I recall reading a couple of days ago that the director for this (who was OG Gens' lead level designer, I think, correct me if I'm wrong) saying they went out of their way to make sure there were a lot of fun alternate routes in these levels and damn, it shows. Can't wait to run these levels and route stuff this week.
While there's not as many levels as I'd like, man, this is what 3D boost Sonic SHOULD be, if you're gonna commit to the fast pace, make the alternative paths difficult and fast paced to reflect that.
6 3d acts, iirc Sonic unleashed had around 7 3d acts without all the other stuff. I also want more 3d stages... Like alot more lol, hope we get more with the season pass because i bought that without even knowing what i'll get tbh
There's 7 3D acts in Shadow Gens and 5 2D, all of which are well-designed. Quality over quantity works every time. I'm fine with not having as many levels as long as they're all fire, which Shadow Gens's levels definitely are.
@@itsfayevi Absolutely fair, there's a lot to love about them. Still a shame there wasn't a level from Shadow 05 in there; Sky Troops would have been amazing in HD.
Very very happy that Shadow’s act 1 not only are fully 3D, but with great level design also. From other sources also, it seems like it will run great on the Switch. Finally, a big W.
It’s really true, what they said about Frontiers being a beta test on a large scale. If Shadow Generations is a taste of what's to come, well I’m excited for the future of Sonic games, for the first time since Sonic Generations.
I'm convinced westopolis is the only stage you people know 😂😂😂 out of all the shadows stages why would you request that when there's already too many city levels in generations? 😂
@@CasinoBabyy_ Space Colony Ark is a mix of SA2 & Shadow The Hedgehog. Rail Canyon is from Sonic Heroes. Kingdom Valley is from Sonic 06. Sunset Heights is from Sonic Forces. Chaos Island is from Sonic Frontiers. Radical Highway is from SA2.
I've been really cynical about Sonic as a whole the last few years but man i can't believe how great this game looks, will have to pick it up soon after launch. If i showed this to 12 year old me they'd have an aneurysm. i'm blown away.
All the levels in Shadow's part look pretty good, but Kingdom Valley... My goodness! Both Act 1 and 2 are amazing! Edit: Forgot to mention Chaos Island. That level is awesome too imo.
@@KaleSTUDIOSKeeping the Boost feels like a Double Edged Sword because I think it could get even better for Linear Stages but I think it’s a massive detriment to the Open Zone where I think the adventure Formula would work way better. If they combine the two that’d be great but I don’t see them doing that honestly.
I think this is the best approach for a Sonic game. Open zone acting as a hub helps the game feel meatier and has a nice exploration-focused breather between the main zones.
@@Terminal_Apotos Using the adventure formula for open zones would just replace the boost with mashing the spin dash and further divide cyberspace and open zone when ideally, they would have very similar controls and feel. If it was serviceable for Frontiers and Shadow Gens, no need to change it. Sonic should focus on high-speed platforming (which the boost excels at) rather than exploring empty fields (which the adventure formula excels at) anyway.
@@KaleSTUDIOSThe boost was made for linear obstacle course which is a huge reason why it was only serviceable in Frontiers and all the platforming was separate from the Environment. The Adventure Formula works for both high speed platforming and exploring massive fields whereas the boost only works for one, instead of using your environment to gain speed all you do is press the “Go Fast” button in Frontiers and run at the same stagnant speed which gets boring because unless you’re on an obstacle course you’re just mindlessly boosting.
I have to say, Sega Sonic Team had out did themselves with this addition to the remake. It is heavily solid. I can not dislike this. Well done Sega Sonic Team, your team deserves a solid eight or eight point five.
Can't say for myself yet, but seeing these layouts it's honestly incredibly impressive how well they seem to have recaptured the exact style of open ended and creative level design from the original generations while still maintaining it's own identity. Is there much value to replaying levels with doom powers unlocked later on? Do they give you new routes and interesting tricks in the earlier game levels?
Almost all of the doom powers are used in only levels after you unlocked them except for SPOILER Doom wings kind of acting as a super shadow letting him fly and be invulnerable for 50 rings in stages after you unlock it. So theoretically this one can be used it any except i dont know if level design accomodates it as i havent checked it out myself yet
Unfortunately outside of Doom Wing there's not too much. That said you get all the universally applicable ones before Kingdom Valley. Doom Surf and Doom Morph are context specific and only used in the level group they're introduced in for the mostpart. You did get to explore more of whitespace with them though at least
Only Doom Wing offers new ways to play levels unfortunately but it’s still awesome. Flying over everything in Kingdom Valley is the fucking COOLEST thing
This actually looks like they took the best parts of every 3D Sonic game's level design, including Forces, and put them into each level in a very cool way. I'm genuinely impressed to be completely honest.
