Sonic 06 was the Sonic game I was most interested in completing due to hearing conflicting opinions about it. I remember a couple of friends from long ago telling me that Sonic 06 wasn't that bad but when I looked up reviews for it, I saw that it was critically panned for reasons that I would eventually realize when playing the game. After beating Sonic 06, I think both sides of what I heard are kind of right. Don't get me wrong, Sonic 06 is a buggy piece of shit, but if Sega actually took the time to polish it, I think it would be just as good as the Sonic Adventure games.

I'll start off with what I think Sonic 06 does right. The music kicks ass. His World is one of the best songs in the whole series. If you can't get hyped listening to it, I don't know what would. Just like in Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, the Sonic & Shadow levels are still entertaining. It will never not be enjoyable running around as Sonic or/and Shadow kicking bots and taking names.......when it works. Silver while not as fun to use as the former two is a nice change of pace compared to them and at least somewhat enjoyable to use. From what I remember Silver's story was the most tolerable one when it comes to glitches. Mephiles was a villain who was not only interesting but also managed to be very intimidating in contrast to Eggman who I don't think really fills that role anymore.

Now onto the bad parts of Sonic 06 that everyone is very familiar with, the glitches. I hear the Xbox 360 version is the better version which explains why I didn't encounter as many bugs as I thought I would, but when they happen they are VERY annoying. A few at the top of my head I can think of are the numerous tries it will take to beat Silver anytime you fight him due to him grabbing you repeatedly, losing control of my character when using a boost pad or just in general, and just the lack of polish the game has in general. There were times when I felt the game was running on a string especially when the camera would shake around occasionally. All of these bugs made it a rage-inducing experience to go through, especially if it was a lengthy level. You don't just play as the big 3, but also most of the important characters like Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, Blaze, Omega, and Amy Rose. While adding more characters to the roster seems like a positive, most of them were either average or just plain unfun, especially when you encounter glitches. The hub world looks and feels like Sonic Adventure 1's but bloated and uglier. In Sonic Adventure 1, it was quick to get to wherever you needed to go in the hub world, in Sonic 06 it doesn't feel nearly as fast and is way bigger than it needs to be. Running around in the forest as anyone but Sonic is as slow as molasses which is ironic since you're playing a game about a speedy, blue hedgehog. The last thing I think is worth mentioning is that Sonic 06 gave us this abomination of a cutscene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk6cgp7RcL8.

While I haven't played Sonic Heroes due to being either incredibly lucky or unlucky that the one disc I ordered came super scratched, but the impression that I have gotten is that every 3d Sonic game after Adventure 2 has had something holding it back whether it be time constraints or a mechanic that overstays its welcome. Even though Sonic 06 is widely regarded as one of the worst games ever made, it had a lot of potential to be special had Sega taken the time to ensure it wasn't a buggy mess.

Played through the whole thing with a friend, and throughout our playthrough we went through a wide array of emotions, like pure unadulterated joy laughing at the broken physics or the ridiculous amount of loading screens. We also experienced plenty of suffering, like the ball puzzle in Silver's story, but the best moment was my friend popping off at that scene. He had no idea this was coming, and honestly, that made it all worth it in my book. Talking about this game is like beating a dead horse, yada yada. If you can find someone else who is willing to suffer through this with you, I say give it a shot; you might just have a good time with it.

Essa é a minha primeira análise do ano e vou começar com o infame Sonic the Hedgehog ou Sonic 2006 para os preguiçosos de plantão, comprei o jogo no natal do ano passado, ele é bastante controverso, já que foi lançado nos 15 anos da série e desapontou todos por não cumprir os requisitos mínimos de um jogo tecnicamente decente, infelizmente ele manchou a reputação da série por uma série de motivos, considerado como um dos piores jogos do Sonic de todos os tempos, Sonic the Hedgehog sofreu duras críticas na época, além de ter sido um dos jogos da série principal que menos venderam.

No começo do desenvolvimento, Sonic the Hedgehog seria um jogo bastante ambicioso, ele tinha a intenção de ser o MELHOR jogo da franquia, sendo o Sonic Adventure 3, porém o desenvolvimento teve vários problemas, por exemplo o prazo curto e a inexperiência do Shun Nakamura foram os principais problemas, resultando no jogo que todos conhecemos.

Falando dos gráficos, eles são bastante estranhos, os modelos dos personagens são muito bem feitos, podemos ver nos sapatos do Sonic que são bastante detalhados mas ao mesmo tempo os humanos são bastante esquisitos e bizarros, principalmente a princesa Elise, o rosto dela nas cutscenes é muito feio, os cenários também não são bonitos, as Town Stages são bem simples e faltam detalhes, a floresta de Soleanna é o maior exemplo disso, já que possui um enorme campo no meio da floresta porém super vazio e feio.

As Cutscenes também são hilárias de ruim, eles se movimentam de um jeito muito duro e as vozes não estão sincronizadas com o movimento da boca dos personagens, além algumas quedas de FPS, detalhe que não estou falando das Cutscenes feitas pela Marza Animation, porque essas daí são lindas demais, até para os dias de hoje.

O jogo possui três histórias principais, começando pelo Sonic, ele possui de longe o PIOR enredo dos três ouriços, já que podemos resumir a história sobre o Eggman sequestrar a Elise e o Sonic precisa salvar ela e é bastante vergonha alheia, principalmente nos momentos de "romance" entre o Sonic e a Elise, eu tenho muitos problemas com isso, o fato do Sonic ser um ouriço e a Elise ser uma humana realista não ajuda nem um pouco, ainda mais vendo as proporções dos dois personagens serem bem diferentes, outra coisa também é que eu fico com uma super pena da Amy, sempre achei ela bastante injustiçada nos jogos principais e nesse jogo é de longe a pior participação dela.

Se a história do Sonic é super cringe, a História do Shadow é muito boa, começando pelo próprio Shadow, ele mudou bastante nesse jogo comparado ao jogo passado por conta dos eventos finais, ele não é mais aquele Edgy estúpido, agora ele é um agente da G.U.N. mas não perdendo a essência do personagem, sendo assim a melhor participação do Shadow na minha opinião, a Rouge e o Omega também possuem uma participação importante, mas o ponto alto da campanha do Shadow é o novo vilão chamado Mephiles, ele é bastante carismático e perigoso.

E por último a história do Silver, eu achei bastante divertida, principalmente por envolver o futuro e o passado por conta da destruição que o Iblis fez no futuro, Mephiles possui uma participação também, ele foi o responsável por manipular o Silver e a Blaze, falando nela, a Blaze é basicamente um complemento do Silver e vice versa, enquanto o Silver é mais inseguro, Blaze é mais "durona", eles possuem uma ótima dinâmica.

O jogo possui as Town Stages que são a mesma coisa os Adventure Fields, ou seja, são os Hub World do jogo, existem três delas, Soleanna Castle Town, Soleanna New City e Soleanna Forest, não tem muito que dizer deles até porque não possuem tanto conteúdo.

