So, Sonic 06 (It also goes by Sonic The Hedgehog or Sonic Next Gen). The game that was supposed to be the best Sonic experience ever, but ended up being half-assed. While not the worst experience ever with a Sonic game, it definitely has it's issues. Personally, I think the game is fine as it is but it definitely deserves some of the flack that it got.

Just like my Sonic Adventure 2 review, I'm going to go over the pros and the cons of the game. Just so I'm not overly positive or overly-negative. First I'll go over the pros and then I'll go over the cons.

Pros:

The Story: The story of 06 is probably in my opinion, the best part about 06 for me. It really gives off that feeling of a final chapter to a story that's been running for 15 years (At that time). It puts the stakes to a whole new level, even rivaling stories like Sonic 3 & SA2. I'd say the best part about the story is Shadow because it puts a close to his entire arc of finding his true identity and moving on from it. While there are some parts of the story that are kind of lacking (Sonic's entire story & the whole time traveling situation), the story still has a lot of things that make it really good.

Silver The Hedgehog: Silver is one of the new characters who was introduced to the franchise in this game. Being a time traveler who is fighting to save his timeline from the threat known as Iblis. Throughout this game, Silver has to decide whether or not if changing past will affect his future. Which he learns later on that it won't thanks to Shadow. With him being inspired by Future Trunks from Dragon Ball Z, I think that helps him stand out as a character more. While SEGA doesn't use him much in the games outside of spinoffs and most of his screentime is in the IDW Sonic Comics, I think he's a really great character and I hope SEGA uses him more in the future.

The soundtrack: No many what your opinions on 06 are, you have to admit that the soundtrack SLAPS. With tracks like His World, This game's version of All Hail Shadow, Dreams of an Absolution, the hub world tracks, all of the Crisis City tracks, all of the Kingdom Valley tracks, all of the End of the World tracks, & Solaris Phase 2, it's obviously SEGA was determined to go all out with this game. The music in this game are so good to the point where SEGA continues to use them in future games as unlockables.

Shadow's Characterization: It's unfortunate that Shadow's characterization fell off after 06 because I think 06 was able to capture Shadow's character perfectly. He takes stuff seriously but not to a point where he's an edgelord. 06 also shows that he's cares about his friends as well. Caring about Omega when there was no way for him to activate him, helping about Sonic when he was about to get killed by Silver, & realizing that Rouge will always be by his side when he found out his fate in the future. It shows that Shadow is more than Edgy The Hedgie like people think he is.

The Cons:

The gameplay: I'm going to be honest, majority of the characters in this game feel terrible to play outside of Sonic & Blaze. I don't know what happened during development, but the decisions that were made for the characters are VERY questionable. Tails no longer does his tail attacks or uses his gadgets, he just uses the ring dummy bombs from Sonic Heroes. Knuckles is alright, but getting stuck on walls can get annoying. Shadow would be better if he was faster and his Chaos Boost abilities had more time in the oven. Rouge is basically a mix between Tails & Knuckles. She doesn't do any combat like in Sonic Adventure 2, she just shoots out her Dummy Bombs. And unfortunately, she suffers with the being stuck on walls glitch that Knuckles suffers with. Silver is okay at best but definitely is underwhelming since this was his debut game. And Amy.......I just think the developers didn't know what to do with her so they gave her random stuff. Her double jump doesn't angle forward and only angles upward, the range on her hammer is terrible, and she now can go invisible like Espio for some reason. Now I did say that Sonic's gameplay was enjoyable alongside Blaze. But the Mach Speed section are also just terrible. There's no way to slow down Sonic at all outside of taking damage. Everything around you can hurt you and that only makes sense when your playing an endless runner like Sonic Dash or Sonic Forces Speed Battle.

