Round Up: The Reviews Are In For Sonic X Shadow Generations

I wonder how it compares to Sonic Superstars?

I never played the original Generations, and I’m not sure about this one quite yet.

Giving out early review codes for only 1 specific platform is beyond stupid. I guess that Playstation check was really good and reached beyond just advertisement rights.

Whenever a publisher does the "you wont get a code until it launches" also makes me feel like they're trying to hide something, especially when it's a multiplatform release on Switch.

I do love a good campiang. Still way behind on Sonic games. Still back on Sonic 4 and Sonic Adventure 2. It will be a while before I get to this one.

@Itachi2099 id usually be right there with you, but ive seen switch gameplay and it runs pretty good!

I mean switch is at least as powerful as a PS3 I imagine ( got no clue honestly) and it ran great back in the day. Maybe the sonic half will act more like a port on switch and Shadow will need to be toned down.

Interesting to read some reviewers claiming that Astro Bot was like a before and after for platforming games…

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great game but Nintendo has been making even better platformers for decades now, some reviewers just see ‘Sony’ and go wild crazy.

I mean, I'll probably get this on PS5 anyways, I don't see myself playing this game much in handheld mode.

SEGA's been really coy about letting reviewers get their hands on the Switch version lately. First Frontiers, and now this.

Wish sega would do give our more than just PS5 codes

I've played the Shadow part at a friend's place yesterday and it ran just fine. No noticeable framerate issues and the loading times were better than expected, not bad at all O.O

I'm still gonna get the PC version myself though, the Sonic modding community is amazing and am looking forward to what they'll do for this one ^_^

Happy to see the positive responses on this game. With Sonic it’s often hit or miss.

Sega’s probably scared of how it runs on Switch

Nice can't wait to see how good the Shadow levels are, definitely will get this game in preparation for the Shadow the Hedgehog movie.

Doesn’t bode well that they are withholding keys for the Switch version from reviewers.

Sega puts the lowest amount of effort for Sonic Switch games so I don't expect much

Edit: I'm glad I set my expectations low. They shattered them with a great port!!!

There's already videos on YouTube of the game running on Switch. From what I've seen and people that got it early (physical ( have said, it's pretty stable and looks good.

cough there's footage of the Switch version on YouTube so make your own judgement there. Apparently its fairly decent if you want think of it more as a port of original cough

Subliminal messaging is my passion. You may not notice it but it's there.

@roy130390 Have you seen anything about performance in handheld mode specifically?

I'm very happy for Sega they seem to be doing very well this year. I plan on getting this and super stars I'm still far behind in the backlog but this game will certainly get added to it. Here is hoping all this success could potentially lead to a new Sega console since Xbox seems to have declined and doesn't really have a sign of turning around. Would be great to get another console out into the mix

@epicgamner
Thats certainly nice to hear, especially since with no footage (iirc) of the switch version released officially (even the trailer on nintendos youtube had a disclaimer that it wasnt actual switch footage) it wasnt the most reassuring.

Will get this on PC eventually so I can enjoy the graphical upgrades.

I may buy this when it gets a discount because Jamboree ended up higher on my priority list when I saw the commercials & some clips. Hopefully it runs better than Sonic Superstars that load time was awful & I thought it was going to crash for a moment.

Oh yeah and they also censored this game too so if that doesn't bother you, Godspeed.

@Serpenterror Yup.
-Making Amy less lovey dovely for a joke, which also neuter's Sonic's stance on romance,
-Removing a joke where Knux calls Classic fat
-Neutering Rouge's design by making her cover up and not show her breasts
-Removing the slapstick gag where Knucks gets slapped into a tree.

My PFP says it all about how I feel.
Not buying anymore.

Red flag city!!!! On another note, the ads & pop-ups on this site are nearly on par with ign & youtube. Basically reading on a phone is nigh-on impossible👎

@epicgamner alright that's fine and dandy but then why is early access thru Digital Deluxe edition available on every single platform yet Switch is excluded?

It's hilarious because Nintendo did get "early access" in a way with all the leaking of the Switch version online. I guess that's our early access lol

@Samalik about Knuckles' line about classic Sonic being "fat"; after he says that, Sonic looks sadly down at his stomach. In the edit, Knuckles only asks where the rest of his island is... Sonic still looks sadly at his stomach. It would have been better to just keep all of the dialogue the same.

