YMMV / Sonic Generations

• Accidental Innuendo: Be sure to include "generations" when searching for anything related to Sonic × Shadow Generations, otherwise you're going to be seeing a lot of Sonic x Shadow shipping art and fanfiction at best and outright smut at worst.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Was the Time Eater evil from the very start, or did it never mean to do anything wrong until it was taken over by Eggman?
• Annoying Video Game Helper:
  • Omochao is back, and he's as annoying as ever. Thankfully, the main menu contains the option to turn him off.
  • The entire cast during the final battle in the console version. Not only is the Time Eater also a Goddamned Boss, but the one hint you really need, namely "aim at the core and Boost", gets drowned out by a dozen repetitions of "That looks like a homing shot!" Equally useless is the final instruction, which tells the player to press two buttons at the same time to combine the two Sonics' power. You are actually supposed to keep holding them until the cutscene ends in order for it to work.
• Ass Pull:
  • Classic Tails randomly shows up out of nowhere without any explanation after you finish the battle with the Death Egg Robot (console/Windows) or Big Arm (3DS). Word of God is that they tried to make another cutscene earlier on to give him a proper introduction, but ran out of time.
  • There’s also the presence of Crisis City, which based upon what happened in Sonic '06, shouldn’t even exist and yet it does with no explination.
• Awesome Music: Naturally.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • In the console version, Shadow for being filled with fanservice to Sonic Adventure 2 fans, Silver for being genuinely enjoyable to fight despite his infamously bad boss level in Sonic '06, and Perfect Chaos because it shows Sonic's growth by having you take him on without the assistance of the Chaos Emeralds.
  • The 3DS' Egg Emperor is considered an improvement over its original boss fight, due to having a fair attack pattern and lacking the massive health bar it had in Sonic Heroes. The Time Eater, unlike its console counterpart, has also received praise, due to its varied attacks, good use of both Classic and Modern Sonic, and the absence of the secondary characters' commentary.
• Best Level Ever:
  • More or less the whole point of the game, as it was pretty much meant to reimagine some of the series' best levels ever, and suffice to say it succeeds with some really great level designs and absolutely beautiful Scenery Porn. Special note goes to Classic Green Hill, Speed Highway, and Rooftop Run, and Modern Sky Sanctuary, City Escape, and Seaside Hill.
  • The Modern Era is generally seen as the highlight of the 3DS version, due to challenging but fair level design, good integration of Wisp powers, and creative new gimmicks like the underwater chase in Classic Water Palace or the meteor shower in Modern Tropical Resort. It's also capped by a boss battle against the Egg Emperor that improves upon the original in pretty much every way.
• Breather Level: Rooftop Run is sandwiched in between Crisis City and Planet Wisp. Unlike these two levels, which punish the player's mistakes and have long sections of fancy platforming, Rooftop Run is a fairly straightforward level that strongly encourages the player to abuse the Spin Dash/Sonic Boost and has only a few easily avoidable obstacles.
• Broken Base:
  • The Excuse Plot nature of the story. Some are fine with it on the grounds that the gameplay more than makes up for it, while others claim that the lack of any real plot really drags the game down.
  • The amount of content in the game has become a point of contention in the years after its release, as the game only has 18 main stages evenly divided between the two gameplay styles, and they range from 4-7 minutes long your first time through. Some believe that the amount of content wasn't enough to justify the game's price considering the length of previous Sonic games (even Colors which wasn't that long itself), and that the game should have had more stages or more meaningful replay value. Others believe that the large amount of alternate paths in each level provides enough replay value on its own, and also point out that Sonic Unleashed was criticized for having the Werehog take about 2/3 of the game in total playtime. Many were hoping that there would be Downloadable Content that would add more well-loved stages to the game later on, such as Ice Cap Zone and Egg Fleet, but were disappointed when it was revealed that the only DLC would be a Casino Night-based pinball minigame.
