[S] Sonic X Shadow Generations!

been a while since i wrote one of these, heh!

"wait newt! this game doesn't come out until 2 days later!!" this is why i have a modded switch, folks.

for anyone who is not aware, the nsp for sonic x shadow generations leaked at some point yesterday (although i didn't find out until 10 hours later.) and obviously the first thing i did after finding out was have dinner and take a shower! i mean, what else was i to do??

(okay, it's actually because my switch was at 1% and it wasn't charging fast enough from my computer, so i would've had to wait anyway. XD)

anyways, that's enough yapping. allow me to set the scene:


at the Ripe Old Age of 4 Years Old, my Benevolent Father returned to our villa in dubai with a wonderful posession: a Microsoft Xbox 360.

young me was... probably happy? i already loved video games and back at my gran's house (IN GOOD OLE AMERICA, NEW YORK, RAAHHH!!!) i would often play on both my cousin's wii and ps3 (as well as a dingy old android tablet that i no longer have, rip in piece.)

i got and played many games, such as viva piñata party animals, kinect joyride, kinect adventures, kinectimals, dance central, sonic free riders (kinect on top), the avatar video game, the legend of the guardians videogame, and, you, uh, don't actually care. whatever, fine! i'll move on! damn.
i also played various game demos. but that's beside the point!!

i played a LOT of sonic on this thing. and it was mostly demos. i sank HOURS into the first stage of sonic adventure. i saved tails a gazillion times!! i played the classic sonic games  (i specifically remember sonic & knuckles but i know there was a lot of sonic 2 in there as well), and more. i also had sonic free riders, and, the magnum opus of gaming, Sonic F*ucking Generations.

i. LOVED. THIS. GAME. even though i could never get past the first boss until i think two years later when my cousin beat it for me (shortly before the disc broke because i left it in my xbox too long. Sad!)

so for years, i was generations-less until i bought the game on my xbox one, i think when i was 11? not too sure. (i also pirated and tinkered with modding the game on my old 2013 imac that can barely run the game, but that's neither here nor there. i never really got it to work properly, anyway.)

fast forward to a couple months ago. i see some leak saying "oh dude theyre making gens again!" and i was excited. fast forward a couple of days later and i was surprised to find that they were announcing a generations remaster! i didn't see *that* coming! (just kidding, i did.)

i. was. ECSTATIC!!! a REMASTER??? of my FAVORITE SONIC GAME???? of one of my GREATEST GAMES OF ALL TIME????? this is the TITS!!!

and that brings us to yesterday around 10:30-ish, when i [PURCHASE] the [LEGALLY-OBTAINED COPY OF THE GAME] and download it to my switch [THROUGH THE ESHOP]. i was worried it wasn't really a game i wanted to play on the switch, anyway, i had very low expectations due to the state of their colors and especially frontiers ports.

i booted up the game, played act 1 and 2 of green hill, and am so glad to say i was wrong. the game ran BEAUTIFULLY, looked just as good as it  did on the 360 (which i guess was to be expected. it is a ps360 game, after all.) and i LOVE IT. i like the control changes (although having boost on right trigger is a little awkward because sidestepping is on the bumpers, but whatever). game runs great. the cutscenes aren't pre-rendered anymore if i'm not mistaken, and they look BEAUTIFUL. they always looked kind of gross and grainy in its original release, both on xone and pc. (i have yet to play the PS3 version, but i do have one so i'll get around to it someday.) and there are dialog changes that i adore. did you know modern sonic actually speaks back to his friends after saving them instead of awkwardly gesturing? because it's freakin' AWESOME!!

shadow generations i honestly don't like as much. it's still fun but it isn't as fun to play as regular sonic generations is, if i'm being honest. in terms of performance, it's fine. it runs at a lower resolution than handheld max (720) and even generations itself, but it's fine. it's also at 30 fps and there are more frequent frame drops but they're not just very minor, but few and far between, anyway. they're there, and i'm not gonna say they aren't noticeable (but also i specifically am kind of a stickler for that thing) but they aren't impeding and do not ruin or diminsh the experience in the slightest. however, i do feel like it's worth mentioning, the game isn't locked at 30 for either sonic or shadow generations. but to reiterate, it's really minor, especially if you aren't the type of person to notice that stuff.

anyways, tldr? i love this game. i love generations. i will be picking this game up on my ps5 just to play more smoothly. this freaking RULES!!

(i also wonder if generations will actually work with whisky and gptk and other such tools now? heehee!)

thanks for reading. more silly rants coming soon, i promise!