Sonic Generations demo impressions

"Why don't they just do a Mega man 9?"

So yesterday was Sonic the Hedgehog's 20th birthday! Kudos to the franchise on that one. I'm certainly not as bigger Sonic fan as I was back on his 10th birthday when Sonic fans were all flying high on the Dreamcast and the release of Sonic Adventure 2. Since then we've been treated to a variety of Sonic installments as they try and work out how to get Sonic in 3d right. Sure Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 were fine in the Dreamcast generation, but my Sonic Adventure 1 review told me how much these games have aged. The question that sticks in my mind from the recent Sonic games however is: what happened to the chao garden? Hopefully we'll see this in some form within Sonic Generations as it pioneers to take the best elements of each Sonic form and package them on one disc.

The Sonic Generations demo is certainly there only to appeal to the long-time fans, as the game revolves around playing levels both with the 2d Sonic and 3d Sonic, however in the demo we are only treated to 2d Sonic's incarnation of the Green Hill Zone. Upon first starting the demo I could see me playing it every day until the demo is taken down on the 12th of July (So grab it whilst you can!!!). I felt the Sonic atmosphere that everyone has been craving since Sonic & Knuckles on the megadrive - or Sonic Advance 1 on the GBA if you grabbed it. The music is a fantastic remix of the original Green Hill Zone theme, and gameplay felt like traditional Sonic, for the most part. Now, this is a real shame because Sega is so close to pinning down the mechanics of their own game, Sonic plays fine, until you notice he is constricted by his animations - ala Assassin's Creed - This means that Sonic has to finish a certain animation before he can start another, and this leads to Sonic feeling alot - for lack of a better word -"heavier" than he should, Sonic on the megadrive feels relatively loose in relation to control, you press left he starts movement left, then immediately press right he'll move right unless you've gained some momentum - it's very complex and hard to explain on my part, to put it into a simple phrase "it just feels off".

Now this brings me to my main question, why doesn't Sega just do a Mega man 9? By that I mean release a game based on the exact mechanics and a similar graphical style to the games in the series considered to be the best? My ideal Sonic game for example would be one in the vein of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, this had a similar "epic" feel to it that Sega has trying to inject into recent Sonic games through annoying companions and fmv cut-scenes whilst keeping the traditional Sonic gameplay. Sonic 4 was not this game unfortunately, but this is why Sonic Team is ultimately just confusing - they're trying to get closer and closer to the original formula and yet it's right there for them to use at their will - and nobody would punish them for doing so - in fact Mega man 9 was one of the most successful Mega man games in years - so why not just release a Sonic game that is an old one instead of releasing a Sonic game thats "like" an old one?

These are just some thoughts I've had upon playing the demo through a few times, I'm still highly anticipating this game, and I'm sure they have time to iron out a few things as it's an early build. Look forward to further news and a full review when the game is released later this year!

- Serde out! ;p