Sonic Generations 3DS revisited

I'm embarrassed to say but just figured out tonight that Sonic 3DS has an online versus mode. I remember reading online that the game was local only and the instruction manual would be a sorry excuse for a pamphlet to say the least, so I honestly never selected versus mode. I've yet to meet another person out there with a copy of the game sadly.

This significantly improves my opinion of the game as any sort of competitive mode instantly boosts the replay value for me.

The online options are what can usually be expected of a Nintendo system. You can match make against random people or play against your friends list that you've already exchanged friend codes with. After each match plays out it adds your opponents player card to your collection where you can check out their skill level and game progress, but unfortunately there's no way to communicate with that person again for rematches at a later time. You can mark cards on your list as a favorite but I'm not sure if it increases the likelihood that you'll be matched with them again if you're online.

The way the matches play out are first by selecting a stage that would be your preference to race on. The opponent does the same and then the game "flips a coin" in a sense to choose the stage of the match. All stages are selectable except for the boss fights, including the special stages.

While in the stage the opponent's Sonic is represented by a player icon to show you where they are. You can attack each other using the stomp ability. While this is a nice addition to make things more cut throat, usually people are trying so hard to get through the stage quickly that they pay little mind to what you're doing. The bottom screen displays each players position in the stage.

There are also added obstacles to the stages in the form of black holes that lock you in place and force you to mash out of them. I've found that there are more black holes on the quicker routes of the stages, which force you to do a little more maneuvering than just finding the route and holding boost.

The netcode is pretty decent. So far I've only experienced some drop in frame rate from it but the stages were still very playable. There haven't been any pauses for lag or lost connections for me while playing.

I hate that I left this stuff out of my original review, lesson learned for me. I'll be more thorough in checking out all the menus to their extent in future reviews. This mode can add a lot of replay to the game if you're into testing your speeds against random people outside of comparing time trials.

Pros:

-Online mode allows you to race against random people live in almost all stages of the game.

-Netcode is pretty good.

-Additional collection items, extra lives, card backgrounds, missions and player cards can be collected by playing this mode.

-After the initial match you can choose to rematch the same stage or roll again for a new stage to keep competing.

Cons:

-If you don't have the opponent's friend code already there is no way to communicate with them at all.

-This mode could be considered pretty bare bones. It's pretty much limited to a player match, no ranked matches, lobbies or spectator modes available.