it feels more fitting to actually have races in the Sonic series, especially if we integrate Metal, a character that while fighting isn't impossible, his most iconic fight when he isn't Neo Metal was and still is Stardust Speedway. Give us some races against CPUs with an understanding of the track that is easy to beat on first try but requires mastery and understanding the game mechanics and level design to beat.
Pariah may I suggest a mod that fixes the final boss, it’s called time eater fixed forever, it would be cool for you to put this mod on your spreadsheet
Impressive, very nice
Now let's hear about the total non story it has