  • For Classic Sonic, does making the spin dash activate with a single button that also gives you a fully charged spin dash speed turn the spin dash into a glorified boost button? Or does it make more sense to have it mapped to a specific button instead of requiring a series of button presses to reach max spin dash speed, helping to better keep the flow of Classic Sonic's stages? Considering what counts as 'boost to win' is one of the biggest gameplay related things fans can't see eye to eye on...
  • The Biolizard boss battle in the 3DS version. On the one hand, it's probably the most climactic fight in the Adventure era other than Perfect Chaos (which was already taken by the console version), and the circular arena it's fought on matches the design of boss battles from previous portable Sonic games. On the other hand, the Biolizard was really Shadow's nemesis in Sonic Adventure 2, making this encounter with Sonic seem forced at best. Also, the battle has been heavily watered down from the original version, as a result of it being demoted to only the second boss in this game.
• Difficulty Spike: In the Modern Era, both the main levels and the challenge stages take a massive difficulty spike, especially the Doppelganger races, which now leave extremely little room for error.
• Disappointing Last Level:
  • The final boss fight in the HD version has received its share of criticism, with the primary complaints centering around the incessant and annoying voice lines from the supporting characters, the visual design being very confusing, and overall vagueness about how to beat it.
  • The last part of the game has levels that take a huge spike in difficulty, and both Classic and Modern Sonic have to drag themselves through really long levels at the end.
  • Whereas most levels are actually expanded upon, making them more grand and interesting, it can be said that Planet Wisp (the last proper level before the final boss) suffers from the opposite. Where in Sonic Colors, most stages had two to three different Wisp powers on average, each stage (Classic or Modern) only uses a single Wisp power-up. If that's not bad enough, the levels are also some of the longest in the game, making sure to overuse the gimmick Wisp power well before you reach the end.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Archie (and later, IDW) comic book writer Ian Flynn believes that Sega intended to imply that the Time Eater was leftover matter of Mephiles. As such, he stated that the Time Eater is an alternate state of Mephiles that "slipped through a crack in time." This could explain their purple aura and similar ability to travel through time. However, this has yet to be confirmed in-universe or by any material produced by Sega.
  • The mystery surrounding the Time Eater's origin and nature has led to many fan theories of what it is and why it is cooperating with Eggman. One of these theories proposes that the Time Eater was born from the overload of dark Wisp energy at the end of Sonic Colors, given that the Doctor met it shortly after the events of that game, as well as due to the creature's physical similarity to Purple Frenzy and its ability to create black holes like Violet Void.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The fire tornado in Classic Crisis City that drags the goal post away has been affectionately dubbed the Trollnado. The goalpost is called the Trollpost.
  • While the era spanning from Sonic Adventure to Shadow the Hedgehog is officially dubbed the Dreamcast Era by Sega, many fans generally tend to dub the era as the Adventure Era instead due to the era spanning beyond the Sega Dreamcast and many of the games released in that era sharing a ton of elements and ideas with the Adventure games. It has also been humorously nicknamed the "Green Eyes Era" by some.
  • The era that covers the 16-bit games is officially known as the “Classic Era”, but some fans like to call it the “Genesis Era” for two reasons. One, it refers to the Sega Genesis, and two is that the word “Genesis” can be used to describe the beginning of something. In this case, the genesis of the series.
  • Before and after the reveal of Sonic × Shadow Generations, some fans opted to use the title "Sonadow Generations" (based on the fandom's Portmanteau Couple Name that shipped both characters), due to the usage of "Sonic x Shadow" in the remaster's title.
• Franchise Original Sin: Listed on the franchise page.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Classic Sonic's Spin Dash is ridiculously overpowered in the console version, covering a huge distance, giving a massive boost of speed, and obliterating almost every enemy in his path. Also, unlike Modern Sonic's Boost, there is no gauge to limit its usage. Careful usage of the Spin Dash makes beating the classic stages in seconds a breeze.
  • There are several others which are mostly context-specific. For example, Classic's Flame Shield skill neuters almost every obstacle and enemy in his Crisis City level aside from bottomless pits, and the jump dash you get from it has ridiculous range. Classic's Homing Attack is also pretty intense because it removes the challenge in trying to aim for an enemy to bounce on to reach higher places. It does have one obvious drawback, though: you don't obtain the same forward momentum you would by doing a regular Spin Jump. Relying on Homing Attack might result in you missing a higher route due to not having enough air.