Agora sobre a jogabilidade, também temos três:
1- Sonic: é bastante parecido com os jogos anteriores (série Adventure e Heroes), mas com a diferença é que no final de certas fases temos as Super-Speed Stages, são momentos em que o Sonic corre automaticamente com uma super velocidade e isso é bastante irritante, já que não temos um bom controle dele e os saltos deles são bastante perigosos, não podemos controlar direito ele no ar, assim aumentando muito as chances de você morrer, também existem duas fases que jogamos com o Sonic e a Elise, mas só muda o fato do Sonic ter alguns movimentos limitados e criar um escudo em volta dos dois.
2- Shadow: parecido com o Sonic, a gameplay do Shadow é mais focado no combate e nos veículos, sim, os veículos estão de volta mas não se preocupe, eles são ÚTEIS ao contrário do jogo do Shadow que são inúteis, até porque os veículos são obrigatórios em certos trechos da fase mas não são forçados, são bem legais, de longe a minha jogabilidade favorita do jogo.
3- Silver: dessa vez a situação é bastante diferente, primeiro que as fases não são de velocidade e sim usando os poderes psíquicos, ou seja, as fases são bem mais lentas comparada com os outros dois ouriços, segundo que até mesmo o jeito de matar os inimigos é outro, o Silver precisa usar objetos ou até mesmo inimigos para destruir obstáculos e etc.
-Resumindo: as três jogabilidades funcionam mas podiam ser mais polidas, principalmente do Sonic que foi a que menos gostei.

Além dos personagens principais, existem também os personagens secundários, eles servem de apoio para cada ouriço:
1- Tails pode voar, lançar bombas de anéis e só, andar com ele é puro sofrimento, o Knuckles pode planar, socar e escalar paredes, andar com ele é puro sofrimento.
2- Rouge é basicamente igual ao Knuckles mas ao invés de socar ela lança bombas (bem parecida com o Tails) andar com ela é puro sofrimento, Omega pode lançar raios e flutuar no ar, é o melhor personagem secundário de se controlar.
3- Amy usa o martelo Piko Piko para atacar os inimigos e pode ficar invisível se a gente segurar o botão B ? Que ideia hein... Além disso, controlar ela é um lixo e por último a Blaze, ela pode atacar os inimigos usando seus poderes de fogo e por incrível que pareça não é ruim de controlar.
-Resumindo: 90% dos personagens de suporte possuem controles horríveis, eles são bem lerdos e possuem uma jogabilidade muito fraca.

As fases são EXCELENTES, sério mesmo, o level design do Sonic 2006 é muito bom, é bastante parecido com as fases da Era Adventure, possuem caminhos alternativos e no geral são bastante divertidos, as fases são conhecidas como ACT Stages, elas são bastante criativas com temas variados:
-Wave Ocean: a fase da praia, bastante parecida com a Emerald Coast do Sonic Aventure 1.
-Dusty Desert: uma fase que se passa no deserto.
-White Acropolis: uma base do Eggman, é a fase de gelo do jogo.
-Crisis City: uma cidade destruída por Iblis, se passa no futuro do Silver.
-Flame Core: a fase de fogo e caverna, também se passa no futuro de Silver, afinal essa é a base do Iblis.
-Radical Train: uma estação de trem.
-Tropical Jungle: a fase de floresta.
-Kingdom Valley: uma fase de castelo.
-Aquatic Base: o laboratório aquático, é a fase com mais inimigos do jogo.

As fases do Sonic e do Shadow são meio parecidas em questão de estrutura, a diferença são as mecânicas que cada personagem tem, o Silver é diferente, as fases dele são maiores mas focadas em Puzzles, o ÚNICO problema com as fases desse jogo é um quarto bastante específico na Dusty Desert do Silver que pode frustar muitas pessoas, engraçado que essa sessão pra mim ou é ridiculamente fácil ou ridiculamente difícil.

Os chefes fazem parte dos ACT Stages e eles variam muito a qualidade, o Egg-Cerberus por exemplo é um ótimo primeiro chefe, mas a segunda forma do Iblis é bastante entediante e não posso esquecer do Silver, conhecido pelos inúmeros memes como It's No Use ou Take This, se você não entendeu o padrão de ataque dele, vai ser bem frustante.

Não existem apenas os ACT Stages, podemos encontrar nas Town Stages os Town Missions, são missões que podemos fazer com os NPCs do jogo, as missões possuem uma pequena variedade, desde passar por anéis laranjas até derrotar uma ordem de inimigos, cada ouriço possui suas próprias missões e pra falar a verdade, a maioria delas são bem mais ou menos, na verdade as missões em si são o menor dos problemas o real problema é...

O MALDITO, DESGRAÇADO, FILHO DA PUTA DO Loading, esse é o maior problema desse jogo, se o jogo INTEIRO fosse a exata mesma coisa mas sem os Loadings, ele seria bem melhor, tipo bem melhor mesmo, eles acontecem toda a santa hora e toda Town Mission tem no mínimo 3 LOADINGS:
Loading 1: falar com o NPC.
Loading 2: o NPC explica a missão.
Loading 3: Você completa a missão.

Os loadings si não são tão demorados, mas ainda é HORROROSO, quebra o ritmo do jogo, nas fases em si também possuem loadings, no começo da fase e na transição de gameplay (por exemplo quando as fases do Sonic viram aquelas sessões de Super-Speed Stages), pelo menos pra mim foi um obstáculo para fazer os Rank S no começo, mas eu me acostumei depois, o excesso de loadings é a prova definitiva que esse jogo foi apressado, já que definitivamente não precisava tanto de loading assim.

Sonic na sua gigantesca maioria tem músicas fenomenais, desde as músicas instrumentais até as cantadas, no caso do Sonic 2006 ela é de longe o maior ponto alto das músicas da série, ou seja, ele tem a melhor trilha sonora da série, se algum dia eu atualizar minha lista das trilhas sonoras favoritas, com certeza Sonic 2006 estará lá, minhas músicas favoritas são:
-His World (TODAS AS VERSÕES)
-All Hail Shadow
-Dreams of Absolution (antes de jogar eu não gostava dessa música)
-Wave Ocean (The Water's Edge)
-Kingdom Valley
-Crisis City
-Flame Core (Volcano)
-End of the World
-Solaris Phase 1
-Solaris Phase 2
-Jingle: Invincible

A fama do jogo é ser extremamente bugado e quebrado e blá blá blá, mas se eu falar que tive poucos bugs ? Exatamente, comprei o jogo achando que seria um festival de bugs e no fim das contas tive pouquíssimos, um dos bugs que tive foi que quando eu me prendia em alguma coisa, a câmera começava a girar loucamente, eu apenas andava para trás e esse bug se resolvia, outro que tive foi o Knuckles e Rouge escalando as paredes mas tive que apertar o botão A várias vezes para eles saírem porque estavam presos e por último o bug do Festival das Maçãs com o Silver, existe um bug que facilita essa missão bastante, fora isso, não tive muitos problemas com os bugs.

