Remasters, Re-releases and Sonic

We booted up the new version of Sonic Generations this morning, and it was a blast. In fact, it was exactly the same blast it was when we played it on PC 12 months ago.

That’s not strictly true. There are some new bits, some re-recorded lines of dialogue. New things can be found. Places that had slowdown, even on a fairly beefy PC, don’t have slowdown in the newly released version of the game.

All of these are pretty cool, but don’t amount to the purchase cost of a new release. The controls are still the same as they ever were. The bosses are still the same as they ever were. You’re even locked down at 60fps for the original game on PC, which is at least half of what it should be.

The biggest advantage are for those who play on PlayStation or Switch exclusively, where Generations hasn’t been available. But for Xbox and PC gamers, this is not the remaster they might have hoped it was. We were already played at 4k/60fps.

Now obviously, I’m ignoring the real reason to buy Sonic X Shadow Generations – the massively well-reviewed Shadow levels. The new content is doing brilliantly. So well, actually, that Generations is dragging the score down. That’s a pretty sad fact.

This is the latest in a line of remasters that don’t really add anything, or that have a questionable reason for existing. Red Dead Redemption – perfectly playable on Xbox – was given a barebones remaster instead of a decent upgrade basically so that it could come to PlayStation and Switch.

Sonic Generations for a New Generation

The lack of backwards compatibility to the PS3 generation is RDR’s USP. The recent PC release, while overpriced, is a miracle but again, it exists as an interesting product just because it never existed before. Xbox players get no benefit and no re-release.

Horizon: Zero Dawn justifies itself with some prettier graphics and upgraded dialogue animations. Tomba/Tombi comes back with some basic emulation options like rewind and save anywhere, and some archive material. It’s not the only one that has gone that route.

And here’s the thing: none of this is necessarily a bad thing. Horizon has caused some misgivings for what it says about the way new games age, but it’s better that Tomba exists on modern platforms than that it doesn’t get played at all.

The problem is the price. And this is true for Sonic Generations as well, which isn’t a remaster in any real terms. Would anybody have balked at Shadow Generations being DLC for the original game? Given the quality and amount of content, they could have charged a decent amount, and upgraded Generations for those who already own it.

They could have, but then we wouldn’t have bought Generations a second time. It’s a great game, aging rapidly. Some improvements would have been welcome.

I’ve often talked about re-releasing old games, and the monkey paw has seasonably granted my wish. If the result is re-releases of games we already own with no improvements, and expensive ports that offer little incentive to purchase above legal access, the market is going to dry up very quickly.