Sonic X Shadow Generations: 2005 Called, And You Should Answer

Written by Kieron Verbrugge (Instagram, Bluesky)

The early-to-mid 2000s were a great time to be a video game character franchise entering a “dark” chapter. With third wave emo culture at its arguable peak, young gamers were looking for icons of introspection, brooding badasses and antisocial anti-heroes, and so the games of the era began to do exactly what their protagonists’ polygonal personages were already great – they got super edgy.

In 2003, Naughty Dog followed up the bright, beachy and fairly typical 3D platformer in Jak & Daxter with Jak II, a grimy GTA-like with a greater emphasis on firearms and fascism. It also gave the titular Jak a mopey alter ego powered by a mysterious and dark energy, aptly named Dark Jak. 2004 brought us Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, following an already-grim second act with a decidedly more emo threequel. It also gave the Prince a mopey alter ego powered by a mysterious and dark energy, aptly named Dark Prince.

Occasionally, when not turning established heroes into Dark Heroes, developers would look to any already-gloomy co-stars in established series’ that could feature in more sullen and sordid spin-offs. 2006’s Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, for example, took a fan-favourite side character and stuck him in a semi-competent third person shooter. Or consider 2005’s Shadow the Hedgehog, which (you guessed it) took a fan-favourite side character and stuck him in a semi-competent third person shooter.

All this is to say, at the crux of my teenage years, video games were feeding me exactly the kind of material my moody, angsty, highly emotional brain was keen to eat up. As someone introduced to gaming with the original Sonic the Hedgehog on the SEGA Master System, Shadow the Hedgehog was especially compelling.

Fearless

Fast forward to 2024: SEGA has declared this the Year of Shadow. Not only has the hush-voiced hedgehog picked up a pivotal role in Hollywood’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 — and had his bike, the Dark Rider, taken on a real-world road tour — but he’s also joined forces with Sonic himself to give us new Shadow-led video game shenanigans.

Sonic X Shadow Generations is more than just a souped-up remaster of 2011’s well-received timeline smashing adventure, it delivers a brand-new campaign that runs parallel to Sonic Generations‘ original storyline and plays on Shadow’s dramatic history. And importantly, where the original Generations celebrated 20 years of hedgehog-y history, Shadow Generations is locked in on that era of skinny jeans, box-dyed black hair, MySpace and metalcore.

Out of the Shadows

For Shadow’s side of Sonic X Shadow Generations, we get an entirely new story from regular Sonic comic contributor and Sonic Frontiers writer, Ian Flynn, that explores the origins of the artificially-created hedgehog and “Ultimate Life Form” along with his connection to the evil alien threat of Black Doom and relationship with Professor Gerald Robotnik and Maria. It runs on the same mechanics as Generations’ time-warp antics and serves a similar purpose — sending players on a tour of the character’s history through a series of new-but-familiar stages. However, this time, the story is far meatier and more impactful, packed with cutscenes, dialogue, and character development beyond pure fan service.

I was fully expecting the Shadow portion of this Sonic Generations refresh to feel a bit tacked-on and throwaway, with some new stages and not much else. However, based on production values alone, that’s categorically untrue. Even before you get into the content proper, there’s a gorgeous, near-14-minute anime prologue titled Dark Beginnings that’s incredibly well put together and serves as a fantastic introduction — or re-introduction — to Shadow, effectively setting the tone for the rest of the game.

The wonderful thing about all of this is, despite the almost 20-year gap, Shadow has brought along all of his intense rancor and resentment, spouting line after line of emo nonsense against the backdrop of a world where, within minutes, we go from the heavy implication of a human child being gunned down by militants and a talking space hedgehog being invited to a birthday picnic by a sexy bat in pink latex is mere minutes. Yes, mid-2000s media often dealt in dark ideas but it was also deeply unserious and that’s alive and well here. Shadow Generations might not contain anything quite as goofy as Sonic 06’s suggestions of human-on-hedgehog fornication (thornication?), but there’s plenty of levity to be found – intentional or not.

A New Frontier(s)

In keeping with the trend of Shadow Generations exceeding any initial expectations I had going in, the actual game on offer here is more than just, well, more. Not content to slap on a handful of new stages with a palette-swapped protag and call it a day, Sonic Team has really gone wide with the Shadow campaign.

The core principle is roughly the same, with players progressing through a series of stages based on those from prior Shadow games, divided into 2D and 3D-style “Acts”, all connected by a stark white hub world that slowly fills in with colour and new areas as you go. Unlike Sonic’s half though, Shadow’s hub is actually a fully roamable 3D space packed with its own exploration and platforming gameplay that feels remarkably familiar to Sonic Frontiers. It manages to improve upon that game’s free-roam fun, too, with a smaller but more layered play space that feels more deliberately designed.

This hub also plays well into another of Shadow’s big points of difference with his blue chum – a steadily growing assortment of “Doom Powers” granted by his connection with Black Doom. These range from being able to throw out a series of projectiles or fling enemies into destructible objects, to surfing, gliding and even turning into a Splatoon-style goo creature. Having access to these adds a whole lot to the established formula, allowing for much more interesting level design with an even bigger focus on momentum and mobility. With a couple of small exceptions, I’d go as far as to say that the Acts in Shadow’s campaign are largely better than anything seen in Sonic’s.

Chuck in some epic boss encounters that are all equally distinct and make great use of your growing repertoire, and bite-sized Challenge Acts that rival the main levels in razor sharp design, and you’ve got one heck of a compelling slate of content on top of the prettier re-release of Sonic Generations. In fact, it’s essentially the opposite of something like Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, where the original material was still the main attraction. Shadow Generations is absolutely the big draw here, bringing this remaster of 2011’s Sonic Generations kicking and screaming back into 2005.

You can grab Sonic x Shadow Generations now on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and PC.

A copy of Sonic x Shadow Generations was supplied to Quest Daily for the purpose of this article.