E essa foi a minha análise do jogo, se você não percebeu, eu AMEI esse jogo, peguei todas as conquistas dele no Xbox 360, ou seja, fiz o 1.000G, em questão de diversão virou um dos meus favoritos da série, mas tecnicamente é um dos mais fracos, porque apesar de ser divertido ele não tem o básico para ser um jogo de qualidade, ele ainda é um jogo apressado pra caramba e que falta bastante polimento em certas partes, mas ainda assim, SEM DÚVIDA é muito melhor que Sonic Heroes e Shadow the Hedgehog!!!!! Nós nos vemos na próxima Review e FALOUUUUUUUUU !

Quero agradecer ao @Kauandal001, sem ele, eu não teria comprado esse jogo !

I still consider this to be one of the worst games I've ever played period. The controls are way too precise and annoying, there's zero sense of fluidity or acceleration of any kind to be had with the movement, every character reacts the exact same way to running on any terrain so there's barely any sense of genuine speed, the level design is all complete garbage, the combat in this game is monotonous and in most cases required to progress within a stage, the camera is an embarrassing mess, the game is automated more than Sonic Forces, all the extra playable characters suck, the bosses are the absolute worst in the entire series, the stages just drag without anything interesting happening, the hub areas are all vacant and empty with the same godawful copy pasted town missions spewed all over the place, the loading times are awful and extremely frequent, the game has massive amounts of slowdown almost constantly, there are bugs and glitches galore, the plot is boring and pretentious, the visuals, aesthetics and stage themes are bland and forgettable, you get the idea. And one would think it would at the very least get better when you play Shadow and Silver's campaign afterwards, but no. They're even WORSE than Sonic is (Shadow's gameplay including "mash a and win" combat encounters and vehicle sections somehow worse than they were in Shadow the Hedgehog, and Silver's gameplay boiling down to "pick stuff up and throw it back at them: the game" with environmental puzzles that are all basically "hold the right trigger and I'll solve this for you"). I don't even think this game is so bad it's good, because that would imply me having any sort of enjoyment with this game ironic or otherwise, but I can't. You can't even laugh at how bad it is, you can just sit there and be depressed as the game drags itself on for another 10 hours or so. Any sort of slightly amusing bug or glitch gets old after the first 3 viewings and then you quickly realize how terrible this game really is.

This is a game that I don't think has any redeeming qualities whatsoever. None. I don't even think the soundtrack is good despite what everyone keeps telling me. Everything in this game is simply a bad idea done badly, and I would lose nothing if this game never existed in the first place. And no, I'm not gonna acknowledge how "AMBITIOUS" this game is or how much "PASSION" and "EFFORT" went into it. I'm not gonna start handing out participation trophies for games doing the bare minimum of having ideas that I don't even think are good anyway. Absolute slog of a game. If I could rate it 0/5 I would.

Boy oh boy where do I even begin. Sonic... honey, my pookie bear. I have loved you ever since I first laid eyes on you. The way you run through loop-de-loops and strike fear into your enemies eyes. Your silky smooth touch around the goal ring, and that gorgeous homing attack. I would do anything for you. I wish it were possible to freeze time so I would never have to watch you retire.

You had a rough childhood, but you never gave up hope. You are even amazing off Sonic 3D Blast, you're a great husband and father, sometimes I even call you dad. I forever dread and weep, thinking of the day you will one day retire. I would sacrifice my own life it were the only thing that could put a smile on your beautiful face.

You have given me so much joy, and heartbreak over the years. I remember when you first had your rough transition into 3D and its like my heart got broken into a million pieces. But a tear still fell from my right eye when I watched you kill Perfect Chaos, because deep down, my glorious king deserved it. I just wanted you to return home. Then alas, you did, my sweet baby boy came home and I rejoiced. 2006 was a hard year for us baby, but in 2022 you made history happen. You came back from Sonic 06, and I couldn't believe it.

I was crying, bawling even, and I heard my glorious king exclaim these words, "AW YEAH!, THIS IS HAPPENING" Not only have you changed the game of platformers and the world forever, but you've eternally changed my world. And now you're getting older, but still the goat, my goat. I love you pookie bear, my glorious king, Sonic The Hedgehog.

(this is a long personal one, borderline life-storycore. sorry for those that dislike walls of text but sonic 06 does this to people. Sonic the hedgehog 2006? more like sonic the hedgehog 2006 word review)

I feel like if you are on the gaming pulse enough to be looking at a website like this, you likely already have at least HEARD of Sonic 06. Pretty much everything that could be said about this game on the internet already has been, it's really quite the overused topic both in the spheres of the sonic fandom and the sphere of bad game critics. Just in the sphere of youtube alone I've seen showcases of the many, MANY bugs and glitches the game contains, reviews of the game that dwell on it for uncharacteristically large amounts of time, personal retrospectives from fans recalling the impact the game has had on the brand as a whole, posthumous optimistic looks at the game dissecting vibes the game manages to retain in spite of its rushed nature, and the more recent phenomena, endearingly nostalgic takes towards the game from those that played it in their formative years. You could say that this game has had just as much of an impact on Sonic's brand as the previous game titled "Sonic The Hedgehog" (of which it has been a longer time between the present day and this games launch than the time between the two "Sonic the Hedgehog" games). It's certainly hard to say anything, let alone anything NOTEWORTHY about this game when everyone already knows what it is and why it is. All I can really contribute to the decades-rotten dead horse conversation is my own personal experiences with the game.

I'm a life-long sonic fan and despite being the correct age to have done so, I didn't grow up with this game. I definitely remember the launch hype cycle for this game, 6-year-old me frequenting the old Sonic Central website and looking at the promotional material for the game. I remember thinking that with the realistic environments and people that the sonic brand must have been taking a more adult turn after Shadow the Hedgehog, and since my family was still rocking the Gamecube as the sole household console, I was fine with sticking to the recently-released (yet equally mature in an incomprehensible sense) Sonic Riders and worrying about the fancy new Sonic game later when I was older. Given that I went on to own a Wii instead of any HD systems and wasn't a part of the greater internet at the time (as I should have been for that age), the release and subsequent car crash that was this games reception entirely eluded me. It wasn't until like, idk 2008/9ish? when I mentioned to a cousin that not much on the PS3 interested me besides "this game called sonic the hedgehog but not like the original one", and got laughed at for it that I realized that there might have been something up with this game, but I never thought much of it. I did always have a fascination with it in a curious way though, and whenever Silver was playable in any spinoff on the Wii, I always only played as him back then because he's from that mysterious sonic game I couldn't play! Imagine a Sonic Adventure 3 where you could play as him and all the other cool sonic characters...

