You could fight red Eggman-shaped robots in one game and mechs straight out of Metal Gear Solid in another. The current Sonic lives in a Roger Rabbit-hodgepodge, where cartoon characters and normal humans coexist in a clash of styles. In comparison, the Mario games’ Mushroom Kingdom had no real geography, but it had locals that reappeared from game to game, and everyone looked like they belonged in it. But it didn’t feel like Sonic was in his own world anymore. Generations was the first time I tried out the Rooftop Run stage from Sonic Unleashed, and soaring over a gorgeous Italian town was great. Everyone was in a race to create the most lifelike graphics, and seeing an anthropomorphic hedgehog blast through these landscapes was a spectacle, even if it made no sense.ĭon’t get me wrong: This art direction isn’t bad. These games appeared on the Sega Dreamcast, the first console with the power to do more with polygons than create crude blocks and figures.
The switch in locales is drastic but understandable. Most of the modern games use this approach except for Sonic Heroes. Sonic Adventure 2’s City Escape has him running around at the speed of sound in San Francisco. Speed Highway, the game's contribution to Generations, has Sonic racing down buildings in a modern metropolis. The stages now took place in lifelike canyons, cities, and military bases.
Then Sonic Adventure appeared, and the Blue Blur’s "realism period" began. The franchise established a preference for green vistas, industrial areas, and pinball wonderlands early on, and these motifs continued until 1999. The early titles had a unique look that separated them from their competition, with their half pipes and quadrangle-lined walls. It also shows us, however, something hinted at in Sonic Colors that we haven’t seen for some time: the world and art style that was synonymous with Sega's mascot in the Genesis days. The emphasis of Generations is on the different playstyles of the simple, classic Sonic and the hedgehog of today. I reach the top, and nothing is there except for a goal ring.ĭespite that - all aficionados nitpick remastered classics - Sky Sanctuary shows just as much about what the series is about as it did a decade ago. I bounce across clouds to dreamlike music until I reach the section where I circle a collapsing tower and jump into the Death Egg. The Sonic & Knuckles stage is reimagined as an ivory mausoleum in Sonic Generations, the video-game equivalent of a greatest hits album for Sega’s mascot.
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