Recent reviews by LH

The physics feel like someone made generations into a mobile game, but tried 3 different ways and failed all of them
The story is so cringe its funny, and the levels each take about as long as a challenge level from generations (so far), with a lot of weird automation. Lots of death pits have hidden springs so you don't oopsie, but then some sections you easily slip off the waterslide and instadie. Don't worry though, unless you have recently experienced many aneurysms and been the victim of a lobotomy you will have to try *very* hard to not end up with an S, or at the very least an A.
The custom character never looks quite right, and after each level completion you have to sit through 7 new beanies unlocked. Cool idea but feels incredibly forced.
All in all, this game would've been decently competent and funny if it was indie, but it's a first party product so kinda ass, buy it on sale if you want to know what it takes to be infinite
Edit: Beating the game takes 3-3.5h, the weird slipperyness and not-so-good-levels don't let up, and it has this weird stuttering (probably because of the horrendous DRM Denuvo lmao) and bizarre load times at the start of certain levels that make resetting it infinitely more infuriating.

Update at the bottom.

Love the original, this is 99% of that game and a whole lot extra
Upsides: it's supported and will probably be less scuffed than the old port, has good button tooltips and moderately less goofy launcher, they rerecorded all the lines and rewrote the whole thing so that when previously the characters sound like amnesiacs they actually remember their past (and it's more engaging, since modern Sonic doesn't just nod after saving a lifelong friend, but actually replies to what they say), has a whole new campaign (which I haven't touched yet, I want to 100% the Sonic side again), extra music and such in the art room.

There's very few downsides: one they changed some microscopic things in cutscenes that make no sense in the scene (essentially instead of being coherent with games that came out at the time but disempowering/stupid/cringe it's now _Amy weirdly holds cupcakes at Sonic?_. Also some things that weren't rewritten when matched with the rewritten lines feel goofy.) and very weirdly minorly censored some of Rouge's exposed upper back (???), two it removed a minor mode that's very whatever, three it uses the garbage fps nuking DRM Denuvo.
Oh and they removed Right there Ride on from Sonic Rush that was in Generations, that's pretty up there in terms of bad changes

TL;DR: it's good, if you haven't played Generations get it, if you have played Generations then get it on sale and replay it

Edit: I've now finished it, Shadow generations is really good, the design feels better than Sonic Generations, the story is actually interesting and not just a boring "woah this plotmonster appeared so now you're gaming in the past, but we'll at most mention this in passing in a decade+" and has reasonable implications for whatever future story of shadow they cook up, but we'll see what they do.
As previously mentioned, the Sonic half is almost the same as 2011, with some new voice acting and writing (almost universally better, but knuckles and rouge sound like dookie) and some changes that are just _weird_ that they even bothered (rouge getting less shown back skin by her wings, slightly less cleavage, but a full frogs eye view butt-shot in Shadow generations??? And Amy losing her annoying obsessive personality and not replacing it with any of the interesting things they'd done after the original release so now she's just kinda there like vector or espio despite being a bigger part for longer, but whatever)

Tearjerker (not the only type of jerker, if you mod it back in I guess, ya feel me), absolute classic, massive achievement for what was essentially just volunteer work.
The girls are cute, the stories are interesting and unique, and never forget
kenji is best girl

I made a giant underground waterwheel project for my fort, accidentally got the final rock from the channel stuck in the inlet port (so I couldn't stop the water) and accidentally made it too deep so it never got water to the wheel
and then didnt touch it for 10 months
goty

Why can I write a review for this game, I don't even own it

Trash company in charge of pillaging and chopping off parts of an existing product.
No but for real, why defend them removing Kickstarter content from the game?

It's like if someone chopped up the transistor gameplay into little pieces and portioned them out with progression, that gradually grows into more and more content.
The roguelite elements are what really make the game. Each "run" you're attempting to escape the underworld through 4 distinct regions, and every room you complete leaves you with 1-3 choices for new rooms with different rewards, which can give you small incremental power ups or drastically alter your gameplay.
Then with the persistent rewards from your run you get to unlock different weapons and playstyles, which set your core gameplay the next run to something completely different.
It's pretty boring the first few runs (like before the game/story allows you to alter the game in any way, or the story gets to progress) but then it's pretty good.
I think I prefer the gameplay over Bastion, but not the story. I'd probably rather play through Transistor for the first time, then do a NG+, than Hades, but you also don't get "as much game" for your money so :shrug:

its good (really good)

Good replayable, but short game.
Unfortunately permanently censored, further shortened, by devs who for some reason thought removing a "censor disturbing content" toggle and forcibly applying it to EVERYONE was a good idea.

They at least fixed the tutorial achievement becoming unachievable after removing the "disturbing" scenes (7 months after doing it), so maybe sometime 2023 they'll actually fix the game they intentionally broke?

Like, imagine unironically removing the ACTUAL ending from your own game.

It's uhh, ok.
There's a lot of things that feel off, like the physics or impulse from grenades/gravhammer, but it can be quite fun (as long as you don't get lazered from across the map by someone with the default loadout, because the AR and Magnum are really good)

The microtransactions and battlepass XP system is genuinely one of the worst I've seen though, Jesus Christ