Games I Beat in the Year 2026: Sonic X Shadow Generations (Switch)

Games I Beat in the Year 2026: Sonic x Shadow Generations (Switch)

Overview:

On my mission to tackle my mountainous gaming backlog, the first game I beat this glorious year of 2026 was Sonic x Shadow Generations on the Nintendo Switch. I don’t know whether to call this a remake, a remaster, or a port. The closest comparison is an “& Knuckles” style expansion, except it has new levels, a new story, a revamped hub world, and… it’s completely different from an “& Knuckles” expansion.

This game is actually TWO GAMES FOR THE PRICE OF ONE. I guess since I never did a blog on Sonic Generations, I guess I can have a retrospective on it…

Sonic Generations:

It’s good. Literally saved the Sonic franchise from its demise. Then Sonic Boom happened. Being a Sonic fan is a wild ride. You just learn to enjoy the highs and ignore the lows…

Now on to the Shadow of it all.

Story:

Shadow’s story takes place parallel to Sonic Generations. While Sonic is busy rescuing his friends from time distortions, Shadow is stuck reliving the worst moments of his existence, fighting Black Doom, and confronting his past trauma. Just normal hedgehog things.

Like Generations, each main stage ends with you meeting one of your homies. Except in Shadow’s case, the interactions are actually pretty thoughtful; especially in comparison to the interactions Sonic has.

Maria and Gerald show up (yes, the dead ones), and Shadow’s conversations with them are surprisingly heartfelt. He wants to open up, but he knows he can’t rewrite the past. It’s much more cohesive than the “live for them” theme in Shadow the Hedgehog (the game, not the character), which was hard to feel anything after SMG-ing living bearings throughout 11 branching paths.

With the animated shorts, the origin trailer, and the writing team trying their absolute best, this whole thing feels like a love letter to Shadow the Hedgehog.

Now if only Sega would show the same respect to Knuckles.

Gameplay:

Shadow actually plays vastly differently from Sonic which is wild because Sonic Team usually solves things by slapping Sonic physics on everyone and calling it a day.

Shadow can stop time, teleport, combo melee, and unlock various Doom powers that change how you traverse levels. You eventually get:

• a “Sasuke Curse Mark 2” flying mode

• a “nothing personnel, kid” teleport attack

• a Splatoon/Spider-Man goo-swing thing

• a motherflipping surfboard boiiiii

Once you have more abilities, levels open up with new routes and collectibles. If you’re into red ring hunting or leaderboard conquering, this game has you covered.

There are six main levels, each with two acts (1 = mostly 3D, 2 = mostly 2D), plus a Tokyo level for the movie tie-in. Unlike Generations which honored Sonic’s history, Shadow’s levels highlight key Shadow moments like Radical Highway and the Space Colony Ark. Weirdly, no levels from Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) made the cut. I actually would have liked the Cyber Sewer level.

Just like Generations, you must clear smaller challenge levels to progress. These are actually better this time: stuff like “Kill every enemy before the end” or “Use time stop strategically.” They’re short but punchy and overall fluff the game out by an extra hour.

Hub World:

The hub world borrows from Sonic Frontiers, except this time, it makes thematic sense. Instead of “random island with floating rails and squares,” you get a white void where Shadow’s memories and emotions manifest as floating platforms… sometimes attached to castle-like buildings.

You can collect rings, find unlockables, talk to your six friends (two ghosts, three robots, and Rouge), and… mostly just head to the next level. The art/music collectibles weren’t super compelling for me (Google exists), but compared to Generations’ “hallway museum,” this is an upgrade.

And honestly? This feels like a prototype for a future open-world Sonic structure done right.

Conclusion:

Even though I’ve never been a huge Shadow fan, I can admit that the Shadow Generations portion of Sonic x Shadow Generations actually made me appreciate the guy a bit. Not much though; he still leans too hard into the “sad anime man” trope, but even the Shadow opp in me can tell that Sega is learning.

Having been tricked into replaying Sonic Generations, I can also appreciate the ways this game pushes forward. Generations may have saved the franchise (temporarily), but Shadow’s campaign evolves it by pulling together ideas from everything that came after. Except Boom.

There are rumors floating around that Sega’s next big project might be Shadow the Hedgehog 2 (don’t quote me). And if it builds off this game? I’d play it.

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