I'm really glad we're at this point where Shadow has a unique moveset, hope he's more unique rather than a sonic copy in future titles, which level was your fav?
Chaos Island 1, I really like the Doom Morph usage and it feels like there's constantly application for other Doom powers in a way that flows very well. I also really like the remix and how it turns Chaos Island into a really nice looking location
I was really skeptical about a couple levels like Rail Canyon 1 and Sunset Heights 1 after seeing other playthroughs that made them look really basic and linear, but you just put my worries to rest. I cannot wait to play this tomorrow night dude
You will love it. The levels are so good and even the missions as well! They’re a little gimmicky but in the way Colors can be with their side acts. I know that doesn’t sound great but trust me the missions are really fun too lol
Shadows 3d stages are so fucking amazing I hope he gets a new game like this with a new direction for his story cause this is some of the best content we’ve gotten in literal decades atp
Kinda wish the stages in the second half were different, would’ve loved to see Asteroid Coaster, Mystic Jungle and Westopolis instead, still extremely hyped for this tho Edit: In case anyone is wondering why I chose those specific stages, I have a reason for each one. I chose Asteroid Coaster because Shadow is the guest character there during cutscenes in Sonic Colours DS, which is the canon version of the game due to the Mother Wisp appearing in Team Sonic Racing later on, although it is the weakest link of the three, as Shadow was never playable in the stage and it’s not an important stage to Shadow’s overall story, but it would be a fun stage to replace Chaos Island in terms of the use of Doom Morph. Mystic Jungle, although not the best stage to sum up Sonic Forces with, is the best stage to use for Shadow’s story in Sonic Forces, as it’s where Shadow meets Infinite for the first time before he was even Infinite, the events of said encounter inadvertently cause a ripple effect which leads to the events of Sonic Forces transpiring. Westopolis speaks for itself really, we’re missing a stage to represent Shadow The Hedgehog, which is arguably Shadow’s most important game besides Sonic Adventure 2, and it’s the first stage in the game, setting up the rest of its story by introducing Black Doom, the Black Arms and the Black Comet through their invasion of the city, considering how important Black Doom is to the story of Shadow Generations, I feel like not including this stage is wrong.
Rail Canyon is from Shadow the Hedgehog, isn't it? If so, that would make Westopolis redundant. Although, I have to agree with you on your other picks.
@@KaleSTUDIOS Oh, my bad. I can't really argue with you at all, then. The fact that we got Chaos Mountain instead of Asteroid Coaster is literally preventing me from falling asleep right now.
@@yoshister It annoyed me for the final two stages simply because they're built with Doom Wing in mind. For the other stages, I get. As you wouldn't be able to until after getting it. But there were so many shortcuts for those two stages you can do wit Doom Wing to be faster.
Anyone else getting a Sonic & the Black Knight vibes from Kingdom Valley ? I gotta say, if Sega wants more money they consider remaking the storybook games or just porting them to modern consoles, it would be nice to experience Black Knight again with decent controls
Everybody is just collectively ignoring their own nitpicks due to how great the game is. Still wish instead Radical Highway for the final zone they used Black Comet.
These are some seriously good runs. How much fun did you have optimising your runs compared to other games? Like does the game reward thinking outside the box for some fun shortcuts?
I think routing is the most fun part. There's a lot of variety in paths, clever use of Doom powers, and playing around limited boost since only rings and Chaos Control (You need to get a capsule or kill 5 enemies to fill it), all of which aren't in other games. You can see how I made use of unique boost movements and some custom doom blast angles for skips as well as Chaos Control routing to save in-game time
@@yoshister would you say Chaos Control in this game is the most engaging it's ever been? It seems like more than just slowing down obstacles and platforms so you can access shortcuts and not run into speed bumps, you wanna use it not only as much as possible to chew seconds off the timer but also cover as much ground as possible when you do activate it. All this on top of trying not to overcap the Chaos gauge. Am I right on this or is it simpler than it seems lol
@@7evanit’s super engaging especially on initial playthroughs because there are so many different ways you could go about using it and the game doesn’t tell you all the times you should use it. Idk I think it’s great. Hope you love the game!
Why didn’t they put a level from the 2005 game in here? They showed us the Westopolis remix at TGS2024, I totally tought that was going to be for a stage 😭
Ive got several questions about the game how does the doom morph and doom surf handle in the game and in radical highway act 2 which i love the music for it btw but how does the controls feel when grinding upside down?
