Sonic X Shadow Generations is so slick it does the impossible - makes me nostalgic for a game I hated

Bit-by-bit, Sega is revealing the levels on offer in Shadow Generations, the new game-within-a-game that is shipping as part of the wider Sonic X Shadow Generations package. The latest info drop features a highlight from one of Shadow’s least auspicious outings.

As well as being a previously-deadly google search, Sonic X Shadow Generations is basically a supercharged remaster. The majority of the package is a tight, nice-looking remaster of 2011’s Sonic Generations, a game which offered a barn-storming journey through Sonic’s entire history at the time.

Included in the package as a new bonus is the same for Shadow - a selection of levels that retell the antihero’s story over the years, from his 2001 debut in Sonic Adventure (still the gold standard 3D Sonic game, by the way) through to the present day. I’ve played it at preview once already this year, and I really rather liked it. I’m sold on the game already.

With that said, playing a level from 2006’s Sonic the Hedgehog doesn’t exactly fill me with glee. That game is… something.

My memory of Sonic 2006 is of a buggy, unfinished mess. It’s of NPCs that make inhuman noises as they gesticulate robotically. It’s of bloody Silver the Hedgehog trapping me in an endless throw loop in a boss fight, essentially soft-locking the game as he repeatedly screams “It’s no use!” Sonic has been party to some of the greatest games of all time, but - unlike Mario - he’s also put his name to quite a number of truly dirt stinkers. And Sonic 2006 is surely one of the worst offenders. It is, to put it mildly, the pits. And I’m not even getting into the kissing.

And yet… I find something magical happening in this preview. Playing a recreation of Sonic 2006’s Kingdom Valley… I feel nostalgic for that putrid game that almost made me smash my Xbox 360 to bits. Zipping through the level, I’m reminded of what was really rather lovely about that game: a fabulous soundtrack, a pleasing realism-meets-fantasy art design, and the heady ambitions it had towards offering a truly exhilarating sense of speed and adventure.

More than anything, it reminds me that, given more time and money, Sonic 2006 could very well have been a worthy Sonic Adventure 3. Weirdly, that doesn’t fill me with a sense of loss - because Shadow Generations itself feels like exactly the right thing for now, for the year in which Shadow is likely to become a cinematic icon.

My sense of nostalgia is tickled, but when I later speak to the developers, they’re quite keen to point out that while this game is doubtless driven by nostalgia, it isn’t exclusively about nostalgia. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“This is a 'Generations' title, and because of that the Shadow portion of the whole package needed to make sure it went back through all of the big, key moments of Shadow's history. If we just recreate the old, that's not enough,” Sonic X Shadow Generations director Katsuyuki Shigihara tells me.

“So we do need to say, hey, we know and acknowledge that this stage or boss battle did exist in the past. We need people to have that nostalgic feel where they remember that old gameplay, but it simply isn't enough to just give players the same old thing.

“We need to bring excitement into the experience. We need things to feel fresh. In order to do so, we need to make a balance of some of the old familiar things, but also make sure we're exciting the player by showing them something new.”

Nowhere is this more clear than in Shadow Generations’ boss battles. Fights against the likes of Sonic Adventure 2’s Biolizard and Sonic Heroes’ dramatically-named Metal Overlord in many ways only bear a passing resemblance to their original iterations - instead aiming to dazzle with new mechanics and cinematic flair that’ll surely rival anything Shadow will get up to on the silver screen. At the same time, the feeling is there - it reminds of those games, though it’s doubtless infinitely more polished than the (admittedly charming) jank of noughties Sonic games.

Part of the feeling is also in Shadow’s powers. Shadow has done a lot over the years. I remember him playing the best in Sonic 2006, in fact, because his lower speed than Sonic meant that he wasn’t running into speed and world-streaming death-bugs nearly as often, and he didn’t have questionable puzzle sections like Silver. But in that game Shadow also drove cars with giant rocket launchers attached to them. And of course, in his own titular game, Shadow wields a Heckler & Koch MP5A3, a gun usually seen in the hands of soldiers, law enforcement, or dissidents. Naturally, he’s not going to be waving that around in this more family-friendly trip through his past.

But the developers have been canny; the new powers and cinematic moments given to Shadow aim to evoke the overall feeling of the various things he’s done over the years, even if he isn’t going to pick up a glock ever again.

“We needed to really ask ourselves, 'who is Shadow, and who does Shadow need to be?'. That's the first question, really, in order for this to work and for this to feel like Shadow,” says producer Shun Nakamura. “What we really boiled it down to is this: Shadow is a character who will do whatever it takes to get the job done and to achieve his goals, whatever that goal may be.

“He's always kind of been that way throughout all of our games, but we really made that the unifying thread for Shadow Generations. So then the question is, right - what would he do? How can he get through this game? What would his new abilities be?

“The answer ended up that we were going to give him these Doom Powers, which will feel very Shadow-like, something dark and cool. This is something only Shadow can do, and these powers will allow us to get him through the game and do very Shadow-feeling actions that unify the start-to-finish experience of the story of Sonic the Hedgehog.”

The result feels compelling. And like I say - it made me feel warm feelings for Sonic 06, which I would’ve told you would be impossible except for a passing appreciation for some of its soundtrack. This is nostalgia done right.

Sonic X Shadow Generations releases for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and PC on October 25.