When you stop by the shop inSonic X Shadow Generations, you’ll probably find yourself a bit overwhelmed with the vast number of abilities that are all rather vague in their description, especially since you may only equip a limited number of them before running out of skill points.
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Classic and Modern have separate skills, but some overlap, so I’ll try to have an equal number for both the new and old hedgehogs, from least important to the absolute biggest priority, to keep in your skill set at all times.
The lower it is, the more you can live without it, and the higher, the more this game becomes a little too easy.
These abilities are ranked especially according to how much they benefit going for S ranks or time attacks in general. It should also be noted that they only work in proper stages and not in challenges.
10Sure-Footed
Preventing Slip-ups
When you throw yourself onto spikes in this game, you get your rings stripped from you and have to take a second or two to get back up, but Sure-Footed changes that.
While you still lose your rings on taking damage, you’ll get back up immediately, and be back on your way.
For some clarity, tons of abilities suck and are a waste of points, and while this one ain’t bad, if you’re playing the game as intended, you’ll never need it anyway.
That’s why it’s at the bottom of this list, for being a nice addition to ease you into the Sonic experience, but dead weight if you’re not experiencing a skill issue.
9Super Sonic
Not Super Useful
Super Sonic is one of the most iconic forms in Sonic history, and yet it found a way to be just a bit underwhelming in Generations.
Don’t get me wrong, getting to be invincible, incredibly fast, and able to fly for a while as Modern Sonic is all great; it just comes at a hefty cost.
For one, this takes up all of your skill points, meaning this is the only ability you can have equipped, so you can’t have anything else on this list when using it.
On top of that, it takes 50 rings to start using it, then drains them incredibly fast while boosting, which makes it hardly worth using over bettering your normal form.
8Time Brake
Better Than Secret Rings
Time Break is an ability lifted directly from Sonic and the Secret Rings, and now that it’s in a good video game, it’s actually pretty fun to slow time for a little while.
This helps you dodge and weave around enemies and moving obstacles, and makes precision platforming easier.
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Unlike Chaos Control, this does, unfortunately, slow Sonic down as well as everything else, making it only useful if you’re struggling with execution during a difficult bit of a level.
But due to the fact that it kills your speed immensely, it’s one we would only pull out in very sticky situations.
7Boost Gauge Up
More Speed, Fewer Rings
Here comes one of the earliest unlockable abilities, and the first on this list to be exclusive to the Modern levels.
Boost Gauge Up does something you could probably predict from the name: it makes your boost gauge bigger. This means you can spend less time killing enemies and getting rings and more time going fast, which is awesome.
The only reason it’s this low is that it takes up more than half of your skill points, and you could always just route better to pick up more rings instead of using it.
6Athleticism
Almost Like Swimming
If you’ve fallen offthe top path in Chemical Plant or Seaside hilland had to endure the humbling water route below, Athleticism is for you.
It makes you retain a lot more of your speed when you’re going uphill or in water, though we mostly only care about that second thing.
Losing speed from going uphill can be resolved by spin dashing or boosting, but water will almost always slow you down unless you’re rocking this skill.
You can avoid water most of the time by skillfully taking the top route or going faster, but this works wonders when you need to be underwater.
5Drop Dash
For the Maniacs
For some reason, the onlynew skill in the game is the Drop Dash, and that’s weird because it’s only a skill for Classic Sonic and is just baked into Modern Sonic’s moveset, instead of being a skill for both.
Nonetheless, this gives you an instant spin dash mid-air that offers a nice burst of speed to get back on your feet quickly.
This skill is especially worth having since Classic has a ton of slower-paced platforming segments that you have to go through and drop-dashing right after finishing is a nice way to gain back all that speed.
Spin dashing is still way faster, but the drop dash is awesome in terms of making up for lost speed.
4Blast Off
Blast Away!
This is one of the easiest abilities to see the value in from a speedrunning perspective. Blast Off has you pressing boost at the start of a stage and going fast, plain and simple.
You might think it’s unnecessary, considering you can boost near the start of a stage anyway, but this gives way more speed.
Not only does it give you that massive burst of speed right at the start, but that can easily translate into a drift into rings to fill your boost meter even further, and provides an easy advantage over anyone not using this skill.
Guess What This One Does
In terms of going fast, it doesn’t get much better for Modern Sonic than the ability that exists solely to make you go faster and do very little else.
Classic Sonic doesn’t need his version, as the next entry on this list pretty much denies any reason to use anything else, but it’s great on Modern.
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There’s not much else I can say about it. You’ll see it used in most ability-focused runs of the game, especially since it works well with M/D-Speed.
It can be a bit unwieldy to go at Mach 10, but once you’ve got the hang of it, you’ll find that S ranks come way too easily.
2Long Spin Dash
Break The Sound Barrier
Here’s why ‘speed up’ isn’t needed for Classic; it’s because spin dashing is so impressive that your base speed doesn’t mean anything anymore.
Running through levels just doesn’t have the same vibe as holding RT for a few seconds, then launching off like a rocket.
Long Spin Dash just takes that super-powered burst of speed, gives it even more speed, and makes it last way longer.
No matter what stage you’re on, you can use this skill to circumvent just about any platforming segment and fly over everything instead of actually playing the game.
1Thunder Shield
Faster Than Lightning
As an insane two-skill combo that’ll be well worth using all your skill points on, Long Spin Dash + Thunder Shield lets you get that massive burst of speed, then use your shield to jump across the entire level. The extra hit of damage and ring attraction are just bonuses at that point.
Using the lightning shield to jump through every obstacle in your way and crush the platforming feels wonderful; just be careful not to get hit.
The only downside is that this takes a massive 70 skill points and can only be obtained once per respawn, but if you’re looking for speed, this is how you get it.
Sonic X Shadow Generations
WHERE TO PLAY
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