Sonic X Shadow Generations Somehow Makes Shadow the Hedgehog Unironically Cool -

By Joey Broom

In 2021, Nintendo released Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, which bundled a Switch port of the 2013 Wii U game with a short new game that reinterpreted its mechanics in new and intriguing ways to achieve critical and commercial success. Sega clearly took notice, as they’ve now given the same treatment to Sonic.

Sonic X Shadow Generations bundles a remaster of 2011’s Sonic Generations with Shadow Generations, a new game focused on the ultimate “edgelord” himself, Shadow the Hedgehog. This isn’t Shadow’s first time headlining his own game; he previously starred in 2005’s Shadow the Hedgehog, mostly remembered for imbuing Sonic’s world with a hilariously unfitting blend of firearms, violence, and profanity. It’s also terrible, filled to the brim with baffling design choices, a nonsensical story, and awful controls. Shadow became the butt of countless jokes; his try-hard edginess was regarded as the epitome of everything that went wrong with Sonic in the 2000s.

It might surprise you that, narratively, Shadow Generations is a sequel to the 2005 game. Shadow’s archenemy, the alien warlord Black Doom, is back and seeks to take advantage of Dr. Eggman’s timeline meddling (depicted in the original Sonic Generations) to reassemble his army and conquer the world. As you can imagine, it’s up to the “edgehog” to put a stop to this. The plot is simple, but conveyed decently through well-animated cutscenes–and unlike most Sonic games, the voice acting won’t make your ears bleed.

Like Sonic Generations, Shadow Generations uses time-travel shenanigans as an excuse to revisit locations from past Sonic games. There’s new stages and bosses from games represented in the original Generations (e.g. Adventure 2 and Heroes), in addition to some from more recent games (e.g. Forces and Frontiers). The graphical and animation quality is a significant step up from the past few Sonic games and allows for massive set pieces that feel shockingly cinematic. The most stunning sequences involve Black Doom suddenly teleporting Shadow to a cityscape featuring constant gravity shifts, terrain warping, and psychedelic, kaleidoscope-like visuals.

Shadow is a blast to control with a moveset that expands on Sonic’s through abilities that make him feel like an unhinged warrior. He can stop time to quickly dispatch enemies and access alternate paths, target hazards from afar with energy spears, and grow colossal wings to soar across levels. Sega has accomplished the impossible: they made Shadow un-ironically cool. Each stage and boss challenges you to master chaining together these abilities to obtain better times, and it’s immensely satisfying. You will come away from Shadow Generations thinking of Shadow not as a tryhard edgelord, but as a living weapon who obliterates anything in his way.

Between each level, you explore a massive hub reminiscent of Sonic Frontiers’ open world. It’s a great way to get accustomed to Shadow’s controls and has a ton of things to do. You converse with other Sonic characters, who often have funny dialogue. (Who doesn’t want to listen to Big talk about how much he likes fishing?) There’s plenty of small platforming challenges that take you to levels, level-specific missions, and bosses. They also guide you to chests that you can open by collecting tokens in each level to unlock bonus content.

The bonus content is a real treat if you’re a longtime Sonic fan. Collectible concept art provides fascinating insight into the development of the games and their characters, while collectible journal pages combine adorable illustrations with beautifully-written backstory and lore. There’s also summaries of all of Shadow’s appearances up to the present, and a selection of music from past Sonic games that you can set to play in any level.

Granted, I do have three nitpicks. Firstly, the soundtrack is somewhat inconsistent. Like Sonic Generations, it comprises remixes of past Sonic tunes, this time going in an experimental, EDM-influenced direction. Some, such as “Sunset Heights” and “Kingdom Valley,” sound fantastic. Others, like “Bullet Station” and “Chaos Island,” don’t. It’s more hits than misses, but the misses stick out quite a bit. Secondly, the game is short–it took me only four hours to complete the main story. The game has a lot of replay value (as of this writing, I’ve spent another four hours unlocking bonus content and improving my rankings), but I do wish we got a little more. Shadow Generations is technically a side game, but that feeds into my third, and perhaps biggest, complaint.

If you’ve played it before, the Sonic Generations “remaster” is pretty underwhelming. It’s the same game from 2011, and the changes (re-recorded cutscene dialogue, Sonic having the Drop Dash from Sonic Mania, and some new collectibles) are minor and not enough to make a revisit feel worth it. That’s not to say it’s a bad game – far from it. It remains among the franchise’s best, with fantastic level design, excellent music, and copious bonus content. But there’s very little incentive to play it if you already have the original, and Shadow Generations’ level of polish makes me wish Sonic Generations got a more comprehensive facelift–the gap in visual and control quality makes moving between the two feel like a bigger adjustment than it should. Not to mention, if you already own Sonic Generations, you won’t receive a discount. You’re forking over at least $50 no matter what, and that may be a tall order considering how short Shadow Generations is.

Regardless, I highly recommend Sonic X Shadow Generations. If you’re a Sonic fan, it’s an essential purchase. If you’re not, it’s an excellent showcase of what makes this franchise so appealing, and you’re certain to become one once you’ve finished it – especially if we can expect this level of quality in future, full-length installments.

Sonic X Shadow Generations is now available on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Reviewed on Xbox Series S.