Eventually I would get old enough to be given free roam on the internet and through that I would learn to discover this game and its actual reputation through youtube videos much like the ones I referred to earlier. Watching the game crumble under its own weight and seeing EVERYONE just absolutely tear it to pieces gave me a sense of relief that by owning a Wii I unintentionally dodged the bullet that was this game. (though instead I did have to suffer through Secret Rings, so who really won in the end?) I recall a family friend bought an Xbox 360 alongside this game and in the many times trying it at their house yeah it was just as janky and bad as the internet said it was. We would get stuck in that awesome beginners trap of getting owned by the mach speed section in Wave Ocean from hitting the scripted loop-de-loops at a bad angle and getting launched off of them to a game over, then having to restart from the absolute opening of the game. I saw firsthand that wow, this is certainly an unpolished, buggy, unfinished work that should be ridiculed. I couldn't believe this was essentially Sonic Adventure 3...

Eventually I got a PS3, and even more eventually I ended up buying a copy knowing full well what it was, and then I played it up to finishing Sonic and Silvers chapters before tapping out with Shadow. I felt like I had seen enough by that point, and outside of bringing it out for some ironic laughs in multiplayer with friends or playing it at my dentists office while high as fuck getting cavities filled in (don't ask, but yeah), this game remained on my shelf, uncompleted, for the better part of like a decade. The game sucked, after all. Seeing stuff like Project P-06 try and "fix" the game garnered no interest from me. Why would I want to even play a "fixed" version of this? My relationship with this game remained solely in the ironic "this is the bad sonic game haha" mindset and I couldn't believe that there were people that actually thought the game was good. They had to have just been gaslighted by nostalgia, right?

It was only a few weeks ago where the great almighty wheel of games decided it was time for me to stream a playthrough of this online. I figured that being a sonic fan that completing a playthrough of this was inevitable and that at least if I streamed it, it would be entertaining. Despite already owning the game on PS3 I instead bought the (bizarrely relisted for only 5 dollars) xbox 360 version as not only did it serve the ironic bit of buying Sonic 06 digitally in the modern day but also it gave me a clean save and was the most stable version of the game (as little as that actually means anything). As I played through the game, something very peculiar happened. Something that hadn't happened in all the years I've spent all this time rambling about.

I was actually having a lot of fun. And we aren't talking laugh-at-it isn't-this-game-so-bad-amirite-guys fun. Genuine, unadulterated, serious fun.

Maybe my tastes have changed a lot in all this time, maybe I'm going insane, but there was just this earnest sincerity that I felt when playing through this game, that emblematic sincerity that Sonic games have where they sometimes do some really REALLY absurd shit yet play it off with the straight confidence that I can't help but enjoy. Seeing all the sonic characters have their semi-winded anime-ass first-translation-draft dialogues with one another and how they handled this heavy-handed plot riddled with time travel and eldritch-horror summoning was the coolest thing ever. The game may be fucking, but I could still feel the games intent through it all. The game isn't even that fucking, honestly. Most glitches that I had heard the game get lambasted for online were things that I usually had to go out of my way to look for and execute, or things that I likely wouldn't have tried to do otherwise had I not already had the pretense knowledge of "check this out, I'm gonna kick in place on top of this box and you're gonna see some serious shit". The game is certainly unpolished and rushed, but if anything it's actually an absolute miracle that the game is as functional as it is to begin with! There's also tons of different characters to play as, which after having like 15 years of main series 3D games that only have you play as sonic and sometimes a variation of sonic, felt like an absolute breath of fresh air to control characters like Silver, Blaze, Omega, and Rouge again. I couldn't believe that this was essentially Sonic Adventure 3!

As I was enjoying my time with Sonic 06, it really had me thinking about it all. Was this game really as infamously horrendous as everyone has been saying, or had it perhaps been a victim of changing times? It was the first Sonic game designed for HD hardware, so maybe they thought it was a good idea to split the main team in half for Secret Rings as they assumed HD 7th gen gaming would only need as much dev resources as the last generation did, and gravely miscalculated how much more is needed from the jump to HD. 2006 was still the first year of these HD consoles, and a lot of the early titles for 360 and PS3 were also coming to grasps with those same problems regarding either total content or overall polish. Hell, that isn't even a generationally exclusive problem, look at how many games today launch in equal or even worse states as this one. Add that half-bakedness to both the facts that the mid 2000s was peak edgy gamer years culturally as gamers demanded the most photorealistic polished experiences out of their fancy new flat-screen displays, developer work be damned, AND that the modern social-media internet seeds had already been planting and sprouting giving viral videos much more weight, and maybe this game really actually was given a bad hand. There have certainly been a lot of people that wanted to see the Sonic brand crash and burn since its inception, and this game releasing in the state it did at the time it did gave those people the exact ammunition and platform they needed to do exactly that. Maybe the younger players that sing praises of this game aren't gaslit by their own nostalgia, but rather people like me have been gaslit by the myriads of negativity that has been surrounding this game since its inception, then only playing the game afterwards to affirm that already-implanted opinion. I honestly don't know, it's never usually as simple as that and it could go either way. It certainly did do a lot of damage, as after the negativity from this games release bled into other titles released in the same time frame, the brand took a more staunchly conservative approach by delisting "bad" games and scrubbing out any remnants of the 2000s era games from more contemporary works as they focused on more lighthearted and 90's oriented vibes before going full ironic meme mode in the mid 2010s, likely still due to the negativity towards the brand that remained from this game. (luckily that doesn't seem to be as much of the case anymore as both the sonic brand and community have been going back to the core of sincerity and have accepted themselves for what they are as a whole.)

I normally rate things off of some mixture of general recommendability as well as my own personal enjoyment, and while those two attributes usually go hand-in-hand, with this game they are at odds. While I may be crazy enough to have gotten a lot of enjoyment from playing this, I'm not crazy enough to recommend it over most other sonic games and you probably should be aware of what you are getting yourself into should you choose to play it on your own. I really have no idea how to end something like this tbh but I feel like I've said all that I can. There are probably many similar Sonic 06 takes and opinions in the vast endless sea of the internet, but this one is mine. There really is something about this game that makes people write a whole ass manifesto. Can't think of many other games that have that same effect, for better or for worse.

A game released in a state that one rarely sees games come out with, very clearly troubled and unfinished that it feels like playing a leaked piece of lost media.

Every twist of the story and aesthetic choice oddly inspired to add to that feeling, Mephiles, literally shadow's shadow, slowly approaching the camera as if it was a creepy-pasta edit, shadow's power limiter rings only ever mentioned in sonic X and nowhere else play a role. You fight an Angel to end the world, in order to save it, and silver is a fuckup unlike any other.

Sonic 06's sense of unreality is impeccable, and really knows how to render water

"Man. What a terrible, terrible game. The controls are incredibly janky, the story is all over the place and weird, and while there are good elements here like the incredible music, the wide range of playable characters and the ambition shown by Sonic Team, it's clear this is a failure in the Sonic series.