Doom Morph is really fun but requires a bit of finesse. It's fairly heavy and committal, and the dash is akin to a step dash in a fighting game. You also need good timing with the swing to go straight up (Right as it hits the bottom of a swing). Doom Surf is pretty heavy in terms of turning but flows well, you'll want to use the quickstep for maneuvering Upside down grinding is the same as right side up, left goes to the rail to your left and right goes to the rail to your right. This applies when the camera is in front of you as well, though the only time this is relevant is 2-6 in Sonic Frontiers (same rail controls)
It took me 5 hours the first time, though admittedly I went for all tokens and S ranks and took my time in the hub. Gens would take me like 3 hours but overall I'd say they're about equal.
It's quite shocking that no stages from Shadow The Hedgehog made it in. Westopolis would have been neat. A Emerl and a Infinite boss fight would have been fitting too, but I can see why they didn't made it in if they only had room for 3 bosses
Idk why stages from forces and frontiers when they could alternate between the StH game stages and one from other game between each bosses. I missed stages like Prison Island, Death valley and Black comet. But okay, some stages at least has on piece that reminds.
Why is Sunset Heights here? Isn’t this supposed to take place Generations? Generations happened before Forces. Doesn’t make sense why something in Forces would be in a game way before it……. Then again this is a game about time so maybe traveling in the Future is a thing too.
Chaos Island 1 Radical Highway 1 Kingdom Valley 2 Sunset Heights 2 Radical Highway 2 Rail Canyon 2 Kingdom Valley 1 Rail Canyon 1 Chaos Island 2 Sunset Heights 1 Space Colony Ark 2 Space Colony Ark 1 Note that I quite like all the levels
@@demidan9969 Yes. They don't have to same level of flair as Gens but it has very good platforming and level design, more pathing than Gens and rewards creativity with your movement and Doom powers
Technically 7 since we're getting the Tokyo Stage with Keanu's Shadow in December; and if it has two acts; it's basically 14 stages in total; if it's only 1, then 13 is a nice number.
It can be 6 levels with 2 acts each one but the levels are difficult, very different and beautiful. I love the selection they did for the game. And like he told you, there is yet a Tokyo level from the movie. In my opinion, if i can blame them is in the choice of not make at least a rival boss level like Metal or Silver with Infinite...
@sauce987654321 yes, idk where that number came from. There 2 for each act besides Radical Highway plus another one for each act besides Radical Highway after beating the game There's a lot of challenges in White Space but those aren't remixes of the main acts like the challenge acts (Though these also get a harder version postgame)
I do have people on Twitter giving ranking Chaos island act 1 is the best Rail canyon act 1 is the worst SCA ACT 1: 9/10 2: 8/10 Rail Canyon: act1: 5/10 act 2: 10/10 Kingdom Valley: Act 1: 9.5/10 2: 10/10 Sunset Heights: ACT 1: 8/10 Act 2: 9/10 Chaos Island: ACT 1: 10/10 Act 2: 9.5/10 Bosses: Lizard: 8 Metal: 7 Mephiles: 9.5 Radical: Act 1: 6/10 Act 2: 8/10 FINAL BOSS: 10/10 Keep in mind this is the FIRST playthrough ranking so they guy replay and maybe it will change
From what I heard from many people is good 1) final boss 2) metal overlord 3) biolizard 4) mephiles No bosses are bad btw is just people ranking based on what they like more
The S ranks unfortunately look brain dead easy, once again. Idk why this franchise doesn’t believe in meaningful replay value and challenge like it’s wild to me. Hopefully there are leaderboards, because otherwise this game will have zero replay value.
@sauce987654321 Fwiw I would say they're definitely harder than Gens' S ranks. The game also rewards thinking outside of the box, especially with collecting chests in the hub
@@yoshister The doppelganger race S rank in base Generations was actually challenging, but Shadow completely scrapped them for whatever reason and now the only hope for anything challenging is beating other people’s times on leaderboards. When I mean something challenging, I mean like something on the level of Unleashed lol.
@@superiorgamedudefirst one after 2 stages with 2 acts. Second one after 2 more stages. Third one after 1 stage if I remember correctly and then the last boss after last stage
Unleashed is better, step from F but Unleashed is a whole Lotta times better, way better and but if a downgrade from Generation 2012 or so the hell AGES
9. Main complaint is that there isn't a zone with Chaos Island, feels like there should have been a Shadow 05 level where Sunset Heights is and that's moved to near Chaos Island. The actual levels are very good and the game is just well polished and designed
Ignoring that there's a whole open world to explore and four bosses and each zone has four extra missions AND you get the entirety of Sonic generations too
Very very happy that Shadow’s act 1 not only are fully 3D, but with great level design also. From other sources also, it seems like it will run great on the Switch. Finally, a big W.