At this point we need Switch specific reviews. Sure the PS5 version looks and runs great but that isn't always the case on Switch. Hopefully this port turns out better than Sonic Frontiers did

80/100 for a Sonic game equals a 100/100 Nintendo or Sony game, so fantastic! 😂

Looks absolutely fantastic. Can't wait to play this on the PS5 tomorrow and then on Switch coming friday!

And unlike SOME people here, I can easily see through these... minor censorship things and actually enjoy the game for what it is. Baffles me that some people just can't be happy and complain about every little thing. Sad, sad times.. But then - good lesson for the rest of us to BE better than them and just be grateful instead of nagging about the small stuff!

@Servbot_EJ Well when you explain it like that, it makes the whole thing worse. Morbid even

@TheExile285 Sorry, I haven't. Hopefully it's the same as it is how most people play on Switch. I'd suppose that if there's a significant difference in performance someone should have mentioned something by now, but that's just speculation.

@Serpenterror Good God what a painful video to watch.

@Indielink Nobody ask you to watch it. This is just sending the message.

@Serpenterror Doesn't make the video itself painful though. Complaining, complaining, complaining.. Yikes.

What ''message'' though? That people have too much time on their hands? If so, they succeeded...

@Serpenterror How do you know if you don't watch it to see the message that was to be conveyed?

@Maubari people aren't allowed to be dissatisfied?

So, I canceled my preorder. If developers and publishers want Switch owners' sales, they should actually earn them, by putting out quality products instead of simply relying on fanbases/install base sizes.

If the Switch version turns out to actually have quality put into it, I'll happily pick it up.

@Serpenterror Please could you let me know how to embed videos in a NintendoLife comment?

@Itachi2099 yeah that part is really silly idk why they decided to do that though if you sail the seven seas switch owners have been living large since like last friday LMAO

GameSpot's criticism of Shadow's campaign being geared towards veteran fans seems... odd? The game's called Sonic Generations and is a celebration of/pulling from past Sonic games. Of course it's geared towards veteran fans.

@Samalik you drive a hard bargain mister i gotta say i didnt expect those changes to be the make or break the game for anyone

@NeonPizza ooh, youre in for a great time! sonic gens is one of my favorites and im so glad to finally see it getting into people's hands

I bet the Switch version will be terrible... It's very unusual the Nintendo sites aren't receiving codes. Very suspicious.

@the_beaver thats what i thought too! but ive seen switch gameplay and it just seems to be a strange coincidence cause both games run at a really stable 30 fps, and a clean lookin' one at that! Think how forces looked on switch, thats what it reminded me of at least (i mean forces is a bad game but it looked and ran better than it had any right to on switch so its got that going for it). I can find a video of it and hit you or anyone else interested up with a link or two if youd like!

@epicgamner Well, if the Dragon Quest 3 debacle was enough to push me away, so would this.
The Rouge thing alone would have been enough to pushed me away since that's something I can't respect, especially in the context of a remaster.

@Samalik honestly ill need to play it myself to see how i feel about the writing changes, but i doubt they'll bother me much. Honestly, im kind of looking forward to them! I feel like the word "censorship" is being used throughout this comment section as if the original's writing was this incredible masterclass art piece that used adult tones to tell a deep and moving story when anyone that played the game knows that isnt exactly the case. It's not bad per say, but i know that I skip pretty much all dialogue and cutscenes when i replay the game and it's certainly a little stereotype-y with a lot of interactions. That's not to say that I know I'll like the new writing MORE (ive been avoiding pretty much all spoilers except switch footage so i dont know how ill feel yet), but im looking forward to seeing what they have in mind to make me like it more!

@Serpenterror Thanks for the video. Guess I will keep playing the Xbox 360 version in 4K60fps on Series X. What a shame they had to do this to a masterpiece when bringing it to other platforms.

god what is this comments section
sonic fans will find any reason to hate ian flynn
like, do you genuinely believe pontaff was better in this case?

@epicgamner Look, it's about the principle. Especially in the context of this being a legacy celebratory game in a more character driven series.

