Sonic the Hedgehog

"A good Sonic game buried under a ton of problems"

I've been somewhat of a Sonic fan all my life and I just hated to see the series go under as of late. General consensus says that, starting with Sonic Heroes, Sonic games have become consecutively worse. The same applies to Sonic the Hedgehog for next-gen consoles, which, at first, was unappealing thanks to the downloadable demo off of Xbox Live. But when my little brother rented the game, I decided to take a stab at the game, just to see if I would really agree with the general consensus.

Sonic the Hedgehog is another 3-D platformer in which our cool blue hero, Sonic, pertains to the classic formula of speeding through environments, collecting rings, and running through loops, all while trying to stop the evil scientist, Doctor Eggman. This time, he brough along some friends, the reappearing Shadow and a new hedgehog named Silver (who's silver, go figure). In between missions, there's a mission field as well as plenty of cutscenes with silly voice actors to fill in the gaps. You'll play through three storylines for each of the protagonists in the setting of some ttown named Soleanna, a serene Euro-contemporary town that lifts many features from Venice, Italy, particularly the Italian music and the numerous canals. If you've played Sonic Adventure, you'll see a common resemblance, and that's not too bad--just that when you delve into the game it starts to reveal its heartbreaking flaws.

The story in this game is about the standard next-gen Sonic fare, full of robots, evil spirits that can enslave the world, and a bunch of dumb one-liners. Eggman is up to no good in Soleanna and tries to kidnap Princess Elise since she holds some sort of ability to control time. Sonic rescues her many times and they have feelings for one another, yada yada yada, nothing original. Meanwhile, Shadow is on a mission to stop an evil being named Mephiles who has assumed his visage, and Silver and Blaze travel from the hellish future to stop it from ever happening. Time travel to the present, future, and past plays a big role as the dramatic plot unravels and the characters interact. Needless to say, it's nothing spectacular compared to previous Sonic titles, but it does keep you wondering what will happen next and is one of the game's strongest points.

As you play the missions, you'll notice several differences between these hedgehogs. Sonic is, as usual, the fastest of the bunch. He has his assortment of Adventure moves, such as the homing attack, the spin dash, and whatnot. Shadow is slower than Sonic, but he can homing attack like Sonic as well as mix up some fighting combos to destroy enemies faster. He can also drive a few vehicles, such as a buggy with a rocket launcher or a motorcycle with a machine gun. Silver is definitely the slowest, but he can float in mid-air temporarily and pick up and throw crates/bullets/other objects at enemies with his telekinetic powers.

While the differences between the characters are distinct enough to encourage multiple plays, the characters' pacings are way off--each character, even Sonic himself, runs much slower than before. It wouldn't have been bad if the characters could run faster, but this is the first botched element of the game. They each exhibit some other flaws, since Sonic has some sloppy Hi-Speed sections where you constantly run forward trying to avoid objects, Shadow's vehicles are rather awkward and pointless, and Silver tends to have some difficulty aiming objects at enemies. In some situations, the control becomes a thorn in your side. After playing SA2:B and going on to this game, I noticed every character feels kind of slippery. Platforming segments become daunting as you can easily launch yourself off the cliff. Sonic feels lifeless in this game. Not to mention that the camera tends to get stuck and makes finding your way around that much more difficult, among a few glitches sprinked here and there, such as running backwards through loops or clipping through the floor. In other words, the basic gameplay could use a lot of work.

There are other characters that you must play as on certain occasions. You'll alternate with Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, Omega, Amy, and Blaze. Unfortunately, with the exception of Blaze, none of the alternate characters handle well at all. While they boast their typical abilities--Tails can fly, and Knuckles and Rouge can glide, they are very sluggish and their attacks are abysmal. It's good to insert such characters to help break up the monotony, but they end up changing up the action and disorienting you to a certain extent. Outside of these segments, you can't play as these characters at all, which is a good thing.

There's about eight different levels, from the stereotypical beach level to a destroyed city with debris everywhere. In the three storylines, you can expect to run into the same levels each time but with different routes for the most part. They are somewhat lengthy but repetitive and littered with tons of pits and other unforgiving elements. There's also some unpleasant segments where you must walk on a giant ball and dodge lasers or push a sphere into a hole down the hall. This stuff feels out of place for a Sonic game, where you just want to get it done with and move on to the next platforming section.

