Test - Sonic X Shadow Generations: Test: The best Sonic game of modern times is now great!

Do we really need a Sonic Generations remaster? Depends on which console you use. Xbox Series So 60 FPS instead of 30. Meanwhile, Playstation fans were staring down the tubes. Reason enough for Sega to release an official remaster. To make it worthwhile for everyone, it also contains the most popular shadow levels.

Looking at the quality rollercoaster that Sonic's 3D releases have suffered since the Dreamcast era almost brings tears to your eyes. A constant up and down without a constant, but with bitter low blows. The terribly buggy Sonic '06 damaged the brand so much that hardly anyone wanted to believe it would be resurrected.

It took a while for Sonic to find his way back to his old strengths. In fact, until its 20th birthday in 2011, when Sonic Generations for Xbox 360 and PS3 finally combined all the features that make a Sonic a Sega hit after a long dry spell.

Breathtaking speed, dizzying level structure, bumpers, loops, alternative paths, corkscrew bridges and ? the most important thing? great playability. Gone were finally the days when you fought more with the camera than with Dr. Robotnik's minions. Suddenly the time when poor collision detection and dubious level management spoiled the fun was just a memory. Sonic Generations dropped stones from fans' hearts.

It was only partly about a new design. Rather, Sega grabbed many of the most popular levels from previous Sonic games and linked them into a best-of along with an overarching plot. These include not only obvious favorites such as City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2, in which Sonic is chased by a truck, but also the once buggy but wonderfully contented Crisis City from the aforementioned shitfest Sonic '06.

In part it was about making amends for old mistakes. And last but not least, a homage in which Sega improved the playability of the original Sonic games on the Mega Drive and the "new" one. Sonic juxtaposed with the 3D era.

Best-of-the-Universe

The framework didn't add up to much - and even today, in the remastered version, it hardly causes more than a shrug of the shoulders. Sonic and his friends are celebrating the Blue Fakir Pillow's twentieth birthday when suddenly a ghostly monster literally bursts through the blue sky. In one fell swoop, time and space merge as Sonic's friends are sucked into different time zones and turned to stone. Only Sonic escapes the attack and ends up in a white void that only reveals several portals to long-forgotten and completely gray periods of his past.

However, Sonic's younger counterpart from the 16-bit days has also found its way into this Nexus. Your meeting seems bizarre, but you take it in stride? typical Sonic, too cool for school. Both try in their own way to breathe new life into the colorless worlds and free Sonic's crew from petrification.

This means that joypad acrobats get two different approaches to the same environments in two acts per level. If you enter the classic Green Hill Zone with Retro-Sonic, you run through the level with him in a sideways perspective and use skills from the Mega Drive days long gone. The modern Sonic, on the other hand, sprints through the landscape in the chase perspective, as we have been used to since the Dreamcast episodes. Even faster than back then, because thanks to the boost function, he can give extra full throttle at the push of a button. This makes it difficult to control at times, but the rush of speed combined with some reflex tests pumps liters of adrenaline into the body.

That's exactly why modern Sonic has to resort to aiming at predetermined target markers when doing instant sprints. With a command, it jumps at all marked objects as if it were magnetically drawn to them. This makes navigating the room much easier.

The retro version of Sonic is exactly the opposite. Because all levels are based on 3D designs, the 2D levels simply run on a narrow linear path within the polygon constructs. Sounds like a cost-cutting measure, but it's a fun feature. Retro-Sonic races past the same places as his modern counterpart, but faces the obstacles in a different way. Small déjà vu experiences mix with interesting level structures that make sense both in the chase view and in the side-scroller camera. The strengths from the Mega Drive episodes automatically emerge. You should act more exploratively and according to classic jump-and-run rules than just reacting reflexively.

After every third level there is a boss waiting to be dealt with. However, you can only achieve it once you have mastered a special challenge in each of the three associated levels. Get through with a single ring, get to your destination faster than a Sonic doppelganger, pass predetermined goals? something like that.

Now also with Shadow

Those familiar with the original may ask themselves: Why should I buy the same game again? Everything is as usual. True! Even graphically, not much has changed. In some places the lighting has been improved or the extremely exaggerated depth of field effect from back then has been toned down. Sonic

So that Sonic fans still find enough reason to buy a new one, Sonic X Shadow Generations contains a new game mode that runs parallel to Sonic's adventure. You have to choose between the two variants in the title menu because they have nothing to do with each other.

Shadow's mode follows a similar premise to Sonic's. So you start in a grayed out world, crack levels to fill them with color again and solve challenges that give you keys for the final boss. Initially the only notable difference is the view. With Sonic, you see the level selection from a sideways perspective while you direct Shadow around in 3D and even perform small skill tasks within the "void". concerns.

Some of them are even very demanding, trusting that you will use newly learned skills wisely over the course of the game. At some point, Shadow can, for example, glide over water on a manta ray or glide up walls in Splatoon style using inky slime, paving new paths to further levels.

Speaking of which: Of course, the seven additional Shadow levels follow the rules of previous Shadow episodes, as first introduced in Sonic Adventure 2 and later expanded upon in his own game. That means: the black hedgehog, who will soon celebrate his celluloid debut in the third film, runs even more nimbly on his roller skates than Sonic, but also enjoys less freedom of movement. He literally shuffles from attack target to attack target, barely touching the ground for two seconds at a time.

For players with weak reflexes, this can almost be too much of a good thing. Sometimes you only have fractions of a second to react to particular obstacles and enemy formations. Even more often than with Sonic, you are dependent on reaching further rings, enemies and grindrails in mid-air, without which you will suffer screen death in the abyss. Not that it matters much. In the end, it only hurts your final rating, which is mainly based on the time required to complete the level.

All in all, the Shadow levels seem a little more rounded than the ones from Sonic's episode. Maybe it's just a gut feeling, but they seem to more consistently follow a pattern that you can stick to. Technically they don't stand out, but they have some nice visual properties, because the villain that Shadow is hunting regularly distorts the game world in the best Dr. Strange style.

High-rise buildings bend and reflect in mandala effects that it's a real joy. A great excuse to send Shadow flying along ceilings and walls against all physical logic, but who wants to complain with so much spectacle.