I would be willing to take some changes to the localized script, considering Pontaff kinda just winged a lot of things and made the otherwise tame Japanese script worse by proxy of being Pontaff, but changing things beyond some sincere touch ups was going too far for me.

@shiftbarackyeaugh You're the first person in this comment section to mention Ian Flynn...

@Markatron84 I think they mean it's technically the hard campaign like how it was in Heroes

@Samalik Isn't it still kinda stupid to not buy a whole game just because they changed some of the dialogue?
Amy's thing is probably the biggest problem here and even then that's like noticing a hand is missing a thumb in a gorgeous statue

@27celsius I've already been burned enough. Especially as a Wii U owner who loved Japanese games being Japanese, only to see them get butchered in localization. You learn that you give an inch they take a mile. Release the game in full or don't try making it at all.

Besides that, it's a lot more than just dialogue, as I already pointed out.

@Samalik I mean, if you don't like it you can just use the Japanese voices.
Also why you saying it like the original generations didn't have a different script between jp and us?
If anything it's technically changing the us script and not the JP script

@27celsius as much as I'm a positioner that Sonic games should be in Japanese for the best experience, that still doesn't change the subtitles still being there on one hand, and the visual and acted censorships are also still there on the other.

I already said that Pontaff's localization was awful to begin with, so dialogue alone isn't the issue

@Samalik It just feels kinda dumb to not play a fantastic game just because of what are essentially nitpicks. Like yeah sure they can be a little bit annoying but they're only gonna be there for a few seconds. before they move on.
Also the rouge thing isn't really annoying as it is more an unnecessary thing Sega of Japan added just to be sure they kept that A rating

@Samalik i can empathize with that, though admittedly I've never really thought the series' biggest strength was the story or dialogue. When it's good, it adds to the game's strengths for me, and when its bad i just skip the cutscenes! Different strokes for different folks!

@epicgamner In all fairness I only really skip cutscenes in Sonic games after I've seen them once. They are arcade games after all. So once the fun, maybe heartful adventure ends, the score attack begins. Same with other hyper arcade franchises like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry. But I still want that first playthrough to be true to itself, and maybe if I buy the game again on a different console to re-experience everything on a fresh save file on a fresh machine.

@27celsius It feels kinda dumb to willingly play through a game knowing your getting a worse, more artistically inauthentic experience. Calling them nitpicks isn't really valid. Even you are acknowledging that the game has unnecessary changes. Nothing about Rouge in past releases increased the age rating, nor are the sight of breasts gonna make kids act out or something. Neither in Japan or America. The old game was E10 in America, and frontiers was E10 without her. This series is stuck being seen as more mature than Mario regardless. Besides, I already said this isn't the only problem. The visual comedy was also toned down too, despite not being offensive to normal people.

Besides that, I already have the old steam port as well as the 3DS version. They could have kept things faithful to the original to make me buy the game again on Black Friday, but they blew it. So I don't know why you're trying to push me to buy this, knowing its faults yourself.

@Maubari why should people be happy that things are worse? Why should you paint yourself as "better then them" because you don't complain?
You can't keep being holier-than-thou when it comes to people being disappointed in this and offering valid criticism, just because you don't care as much. That's honestly a bad attitude in itself, because genuine criticism is how things open up to being better.

@Samalik "Nothing about Rouge in past releases increased the age rating, nor are the sight of breasts gonna make kids act out or something. Neither in Japan or America."

Yeah, that why I said it's unnecessary

The problem is that if people are okay with a game being ridiculously censored, it will get worse each time. At this rate, the dialogues and cut scenes will be built by AI that checks all the tick boxes in advance. 😅

@Banjo- Worse case scenario, Sonic no longer talks like Sonic because it doesn't fit with the mythical modern audiences because he's seen as too rude or whatever made up cultural trend that justifies the nonsense. We'd be back in the 90s, but with the poster child of attitude no longer himself.

That's a timeline I never wanna be in.

Also, I'm pretty sure Blizzard already made something like that AI thingy.

@Banjo- isn't that a little bit like of an overreaction?
Even if that happens the sonic fandom will still exist

@27celsius I don't know. Wait and see. We are almost there.

@Samalik You know, we've gone backwards since the noughties, I think.