The Ending: While I did enjoy the story of 06, I think that the ending was the worst decision SEGA has ever made. It's because of this ending that the fanbase can't figure out what's canon or what's not. For those who don't know: After Sonic, Shadow, & Silver defeat Solaris, Sonic & Elise get transported to a place that contains the Solaris's flame. Once Elise blows it out, it erases all the events of the game from happening and it leaves only Sonic remembers what happened. I think this ending should've been left in the drafts because there could've been better ways to end off this game. Now with the events of this game being erased, we don't know if certain things are canon or not. Crisis City was added in Sonic Generations along with Blaze remembering it. This is weird since SEGA has confirmed that 06 isn't canon anymore. So whether the ending of this game matters or not is up in the open.

Sonic's story: There's nothing much to say here. Sonic's story is a whole load of ASS. It's just Mario saving Peach from Bowser except you replace Mario with Sonic, Peach with Elise, & Bowser with Eggman. It definitely is the weakest story out of all of them. But it did have a good message at the end.

Sonic & Elise's "relationship": While I don't hate the idea of this ship, it's just that it would work better if Sonic was also human like Elise or if Elise was a Mobian like Sonic. Due to it being a relationship between a blue talking hedgehog and a human woman, people definitely took the chance to attack this game and the people who support the Sonic Franchise. Again, I don't hate the idea of the ship. But if Elise was a Mobian like Sonic, I think people wouldn't care that much.


All in all, I don't think this game is the worst thing ever. I personally enjoyed it and I did have fun with it. I'll even admit to having more fun with this game than I did with a game like Sonic Colors. I understand this game being as bad as it was ended up messing up the franchise and forced SEGA to make a lot of critical changes moving forward, but I can still look at this game and give it credit with what it was trying to do.

Everyone who played this is absolutely justified in hating it and honestly probably should because it's a travesty.

So anyway this is my favorite Sonic game, Sonic 06. It is such a uniquely nightmarish masterpiece and I think about replaying it a lot but I think just keeping it as a good memory is enough.

Anybody saying that the game would be good with fixes, it wouldn't. Anybody wanting a remake, it's not worth it. This game is so fun because it's a travesty and I feel like if it were fixed or redone it would probably be worse because the game isn't really designed very well either (I mean it was a Sonic game made in the mid-late 2000s so who's surprised there).

Things like being able to run up walls to the incredibly goofy physics to the Silver telepathy shenanigans (which were my favorite part, something so definitely broken but crazy fun to mess around with as a result) to just silly things like the NPC dialogue and the very actually intentionally planned relationship between Sonic and the princess which was. Something.

I don't think this game can be ported, I don't think it should be remade, but I'm glad it exists and I don't think there'll be many other games like it. But it's an experience.

It's an experience, alright.

I finally found him... the Iblis Trigger!

One might argue about Sonic 06 being the worst Sonic game out there, or even one of the worst games ever made, but as someone who just got into the series a while ago, I personally don't share that sentiment. It has a fair share of issues, like universally reused levels across the three different routes and a really bad camera, but as an actual game, I think it's playable enough.

That being said, I do need to mention that I played it exclusively on Xenia, so the infamous long loading screens did not affect my enjoyment at all, as they were cut short to about a tenth of their supposed normal time. There's really a lot of them and it's silly how you even find them randomly popping up in the middle of a level. So if you're playing on original hardware, bring a book for the trials in Sonic's and Silver's routes.

Sonic's campaign is the most normal out of the three, he retains most of his Sonic Adventure moveset, but with a worse spindash and special mach speed sections. These speed sections are pretty much the prototype to the boost segments in Generations, except the speed is incredibly overtuned here and you're likely to crash every other second or get sent across the stage with just a slight misstep. It's especially frustrating when the camera shifts back and forth like in the Crisis City tornado chase, because it completely messes up your inputs and steers you in the wrong direction despite going for the right way before it shifts. But I'm not just going to limit my issues with the camera to the mach speed segments, it stays problematic for the entire game. For starters, the camera controls are inverted and you can't change it in the options at all. While this might seem jarring to get used to at first, the real culprit when it comes to 06's camera, is especially how it automatically "fixes" itself during homing attacks. Every time you attack an enemy with it, the auto camera shifts away from the ground and gives you a front view on the enemy - this is especially horrible for airborne enemies, when you don't have solid ground beneath you. It's definitely one of the worst cameras I have ever seen in a game and it made platforming much more worse than it had to be.

