JezMM

It would have been neat to see what sort of new mechanics they could come up with for Blue Sphere with less of an obligation to remain loyal. When it comes to Sonic 4 that's obviously as much of a warning as it is enticing, but still.

Yeah it could've gone either way.  Episode 1's special stages feel awful to play but I'd say Episode 2's are better than the source material for all the new mechanics and ideas they add (for pure fun factor I'd say they're better too, unless we're comparing to the Taxman Sonic 2, in which case fairly equal footing there).

It's unbelievable how much better the Sonic 2 special stages are in the mobile port. For one, I can actually complete them

oh no what did i do this time

Oh sorry this was in direct response to my suggestion of adding the breastfed movie quote yesterday (unless it was there already). I read that someone has seen it.

I realise this was probably one of those "for you it was the most important day of your life, for me it was Tuesday" situations from your perspective

I've peeped it a little bit, I haven't had too much time to play through it yet, but I do like it so far. What I really want is to know how to add friends and see that I'm last place out of all of them XD

There's some genuinely great stuff in here, I'm surprised they made so much music for this mobile game.

I'm convinced the games are just an excuse for the artists to make as much music and remixes as they want. lol

The modern remix is nice, but the classic remix is where it's really at. I love that one.

Also FWIW I still think that '06 was the most recent game that should have been included in Generations. Rooftop Run is of of my favourite stages in the series' history and Planet Wisp is very iconic of Colours (even though personally I prefer Aquarium Park), but those games were too recent and were already pretty similar in style to the boost games. Rooftop Run in Generations was lifted almost entirely out of Unleashed. It didn't feel new or exciting. And whilst it was nice to see Planet Wisp more fully realised without the limitations of the Wii, it wasn't all that exciting either. It was a weak way to end the game. Crisis City got a significant graphical and gameplay overhaul. It didn't really feel necessary that the two most recent and most similar games were included in the anniversary celebrations when other pieces of history got sidelined. Sonic 3, Sonic CD and Sonic 1 all got less attention that they should have done.

Rooftop Run Act 2 is one of the less interesting levels in the game because it just feels like they took parts of the unleashed level and rearranged it, but MAN I wouldn't want to miss the remix for the world.

Act 1's track too, for that matter.

The whole point of Generations was to go from the start to the at time present day to celebrate all 20 years. You can't do that when you skip Unleashed and Colours. And if Heroes and 06 get representation, Unleashed and Colours certainly deserved it. One of my favourite things about Generations is that it doesn't fall into the trap of only representing the early stuff because of nostalgia, like how Gamefreak jerks off Gen 1 in Pokemon all the fucking time.

The fact that both versions of Generations used S&K levels and Sonic 3 barely got any love was a huge issue. They always pander to S&K despite Sonic 3 being just better, and I have no idea why they chose Sky Sanctuary, despite doing a good job with it, since it was only iconic because of story stuff. Sonic 1 just gets Green Hill, but that's not a Generations problem, that's a series problem. CD is just less iconic than the Mega Drive games and only got significant fuss in Mania.

Yeah tbh CD is a bit too obscure in the GRAND scheme of things that I don't feel it was shafted by Generations thanks to having the most iconic boss fight covered. 1 definitely deserved a bit more love (though you could argue that including the entire game on the console versions of Generations goes some way to cover that - hey do 100% Generations speedrunners also include a Sonic 1 playthrough? lol).

But yeah, 3 got very hard done by.  Rooftop Run Act 2 did feel way too much like they just took Act 1 from Unleashed and re-arranged it (and it flowed worse as a stage overall for it) but it was just too upbeat and joyous for me to hate.  My only wish is that they had made the time of day change and include a night section.

Having said all this, I bet if they HAD omitted newer games to cover more old ones in-depth, it uhh... well, wouldn't have happened. I'm sure 2006, Unleashed and Colours being recent titles streamlined creating assets for those stages compared to the others.  Maybe even Seaside Hill, if they were able to borrow some stuff from All-Stars Racing, who knows. Like, axe those later stages and you don't get as much time/budget back as you would need to replace them with full stages for CD/3.

Also ending on 2006 would've just been a total bummer.

I understand that notion of Generations celebrating everything and not just the old, and it's obviously what SEGA went for. But I feel like it was spreading itself too thin. Giving equal representation to the original game in the series and one that was less than a year old felt just wrong. If they had to include Rooftop Run and Planet Wisp, it would have been good to see them further differentiated from the source material. More of the sewers, balloons, aqueducts, mountains and nighttime settings for Rooftop Run, and the pristine, untouched natural environment of Planet Wisp would have been greatly appreciated. 

Who says that it needed to end on '06 anyway? The game only progresses forwards through time for the main levels but jumps back to something else in the era for the boss/rival fights (although for Silver it jumps to something the never happened). The final level and boss should have been in Final-Scrap-Death-Fortress-Egg-Rush-Brain-Carrier Zone or something. 

Planet Wisp Modern would have been one of the best levels in the game with more 3D sections. It starts out so well and then goes to shit once you get to the tower. That was from Colours but they really got carried away with the tower.

Ironically, Planet Wisp Classic actually has the big slopes most other levels were lacking, but was too focused on the Spikes wisp to really benefit from it.

Kenichi Tokoi really tried to make this theme suitable for a final level, especially one that's so mechanical. It's a great mix, and works a treat. I love it. Shame that the Act 2 track is basically just a mix of Colours' Act 1 and 3 mixes. It really misses the mark, by being too upbeat for the level and uninteresting as a remix.

I do think that the Act 2 mix is better than the original, if only for letting that little emotional piano bit hang on a little longer and a little more atmospherically before the loop, but yeah it was too similar generally.  I'm not a huge fan of Act 1 as a music piece - it fits the stage perfectly and I'm fine with it lacking the emotional side of the original melody since it's used for the penultimate rather than final stage - but it doesn't appeal to me in a general sense, I tune out when it plays in the soundtrack.  BUT... it's definitely very different from any of the originals, and Act 2 needed that too.  I definitely wish Act 2 had been more heavy on the non-mechanical aspects of Planet Wisp for the whole stage - maybe even reverse the progression - start mechanical and end in the plains - would've been a much more triumphant finale for the game. With music to match, focusing on the "beautiful alien planet" elements of the song in the same way Act 1 focused on the "mechanical Eggman takeover" elements of the original song, it would've been gorgeous.

And yeah, the Wisp usage definitely hurt these stages, making them feel odd and gimmicky. I do often wonder if they should've gone a different angle than chronological for the game, jumping back and forth between classic and modern content.

Chronological order makes sense as a journey through Sonic's past adventures, but paired with the lack of variety in level themes for Generations it just doesn't add to the experience. A lot of Generations manages to feel half-baked. The concept of the game is so nice and really was a nice love letter to the series past (I'm talking as though it's 2011 where the only other thing like it was S4), but it really deserved a much wider scope. The game is so tiny, the story is so non-existent and the fan service is so spotty in places. No Special Stages, no classic Knuckles and Amy, no modern Metal, Classic Sonic rewritten as a silent protagonist in a really unnatural way, 9 levels to represent the entire series, no narrative tying things together in a meaningful way and a really inaccurate attempt to recreat Classic Sonic gameplay (although I have to stress that I do in fact really enjoy Classic in Generations)... The game deserved more, and definitely didn't deserve to be rehashed itself in the worst possible way with Forces.