Released in 2011 in celebration of Sonics 20th anniversary this celebration of the series developed Hiroshi Miyamoto has been recognised with acclaim by fans of the series.

Sonic Generations was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows , a specially designed handheld game was made for Nintendo 3DS. I played the PS3 version of the game so today we will be looking more directly at that release.

Its sonics birthday and all of his friends have set up a surprise party to celebrate, after his arrival all seems to be going well until a vortex between time and space is torn open and both Sonic from the past and present are able to collide.

Both Sonics team up together re visiting areas from their past adventures and work together to try and solve the mystery of what has caused a shift in time.

Near the end of the game we do get answers which I wont spoil here but I will say that it is connected to the ending of Sonic Colours and that this game takes place not long after that.

The game is split into three sections each has three stages with two acts, both Classic and Modern Sonic can be switched to play the levels from different perspectives, there are 9 main stages along with a handful of boss fights and rival battles to boot.

The classic stages are by far the more difficult of the two and while a little more kinder than the original games these levels are far from easy and offer a fair challenge while still remaining fun for younger gamers who didn’t grow up with the original Mega Drive games. Going for the S Rank was particularly fun for me as I am used to the classic style so it was nice to have something extra to aim for in my playthrough.

The Modern stages while much easier are still really fun and some really great choices were made for levels here, people who are new to series would be able to experience some of the best Sonic levels including but not limited to City Escape from Adventure 2, Sea Side Hill from Heroes and Planet Wisp from Colours.

One Issue I found with the modern stages was the control, I feel like Sonic went a little too fast at times and became slippery which affected the general flow and overall satisfaction of the stages however compared to past games this issue was nothing in comparison and some of these stages did see improvements when it came to gameplay and level design which helped prevent any deaths of fails due to bugs, I did once need to restart as in one level as I clipped inside of a wall and couldn’t get back out but this did only happen once so please keep that in mind.

Rival Battles were fine but didn’t feel like they needed to be in the game, they each lacked little challenge and were pretty basic, it was nice to see characters such as Shadow, Silver and Metal Sonic get a more important role than others but the game would have been fine without them.

The boss fights were great and based on popular battles in the series, it was cool to see the final boss from Sonic 2 get some love and another stand out for me was the fight against the Egg Dragon from Sonic Unleashed.

The Final battle was really cool too and of course we got to see both Super Sonic in Classic and Modern forms which is always a bonus and of course it was nice to see something truly original in the game since the majority of this package is a celebration of Sonics past adventures.

The main game is pretty short so having plenty of extra content is a must, thankfully this game delivers with collectible red star rings in every stage, challenge modes, an in game shop and even the ability to playthrough the very first Sonic game for the Sega Mega Drive.

Games hidden within games is a thing of the past now but it is always such a treat to find secrets like Sonic 1 here without it being set up as a pricy DLC

The Red Rings were fun to collect and added more abilities to the store, you could purchase these with points to help make the levels a little easier by offering additional shields, having rings last longer after taking a hit, being able to breath longer underwater and so on, there was so many abilities to purchase which is a great incentive for new players of the series, I never used these as I didn’t feel it necessary but I can appreciate its inclusion.

The Challenge modes brought so much more fun and “challenge” to the game by having the levels made more difficult, enemies moving faster, 1 ring challenges and so on. Some stages even had level redesigns to suit the nature of certain goals, I don’t normally commit to these things in games but here I finished each and every one as I enjoyed them so much.

Visually the game is beautiful with smooth and impressive visuals for the time, the modern stages don’t differ too much from the originals with exceptions given to the the Adventure stages and Sonic Heroes due to those games originally being on previous hardware’s but its the classic stages that really take the cake here. Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant and Sky Sanctuary have all been given complete graphical re designs and they look and feel amazing while still remaining respectful to the source material.

The music has been taken from the past games so needless to say it is of course outstanding, here you can enjoy the ochestral sounds of the past along with vocal favourites from Crush 40 and others, for me escape from the city is my favourite track in the game originating from Sonic Adventure 2.

I had an absolute blast with Sonic Generations, even to this day I feel this game can still hold faithful as celebratory package and homage to the series. It was nice to see a story intertwined in this and I like how they kept it simple so as not to distract from people simply playing to enjoy the nostalgia.

If I had any criticisms I would say that in some modern stages I still found some issue with speed and control that I feel could have been ironed out here but if we try and look past that this is basically a flawless package that anyone new to the series or big fans of past Sonic should pick up and play, its a shame that its never seen a re-release for more modern platforms, the closest we’ve got is its successor Sonic Forces a game we will get around too at some point.

9.6/10

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