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.

This is the one Sonic game I always find myself going back to because it shows what Sonic is all about. Everything about this game is great in my eyes. The music, the levels, the multiple gameplay styles, and the storytelling are all done with such care and you can tell SEGA put their heart & soul into this game considering the fact that this could've been the last Sonic game ever made.

I want to go over the pros and cons so this can be a fair review of a game that I genuinely have a lot of love for.

The Pros:

Gameplay Styles: The idea of choosing the best gameplay styles for the game was a great choice. While I do miss Tails and Amy's gameplay styles (Sorry Big, your gameplay wasn't doing it for me), the best gameplay styles out of everyone in SA1 was Sonic, Knuckles, and Gamma. That's why SA2 feels more fun to play in that aspect. Bringing in the best gameplay styles and not adding the ones that feel unnecessary.

Characterization: The characters in this game are really well written and actually feel like the writers care about the characters compared to later entrances like Sonic Colors and Sonic Lost World. Sonic's character especially. His cocky carefree attitude is honestly what made me like enjoy games like SA1, SA2, and Heroes. Seeing how he was still willing to stop Eggman & save the world despite being a wanted criminal shows how he really does like doing things his own way. Tails was someone who just went from Sonic's Sidekick to being his own person back in Adventure 1 and I'm glad they kept that trope going in Adventure 2. I think Tails really shines when he's able to prove himself as a person and not just the kid who follows Sonic around. Knuckles also shined in this game because he wasn't playing games anymore. It wasn't just "I have to find the Emerald Shards to save my island", it was now "I have to get the Emerald Shards to save my island and make sure that batgirl doesn't get her hands on them". It helps Knuckles because he now has a rival that isn't Sonic, but something who matches him in every way.

The story: I know this is a franchise about a talking blue hedgehog trying to stop a egg-shaped man, but I think these games really pull me in with the storytelling. I always enjoyed stories Sonic and his crew have to fight off a bigger threat that isn't Eggman because Eggman was a good villain in the Classic Era of Sonic. But for games like SA1, SA2, Heroes, Shadow 2005, and even Sonic 06, his place as a minor villain would start to show. I think the Modern Cast fighting literal gods separates them from the Classic Cast who are always fighting Eggman.

The Cons:

Unlockables: I'm a big fan of unlockable content in Sonic games. It adds more stuff to do and adds on to the fun. But for SA2 most of the unlockable content is locked behind the 2P mode. Characters like Metal Sonic, Amy, The Chao Walkers, Tikal, Chaos, and the alternate costumes for the main playable characters are all locked behind 2P Mode and I find that strange. I thought at least that you would be able to use the racesuit outfits as a reward for getting all A ranks in a character's respective stage, but it turns out I was wrong. I think it would be nice to have something like the SA2 Character Select mod made by MainMemory, Justin113D, and Sora where you can select what character you want to play in a certain stage but you can only select Speed Characters for Speed Stages, Mech Characters for Mech Stages, and Treasure Hunter Characters for Treasure Hunting Stages.

Audio Issues (Exclusively SA2 Battle and the HD Ports): The Audio Issues in the cutscenes were always jarring for me. I don't have a problem with the English Dub issues because it's hard to get everything to line up correctly. But when it came to just the audio as a whole, it was kinda annoying to have the music blasting in my ears while not being able to hear what the characters were saying.

Overall, I really do love Sonic Adventure 2. Ever since I 100% completed Adventure 1 and played the SA2 demo on my XBOX 360, I wanted to experience the full game. Let's just say after playing through and 100% completing the full game, I'm glad I got to experience it and I recommend anyone who's new to the Sonic franchise to try this game out!