Summary
How the tables turn. We’ve reached the point now where the half of a new Sonic game that you do not play as the Blue Blur himself is the half getting all the adulation and praise.Sonic x Shadow Generationsis an absurdly generous package, squeezing in both a remaster of 2011’s beloved Sonic Generations and an entirely new experience starring the Ultimate Life Form.
Navigating the vast White Space is no easy task – so to aid him in the effort, Shadow’s old foe Black Doom has pumped him full of dark ‘Doom Powers’. They run the gamut from traversal to offensive/defensive, and they all have some rather head-spinning speedrun applications. Which of these edge lord techniques is the top of the pile?
Shadow Generations at last pays off some major plot threads that began in the mid-2000s. So if you’ve been waiting two decades to see how Maria wound up (not great, let’s be honest), then exercise caution when reading this article!
5Doom Morph
You’re A Hedgehog Now, You’re A Squid Now
Shadow needs to tread carefully – the Squid Sisters' lawyers are likely watching very, very closely right now. Borrowing a page from (or, more accurately, ripping huge chunks out of) theSplatoonplaybook, Doom Morph allows you to change into a squidlike creature that can swim in designated pools of ink which would otherwise slow you down. It also scales walls and can interact with grapple points, so yes, all sounds quite familiar.
Doom Morph comes in at the bottom of our list, though, thanks to its abhorrent control scheme. While on terra firma, Shadow handles like an absolute dream, the best any Sonic character has ever done in 3D, even. This slippery squid chucks all that out the window and returns to the glory (?) days of controlling as if on ice; it zips around with little regard for your inputs, and timing the swings properly for maximum vertical air is a chore.
4Doom Surf
Brings Back The Worst Part Of Mario Galaxy
Cast your mind back for a second, if you will, dear reader, toSuper Mario Galaxy on the Wii. Remember what an absolute masterclass in game design that was? Now attempt to recall those sodding stages spent on the back of a manta ray, controlled with aggravating imprecision via tilting the Wiimote. So poor were they that Galaxy 2 took them around back and blasted them with a Bullet Bill – yet Shadow Generations saw fit to revive them.
To be fair, Doom Surf handles a mite better than Mario’s aquatic chum – but that’s not saying much when you start in subzero territory. White Space consists mainly of water, purely for the sake of giving Shadow a badass ray to zoom about on, but its turning circle is atrocious and there’s no means of braking. The only way to disembark is to beach yourself or smack into a wall, which isn’t a desirable outcome to begin with, and that Kingdom Valley bonus mission where you need to break crates by swiping them with the ray’s tail? Hard, hard pass.
3Doom Blast
Situational, But Undeniably Cool
The Black Arms werea tribe of Sonic villainsthat you could be forgiven for assuming we’d never see again. Shackled to the comically grimdark 2005 Shadow game, their slimy design and warmongering intentions put them at distinct odds with the brighter, more saccharine Sonic adventures that pervaded the 2010s.
Yet everything comes back around again, as the nostalgia train chugs inexorably forward, and so Black Doom and his progeny return for Shadow Generations – dumb firearms and all. They even serve a particular gameplay mechanic this time: Doom Blast. Should you come across a Black Arms soldier in a level, then that’s your cue to hold the attack button and send it flying skyward, at which point you can launch it over the horizon.
Doom Blast has a couple of uses. You can use the unsuspecting alien to pop open ring capsules or eliminate distant enemies; or, with a stab of the homing attack, you can activate Chaos Control to instantly warp to your catapulted quarry, skipping entire swathes of the stage if your aim is true. The power doesn’t come up often, but it’s, ahem, a blast to get to grips with.
2Doom Spears
Anything’s Better Than ‘06
All of the ten or so folks who care to remember Sonic 2006 will be familiar with Shadow’s innate Chaos Spear ability. It lets him channel the Chaos energy within him into powerful electric bolts, that he can hurl at foes to paralyze them and make them easy pickings for a homing attack. Doom Spears, then, is a souped-up version of Chaos Spear borne of Shadow’s Black Arm DNA; rather than zeroing in on a single target, you can lock onto multiple, and they scarcely have time to react before they’re made aware of your electrifying presence.
Swarms of baddies can be rendered impotent in seconds, and coupled with Shadow’s time-stopping capabilities, Doom Spears make a laughingstock out of pretty much every enemy type you’ll encounter. They even see use in speed runs, thanks to the fact they let you keep your aerial momentum after a jump if you spam them – with or without the Doom Wings. Watch any high-level run of Radical Highway, for instance, and you’ll bear witness to spear after spear being launched to keep the edgehog flying through the sky.
1Doom Wing
Made For Merchandising Opportunities
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s an Ultimate Life Form. The centerpiece of Shadow Generations’ trailers, Doom Wing sees Shadow sprout a pair of tentacle-like flapping implements that appear primed to grace many a Hot Topic mug or t-shirt. Visually, they occupy that coveted middle ground between ludicrous and awesome.
They do far more in-game than just look cool, too – they’re saved for the final Doom Power unlock because they bust every level wide open. Once you’ve hoovered up 50 rings, hitting the bumpers will initiate the power… and from there, very little can stand in your way.
As long as you have energy in the Boost gauge, you can fly freely above the map, dodging all obstacles and netting you an S rank with ease. So effortless is it to hit a good time with the Doom Wing that the game counts your winged and wingless high scores separately, with some of the leaderboard toppers being truly staggering. The raw cool factor, combined with the intoxicating freedom granted by them, propels the Doom Wings to the top of our list.
