Released in celebration of the
Sonic franchise's 20th anniversary,
Sonic Generations is truly a product of love for its loyal fans. The game positively brims with nostalgia; references to past
Sonic games are everywhere, from the old-school gameplay to the classic sound effects to the modern interpretations of iconic
Sonic levels. The music, of course, is no exception.
Table of Contents
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Game Information
•
Creativity
•
Implementation
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Replay Value
•
Notable Tracks
•
Final Score
Release Date: November 1, 2011
Consoles: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Developers: Sonic Team, Devil's Details
Publisher: Sega
Composers: Jun Senoue, Naofumi Hataya, Tomoya Ohtani, Kenichi Tokoi, Richard Jacques, Yutaka Minobe, Yasafumi Fukuda
I mentioned
Sonic Generations' huge nostalgia factor earlier, and for me, this is epitomized by the game's soundtrack. Nearly every track in the game is a returning piece from a former
Sonic game, beautifully rearranged or remixed for its new context. With all of this reliance on past musical material, you might expect me to dock some points on creative grounds. Thing is, I'd argue that its imaginative use of the existing material is precisely what makes
Sonic Generations most creative. In the interest of length, I'd like to narrow in on one specific example of this: how the soundtrack expresses the concepts of "classic" and "modern" through purely musical means.
TIL "modern" means "taller and skinnier."
One bit of background about
Sonic Generations: its main levels are each broken into two parts: a "classic" stage, where the gameplay is old-school and 2D, and a "modern" stage, with three-dimensional gameplay resembling more recent games. Correspondingly, and in line with a long tradition of
Sonic games, the music for the two stages are variations upon the same thematic material. The distinction is clear here: the stage 1 music should invoke a retro feel consistent with the old-school gameplay, and the stage 2 music should work well with the modern style. Take, for instance, the following music for Crisis City Acts 1 and 2:
Crisis City: Act 1 -- Sonic Generations
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