@Banjo- You know you're saying this below an article talking about how sonic x shadow got a 9/10 by ign?
Also mate, you don't have to be mysterious with the whole "just wait and see"

@27celsius the Sonic fandom won't make the official games, and I've for the most part left the fandom anyways and since moved to Blue Archive. So that's not gonna satisfy me.

@Banjo- I'd say since 2010. Mid 2010s in fact.

@27celsius What has that got to do with being okay with ridiculous censorship?

@27celsius and the ign score relates to censorship of artistic expression.... how?

Did any of them actually mention the censorship in their full review?

@Samalik It's 4Kids Tier censorship and as such I think an appropriate nickname is just calling it Sonic X, both as tribute and warning.

@Banjo- @Samalik I commend you both on your stance and your replies. They get away with this kind of thing all the more when people don't take a firm stand and instead choose to settle for too little. If people had stood up to microtransactions with a steadfast mentality when they first appeared, they wouldn't be so prevalent today.

@shoeses That would be an insult to the Japanese version of Sonic X, which I have in my BluRay collection!!!

@Lightsiyd Microtransactions feel inevitable for free to play games, so in that context it's fine within reasonably implemented business. It's what kept me gaming in a year where most of my money was shifting to plamo.

Premium games on the other hand is where they don't belong, but good luck telling CoD and sports fans that.

@Lightsiyd This is kinda unrelated and I'm not really trying to make a point but why didn't people stand up to micro transactions back then?

@Samalik You're really passionate about this. Seriously, 1/6th of the comments section is you. The original is still available in a bundle. If you don't have that to play the original on then whatever. I want to have a comments section that isn't filled with pointless complaining so yeah... you can guess what's gonna happen.

@TheSaneInsanity apologies, the other guy here isn't really helping matters by not being productive in the conversation, but still going at it by spinning wheels.

that said, the old thing being in a bundle doesn't help matters for others. If I recall, that bundle is over $100 off sale.
Edit: 200 Euros.... Even if I didn't own the game, I'm not paying that price

@TheSaneInsanity Interesting how you only address one person when it takes two to tango. And I would say your complaint is far more "pointless".

@TheSaneInsanity It's actually roughly half of the comments, 47/102

@NintendoLife this comments section is devolving into indirect personal attacks. Do what you see fit.

@IOI Dude I’m a diehard nintendo fan. Astro Bot is effing awesome.

We should definitely complain about censorship, specially when there's no reason behind it.

That being said, I don't think that not buying the game sends the message. All it says is "I'm not interested in a Sonic game" as Sega isn't able to read people's minds to know the exact reason why they didn't buy it. I think that it's more effective to constantly complain on their social media, specially if a lot of people do it. They don't go out of their way to understand why something didn't sell well and only react to noise and things pointed out in their faces and even if they did, they simply won't keep trying if something isn't profitable enough.

@Samalik actually, other than the Rouge situation, I don't really see the rest as censorship at least not for the most part.

Sega had revealed a while back that they were gonna have the dialogue be rewritten. Generations was written back in what so.e call the "Meta Era" of Sonic (the 2010s, post colors), when they had the writers Pontac and Graff working on the games. These guys admitted in an interview that they didn't really know or cared about sonic prior to getting the job and all they did after being hired was "watch some cutscenes on youtube to get the gist of it", that's why every game in that era has that cringe Saturday morning cartoon humor and the characters act like parodies of themselves (with knuckles in particular being made into a joke).

After they FINALLY got rid of those guys and brought Ian Flynn (who's been writing the comics since 06) to wrote Frontiers and that resulted into a shift back to the 'Adventure Era' style of stories (like we saw with the Dark Beginins Shorts) and the most well received Sonic story in years, they wanted to rewrite the Sonic part so it wouldn't be as jarring when put next to the Shadow part. Knowing the context, to me, removing stuff like Sonic putting his hand on Amy's face and Knuckles eing slammed into a tree, or not making a "gained weight" joke wasn't done out of censorship and political correctness, but out of an attempt to take the characters more seriously.

