Sonic Generations is definitely the finest Sonic game in a long time!
The story of the game is perhaps the most enjoyable story from a sonic game in a long time, where they finally manage to make real comedy moments and the characters express in more fun ways. That's not to say is a deep one like the good old sonic adventure days, but it still manages to entertain and create a lot of nostalgia, especially when the classic sonic and tails meet the modern sonic and tails. Even Eggman becomes such a hilarious character in the story, contrary to Sonic Colors where they seem to be trying too hard to make him funny, but doesn't feel natural in its script. Unfortunately the other secondary characters like rouge the bat, knuckles the echidna, Amy rose and the others don't have an interesting role at all in the story, or even a good old dialogue that we can always remember from them. This is also mostly due to the main problem of Sonic Generations, that it feels short in content, but I will discuss that later on.
To start off the gameplay I will discuss classic sonic, which is the new portion introduced into the modern sonic world of games. Classic Sonic surprisingly does a better job of bringing back Sonic to his old classic days, contrary to Sonic the hedgehog 4 which feels like modern sonic trapped in a classic world. While it definitely does follow all these classic sonic traditions in a brilliant matter there is still some instances here and there that give a different feel to it, whether its positive or negative. One example is that even though is more based on the sonic moves of sonic the hedgehog 2 because it includes the spin dash, this spin dash can be really fast and can sometimes lose control of sonic. Another thing is that sometimes the camera seems a bit too close on sonic and doesn't offer a wide view of the stage so we can prepare for the next platforming section of a stage. The rest of the platforming however functions really well, like sonic bouncing onto robots in order to destroy them, instead of doing homing attacks. Even if sometimes certain enemies are in difficult areas to jump on them or happen to be too quick and hit you first instead. All in all, classic sonic plays really well and it is the most close sonic has been in returning to his old classic roots, despite a few minor things here and there.
Now comes the controversial modern sonic, who has been going through a lot of changes in the past few year, and I personally have not been the biggest fan of its last games Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colors. However, to my biggest surprise, the modern sonic in sonic generations plays so much better than the one in colors and unleashed that I almost started to cry. The core concept still remains the same, where there is the mix of 3d segments and 2d segments, but lately they were paying no attention to these 3d sections. This time around they manage to fix these 3d segments, which usually were difficult to control, especially when taking turns. They fixed it by having sonic do a spin dash when he is about to take a curve, and is performed really well as it doesn't interrupt the speed you are going through, where as in Colors it was weird by combining the brakes and other controls all together. Not only that but it also has some nice platforming in 3D as well, particularly in the dreamcast era stages, proving that the dreamcast era formula is still the best one. The boost also makes a welcome return, and it's definitely more balanced as the game divides between which parts you have to go through boost, and which ones you have to do platforming, instead of just boosting all the way through like sonic unleashed. Modern Sonic definitely overall has improved a lot and functions really well, even if in certain stages like crisis city they try to complicate a little too much in certain 2-d platforming sections.
Has far has boss fights go, they are generally good but not all of them are as memorable as one would normally come to expect, even if ironically they are based on memorable boss fights of sonic games. First we have the rivals which involve fighting metal sonic, shadow and silver, which are some pretty cool fights as they are all a chase sequence of going really fast and avoiding obstacles and have quite a great adrenaline rush to it. Yet in the case of Metal Sonic, it sometimes is hard to make sonic jump on metal to hit him, as Classic Sonic does not feature a homing attack. Meanwhile the Shadow battle adds some strange gimmick of speeding up to try and grab some pink thing and ends the battle very easily. However, the Silver the hedgehog battle is truly well done and it is mostly because they did not based themselves to the original battle of sonic and silver on sonic the hedgehog 06. Instead they decided to use the crisis city setting and also made it a fast chase sequence, but avoiding the objects silver throws at you, careful timing is required for the battle in order to succeed, and it plays out really nicely.
