Is Sega on the right track with Sonic Generations?
Over on the Madboards, gaming discussion has turned to the upcoming and recently announced Sonic Generations, Sonic Team’s latest Sonic game for Xbox 360 and PS3.
The initial trailer certainly had my interest piqued, but after checking out an update at Eurogamer, and a subsequent hands-on and new trailer at IGN, my interest is a little bit more than piqued – I might actually be getting excited 🙂
The premise seems to be you have the ability to fire through each and every level as “classic” Sonic and “modern” Sonic. It’s all very post-modern really. The catch is that playing as classic Sonic sets the game to play as a 2.5D platformer with a physics engine theoretically similar in feel to 16-bit Sonic titles, whereas playing through the level as modern Sonic looks like its bringing back a hybrid 3D/2.5D playing field, not unlike the good bits out of Sonic Unleashed or (apparently, because I haven’t played it yet) Sonic Colours.
It’s still early days, with the game slated for a late-2011 release. Sonic Unleashed showed promise (though the werehog disaster will haunt us for years to come), Sonic 4 was fun, Sonic Colours apparently isn’t terrible – could we be seeing a return to form for the series? Mind, considering that Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 2006 were incredibly rubbish, the only way is up, right?
If this turns out well, I think Sega should give Rieko Kodama a team of genius programmers and talented artists and bring back Phantasy Star for another whirl. Then they can give us a fun Streets of Rage brawler and a proper strategy RPG in the Shining Force series using the same engine they developed for the sublime Valkryia Chronicles.
A fanboy can dream, right?
Thanks to CG from the Madboards for posting the original link!
