Generations is my first modern sonic game since sonic adventure 2 on dreamcast. It's on sale right now on PSN, so that's why i threw this topic into the Sony section.
Anyway, I don't generally like newer sonic games, so I wanted to make a thread about this one. There's always something wrong with them. Generations included. I played the demo years back, and everyone was praising how good the game was, saying Sonic was back, and classic stages play just like the genesis days. Were we playing the same game?
I played the demo and that taught me to stay away from the game. If you have speed going into a loop in generations, you slow down. this has never happened in the genesis titles. You also seem to snap to objects, and there's a weird float when you kill enemies. The weird floating, I don't mind so much, but the snapping to objects? Terrible. You have no horizontal freedom when you're using verticle springs. Something you always had when playing the older games. In fact, you don't have much horizontal freedom at all.
In older sonic games, the screen was zoomed in a bit more, and you could more accurately time you jumps and be successful at it. In Generations, everything is farther apart. Which, on it's own isn't a bad thing. But at least increase the horizontal velocity so that jumps aren't too difficult. I've found myself having so many accidents due to me feeling like I should be able to make a jump. but can't make the jump.
It doesn't feel good, combined with the snapping to springs, it just makes the experience bad.
I also found the platforming elements to be disproportunately huge. It's very apparent in chemical plant. The square platforms were not so massive in the original, and neither were the floating platforms. It's obvious sega knows this, because they come in two sizes in generations. The platforms just look like giant, plastic blow-up water toys, or something and it just takes away from the experience. If the game controlled better, making them so huge wouldn't be necessary.
And, finally, my biggest problem with this game. Going in the complete opposite direction from the direction intended. So many time, I've held left on the directional bad, and gone right, and vice versa. Sonic gets turned around by stages or obstacles when you don't want him to, and there's actually a delay between pressing left or right. Especially as modern sonic. If you press a direction, you should be facing that direction, or sonic should be slowing down to go in that direction.
Then... So many times of just me falling off the stage.... It happened most in modern sky sanctuary. Just confusion. Didn't know where to go, and jumped to my death a couple times, thinking it was an alternate path (lol) and the other times, I'm falling off of runways. Specifically when needing to press L1, or R1 to switch. As much stiff snapping as generations has, it sure lets you slide around like butter during those sections. The game would have been perfect if things were the opposite.
Anyway... For less than 15 bucks, (considering the extra 13 bucks I got of free money thanks to internet deals) I'm not complaining. Generations only cost me about 2 bucks out of pocket. It's an okay game. It looks great, sounds great. It has a boring story (so what, it's not too big of a deal, it's not what you buy a sonic game for) and the gameplay itself is just... meh. Nothing special. It should have been a lot better than it is. I didn't even mention problems I've had with loops. Losing velocity going into and out of loops. Something that never happened in older sonic games.
But, it's at least growing on me a little. Not going to bother compairing the classic sections to the genesis. They aren't remotely similar and doing so will just leave you disappointed.
Between this, and Sonic CD, I don't think there's a reason to own any other sonic game on PS3. No idea why Sonic 1 is on sale in PSN considering you can just unlock it in generations. But, if I'm in the mood for Sonic 1, I'd feel better playing on the actual sega itself anyway.
Here's hoping Sonic 3 & Knuckles gets released on PSN before too long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAp0oImSczQ