  • Just like in the Classic games, Super Sonic is this. You get this power-up immediately after beating the final boss, and while the cost is very high (it fills the entire slot of powerups which can normally fit 4 or 5 on its own), upon using it by getting 50 rings, you become completely invincible (except for pits), have double speed, and the Modern Sonic version can fly while using Boost. Skilled players can easily S Rank all stages using this powerup.
• Goddamned Boss:
  • The Egg Dragoon takes 8 hits to defeat (or 10 in hard mode), and Eggman will often fly out of reach, making the fight much longer than necessary.
  • The Time Eater in the console version. Awkward controls, lack of clarity on what exactly to do, a cluttered screen, the standard ring-draining mechanic as the rest of the series, and Sonic's friends never shutting up.
• Good Bad Bugs: In Modern Water Palace, if the jump button is pressed while Sonic is running through a loop, he will go out of bounds and land in the level's background. The player can then boost to the goal while skipping every obstacle, clearing the level in record time.
  • In the HD version, Classic Sonic's Flame Dash in programming terms is a reworked version of Modern Sonic's Air-Boost with the retention time dialed down to zero so that you only get the initial burst. If you time a Flame Dash so that it occurs just as Sonic touches the ground and then keep the jump button held down however, you'll end up getting an invisible, infinite Boost! While the level layout of Classic stages makes it somewhat niche as far as the Boost's intended utility goes, you can use it to gain and maintain speed without having to break the flow of momentum for spindashes, like a prototype Drop Dash.
• Harsher in Hindsight: At one point, when Modern Sonic leaves to his original timeline, he tells Classic Sonic "Enjoy your future, it's going to be great!" Considering the franchise went under a perceived Audience-Alienating Era for a while after the game's release (and is still a bit contentious), it's safe to say his future hasn't exactly been great.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • After being beaten once again, Eggman asks himself if he ever beats Sonic, to which he replies with a defeated "no". Little did he know he was only two games away from achieving world conquest.
  • Ray the Squirrel and Mighty the Armadillo can be spotted on Missing Posters ("Missing since 1993") in one particular zone. Seems someone finally found them.
  • Similarly, there's also Fang the Sniper, who can be found on a Wanted Poster. Turns out he's not finished with Sonic and co.
• Hype Backlash: On its release date, it was largely considered the greatest 3D Sonic game ever. While the backlash is not as significant as, say, Colors or especially Adventure 2, the praise for the game has waned somewhat over the years due to such factors as being too short, having no real plot, and/or being too much of a nostalgia trip (to the point some people have accused SEGA of relying on Classic Sonic a bit too much in more recent years, especially during the franchise's 25th anniversary). Quite a bit of people feel that Generations is still the best 3D game in the series, but feel that it is only the best by comparison to the divisive 3D titles that came before and after it.
• Improved Second Attempt: Sonic Heroes' special stages are infamous among fans for being one of the worst special stages in the series, due to the physics being nearly impossible to get a hang of. The 3DS version of Generations opts to bring back the special stages from Heroes with one-to-one gameplay mechanics, but they're actually fun to play due to the physics actually being optimized around it, proving that Heroes' special stages can work with the right level of polish.
  • Sonic × Shadow Generations does this with the 3DS version of Generations' Biolizard boss fight, moving it back to being Shadow's opponent, with much more visual polish and no sign of the same dumbed-down gameplay as the original.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!:
  • The boss battles against the Death Egg Robot and Big Arm received considerable amounts of flak for being greatly toned down from their original versions in order to provide an appropriate challenge for the first boss.
