Sonic the Hedgehog

"While they're "reviving" Sonic, I'll be here, mourning."

Sonic the Hedgehog. Once the very pinnacle of everything gaming could be, who once stood toe to toe with the likes of Mario, but is now as nothing, run into the ground by his creators as fast as he once ran along it. Surely, no character has fallen so far, so spectacularly and from such heights of grace as Sonic the Hedgehog. Welcome to Sonic 06, referred to as such to prevent any of the following comments from being associated with the original Sonic the Hedgehog, a memory Sonic fans must cling to now more than ever.

As with everything else to do with Sonic, much fuss and hype surrounded the development and release of Sonic 06. Going to revive Sonic, it was. Starring Sonic - and only Sonic, they said, it would make a mockery of previous titles, return Sonic to his roots, and become a shining beacon for Sonic titles of the future.

Well, of these ambitious claims, two failed, and two turned out to have been lies. Can you guess which was what? If not, don't fear, because we'll be looking into all of it as we attempt to figure out just where along the line things went so horribly wrong.

The first thing to become quickly apparent was the lies - Sonic was not the only playable character. We first learned that he was to be accompanied by long suffering friendly rival Shadow, and also by newcomer Silver, all hedgehogs. We then learned that each of these would be followed around by buddies ("amigos") and that these amigos would regularly feature in mandatory playable segments. It quickly emerged soon after that that the game would feature such "classic" ideas as vehicular combat, treasure hunting, and telekinetic abilities.

Bad start.

Before the game even released, the initial hype surrounding the announcement of a new Sonic game with amazing graphics and classic gameplay had completely disappeared, leaving in its wake skepticism, doubt, and paranoia. To say that the appearance of the finished product alleviated doubts and restored faith in Sonic would be, to say the least, not entirely true.

We'll get the good stuff out of the way first - splendid graphics (the in-engine cutscenes are almost as good as the prerendered ones), quality animation, brilliant music. Is that it? Yep, I think that's it. Well, we could go into more detail on the animation, but that would involve detailing how the game lags when many enemies are onscreen, and I think that with the amount of rubbish to be found elsewhere, we can have pity on the poor animations, and allow them to quit while they're ahead.

You may also notice, that for all the other lies that were told about Sonic returning to his roots, he IS, to give credit where it's due, back to running really fast through vivid colourful environments. This should be a good thing, but evidence suggests that even just plain old running is beyond him now.

The plot, for what it's worth (and admittedly expectations are low for Sonic games of late) is as convoluted as ever, this time revolving around time travel (yawn), generic evil entities named after devil like characters from mythology (yawn), Dr Eggman's schemes to obtain the Chaos Emeralds (again?), and the gradual development of love (the yucky kind) between Sonic and Princess Elise (who?), a human (what?). All the Sonic favourites (Tails, Knuckles, Amy, etc) return to join in the "fun", though all are thrown in as afterthoughts, with too much gameplay and not enough justification as to why we're being forced to play as people other than Sonic. The worst thing about the plot is that it seems someone went to a certain amount of effort to bring the plot outside of the Sonic norm, and in doing so, made matters worse. To say that Sonic fans ever really cared about plot in the first place would be mistaken, but even the usual tried and tested recyclable Sonic plot (ie, Dr Eggman is after the Chaos Emeralds, stop him) would have both made more sense and worked better. Instead we have this mish-mash of uninspired cliche and hedgehog-human relationships, which is so many different kinds of wrong, though possibly the most wrong thing with this particular plot point is someone wholeheartedly believing that Amy would allow it to go ahead without heads rolling. And, on a similar note, I want to know (or do I?) how anyone figured that Sonic, unwilling to enter into a relationship with Amy, of his own species, would instead settle for a human, which technically makes him a practicer of - nevermind.

Much confusion also surrounds the return of former debutante Blaze the Cat. Fans have created a panicked emergency retcon of Blaze's story to get around the conflicts this game creates with Blaze's story in Sonic Rush, and despite the fact that this new story fits together, my bottom dollar says that no one at Sonic Team even thought about the inconsistencies they were creating. This is a shame, seeing as Sonic Rush, the last 2D outing of Sonic and debut of Blaze, was by all means a fantastic game and set Blaze up as one of the best new characters (both plot and gameplay wise) since Tails and Knuckles way back when. The butchering of a reasonable plot point, and shameless reuse of a brilliant character (recall how Shadow received the same treatment and thereafter became a rubbish character) is a sad testament to the values of Sonic Team.

