In fact, I just can't wait to play it again. I can't wait to see which other levels will be included from Sonic's vast back catalogue. It's already loads of fun and looking sublime, despite its early, unfinished state. But again, for speedrunners, the X button helps as a quick-reset to get you back up to speed after a coming to a halt. It's at odds with the rest of the authenticity of movement and is likely an inclusionfor casual-gamers - the original Sonic 1's near-invisible weak walls that you could run up to and roll through were too much for many novices. It's also used to smash through boulders, complete with a button prompt. It feelsa tad tooshallowįinally, while you can crouch and press jump repeatedly to rev up like you could from Sonic 2 onwards, X now does this on its own, revving you to top speed straight away. Also, rolling into a ball and hitting a spring doesn't carry inertia like it used to – running into said spring and staying on your feet to run up walls is the way to get up them.Ībove: 'Old' Sonic's jumpcan only just make it up to that platform with the spring. His jump is surprisingly shallow, making some platforming sections that should have been easy actually rather tricky. Sonic's movement reminded me a lot of Sonic Colors'. We had the Sonic 1 rotating maze in Sonic 4, so it makes sense to expect it. Also, there was no hint of a bonus stage, which I seriously hope a) is going to be put in soon and b) is a remake of the pipe run from Sonic 2. For instance, there are five special red rings to collect in the Old Sonic stage, which currently don't trigger anything. There were other things in the demo that intrigued me. But then again, I thought that about Sonic 4 and the leaderboards (and YouTube) say otherwise. It's going to get down below 1m, but I seriously doubt we'll be getting near that 30s barrier this time. I got the Old Sonic first act down to 1m23s before we had to call it a day. There were always key moments in Sonic 4's speedrun where you'd look at the clock to see if you were up or not, but these precise splits make it all that much easier and official.Ībove: In the game itself, checkpoints bring up split times on the screen showing you how well you're doing One thing the new game offers speedrunners over Sonic 4 is split times that come up on the screen as you pass checkpoints. There's a perfectly enjoyable route if you hit it and fall through the floor that had collapsed behind you, but if you see it fast enough (or more likely remember it's there), you can jump over it and save yourself a load of time. Some of them are classic Sonic – Chemical Plant Zone in Sonic 2 featured a left-facing spring in your path that most players will hit and there's one in new Green Hill Zone too. But once the shortcuts have been spotted, it's not too hard getting into them every time. We were playing on the biggest TV in the building (80in, I believe) which sounds great, but it's not the best way to see what's coming at you. Most of them are signposted if you're quick enough to react. It's really rather wonderful.Ībove: This still from the trailer shows you one shortcut. You can hear what sounds like wild bird calls echoing around the rock walls, perfectly complementing the light filtering through the lush, iconic Green Hill trees. That's right – get down into the caves and everything sounds different. I'm getting to the speedrun bit, but just have to tell you about the little details, like the animation of the badniks that's worthy of a CG movie, or the ear-kissing diagetic noise that accompanies the lower half of the level. The music, the colours, the sense of mystery… it's all here in superb style. After all those nasty things I saidabout Sonic 4's visual style and how good the recent fan projects have been, Generations finally gets it right. What about the new version of Old Sonic? Old Sonic It's perhaps a little too reliable on the perfect route to make the game look its most flowing, but that's been true of modern Sonic since Sonic Adventure 2.īut you're probably aware of Unleashed-style Sonic. Interestingly, getting hit doesn't lose all of your rings – it just affects your score at the end of the level. There's even a bonus if you make it through unscathed. The chances of death from the bottom of the screen are minimal, but meeting a time-sapping wall with a spring back to your left are genuine 'curse, pause, retry' moments.Įverything you do here is graded when you finish the act, with time, rings and hits taken into consideration before you're given a letter rank. The idea is to avoid plummeting down into the bottom of the route. There are a few sections where Sonic is travelling quickly to the right, jumping between grind rails and consecutive platforms each lower than the next. Above: Apologies for the same screenshots - Sega hasn't released any new ones for a while
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