As the story progresses, you'll have to do some tasks outside of town in order to trigger the next level. Unfortunately, these missions you'll do for the townspeople are awfully nonsensical, such as destroying a bunch of robots in a limited amount of time or without any rings. Without a guide, it's easy to spend hours wandering around trying to find the next step in the story line. Also, these missions are plagued with HORRIBLE loading times, as the game must waste a load time just to display some text on your screen. I'm dead serious--to do a few mandatory side missions, it takes about a minute to actually start doing it and another minute to restart should you fail. There's also a few optional mission or collectable items, such as silver medallions, around town to accomplish and achieve 100% completion. Unfortunately, only the most diehard Sonic fans will want to do this.

There is a two-player mode in which both players can pick Sonic, Shadow, or Silver and complete levels in co-op or versus mode. It's a nice idea that's bogged down by the gameplay mistakes. However, there's more enemies than usual to compensate for the two players, plus there's several moments where players have to cooperate to hit some switches. It's nice, but you'd be hard-pressed to find someone else willing to play with you.

However, contrary to the downright nasty in this game, it did have the makings of the Adventure games once again. Picky gamers won't find anything to like about this game, but if you can stomach some of the glitches and control problems, you may find it a little enjoyable. Gameplay-wise, you'll be doing the same thing as before, running through loops, grinding rails, bashing enemies, and picking up rings. The variety in the characters is decent and mixes things up now and then. The storyline, while still easy to discard, does keep the game moving along. My only complaint about the story, without spoiling anything, is that Sonic Team should stop trying to make the plots so epic and ridiculous. Outside of these things, the game does chug along and can be more of a drag than anything.

This next-gen Sonic game at least boasts decent visuals. The characters look good, the cutscenes are not Sonic Adventure-bad (in other words, they do things other than stand there and talk!), and the environments boast some colorful textures and actually display some eye candy and creativity on Sonic Team's part. Soleanna looks reminiscent of an Italian town and the levels look pretty shiny. On the flip side, the level geometry is average and is frequently rehashed to the point of looking bland after long playing sessions. The adventure stages between the action can be incredibly vacant and mind-numbing at times, considering that two of the stages--a big metropolis and a canyon, consist of wide open spaces with people scattered about. The framerate tends to take a big hit in more wider areas, more often than it should, slowing the game's pace down even further. The characters' animations aren't stellar and tend to get "hung up" in bumps on the ground, but get the job done. Some bosses, when hit, usually don't "flinch," and Sonic and Co. look less invovled in their animations than they did in previous Adventure games. Compared to other Xbox 360 games, this game could do more but settles for average at best.

Soundwise, the game is a mixed bag. In game, there's gusts of wind, laser blasts, and the good old “bling” sound of old Sonic days when collecting rings. However, the voice acting makes up most of the audio. The 4-Kids crew is still around and they're probably not going anywhere for a while. Most characters have voices that suit their personalities. Sonic is still laid back and jovial as usual, Shadow sounds a lot more serious and meaningful this time around, and Silver is as nerdy and insecure as ever. Princess Elise is voiced by super-famous celebity Lacey Chabert, and she sounds like a girly princess as desired. However, some other characters could use a overhaul. Tails still sounds like a five-year-old girl, Rouge could use a younger voice actor, and Eggman can take some tips from Deem Bristow. The townspeople don't have any voiceclips whatsoever and let out stupid mumbling sounds when they speak. The soundtrack is arguably better and some people have had a knack for enjoying it, although it seems more passive than the Adventure games' soundtracks, which I really didn't like.

This game can be reckoned to a hollow shell--decent visuals, storyline, artwork, characters on the outside, but the gameplay is average to mediocre at best. I did, in fact, beat the whole game and I had some fun with it, but common sense will tell you that Sonic Team just missed the point yet again. Most people will blame the story and the characters, but that is irrelevant as the issue is with the gameplay. This game is not technically-sound, and the loose controls, loading times, and framerate will tell you that. I recommend a rental at best. Please, Sonic Team, we like Sonic the Hedgehog and don't want to see him go to waste.

At least there's no Omochao in this game, so that's gotta be worth something.

Presentation: 7/10 – It's got Sonic on it, nuff said. Menus and cutscenes demonstrate some effort.
Gameplay: 4.5/10 – It's a platformer with Sonic and crew in it. Some variety in missions, but there's lots of issues with the controls, camera, loading times, and other random glitches.
Graphics: 6.5/10 – Some instances of creativity, but a load of clipping and framerate problems say otherwise.
Sound: 7/10 – Same old voice actors and satisfactory sound effects and music. It could use some improvement.
Replay Value: 5/10 – Beat the game, feel good about yourself, and play some multiplayer with friends. The gameplay issues will make playing more than once a bit of a pain.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/10/07, Updated 01/22/08

Game Release: Sonic the Hedgehog (US, 11/14/06)