Sonic X Shadow Generations - Part 2 - Playing It In The Cloud Is Fine For Some - Cloud Monday

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Sonic X Shadow Generations via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

In Part 1 i focused on the original Sonic Generation levels, something that i was familiar with. In this part i tried the new Shadow levels. we start with Shadow's story, something i was only vaguely familiar with as i haven't played a Sonic game where Shadow is a major character but i seemed to have picked up his story over time. This is told via a slideshow style cinematic. this feels very cheap with no effort to tie it into the game, like they could've had a chao watching it or something. 

When you start Shadow's game we have another cinematic that tries to tie it into the story we saw from the Sonic Generations group. it's fine but it really does feel like DLC. Shadow plays quite differently from the other two hedgehogs we tried in Part 1. as i progressed through the video i was unlocking new powers that could not only defeat enemies in new ways but also unlock new level traversal mechanics.

As i'm unfamiliar with Shadow, i didn't know the levels we were unlocking, some of the enemies, or the music. the music was great to listen to, i wonder how much was changed from the originals. But the levels were a bit hit and miss. i'm not used to Sonic levels taking nearly 10 minutes and there were additions to the level that hadn't been introduced and even after playing i'm not sure i can describe how they really worked. So out of the 4 i played, one was long, one was short, one introduced new mechanics in a way i didn't grasp, and i don't really remember the other. fair to say they're a mix bag and as i haven't played the game they're from they hold no nostalgia for me.

There are positives and negatives when it comes to whether you should stream this game from the cloud or not. for me, someone who's familiar and finished the Sonic Generations part of the game, streaming the Shadow stuff saves space. if your internet is great and very reliable, then streaming it would be good. But if you have a little trouble with your connection, the visual artifacts it would create could make navigating really difficult or the delay it adds to the controls could make playing is frustrating. 

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/8nnq2mPHlI8

Sonic X Shadow Generations - Part 1 - Re-Released Nostalgia - Cloud Monday

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS4 version of Sonic X Shadow Generations via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

I played Sonic Generations on PS3 and finished it, so this is game i could've been familiar with. but as this is Sonic X Shadow Generations, i thought that this might've been more of a director's cut or remaster. from this part, it feels like they just re-released the PS3 game and attached a Shadow section.

In this part i focused on the Sonic Generations part. unfortunately, it's not 1080p on PS4 but it does look better and more crisp than i remember the PlayStation 3 version looking. It does feel dated. it talks about aspects of gameplay and then never tells us how to do it or where to go, or if it does it's late. the game's difficulty spike at Sky Sanctuary is still here, too. so i'm just disappointed this is it, but what's here is fine.

Sonic X Shadow Generations allows you to manually save in the home area, but whilst you're doing a stage there isn't an option to save. so if you get the 20 second disconnection warning, you can save in the hub area or quit the level and save.

I didn't have this issue much in this part, but there's a high chance that any video issues could impact my gameplay. visually, when things are going fast there doesn't seem to be an issue keeping track of what's happening. but i can imagine that things might be tough if there's macro blocking. the camera zooms out with Classic Sonic making the character smaller on screen which could also be an issue if the video quality degrades. We'll have to see what happens in Part 2 if i come across some issues.