Good morning! Today I'm going to be looking at the latest game in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise: Sonic X Shadow Generations. This game is a 2024 remake of the 2011 game Sonic Generations, which itself was a modern tribute to Sonic's past games fighting against Dr. Eggman.
Side note: His name was Dr. Robotnik in the old American version of the games, but he's always been known as Dr. Eggman in the original Japanese. The game Sonic Adventure fixed the discrepancy by making "Eggman" a teasing name Sonic called Robotnik. Robotnik liked it enough, he made it his official moniker and he's been known as Dr. Eggman ever since.
The original Sonic Generations inspired the creation of new games in the classic side-scroller series, including Sonic 4 Episode I and II, Sonic Mania, Sonic Origins (which was an updated collection of Sonic 1-3 & Knuckles, Sonic CD, plus 12 Game Gear games), a cameo of "Classic Sonic" and his side-scrolling adventures in Sonic Forces, and recently, Sonic Superstars.
Sonic Generations firmly established in the canon that the 2D side-scroller Classic Sonic was a younger Sonic. Every game since his redesign in Sonic Adventure is the 15-yr old "Modern Sonic," whose 3-dimensional third-person games continue to this day.
Today, though, I will be focusing specifically on Shadow the Hedgehog's story in Sonic X Shadow Generations, since this is the "Year of Shadow" according to SEGA. He's going to be the new villain in the live-action film Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which is releasing late next month.
I do my best not to spoil the games I review, but I need to be extra careful with this one, as the opening cutscene basically explains Shadow's whole tragic past. For those unfamiliar with Shadow's games and don't want his story spoiled before they see the live action film, I will be avoiding any revealing details concerning his past.
Shadow Generations starts out with a brief glance at Shadow's past aboard the space colony ARK, a massive station orbiting Earth. This was where Shadow was created 50 years prior, by Professor Gerald Robotnik, Eggman's grandfather.
Shadow lived on the space station, alongside Gerald's young granddaughter Maria, who was a constant ray of sunshine; the only beacon of optimism and light in Shadow's life. The two of them were the best of friends.
Long story short (skipping a lot of revealing backstory), Shadow ended up captured and contained in a cryogenic tube for 50 years, where he was awoken by Dr. Eggman in the game Sonic Adventure 2. After losing a half century of time and everyone he's ever known in his life, the despairing hedgehog agreed to team up with the grandson of his creator to fight Sonic and destroy the world that ruined his life. Later, he realized he was fighting for the wrong side (and for the wrong reasons). He eventually teamed up with Sonic to save the world instead, then went off to become an anti-hero, searching to discover the truth about his dark past.
Cutting back to modern-day Shadow, we find him exploring the ARK because of an unusual bio-signature detected aboard the space colony. He's contacted by his partner, Rouge the Bat, who claims he's missing Sonic's birthday party. This was the opening for Sonic Generations, showing that Shadow's story takes place at the same time.
Suddenly, Shadow comes across a creature from his dark past: Doom's Eye! This tentacle starfish alien creature is an extension of Black Doom, a world-conquering alien from the game Shadow the Hedgehog. Even though Shadow defeated him in the past, he's somehow back!
Doom's Eye can warp reality, trapping Shadow in a Doctor Strange-esque mirror dimension of sorts.
Shadow fights Doom's Eye and after giving him a solid poke in the eye, Doom's Eye runs away through a portal, exclaiming that they'll meet again soon. You receive an alien-looking artifact that's in the shape of the Black Arms symbol, the mark of Black Doom's alien army. If you ever played Shadow the Hedgehog, you'll recognize this symbol as part of the game's logo.
As if there weren't enough trouble, the Time Eater from Sonic Generations shows up, trapping everyone at Sonic's birthday party in a time anomaly!
This was the latest plot by Dr. Eggman, to control the Time Eater and thus control time itself. He planned to rewrite past events and erase Sonic from existence! Shadow finds himself caught up in the anomaly, although he lands in a barren land of his own past which is frozen in time. There is a floating orb in the sky with eyes surrounding it, which awakens from the Black Arms symbol you collected. Every one you collect throughout the game brings it more to life.
Having no way out of this "White Space," you start exploring various stages, reliving places and villains from Shadow's past. Every stage has two acts, which bring life and color to the area as you complete them.
This area is different from Sonic's White Space in Sonic Generations. Sonic explores a 2D White Space, where all the frozen stages are lined up in a row. Shadow gets more of an open map to explore, like the recent open-world Sonic Frontiers game.
Eventually, you find others who have been trapped in the time anomaly, like E-123 Omega, Shadow's other partner; Orbot and Cubot, Eggman's robot lackeys; Big the Cat, a friendly fisherman whose looking for his best friend, Froggy; and... Maria and Gerald Robotnik?!
These two familiar faces from Shadow's distant past are a sight for sore eyes. Vowing to protect them, he runs off to save more of the time-frozen realm and stop Black Doom, the main villain of Shadow's past. Black Doom plans to use the time anomaly to accelerate his plans and destroy the world before Shadow has a chance to stop him.
Shadow, as the "ultimate life form," has his own powers, including Chaos Control. It's a way he can use chaos emeralds to warp time and space, which he usually uses to teleport. In this game though, it freezes time for a few seconds while Shadow continues moving. It's used as a way to freeze impossible obstacles so Shadow has a moment to cross, destroy, or escape them. It also freezes your game clock, giving you a few spare seconds to complete an act without dropping to a lower final grade. Destroying enemies fills the Chaos Control gauge at the bottom center of the screen.
You also unlock Doom powers for Shadow, allowing him to use the dark energy for new abilities. But the stronger Shadow gets, the stronger Black Doom gets, making your inevitable fight a tough one.
There was an act in Sonic Generations where Sonic goes back in time to a race/fight with Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2. This fight was retconned in this remake, where modern-day Shadow runs into Sonic in the time anomaly and they chase each other into the past act where they originally raced. Sonic is looking to take the Chaos Emerald that Shadow has on him, because he needs it in order to stop the Time Eater. But Shadow needs it to perform Chaos Control, so he has an advantage against the Black Arms. Who do you think will win this fight...?
This game was a masterful remake of a tribute to the classic games in the Sonic franchise. Not only modernizing graphics and gameplay, but also adding more lore, exploring Shadow's past games, and introducing his gameplay to elements of more modern games, like Sonic Forces and Sonic Frontiers.
The gameplay is fantastic, seamlessly blending action and speed with the controls so you actually feel like you're moving at mach speeds while controlling Shadow. And the visuals are just incredible for a Sonic game! Like in the Kingdom Valley stage, where you ride an eagle several times throughout the two acts! This is a throwback to the game Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), where the eagles provided characters transportation throughout Kingdom Valley.
This game is full of references and updated levels of older Sonic games, but you don't need to play the previous games to get enjoyment out of this one. There is plenty of story and lore to fill in the gaps, so you don't feel left out. The important details are fully covered, while also giving you a new full story to enjoy. The only thing that might stop you from playing it is Shadow's backstory, which might ruin parts of the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog 3 film that's about to release. But that film series is already deviating quite a bit from the original games, so you probably won't spoil much of the film if you play this game.
As a huge Sonic the Hedgehog fan for over 30 years now, I can say that I really enjoyed this game! So much so, that I'm actually going to go back and re-play some of the older Sonic games from my childhood. I wish I could play Shadow the Hedgehog, which introduced Black Doom and his Black Arms, but it only released for the PS2 and it never got a port to any other console. We need a modern port and/or remake, SEGA!
