Once you complete a trio of Zones you face up to a boss fight, but only once you've gathered three boss keys, unlocked by completing challenges for the preceding Zones. And not as ever, but perhaps as it always should have been, each level is full of secret alternative routes. As ever, it's all policed by robotic enemies who are positioned in just the right place to knock Sonic's golden rings from his cute little gloved hands. Whether you're in 2D or hybrid levels, gameplay is the usual blend of interconnected platform freeways sped across at lightning speed and trickier, precision-platforming sections featuring spikes, moving platforms and bottomless pits. They start off in the familiar Green Hills before visiting Sonic the Hedgehog 2's Chemical Plant, Knuckles' Sky Sanctuary and even locations borrowed from the riskier end of the timeline, like Crisis City from the ghastly Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 and Planet Wisp from Sonic Colors. Stranded in a whitewashed hub world that they must gradually recolour, the Sonics are served up a level each in nine Zones inspired by high points in the series' history. The re-imagined 2D levels offer beautiful new takes on classic visuals. With help from a new time-travelling foe who has jumbled up the series' history, the action is split between 2D levels starring a mute, plain-shaded, slightly plumper Sonic, limited to spin attack and spin dash, and hybrid levels that mix 2D and 3D elements featuring the taller, mouthier and shader-spangled modern Sonic, with his arsenal of homing attacks, stomps, drifts and slides. What's more surprising - and gratifying - is that for once the new game is both compilation and enjoyable sequel.
If the series is famous for one other thing besides its hero, however, then surely it is Sega's unwavering devotion to his longevity, and thus it was no surprise when Sonic Generations sped onto release lists for the end of this year, just 12 months after the warmly received Sonic Colors.
It could even be argued that in those 20 years Sonic has been subject to more rose-tinted compilations than enjoyable sequels. 20 years after the release of Sonic the Hedgehog, perhaps the most interesting thing Sega could have done would have been not to celebrate his anniversary, because goodness knows we have been invited to do so on enough occasions already.
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