I sure do hope that this singular bad game doesn't define the ENTIRE series in the eyes of many for the next 17 years, permanently ruining discussion about Sonic forever! That would be a shame."

The internet looking at the Sonic 06 on the table:

i replayed this again and would like to change my review a little bit from someone who experienced this game just now again in its full form (played all stories)
i am taking away 1 star because shadows campaign plays like straight ass and really stretched this game a little because i did not get so many gameovers in the other stories. HOW-fucking-EVER.
my view of this game still has not changed one bit. this would have been the best 3d sonic game up to date if it did get the time it deserved. instead we have all of these cool what ifs i found myself sticking to a lot while playing. WHAT IF this abillity worked the way it should. WHAT IF this stage was designed properly and speed boosts wouldnt be the death of me. WHAT IF they actually had the time to put into soleanna, the overworld, and make it the lively world they obviously wanted it to be. it is a bummer this was so rushed in the end because in its core, this is the best 3d sonic, no doubt. the zones are filled with absolute neat ideas, amazing soundtrack and beautifully designed extras.
crisis city and kingdom valley being some of my favorites to mention here.
storywise i believe this game is one of the strongest of this franchise. compared to the crap we have gotten since colors this shines through even after almost 20 years of abandonment by sega and also the community. mephiles being a badass, characters being characters and not just soulless cameos for underaged fans so they can point at the screen and scream names. its a shame this game gets this poor treatment without looking at the what ifs. this game was not even close to finished but none the less has left an impact on me where this whole sonic universe was not just a joke.
so yeah. i like this game.

I love ‘bad’ media. I love watching crappy movies, playing janky games, and embarrassing YouTube videos. I think there’s a bunch of people out there who feel the same way, I mean… my reviews usually get a few likes. Got me!

Usually when people say they love ‘bad’ media, the media tends to live in the popular ‘so bad it’s good’ realm, and by that I mean ‘so bad it’s funny and entertaining to experience’ not ‘so bad it’s aspirational’. I think art is subjective, and there’s an experiential aspect as well as those theoretical and critical, which all get thrown into the big soup of my reviews, star ratings, and opinions. My perception of a game’s quality and entertainment value both go into my star ratings and reviews.

This is probably why I don’t have a rating scale in my bio, because I figure you know what 1-5 rating scale is AND you can read. I don’t always write succinctly, but I’d hope that people don’t read my reviews, look at the star rating, and go “I wonder what he meant by that.”

So let’s get this out of the way: this game sucks. I actually had a great time playing it in the early hours (hence the non half-star), laughing at the performance issues, convoluted story, and bafflingly bland game design. It wore off. This game truly becomes a massive slog during Silver’s campaign, and the overall repetition of content makes the playthrough pretty arduous.

But! And I think this is important if you want a peek into my sick and twisted Shadow-esque world- I do not regret playing this. I have rarely regretted spending time with a bad piece of media. Experiencing any art, no matter how boring, bland, and mediocre that may be, is not something I see as a default negative. On a low level it serves as a way to appreciate the things I love by contrast, but it’s also an education, another thing to store in my mind, another thing to know. I’m not without some discretion, as I try to actively pick things I think will give me something to take away, but I’ve got a bit of a masochistic streak which has inadvertently led me to a greater appreciation of all art and of life in general.

So my big takeaways from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) are that A. I stand by my reviews of the Sonic Adventure games, and B. This is even worse than I remember it being. I’ve always had a weird soft spot for Sonic 06, and I still have one, it’s just smaller now.

Everything to do with Silver is terrible. The reliance on physics objects in his moveset, the story, and even the boss fights against him are low-points for the game and the franchise. It has nothing I want from a Sonic game, and here’s I guess another thing (a point C if you’re somehow following this) I got out of Sonic the Hedgehog: I mostly just want to play as Sonic or a Sonic-like character in these games. I’m okay with the occasional gimmick to spice things up, like cars or planes, but I want to move fast and I want to zip around collecting rings or spinning into enemies.

Sonic: what I want, still not that great though because this is the game it’s in.
Shadow: like Sonic but with a twist, refreshing to do as the final campaign.
Knuckles/Rouge: harmless but trivial.
Blaze: like Sonic/Shadow but slightly worse.
Tails: Not all that fun, but flying can be novel for a second.
Amy: sucks but the section is mercifully short
Omega: Almost forgot about it, needed a UI element for locking-on
Silver: Tedium incarnate. Borders on being torturous.

Also this review is getting long in the tooth, but I have to mention Soleanna as it’s one of the emptiest and worst hub areas ever (I love hub areas so hey, this having a hub at all is a little bit of a positive), but it’s ALSO even worse when you’re playing as Silver. Soleanna is huge and he’s slow. It doesn’t even have a Chao garden! The nerve.

A human woman kisses Sonic in one of the game’s final fantasy cutscenes and it’s a highlight for sure. Worth playing just for that. Wait, I could’ve just watched a let’s play or rewatched the cutscenes online? You’re telling me this now? Just kidding I was always going to replay this.

review in progress. due to the "history" this game has i am going to document my progress each time i play:

3/15/21 - about 3 hours in and 50% through sonic's route. very janky and glitchy but definitely not unplayable. stages tend to feel aimless but they can also be great (e.g. crisis city.) the silver fight was madly overhyped, but the bosses are shit in general. overall mediocre so far. worst thing is the excessive load times

3/18/21 - two hours later. i think i'm one mission away from finishing sonic's route? the load times are really fucking bad, but '06 itself still ranges from being a little aimless to genuinely fun. i thought tropical jungle was pretty good. the three trials can go to hell however. also controlling silver is hilariously futile and i'm kinda looking forward to his campaign because of it

4/1/21 - beat sonic's route. last stage is pretty mid. not else much to say. the most egregious thing about this session was experiencing aristo's challenge and the 600 loading screens that followed

2006 wasn't a good year for me. Being on the autism spectrum, middle school was especially tough to adjust to. Everyone else was growing up around me, getting into more mature-rated games and talking about subject matter I wouldn't understand until much later. I was in 8th grade and had accepted that I wasn't going to fit in. I tried my best to hide my autism throughout 6th and 7th grade but everyone knew by then. Getting bullied and being sent to the principal's office because I wasn't paying attention in class was the norm. At this point in my life there was little for me to look forward to.

But as much as I wanted to give up, as much as I dreaded each day, I had to keep going. I had to.

Because Sonic The Hedgehog for the Xbox 360 was coming out soon.

I'm not saying Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 alone helped push me forward, or that I would have actually ended my life, but I was at a point where I desperately needed some joy and Sonic 06 was the next big thing to look forward to. Sonic 06 was THE reason I got an Xbox 360 and I loved it. As far as I was concerned, this was the biggest, most epic game I had played. A true showcase for what this new generation of consoles were capable of. It's not like I didn't notice the glitches, the long load times, or some of the more laughable aspects of its story. But all that stuff didn't matter to 14-year-old me. I beat all four stories, did all town missions, got all S ranks, and nabbed all of the achievements. Over the years, I've probably spent well over a few hundred hours playing this game. Admittedly, it's not a title I've gone back to much for well over a decade but there was a period where it might have been in my top 10 most played games of all time.