  • The Biolizard faced similar criticism for reducing the difficulty of its fight, though in this case it's because the original battle is one of the biggest cases of That One Boss in the entire franchise.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The main campaign has been criticised for this. The game only contains 18 stages (14 in the 3DS version) that are evenly divided between the two gameplay styles, seven bosses (including the Final Boss), and all but two of the stages are only 3-4 minutes long even on your first playthrough. While the game is filled with optional missions, all of them are just shortened Remixed Levels, with only nine of them being required to beat for the keys to unlock the boss gates on the console versions. Depending on who you ask, the large amount of alternate paths for each level either helps by adding a ton of Replay Value, or are a wasted opportunity due to only a select few of them containing any secrets of note.
• Long Song, Short Scene:
  • "Open Your Heart" received a remix to accompany a rematch with Perfect Chaos, but just like in Sonic Adventure it only accompanies the first and easier half of the battle.
  • The final boss track from Sonic 3 & Knuckles has a remix in the 3DS version that lasts for around three minutes and thirty seconds. The boss that the track plays for is so easy that most players can beat in just under a minute, well before the remix can fully play.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The game's very existence has spawned a minor meme called "X Generations", where other series are put into a similar concept to this game, including Super Mario Bros., My Little Pony, and even Looney Tunes. Even 22 Jump Street features "Jump Street Generations" (featuring the movie pair teaming up with the originals) as part of its Credits Gag.
  • Silver's giant trash ball has been compared to Katamari Damacy.
  • On the Sonic Stadium Message Boards, Rooftop Run has received some flak for having a tree on its rooftop, meant to mock the sentiments of the fans. A tree on a rooftop!?◊ It's been ruined forever!
  • Prior to the release of the game: SHUT UP AND TAKE MY RINGS! and any variation of it.
  • It's often joked or speculated that the Time Eater is the personification of the Sonic Fanbase. It was also joked that Time Eater's true identity was the infamous barrel platform from Sonic 3 — a trap that is very well known for eating up time.
  • Modern Sonic's last line of dialogue ("Enjoy your future, it's going to be great!") is often mocked. Variations include Modern Sonic appending a warning about 2004, 2005, and/or 2006; a Gilligan Cut of Classic Sonic going through said rough years; or another character lampshading the use of a little white lie.
  • ↑ & ↓ & ↻ (The music for Speed Highway includes the repeating line "Up and down and all around;" the meme itself coming from the original Speed Highway from Sonic Adventure.)
  • From the battle with the final boss, "That looks like a homing shot!", "Be careful, Sonic!", and all variations thereof.
  • "DAT VIOLIN!" for the fantastic remixes of Crisis City and Rooftop Run.
  • Classic Rooftop Run is frequently used in mashup remixes, effectively becoming this game's most popular track.
  • Like all of Eggman's repetitive quotes in battles, "Time for a change of pace!" is quite popular in parts of the Sonic fanbase.
  • "You've got thisssonic!" from Shadow.
  • That tornado's carrying a goalpost!
  • The moment the remaster's title was announced, some fans joked that parents would look up Sonic X Shadow on Google, looking for the remaster but instead finding a bunch of Yaoi fanart of the two. Relatedly the Steam page has LGBTQ+ among its tags has almost become a meme in and of itself.
• Misaimed Fandom: The game ends with Modern Sonic telling his Classic self to "enjoy [his] future" as "it's gonna be great". Given how the series had gone through a lengthy Audience-Alienating Era prior (and has went through another once since then), fans reacted incredulously to this line, and its apparent irony led it to become memetic. This completely overlooks how in-universe, Sonic's frequently enjoyed his adventures and going on them, along with the basic fact that he won't dislike one of his adventures just because the person playing as him does.
• Narm:
  • When the Time Eater has Sonic at its mercy, all of his allies appear to help... by spouting encouraging quotes. This includes Shadow, who sounds more annoyed than anything.
    Shadow: "You've GOT this, Sonic!"
  • The 3DS version doesn't have this cutscene, but is narmy nonetheless because it portrays the battle with still images, cheap visual effects, generic sounds, and random dialogue.
  • Due to a programming error, the final boss in the 3DS version has Eggman saying one of his Spanish quotes instead of the appropriate English one. It's quite amusing to hear "¡No ha estado mal!" instead of the expected "Not bad!" after each hit.
  • Modern Sonic telling his past self to "Enjoy your future! It's gonna be great!", in light of the series' infamous case of Sequelitis.