Heck, on the Amy note, Ian actually addressed it in his podcast a few years ago when a fan noticed that Sega was already trying to move away from having Amy be obsessed with Sonic be her defining trait (it's been happening since Lost World) and he said that, to him, her feelings towards Sonic should absolutely still be part of who she is (and he even still sprinkles moments of that in IDW comics, she's just less over the top and abrasive about it), but he's ultimately beholden to write what Sega wants him to write.

That being said, no excuses for what they did to rouge's model, that is censorship and I will definetly not ever defend it. He model was fine and unchanged as recently as Mario and Sonic at the 2020 Olympics, and if NINTENDO of all people didn't have a problem with Rouge's cleavage being put next to their squeaky clean Mario, there's no justifiable reason to do what they did to her model. It was never a problem and it never affected the games' age rating.

An IGN reviewer ranked all the Sonic games (26 of them).
She put Sonic Superstars at #10
Sonic Generations at #3
Sonic X Shadow Generations she ranked the #1 best Sonic game ever, ahead of Sonic Mania Plus.

@ottoecamn Well you can take the characters seriously and still have room for slapstick humor that sometimes plays into their character faults/charms. It's fine for about every character, Knux too, to be the butt of the joke sometimes, generations' wasn't too offensive about it's, shall we say, "anime" comedy scenarios. Besides that, it doesn't help that the joke about classic sonic being fat still uses the old scene set up, so classic is still self conscious about being seen as fat, even though the dialogue never mentioned it. So there's definitely an awkward air that something was cut there too.

As I said in another comment here (don't blame ya if ya didn't see it in this mess) I'm very much aware of Pontaff's history and butchering of localizations. So re-translating everything and using Ian Flynn as the filter for that translation is still more authentic as far as I've seen. Even the accusations of referencing everything fall flat when you remember Generations is about the past anyways. Worse thing you can say about Flynn's earnest attempts is that it probably make the new recordings a tad worse, but slightly lower quality in the English isn't something to knock against him I suppose.

But at least we can agree that Rouge was an absolute problem.

@Lightsiyd Thank you. If a Sonic game is unnecessarily censored, they must expect these reactions. So many times, video game companies have backpedalled because of the reaction and, while some people might seem overreactive, many things are common sense and must be done to protect the consumers. We as consumers must demand what is reasonably fair.

Recent examples:

1) Loot boxes being regulated.

2) Sony removing the PS5 software upgrade fee (for a while, now it's back).

3) Microtransactions being removed from many games.

4) Microtransactions no longer pay-to-win in most cases.

5) Nintendo removing abusive and illegal terms from their contracts in EU and UK, e.g., those regarding the rights of consumers and digital pre-orders.

6) Nintendo expanding the guarantee of the joy-cons.

7) Google and Apple forced to allow other digital stores (in EU and UK).

8) Manufacturers forced to keep spare parts for longer.

What some people fail to see is where we would be if everyone was okay with everything. We must keep a balance as part of the society and not become slaves.

@Banjo- @ottoecamn

Well said. Concerning your comment Banjo, there is a petition going on that could rectify some consumer rights in the gaming industry. I wish I knew how to directly embed a YouTube video here so this would be easier, so if any of you know, I'd appreciate it if you shared that knowledge. Anyway, watch the video and vote if you're eligible and find it reasonable, and consider spreading the word where appropriate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkMe9MxxZiI

@Lightsiyd Definitely, I'm signing and sharing this. It could change everything and stop every gamer's worries.

Here's the website link as well:

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

And I posted it in the forum:

https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/news/petition_for_avoiding_the_removal_of_video_games

Any EU citizen can sign and those who are not can share it. It is easy and fast.

@Samalik Indeed, I'd say there's an argument to be made regarding whether or not the changes are an improvement or not (personally, i despise the Pontaff years, so as far as I'm concerned, nothing of value was lost) and it is odd that they didn't change certain animations to fit the new dialogue.

But I've a lot of people on our side of the argument conflate the writing changes and Rouge as both being instances of politically correct censorship when Id say, knowing the entire context, only the latter is. (Heck, I wasn't even gonna play the Sonic side cuz I hate the Meta Era writing, and hearing that Flynn was rewriting the whole thing actually made me wanna play it).

But I know there's a lot of cases nowadays of remakes arbitrarily changing things and censoring them, so I don't blame anyone for jumping to that conclusion.