For most, Sonic 06 is seen as an appallingly unfinished train wreck of the highest caliber. Within that group however comes two wildly different opinions. Some have deemed the game unsalvageable and doomed to fail even if it had all the extra dev time in the world. The other opinion is that Sonic 06 could have been something truly special if given the extra time needed to finish it. Personally, I'm of the camp that there's simply too much wrong about 06 on a fundamental level for there to be much salvaged from it. Even fan projects like Project-06, meant to "fix" the game, do just as good a job highlighting the underlying issues (level design focused too heavily on scripted bits, an emphasis on dull combat that kills the flow, and "amigo characters" that feel redundant when put alongside the three main heroes) as it does showing any hidden potential.

What was once a title that brought me great joy and helped keep me going in a dark part of my life is now something I see as a huge mark against not only Sonic, but Sega's track record. A result of all the worst business practices Sega kept indulging in while floundering as a 3rd party publisher. An embarrassment that looms over every new Sonic release. A reminder that Sega will always choose the shortsighted and greedy option. I'm not entirely sure when my opinion on 06 started to shift but I think it was around my sophomore year in high school. By that point I had made new friends, felt more comfortable around others my age, and was generally just having a better time. I didn't need to lie to myself about Sonic 06 anymore.

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As terrible as it may be, I encourage anyone who hasn't played Sonic 06 to give it a try for themselves. While there might be dozens, if not hundreds of think pieces and video essays about it, most only look at the game on a surface level for shits and giggles. I think it's worth digging deeper and seeing for yourself what a fumble of this magnitude plays like. The history behind 06's development is nothing short of captivating as well but just make sure you do the homework yourself and don't bother with videos like Matt McMuscles "Wha Happun?" which unironically use GameFAQs console war forum posts as sources.

Happy Birthday to Sonic the Hedgehog, a franchise that’s both brought me great joy and dread and I hope people have been enjoy Sonic Origins because man i’ve had to play Sonic 06.

This game huh? The number one defacto game to note as the one of the worst games of all time, people have clowned on this game for it’s story and gameplay then and now, but instead of being a unanimous agreement, Sonic fans have Stockholm syndrome and have convinced themselves this game was great and that critics were too harsh on it, I think i’ll be the judge of that Today.

I feel mentioning how 06 did critically is impossible to ignore, it’s a game specifically tied to it’s reception, there’s no going around it and to say the game being called the worst thing at release is completely justified, it was supposed to be Sonic’s grand next-gen masterpiece and it to flop so hard with only a few people to like it makes it totally justified. However, I do think the stigma of this game is slightly overdone.

I would love to do a deeper dive into why this game doesn't work as well as it does diving into the story, gameplay everything and maybe at another time but 06 could and can be fun but everything in the game feels rushed, Everyone looks & feels wack, everyone either feels way too slow, stiff, precise, limiting or in the case of silver just not fun to play. The Hub Worlds have nothing fun to do in them and the NPCs are so boring to talk to as they give the most bland boring missions in the game with too many loading times along with the most cookies cutter dialogue in a Sonic game. Gimmicks in levels are way too undercooked and feel frustrating at points, mainly vehicle, Silvers Gameplay, character swapping, Elise, Snowboarding and that damn ball stage all are terrible when they could be so great to me.

That’s the funny thing about 06 which is why it’s not complete horseshit, 06 has it’s moments sometimes, Level Design while not as good as the adventure games due to the over reliance of the not fun combat in this game with the boring enemies, but going past that it can be fun once you get used to the controls it’s some very limited Sonic Fun, Barring the god awful rival bosses and Iblis the bosses can be fun sometimes.

Presentation wise it’s probably due to the PS3 having more flatter textures and basic lighting but this game did not impress looking in the lens of someone in 2007, compared to games like Super Mario Galaxy or Ratchet Tools of Destruction, The Game looks so flat and has some weird frame drops for some reason when nothing of note is going on, and the models just look off to me for everyone being too realistic but not doing anything to suit the new style. I do think the music is decent with high quality of vocal songs from previous games being upheld and the music taking a slightly more atmospheric vibe from SA1 instead of being more action-packed but other osts out of it for me by a considerable mile.

But I know what you’ve been waiting for the story, it’s not that bad but still doesn't work, straight and simple. Awkward Dialogue with some mixed delivery, unexplained and nonsensical time-travel rules in the universe, a forced romance that doesn't feel earned or satisfying to watch not even barring the human hedgehog relationship as both Sonic and Elises characters aren't fun to watch and most of the characters aren't fun to watch, new and old, they’re braindead and have all the charm sucked out of them and when they do have it, it feels cheap. But I feel the saving grace with the story is easily Shadow who’s arc is better than his Heroes incarnation along with Rouge and Mephiles, his character is decent throughout, he’s up against a lot and the ending is pretty lit along with Sonic’s Action-packed ending.

So conclusion, Is Sonic the Hedgehog the worst game of all time? Hell no I don't think it’s good not all not even the worst Sonic game but I hate to admit but 06 was slightly enjoyable and it’s issues are overhyped like the story though I can easily see why someone would despise this game for many reasons like for instance starting a huge decline in Sonic which I’ll cover at some point but feel like everyone should play base 06 at some point (no amount of mods or remakes will fix it it’s broke to it’s core and needs a complete restart). But for know i’m taking a bit of a break from covering Blue rat games and taking a bit more of sneaky direction soon so take care all!

How does this get made and released? The year was 2006, hadn't we figured out what was required for a AAA release by that point? There's so many things in this game that were perfectly fine in Sonic Adventure, which came out 8 years earlier. This game feels like it came out before Sonic Adventure. What the fuck happened? They already had a good foundation to build from! In theory this game is very similar to Sonic Adventure but it's just a little bit... off. Why are the hub areas so massive when they weren't that way in Sonic Adventure? Why does Sonic awkwardly preserve all his momentum when he changes direction during a jump, even though Sonic Adventure did it correctly? Why don't enemies die when I jump on them like in Sonic Adventure? Why am I forced to play as other characters even though I fucking selected Sonic, when that isn't the case in Sonic Adventure? In that game, if I wanted to play as Tails, I'd fucking choose Tails from the menu. I don't want to play as Tails, I want to play as Sonic. This isn't complicated! Sonic 06 is full of things that make you go wonder why they were chosen, why they had to happen.

I suppose the real question is why I chose to play it... and I really don't know. It was five bucks on the Xbox store so I figured there isn't much to lose. Don't make my mistake, just leave the game alone.