Silver's playstyle is mostly centered around projectile-based attacks and he has no normal melee moves at all, the closest thing you'll get is his electric ground pound, which allows you to throw most of the enemies you electrify afterwards - something I realized in Silver's final level, because the game does NOT tell you about it. So if you play through his campaign without knowing about this, two issues arise. The first one is clearly the dependency on throwables in the nearby vicinity, most of the time these are crates, but more than often also barrels or the bullets of enemies. In many scenarios a few crates just respawn indefinitely at certain locations to supply you with enough stuff to throw at the bad guys, but there are a few times where it's really bothersome when they don't respawn. My favorite example for this is the escort mission near the end of Silver's campaign, where you have to bring an NPC from one side of the town to the other, but you only have a few barrels on the way at your disposal and it takes a long time for them to respawn and I'm sure some didn't even respawn at all. I still think it's pretty strange that the playable Silver can't pick up the tables and chairs on the plaza, as he could do it perfectly fine in his boss fight in Sonic's campaign. Now, putting the scarcity of throwables aside, another big point is how reliant you're on the auto-aim. In most cases it works fine when you throw it in the general direction of an enemy, but when you're fighting a good amount of them at once, the aiming gets messy and can't really decide which enemy to go for anymore. I also found it extremely difficult to get the homing shots to hit the screws of the big robots when they're on the ground, so I had to skip finishing them every now and then just because most og the crates I threw just bounced off the robots instead of going for the screws. Again, a little melee move to just deal that final blow would have changed so much already. That being said, ultimately Silver was a nice change of pace from Sonic (even if it meant considerably slower combat) and it was fun to skip a few sections by abusing the horribly broken levitation mechanic - try mashing A instead of holding it, and you can fly like 50% over the intended distance to access areas where you're definitely not supposed to be.

Shadow the Hedgehog is a great character, but he's also the character with the worst opening level, which caused me to postpone his campaign until after Silver's. For the most part he plays similar to Sonic, but trades the spindash for an extended aerial combo and... armed vehicles? There clearly still was some Shadow 05 inspiration left behind, except he doesn't have guns this time. Either way, Shadow's campaign is no marvel in gameplay design, as the stage recycling is very apparent in this route and I'd say about 90% of the content (including bosses) are taken from Sonic's Story. Gameplay aside, the story direction in this campaign is pretty interesting and I like the emphasis on Mephiles as a villain, he also has a very cool theme. Shadow's conflict here feels like a more refined version of Shadow 05 and I think Mephiles plays a large part in this, as Black Doom just had that cartoonish tone to him, which didn't make him as imposing as... Shadow's literal shadow. So that was nice.

To round it all off, the Last Story truly is the cherry on top after all the already established misery and one-ups it with arguably the single most nerve-wracking and unfair level in the entire game. The End of the World consists of several smaller sections, where you play as the entire cast back-to-back in order to reclaim the Chaos Emeralds. Conceptually this sounds like a great way to end the game, a best-of consisting of... entirely copy pasted segments from the main levels, randomly spawning and unfairly placed insta-kill black holes and a random blue-ish color filter slapped on everything, but at least the background track gets you pumped. It's just not a good level and especially the black holes make things way more frustrating than they should be, the fact that they can just randomly pop up in your face is awful too. You get the point. As for the final boss, it's unfortunately just a really unengaging fight, but atleast the ending is alright.

And of course you can't miss the soundtrack in a Sonic game: His World, The Water's Edge and Kingdom Valley are some of my top picks for 06. (Those vocals in the Kingdom Valley track remind my a lot of NieR Automata, pretty nice.) Just another all-around great soundtrack overall and I'm glad to see that even haters of this game can admit the OST is good at the very least.

