Sonic the Hedgehog

"Sonic, what's wrong? You got a cold? You're runnin' awfully slow."

Sonic has been near a dear to people for 15 years now. After several years of 2D gaming (arguably the blue wonder's best), Sonic moved onto 3D gameplay. While universally accepted as a "It's their first try, it'll get better" type of game, Sonic Adventure introduced to use a terribly awkward camera and multiple forms of gameplay, which were not opened with open arms. Has anything changed?

Story: 6/10
Sonic Team actually has stories that if executed properly, could be decent stories worthy of praise and not leave the gamer staring cross-eyed at the screen wondering how the hell that could've happened. Sonic the Hedgehog AGAIN butchers the potential with plotholes and over-complicating the hell out of things.

Sonic's story revolves around rescuing Princess Elise from our old nemesis Dr. Eggman. And smiling. Oh lord, the smiling. Sonic should never encourage anyone again, because smiling is just wearing a mask over how you really feel. "You can fool the world with a smile" as they say. You'll meet up with old friends, beat up Eggman, and destroy some robots. Nothing really spectacular... or very good for that matter.

Shadow's story is a bit more engaging (and has the best ending in the whole game). Immediately Shadow is busting into Eggman's base (now as an agent of GUN) to rescue Rouge, who was sent to retrieve an item which we're never given a reason to taking to begin with. After, Shadow is face-to-face with a creepy looking imitation of himself called Mephilis, who sends Shadow to the far future, where he must find a way back to the past in order to defeat Mephilis.

Trunks... er, Silver the Hedgehog is from the future. A devastated world plagued by a fiery deity known as Iblis, who despite his efforts, cannot be destroyed. Blaze (whom you may remember from Sonic Rush) is Silver's friend who fights alongside him. They are presented a chance to stop Iblis from being released into the world by going back in time and killing the one who originally released Iblis: the Iblis Trigger. Doc Brown would be ashamed of Silver.

Overall, the story's basis is fine, but execution is sloppy, full of easily avoided plotholes, and stupid as hell dialogue. And I felt like I was watching Sonic X 20% of the time.

Gameplay: 5/10
Sonic moves much slower this time around in an attempt to give gamers back control while running. To compensate, Sonic has "Mach Speed" segments, where you go stupid-fast in order to reach the goal. While Mach Speed wasn't a bad idea, you can easily get confused at where a platform is or when to jump (Sonic does not instantly land, you could fly right off the ledge from trying to jump an obstacle). Also, portions of the Mach Speed segments are glitched, such as his first one where going off one of the ramps does not launch you over a bridge, instead, you get stuck in the bridge, lose your rings, and then DIE.

Sonic is also given a variety of abilities you can purchase with the rings you collect at the end of levels. You can buy the Light Speed Dash, Bounce Bracelet, and various other abilities like the lightning shield or the ability to slow down time. However, I found most of them useless.

One thing that you'll notice right away is how different the Homing Attack is. No longer can you punish your enemies in the blink of an eye; Sonic will now stay stationary in the air for a moment until you can attack again. Also, you MUST use the Homing Attack or the X button (which will perform a little kick or a sliding move) to destroy enemies. Simply jumping into them will hurt you.

Shadow moves slower than Sonic, but makes up for it in combat. His Homing Attack can allow you to perform a multiple of attacks after hitting the enemy (up to five punches/kicks), and then do it again! Easy for taking down those giant mechs! He also can use Chaos Spear now, which will momentarily paralyze an enemy leaving them wide open for attack. He also has a Blast Gauge which will open you up to three other abilities: instant teleportation to enemies to attack, an upgraded Chaos Spear that will destroy enemies depending on how long it's charged, and a meeker version of Chaos Blast.

Silver... well, originally, you'll find Silver playable, but in later levels, you'll find his Psychokinesis isn't all it's cracked up to be. You'll be able to grab various boxes and things using the R Trigger, and you can throw them at enemies to destroy them. You can even grab the bullets Eggman's mechs will shoot, which was pretty neat, actually. However, if you grab multiple boxes or are in an enclosed space, you'll find your objects destroyed by a wall, getting thrown in a completely different direction, or destroying themselves. Silver can also buy abilities that allow him to paralyze enemies and grab them along with a quick air dashing move. Pressing A after a jump will allow him to float around as long as you have enough energy in the action gauge.

You'll also control quite a number of other characters (Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, E123 Omega, and Blaze), but they're annoying. Tails runs slower than a bag of Molasses and Knuckles punches don't even connect most of the time. Also, Rouge now throws bombs instead of performing melee attacks, which makes her even more annoying to use. Tails lobs those fake rings from Sonic Heroes as well, if that does anything for you. The only really fun "Amigo" character is Blaze.

In terms of levels, you've got your standard 10 or so, along with a huge Last Story level, but sometimes they aren't very fun. Sonic will be forced for about a sixth of his levels to carry Princess Elise around, making him appear slower, and have to use the R Trigger in order to create some kind of shield in order to walk over water and sand. The game will not give you many hints WHEN to do that, so don't find yourself frustrated when you somehow drop to your death and wonder "What just happened?"

The loops in this game are completely automatic. Entering one will make Sonic run on his own without player control, which sometimes leads to disastrous results, ie. running right off the loop into a pit. Not being able to move left or right to center yourself on it wouldn't have been too much to ask, would it?

The camera sucks. Still. It didn't give me any major problems aside from one of Silver's boss fights (you'll know which one if you get that far). But, it would've been nice to improve it... after six 3D games (two ported games).

Sound, Voices, and Music: 6/10
The Sonic X crew is back again, but not nearly as offensive. Except Rouge. I know her voice actress is trying, but... Rouge is 18. Not 40 and smokes. Sonic's laugh also reminds me of Mickey Mouse. Omega is also different, but after being exposed to it, not thinking about it, it was fine.

Elise's voice actress is like a bi-polar voice. Sometimes she'll be absolutely fine, and then sound like some kind of a robot. Omega had more emotion sometimes.

The music is a bit below par for a Sonic game. Themes are standard, besides the fact Crush 40 was hardly involved aside from Shadow's theme, a remixed All Hail Shadow. Music in levels wasn't that catchy, in fact, you may find yourself using the XBox 360's custom soundtrack feature.

Graphics: 9/10
Maybe I'm a next generation newbie, but I thought the game's visuals were incredible. The CG scenes are absolutely stunning. Though Elise looks like a Geisha girl in... well, a lot of them. If not all. Sonic, Shadow, and Silver's intro movies are gorgeous. Some lip-syncing is thrown off by some slowdown in certain scenes, but overall, it's really great.

Overall: 6.5/10
This is probably the lowest point the Sonic series has reached. I don't like that the game's redeeming trait was the graphics. I'd rather have last gen graphics and awesome gameplay. I enjoyed this game, but I could not recommend this with a straight face. This game is mediocre, and could've used a lot more tender loving care and another year of development time. Or take Sonic's advice and just "smile" whenever something's wrong.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/11/06