For a game that was comprised almost entirely of misery for me for the first 6 hours, I'm surprised about how complicated my thoughts towards Sonic 06 became by the end, and how playing through the game had directly led me to better articulate the reasoning behind a lot of my opinions on experiencing art. In a lot of ways, Sonic 06 is a bad game, a terrible one even, one that will barely function in a lot of instances and is so rife with issues both in design and polish that it becomes a sight to behold, and yet, I had a weirdly good time with it, albeit not quite for the same reasons as a lot of people typically state. The insistence on the game's ambition being its big selling point doesn't really land for me all too well since I don't really think that the sense of scale here is much greater than what the 2 Sonic Adventure games had to show, and even if it did, everything was handled so messily here that I'd still find it hard to fully work for me regardless. This is a rare case where a game executes upon its ideas so poorly most of the time that I can't even appreciate them much from a conceptual standpoint because I'm just SO distracted by the way they never work, but it's a lot of this failure at being a formally good game at all that is the biggest draw of Sonic 06 to me, and not in a boring, ironic "so bad it's good" way either.

Being able to earnestly engage with "bad" art is a skill that more people should learn and become familiar with, they don't have to end up liking all of the things they end up checking out as a result, but the attempt at understanding such experiences is a worthwhile endeavour in itself, especially when you've already seen a lot in a particular medium and are beginning the generally understand the language and flow in how things are constructed. While this applies to art in general, I feel like this is especially the case for games due to the interactive component of them which not only forces the audience to more closely and actively engage with what's in front of them, but also brings about a stronger need to construct games with certain rules in mind. This links back to Sonic 06, a game that disregards some rules entirely, and attempts to follow others but flounders in doing so, a game that constantly defies expectations while trying to reach a point where it can meet them. One of the most prominent words I'd use to describe my time with Sonic 06 would be "refreshing" for this exact reason, as I was constantly having my preconceived notions on how a game "should" function be challenged, throwing me into a state of having to engage in thorough experimentation in places to make my way through, never quite knowing if I was missing something obvious, or if the game was wanting me to do something a bit nonsensical.

This isn't a game that I found some interest in despite its flaws, but rather because of them, creating a weird push and pull where each idiosyncratic interaction or decision was simultaneously the most infuriating thing ever while also being by far the most interesting constant. The game barely even works most of the time, trying to move during fast sections will get you killed, random bits of geometry will sometimes get you killed, things that are meant to be scary can break in such a way that makes them feel utterly benign, and most notably, the automatic sections meant to be pseudo cutscenes just don't properly work a lot of the time. Any time there was a part in the level that was clearly set up to make you automatically bounce from location to location, or run around a huge loop, everything immediately became scarier thanks to how unreliable these would be, with the game basically requiring you to plan out the angle you went into them to minimise chances of being entirely screwed over. The game being so ready to kill you for no reason contributed to one of its most infuriating elements as a whole though, that being the fact that if you lose all your lives, you need to start the stage over again, and since a lot of deaths could hardly be classified as your fault, it was an arduous process that made me more genuinely mad at a game than I have been in years probably.

This game is rough to say the least, but the brand of roughness it has going on is the kind of thing that I think people should experience from time to time, especially if they've played a ton of other games. It's different to games that intentionally break rules to play something that just, fails to follow them, seeing so many anomalous elements that try so hard to be something and just can't muster that up. This is a rare game that I feel is one that's justly disliked while I can still say that I found playing it more fun and interesting than the average person, and I completely get how someone could play this and immediately hate it, it's not an easy one to like. Silver's campaign sucks and throws in some of the most baffling bits of level design I've seen, Shadow's story is very up and down with both the game at its best and almost worst, and Sonic has mach speed sections which straight up didn't feel designed with this game in mind, it's just a constant battle against the game in order to hit a point where you can overcome its janky nonsense, but it's a pretty unique time even so. Other bits and pieces, such as the music and how cool the stages themselves tend to look are genuinely great elements as well, White Acropolis and Crisis City are big highlights especially, so it's not even all bad either. This game is weird, I don't really know how much I actually like it, but I also think that it's 100% a game worth playing to some degree at least, I've never been so conflicted about my thoughts on a game, but that's cool in its own way as well :)

holy shit quarantine is fucking people up, some people are actually starting to call this and Sonic Forces fun.

Look, it's Sonic 06. You know it's awful. I know it's awful. But 06 is more than just a bad game, it's The bad game, the granddaddy of bad games where absolutely nothing works and nothing ever works. I legitimately believe that even if this game got 'finished', there would still be a lot of shit that just doesn't work - even if this game wasn't a broken, glitchy mess, a lot of the levels would still not be all that fun to run through and the game would still look terrible.

06 is a holistically bad game that fails from the word 'go'. The low-res graphics look like they're still running on PS2 technology with characters that can't properly emote and lighting / shaders that just look... off, and the overall visual design of Sonic 06 is really uninspired and dull-looking outside of a few neat ideas like Crisis City or the Venice-like Soleanna itself. Wave Ocean is just a generic-ass beach. Flame Core is just a volcano. Dusty Desert is just a goddamn desert. There's no flair, energy, or wacky 'Sonic' architecture going on here, these are little more than decent JRPG locations lazily given to Sonic. And unfortunately, the bland visual design ethos also extends to the level design. These levels aren't fun to sprint through even when the game decides to behave and play normally - a lot of boring corridors and tightrope-act grinding sections over bottomless pits and wide-open spaces with minimal platforming & reason to explore them. Even the best stage in the game, Crisis City, would be a low-tier level in a great Sonic game (and it was, in Generations).

Even if the game was operating at full capacity, it doesn't change how uninspired and dull the overall levels actually are. But, don't worry, the game never manages to run at even 10% capacity. Sonic 06 falls apart and collapses at even the slightest of sharp turns or the weirdest of jumps. Sometimes even scripted events glitch out in hilarious ways. It's honestly the most entertaining part of an otherwise bland experience. There are so many glitches and bugs packed into 06 that the fandom hasn't finished documenting them - there was one time that I spawned into Shadow's Aquatic Base and the entire level geometry began to collapse, turning it into a slow, stuttering series of dark, shapeless corridors where only the very distant background textures (the dolphins and the bulkhead glass doors) had loaded in already. And I'm almost positive no one's documented that one yet. It turns the process of actually playing 06 into a weirdly personalized experience - you will never experience glitches the exact same way any other person might on any given playthrough.