Would I recommend Sonic 06 to a friend? Probably not, you're likely better off playing Project 06 when it's finished.
Did I have fun regardless? Yeah.

I feel for you, Sonic the Hedgehog.

Through the hours I've spent with you in this incarnation, I saw an ambition unlike any other. A burning passion, very reminiscent of the fire that burned in your chest back in Adventure 1. That will to inspire, to impress; to usher in a new generation of video games with style and attitude. It's only a shame that in your haste to do so--a haste you should be all too familiar with--you stumbled, as you did many times before. Sadly, this time, you failed to get back up on your feet, and the end result is the worst fall in your career.

A lack of creative consistency. A lack of familiarity with new, cutting-edge hardware. A lack of time.

Sonic 06 is the culmination of every bad decision this series has made in its three dimensional life up to this point. "Sonic had a rough transition to 3D"? No, my dear friend. Sonic had a rough growth in 3D, and this game stands as the apex of those growing pains.

Bad camera, poor collision detection, stiff movement(which is EGREGIOUS considering the INTENTIONAL freedom previous 3D games gave in you in terms of movement. More on that later.), large hub worlds with fuck all to do in them, braindead combat sections that take way too long to get through considering the rain puddle-esque depth that said combat features, and an overabundance of those "just let the game do its thing. touch anything and you're dead" moments, except oops! This time you should've moved. Back to the checkpoint you go.

It's hard to believe they managed to get so many things wrong here. Adventure 1, 2 and Heroes were fun games to play. Yes, they all feature at least one of the issues I've brought up previously, but not in this magnitude. They were all games that managed to succeed in spite of their failures; again, a stumble rather than a fall.

Now, as weird as it may sound, I wasn't bored while playing this. Oh no, there were plenty of laughs to be had, but much like Shadow the Hedgehog, I wasn't laughing with the game.

The sheer amount of bullshit you can pull off in this game is staggering. Entering certain areas of a stage with a character that was never meant to visit them, completely skipping puzzles and sections by clipping through walls or flying so high with boxes or other collision glitches that you can just fall on top of the goal ring. Oh, and let's not forget the gem power-ups you can acquire as Sonic which apparently weren't coded correctly, meaning you can use them indefinitely, meaning you can just infinite jump your way through his campaign once you unlock it.

All of these things were VERY funny, but more than that, they're baffling. How does this pass? How is any of this approved? Sure, we're talking about SEGA, aka Mr."As long as a bug doesn't impede progression, don't submit it", but how could they market this game with any confidence when it's filled to the brim with so many amateur mistakes? There are piles of shovelware out there that feature competent programming this game wishes it could replicate. It's embarrassing that a character with this much history and presence in the video game industry gets a stain this gigantic in his resume.

And the only thing I've covered so far is the gameplay, I haven't even started going over the presentation. But for now, let's have some praise. After all, that half star is there for a reason: Music.

All (legit)Sonic games have good music, that's a given. It's the "Free Space" in any video game Bingo card, but Sonic 06 honestly surprised me with the quality of its soundtrack.
I knew of the vocal tracks, I was a Sonic fan in the late 00s after all, but they're the weakest part of this OST IMO TBQH. Wave Ocean, Dusty Desert, Soleanna Castle Town, Tropical Jungle, Aquatic Base, fucking FLAME CORE! Seriously, the guitar at 2:38 actually made me put my controller down and just. vibe with Knuckles until the song looped. Beautifully crafted from top to bottom, with only a couple of bad spots. It feels as if the sound team was trying their best to make up for the overwhelming lack of faith permeating in the rest of the staff. "Sure, this is the third time you have to light up these orbs to open a door and the combat isn't any better, but maybe if you can relax to the rhythm of a gentle math rock-esque guitar, you'll feel better about it?" Oh, like you wouldn't believe, Tomoya Ohtani. I'm only sorry that your hard work couldn't save the rest of this trainwreck.