• Never Live It Down: For fans who are disgruntled about the supporting cast's reduced role in the series, the final boss fight is usually held up as the prime example of their irrelevance. When Sonic Forces revealed that characters would be talking to the player throughout the stages, a lot of people started cracking jokes about hoping that the characters would actually be allowed to do something, instead of just sitting on the sidelines shouting warnings about homing shots.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Perfect Chaos' radical redesign in this game was actually how he was supposed to look in the first Adventure game. Technical limitations of the Dreamcast got in the way of that, and his design was scaled back considerably from the concept art for Adventure.
  • Sonic Generations introduces an Eldritch Abomination that destroys time? Sonic the Comic did it first—the Time Waster was an Energy Being that could delete entire years from history by consuming the spirit corresponding to that year.
• Once Original, Now Common: In a day and age when the fanbase can often be seen complaining about later Sonic games reusing Classic Sonic and older stages over focusing on new content, it is easy to forget that Generations doing the same was considered special and a celebration of Sonic's history rather than using it as a crutch, as the game having a post-Adventure Classic Sonic appearance and focus on remixed levels was a first for the series.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: While the gameplay itself has been regarded as extremely stellar, with Modern Sonic's gameplay and levels in particular being regarded as the best part of the game due to the refined boost mechanics and more open level design compared to Unleashed and Colors, the story itself has been criticized for being an extremely barebones Excuse Plot that does very little with what potential the game's plot offered.
• Polished Port:
  • The PC version, which reduced the loading times significantly and allowed the game to achieve 60fps on a PC with good enough specs. The PC version's popularity is also due to the modding possibilities... Unfortunately, the PC version does not have the ability to play the original Sonic the Hedgehog, though it was being sold standalone at the time of its release.
  • Taken even further with the uncovering of the half-broken remains of the graphics rendering engine of Sonic Unleashed during the creation of the Unleashed Project game mod. After fixing it up, it enabled a lot of extra features that were disabled in all versions of the vanilla game, such as directional shadows, light shafts, more dramatic lighting effects, and a more advanced speed blur system. On top of that, thanks to its unfinished nature disabling certain functions, it actually gives the game a significant boost in FPS. The difference that the rendering engine makes, especially in stages like Sky Sanctuary, Speed Highway, and Seaside Hill, is absolutely jaw dropping. Unfortunately, the renderer doesn't work with weaker graphics cards, instead causing the game to look as if you were playing it with a thick layer of Vaseline on the camera. This is because the "Unleashed renderer" applies heavy motion blur in an attempt to mask low frame rates. It can easily be enabled with the SonicGMI tool.
  • The backwards compatible versions for Xbox One X and Xbox Series X|S consoles are this. The former offering improved performance at a 4K resolution, while the latter, a 4K/1440p picture along with an upgrade to a rock-solid 60 FPS.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Silver the Hedgehog went from one of the cheapest and most aggravating boss fights in the series back in his debut, to this game, where he gets a very enjoyable rival boss fight with a considerable amount of awesome. Basically, what Sonic '06 did for Shadow, Sonic Generations did for Silver.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Black holes appear scattered throughout the stage during versus matches in the 3DS version. Falling into one forces the player to mash the B button to let Sonic escape. There's a reason this is the only instance where this gameplay gimmick appears.
• So Okay, It's Average: The 3DS version gets this reaction from most fans. The game is derided for its even greater lack of content (even compared to the console version, which already gets criticized for being short on content) as well as a wasted opportunity with not representing the handheld games save one. However, the game is still considered to be perfectly enjoyable with good level design (when not recycled from the originals), with a few even considering the 3DS version to be an underrated gem with a few advantages over its console/PC cousin, most notably the Final Boss.
• Tainted by the Preview:
  • After the level list was leaked, some fans were disappointed by the lack of variety between them. At least, until it was shown that some levels were radically different from the originals. Takashi Iizuka saying that the 3DS version will ignore levels from the Game Gear spin-offs didn't help much either.