The main bosses featured are two Eggman machines and perfect chaos, the Eggman machines even though visually impressive, they can have certain strange mechanics that takes some time to figure out ways to kill them or never make sense. I won't say much in detail as I don't want to spoil them all out for you, of course, but they are not as epic as they could have been because of these mechanics. Perfect Chaos however works out wonderful and very similar to its original version except this time you don't battle it in super sonic form, now just modern normal sonic form. It's mostly however stages since you are jumping from platform to platform and in the end reach chaos. Still is a pretty nice return of such a great battle of Sonic Adventure, and yes there is a close up of Perfect Chaos' eye. The last battle as I mentioned before, is perhaps the most disappointing one of all has the way of hitting the boss seems really uninteresting, even shadow the hedgehog's videogame had a much better last boss.
The level choices for this game was really great, they are all different and have unique twists to it. Even the Sonic Colors stage features the wisps, and has more emphasis on platforming just like the original game except that the stage lasts quite long on both classic and modern sonic and obligates you to use the wisps to proceed. Even if I may give emphasis on the mistakes and problems of Sonic generations, these things are really minor, it is still an outstanding gameplay, and you can play through the game without even having any problem with these things I mentioned. Yet, sonic fans want to know into detail what things work and don't, so I just want to give them an idea of what to be prepared for. If you have been waiting to see Sonic return into full glory of enjoyment like he used to be, then you are in for a treat.
Visually Sonic Generations is by far the most impressive looking sonic game where the level design is full of detail and objects that can create certain nostalgia like keeping some infamous posters in city escape. Yet things look even more impressive for the genesis levels as they feel so fresh and new but still similar at the same time to the classic version, the transition has definitely been done very smoothly. Unfortunately it only runs 30 fps in the consoles instead of the 60 fps that the PC version does. While these don't interrupt the excitement of the game, it would have helped a bit to see the speed even faster and fluid, that even Sonic the Hedgehog Next Gen (2006) has. That being said, the character models do look very well polished, including classic sonic and classic tails that looks really cute.
In terms of sound, Sonic Generations is a huge improvement from the last few Sonic titles, with classic sonic songs with new remixes, and much more polished voice acting than in Sonic Colors or Sonic Free Riders. While essentially, they are still the same voice actors from those games I mentioned, they actually managed to balance more the tones of the characters, with Sonic sounding a bit more younger then the old too cool for school guy from Colors. The only character that they keep failing at doing his voice right is Shadow the Hedgehog, in Free Riders he sounds like he is a smoker, and in this one he sounds sexually confused. The classic music of each game that is reinvented is back, which includes the original track and a remix version of it, and all of the songs sound simply amazing, even the remixes feel fresh and new. They are also a few new tracks here and there like the final boss music that is really well done as well, Sonic always does excellent in music and this game is no exception. Just remember, in the last battle, everything looks like a homing shot, you will understand when you get to that moment.
Unfortunately the main game is actually pretty short and can be beaten between 4 to 5 hours, which means that it could have pay tribute to more sonic games like Sonic CD. Luckily, the game features more than 80 extra missions, 10 from each world in time that you visit and these offer quite a lot of fun. Most games, you come to expect silly extra missions, but in this game particularly, each mission is varied with different gameplay styles like using the help of one of Sonic's friends, avoiding certain obstacles, using a new power up, or even some extra memories from that stage or a stage that normally is day, turns into night. With all those missions, the game will keep you entertain for weeks, but unfortunately there is no multiplayer feature, only online records to see who finishes the stage first. Sonic Generations is definitely the finest Sonic game in a long time, while I normally have enjoyed just about every Sonic game, this one definitely stands out really well from the rest. It is amazing how Sega decided to combine both fan bases of Sonic into just one, and improving Modern Sonic with some Sonic Adventure formula elements that I have desired for so long. It visually looks great, musically is a classic masterpiece and voices have improve a lot as well. It's a shame that the main story ends up pretty short, but it still manages to do quite an exciting one finally. Sonic Generations is proof that Sonic is back in the game, with one of the finest platformers of the year.