POST PUBLISH EDIT: How could I forget to mention End of the World? I love it when games have themes that get more dynamic as you progress, and this is one of the best I've heard yet. I may have checked out of the story from the halfway point onward, but this brought my attention back, if only for a moment.

Shadow the Hedgehog is a 2005 platform game developed by Sega Studios USA (the former United States division of Sonic Team) and published by Sega as part of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. In my review of it, I mentioned how it served as the breaking point for my hatred towards this setting in Sonic games. You know what I'm talking about, the serious, shonen anime energy fucking festering around the veins of this series since Adventure 1. Not only did this setting fail to provide any stories worth following considering it's too far up its own ass to care about consistent writing, it also managed to completely shit all over the visual identity Sonic games relished on for years up until the start of the 3D era. I do think Shadow 05 is the worst looking game of said era, but Sonic 06 is the runner up. It's only when Heroes came around that we got to see this series back to its visual roots.

POST PUBLISH EDIT #2: That's not to say I'm against the series going for a more serious vibe--these games always did have more of an edge compared to other "mascot games"--but if they want to go in that direction, it has to be done right. So far, all Sonic games featuring stories with this tone failed to impress me and end up coming off as half-hearted.

The realistic textures and human models simply Do Not Work with Sonic & Co.'s inflatable toy adjacent models. Any screenshot where one of the main characters is standing next to a normal ass person looks like a Skyrim nexusmods preview image. They don't mesh at all.

Horrendous pop-in, next to no environmental animations(seriously, Sonic just phases through the water surface when you fall in the ocean. Not even a basic ass splash_particle.png, nothing.), characters and enemies just pop out of existence at certain points, some cutscenes have no BGM, like Omega shooting the fuck out of Mephiles in dead silence, while other cutscenes have no sound effects, like Iblis falling flat on his ass in, again, dead silence. One of the newspapers has "SOREANA" written on it, and it's not even an easily missed background detail. Sonic proudly spreads the newspaper open in front of the camera for all to see the typo. They really just didn't give a shit.

I won't even get into the story, considering how little it's worth; literally, since the ending undoes everything. All I'll say is: Amy would NEVER watch someone else kiss Sonic and let them keep their head after.

At the very least, there is one redeeming factor to Sonic 06, besides its soundtrack. It serves as the series' definitive rock bottom; it does not get any worse than this. We'll have other instances of mediocrity, of failure and misdirection, to be sure, but never again will this series go through another embarrassment in this scale. But, you know... It really goes to show how much people love this blue fucker. Any lesser franchise wouldn't survive a car crash like this.

I feel for you, Sonic the Hedgehog. You'll get your chance to shine again in the future, you'll laugh and play and inspire again, for there will always be those who stand by you no matter what. I consider myself one of those people. For now, just rest.

Boy oh boy where do I even start, Sonic 06 you are genuinely the most beautiful amazing most handsome intelligent game on this earth, the world without you would crumble and would be a very dark place. My Dearest Sonic 06, With every dribble, you enchant the systems, weaving tales of glory and triumph. Your prowess on the systems resonates with the beating of my heart, for in your game, I find the essence of greatness. boy oh… Sonic 06…Sonic…..king….ever since i laid my eyes on you i’ve never played games the same. The way you run through the zones just motivates me to get up everyday. In a world where legends rise and fall, there exists a titan among titans, a colossus whose greatness transcends the bounds of the systems and touches the very fabric of our collective imagination. Its name? Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. To merely call it a game would be an injustice, for Sonic 06 embodies more than just a game's prowess. It's a paragon of excellence, a maestro orchestrating. In the realm of gaming, one name shines bright, Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, a beacon of might. With a loading screen, it claims its reign, Inspiring millions with its game. Oh boy oh boy.. Sonic 06, huh? heh Ever since I joined the store.. It's been the epitome of excellence and kindness. It's wonderful in every way possible. It's my everything.