Sonic Generations is one of the few games where my opinion of it across 10 years has remained a constant "Hell yeah". Whereas a lot of Sonic games have started showing their weaker aspects as I grew older, Gens remains incredibly fun, mezmerizing, thrilling and wonderful.

Not only does it have jawdropping presentation and insanely good music, not only are the controls responsive and tight, but the level design is just sublime, making full use of sonic's original philosophy of "good skill = faster route" to make speedrunning and replayability an absolute blast.

The worst level in this game is probably act 1 of Planet Wisp, which is an okay level, and the final boss unanimously blows, but then the remaining 90% of the game is nothing but banger stage after another. Seaside Hill Act 2 might just be the best level in Sonic History I'm not fucking kidding.

A lot's been said about classic sonic's less than perfect physics and modern sonic's boost to win philosophy, but you won't hear it from me. Even if neither gameplay style works like we would like them to, both of them perfectly compliment the level design they're placed into, so I'm not complaining.

The game's short length is certainly a bit disappointing. I think they could have levels from cd, advance and rush in them if they weren't rushed to oblivion. That said, the challenges are an extremely welcomed addition that make that fact stink a heck of a lot less.

I will say though, for as much as I'll always pick the PC version over the ps3 one, there are sooo many crashes and little bugs in PC that weren't present in PS3, showing how Sega didn't have pc ports figured out back then. It isn't a dealbreaker, but it was pretty annoying.

Sonic Generations is nostalgia done right. Back when Sonic was having an identity crisis and Green Hill hadn't been brought back a billion times, Generations served as a reminder of everything the franchise gave us both good and bad, packaged in a new code of paint like we never dreamed of. I deeply, deeply love this game, and at this point, I'm pretty sure I always will.

Reviewed on Apr 27, 2024


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