  • The reveals of Shadow and Silver as boss battles were contentious at first, until it turned out that both Rival battles were incredibly fun to play, and have been a considerable boon to the popularity of the characters ever since, particularly Silver's.
  • The Death Egg Robot was been subject to claims of It's Easy, So It Sucks!, though it is the first^*or second, if one counts the Metal Sonic rival battle as a complete boss fight proper boss in the game. Big Arm also was subject to this, also having been nerfed from its Sonic 3 appearance.
  • When news of a Generations remaster leaked shortly before the reveal of Sonic × Shadow Generations, fans were skeptical due to the poor quality of the Colors remaster and the fact the original is still widely-accessible through Steam while other entries like Heroes are not, along with concerns that delisting the original would harm its prolific modding scene. The first fear was assuaged after the reveal trailer, as the base game appears largely intact with minor lighting tweaks while the Shadow campaign was met with open arms.
• That One Level:
  • Crisis City for being much more punishing and unforgiving towards mistakes than the previous levels, as pointed out by fans and many reviews. The tornado stealing the goal post in Act 1 doesn't help.
  • Planet Wisp Act 1 is also this for many people, for a combination of its incredible length and the clunky mechanics of the Pink Spike Wisp. Not the best of combinations. Act 2 also gets this, but not quite as badly, as the Orange Rocket Wisp is devoid of any control issues the former has.
  • Radical Highway in the 3DS version. In both acts, getting to the upper parts of the levels involves chaining Homing Attacks into a Gold Beetle. Said enemy is only on the screen for a split second, and if you are not quick enough, you will be forced to take the lower routes to the goal. Said paths are littered with slow-moving platforms over bottomless pits and enemies that appear out of nowhere, almost ensuring you will lose a life or two before you make it past those sections.
• That One Sidequest: Vector's character mission in Rooftop Run. His challenge involves you ping-ponging musical notes with him, which requires you to move toward and away from the screen in third person view. Unfortunately, the camera system was not built with going backwards in mind, making this battle an incredible pain in the ass. Then the musical note becomes even faster after hitting it around several times. It doesn't help that the area is littered with unmovable, unbreakable boxes that can easily get in your way and block your homing attacks.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The Biolizard battle in the 3DS version received plenty of fan complaints for its changes from to the original, such as the lighting being way brighter, Sonic fighting the boss instead of Shadow, the reduced difficulty (though some didn't mind, compared to the original), and the lighter, more intelligible remix of "Supporting Me."
  • The infamous drowning song is strangely absent in the 3DS version, being replaced by a generic sound effect as the clock ticks down.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Orbot and Cubot, both of whom were shaping up to becoming Eggman's primary assistants in the games at this point, both only have a 3-second cameo near the end. The duo returns in Sonic Lost World, however.
  • All of Sonic's friends simply stand around and do nothing for all of the game (aside from participate in one-off minigames/missions). Even Shadow and Silver just show up to spar with Sonic... and then do nothing else; not even helping the Sonics by going super alongside them and helping defeat the two Eggmen in the Time Eater. There's a reason that it was with Generations that many fans felt the sting of having only Sonic(s) playable.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Many fans feel the plot was too thin, the linking between events could have been done better, and had many missed opportunities regarding character interaction and more nudges or references to previous games in the series. This is especially true after the two previous anniversary games had far more engaging plots (although the latter isn't considered very good either for different reasons).
  • Many fans were expecting the 3DS version of the game to celebrate the lesser-but-still-fun handheld platformers in the franchise, as the 3DS is a handheld itself. However (probably because Dimps is no longer allowed to make their own games anymore), it turned out that it would just use different levels from the games the "main" version already represented, only representing one handheld game out of many.
• Tough Act to Follow: Sonic Lost World and Sonic Forces are still compared negatively to Sonic Generations in terms of gameplay, level design, and (for the latter at least) use of Classic Sonic stages.
• Unexpected Character: Fans were not expecting to see Black Doom in the reveal trailer for Sonic × Shadow Generations. Especially since Sega hasn't been keen on acknowledging him (and the Black Arms in general) since Shadow the Hedgehog.

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