The story is hilariously trite and convoluted - the old characters don't do anything of note unless their name's Shadow (the only halfway-decent character in the entire game), and the new characters are fundamentally broken, from Elise's nothingness to Mephiles' needlessly convoluted plans to Silver's dorkish naivete and obnoxious voice. The overworld is an okay one to explore and there's a lot of side missions (decent idea), but the unbearably long loading times turn them into a non-starter. You just don't want to do them because of this, and sometimes you have to, like the fucking Trials. The soundtrack is pretty good in places, but I honestly think it's a tad overrated - a lot of the level themes didn't really stick out or grab my attention all that well, so in spiteful of a handful of terrific songs (His World + Dreams of an Absolution), I find the OST to be a bit on the bland side. The only thing that works about this game (outside of the functional soundtrack, I suppose) is the money system. Rings are currency again like they were in SA2B's Chao Garden, and you can use Rings to buy upgrades. I like this. It re-contextualizes Rings into something more than just 'health' or 'score points', and you can buy the Gems with Rings. The Gems are fun. They break the game in creative and hilarious ways, and it makes playing Sonic himself much more fun than the other two (Shadow's story is a mid experience throughout and Silver is a miserable physics-oriented playstyle that never feels fun to play unless you're playing Blaze).

Terrible game, man. This isn't 'secretly fun', and it barely even falls into 'could have been a masterpiece'. Because even if this game's edges were ironed out and the glitches were gone, it wouldn't fix this game's terrible story, boring levels, or pasty, outdated visuals. It's easy to see how this was the game that ruined SEGA as a company. After all of the hype and buildup to this seemingly generation-defining game, it wound up being the Sonic game that made everyone around the world realize that Sonic, at the end of the day, wasn't that good of a series.

Everyone should play this game at least once, though. I firmly believe that. It's part of gamer culture at this point.

Age old question; is it really that bad?

Yeah, this game is terrible. Right off the bat the movement is incredibly clunky with no flow to ANYTHING. Jumping, spindashing, homing attacks, EVERYTHING is at a set speed. It's so frustratingly unnatural. It especially shits the bed in the Mach Speed sections, which strip your control down to the bare minimum, the turning is legitimately horrendous in those, it actually makes you wonder what they were thinking.

Levels themselves are poorly designed, suffering from being incredibly automated, generally basic and insanely repetitive. The game has an emphasis on combat, but it's so brain numbingly shallow that it makes you question why it was even implemented in the game. Even the previous mainline installment, Sonic Heroes bothers to give depth in regards to the combat. In this game, it's comprised of mashing A and nothing else.

On a higher note, the music is fine I suppose, but it's still very much on the generic side, a lot of the songs blend together and generally just do not stick out. The game is also a buggy mess. It is so, so, so, incredibly unpolished. I've teleported out of boss arenas, gone through walls, been flung into the skybox, not to mention a slew of framerate issues and painful loading screens, it's borderline embarrassing that this game shipped. And to add insult to injury, the game's story is awful. It's an incoherent mess where every character has as much personality as a brick wall. You'll get more interaction from a literal piece of cardboard. The story doesn't influence my opinion of the game, but it's actually appalling how they managed to fuck it up aswell.

It's not safe graphically either. The game looks really muddy - even for an early 7th gen game and the art direction is straight ass. The game's idea of environments consist of empty, generic, barren landscapes that are just not pleasing to look at in any way, shape or form. Wave Ocean is a washed out, monotone mimic of Sonic Adventure's Emerald Coast, Dusty Desert and White Acropolis are generic desert and generic snowy mountain respectively, Crisis City looks like the first google search for "fire city". I'm fine with and like games with realistic looking environments, but they are really nasty here.

So yeah, the game is dogshit. It's a trainwreck design wise and technically, and I genuinely don't think any modification or remake can save it. The bugs can be funny but that being a defense for the game is a testament to how terrible it is. It's almost comical how much it does wrong, you would actually need to rebuild the thing from the ground up to make it anything better than bad. Please don't play this.

Not gonna make a review cause I really can't say or add much that hasn't been said already, so instead here're some notes I thought of when replaying it via Xenia

- Though not as mature as RPCS3 (this can get choppy and has one extremely weird bug, though pressing F5 when needed can fix it for a good while), it's kind of incredible how far Xbox 360 emulation has come. Playing this on 1440p with, like what I experienced w/ Sly 4, reduced load times, was pretty nice. On that note, yea I used patches and a mod for this thanks to the Sonic 06 Mod Manager. Nothing too extreme aside from the 99 Lives Code (I do not care I used this), just some basic QoL.

- I feel like everyone has a Hot Take when it comes to SOMETHING regarding this game, so here's mine: Silver's story was actually my favorite of the whole game. Sure, I would've liked him to move a bit faster, and some sections sucked - I outright glitched my way past the Billiard Puzzle room to avoid doing it lol - but his gameplay was honestly the closest to feeling like it was polished. His psychokinesis stuff is pretty fun and doesn't really reach the point of repetition despite how limited it is, the levels feel just as branching and open like Sonic's are, and there were very little times I felt like the game was fucking me over. Blaze is also, hands down, the best companion gameplay in the game since she's just Sonic but without the wonky physics getting in your way. The only remotely bad things I can say is that his story, as well as characterization, is pretty nothing, and any moment with Amy is a snoozefest.

- Also yea lemme just rapid fire some of the more basic opinions, OST good (though I must be honest and say, since this is around the end of the Adventure Era, it's on the weaker tier of the games released by then) and is the only thing I can say 100% is fully polished and well-done, level design has some shockingly solid foundation for the most part (Dusty Desert and Aquatic Base SUCK), and some of the aesthetics and coloring is neat.

- Man I know this story focuses on the Past, Present & Future with Shadow & Mephiles, Sonic & Elise, and Silver & Iblis respectively, but a majority of the cool moments are robbed cause again, the focal points are pretty nothing. The CLOSEST that happens is Shadow's arc, and even then that doesn't quite kick in until halfway in his story. Also, cribbing from this section in SomecallmeJohnny's review, these dang hedgehogs can time travel at will to fix ANY of the problems once they learn them, yet they just don't..?

- Splitting this from the last point since it's a more general thing, I also think the "so bad it's good" crowd which to me usually screams people being insecure about somewhat enjoying anything in this game and wanting to Fit In really exaggerate that aspect of the game, there's not that many moments I enjoyed from the hilarity of, I got pretty annoyed or even frustrated more often than not.

- Finally, since I replayed two of the commonly cited bad Sonic games, I can now more strongly back up an opinion I had before (and I could've sworn I rated it as such when first creating my Backloggd account until I fixed a little recently, as well as now slightly changed this game's score), which is that I think this game is better than Secret Rings. I very much understand this is a "lesser of two evils" scenario, but despite the BS in 06, I can definitely say I had some fun and enjoyment from it, unlike SR where I experienced misery and frustration throughout a majority of it. The best moments of that game don't even come anywhere NEAR the best moments of this one, either.

People say with about an extra year this would've been great, but I dunno, the most that'd change is the physics being more consistent and maybe the story having meat in it. Sure it would've been of POSITIVE quality, good even, but not really deserving of a Sonic Anniversary badge if you ask me, especially since Adventure 2 before, Generations after and even Sonic Riders in the same year did the honor much better.

Hey Sonic, on a scale of one to ten, how much effort did Sega put into managing this game?
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"Hahaha, one!"