(Also, not that it really matters, but Cream is inexplicably absent in this game.)

Nearly every aspect of the gameplay brings trouble. The controls are never right - always too tight or too lose, depending on your situation. Expect trouble turning when at high speed, but don't be surprised when you veer right off thin bridges. Sonic's trademark camera is back, not quite as legendarily bad as before, but still pretty bad. The accuracy of the homing attack has been tightened a little, but don't be surprised when it misses the mark. Expect stuff to go flying every which way when you try and throw something using Silver's telekinesis. This goes on.

In an attempt to add variety to the kind of gameplay available (recall the initial claim of Sonic returning to his roots), each of the three hedgehogs has a different focus during their levels. This includes different general themes, different abilities, and different ways of using the special meter, which is a generic meter that is expended while performing special abilities. (The special meter also has a second, smaller meter underneath it which is totally unused for anything in game but is referred to in the manual - most probably something which was removed from the game last minute but was not removed from the manual, most probably the result of laziness.) Needless to say, they failed, both in adding variety and creating fun.

Sonic, unsurprisingly, tends to focus on speed, but will often find himself stopping to fight or unable to run fast due to fear of being screwed by the controls. He will also occasionally enter Super Speed areas, in which he will run super fast, and as a result be super screwed by the controls. Oh, and it gets better - during Super Speed areas, you are unable to stop or even brake, you can only steer, and unless you steer perfectly, you will die. An example of what can cause you to die in a Super Speed area is crashing into a small rock which would ordinarily cause you to stop (and thus a brilliant gameplay idea is ruined). Sonic initially has no use for the Special Meter, but can buy gems over the course of the game which offer all sorts of game breaking abilities such as slow-time, teleportation, infinite shields, and infinite jumping (I am entirely serious about all of these), all at absolutely no cost to the Special Meter. On occasion, Elise will intrude on Sonic's levels by jumping into his arms and demanding to be carried around, and in these instances, the Special Meter will grant Sonic the ability to walk over water and sand (because apparently he can't walk over sand in this game). For old times sake, Sonic can still use the Light Speed Dash to run along paths of rings, and has regained his (admittedly quite cool) bounce attack.

Shadow tends toward combat, having basically the same moves as Sonic, but with little differences, like being able to tack a five hit kick combo onto his homing attack, and being able to hurl stun-projectiles over pathetic distances. He will also find himself piloting vehicles fairly often, often vehicles with machineguns and homing missiles attached. As a result of not featuring Super Speed areas, and being faster than Silver, Shadow actually has some of the most fun stages available in the game, and yes, he is quite fun to play as (probably the most fun) if you can get over the vehicles (do you still remember the claim that the game would feature only Sonic and that he would be returning to his roots?). Shadow's Special Meter fills up as Shadow decimates foes and when filled enables Shadow to enter Chaos Boost mode, in which his moves become a little more potent. His Lv 1 boost is the most useful, but you may want to purchase Lv 2 and Lv 3 (both useless) just for achievement points.

Silver is much slower, and has stages focused around his telekinetic abilities, which means that instead of using springs and pressing buttons, you will be psyching objects into position to form bridges. Cool, huh? Much more fun is Silver's ability to use his Special Meter to pick up nearby objects (mainly crates, with the occasional car) and hurl them at foes. He can also stop bullets, missiles and so on with his mind, which brings his respect up a tad. Unfortunately, you will have few opportunities to really play with this ability, though it won't stop you from appreciating its coolness. Unfortunately, this is as fun as Silver gets, because as fun as mind-hurling boxes around is, the novelty wears off fast, and you remember just how slow Silver is.

The fun doesn't stop there, though, because at many points during the levels of Sonic, Shadow and Silver, you will have to stop and take a moment to play with some other fan favourites. During Sonic's stages, expect to be hassled from time to time by Tails and Knuckles. When playing with Shadow, you will be bugged by Rouge and E123 Omega (both with worse voices than ever). For his part, Silver will be followed by Blaze and (for many stupid reasons) Amy. This was an attempt to add variety, but it falls flat on its face as a result of how completely useless some of these characters are. Tails can still fly, but is limited to a single very slow, very ineffective attack. Knuckles, once a punching powerhouse, is near impossible to punch with and has had his once useful glide trajectory thoroughly nerfed. He will also get stuck on walls occasionally (this is a glitch). Rouge combines Knuckles' rubbish gliding and wall climbing with Tails' slow attacks. E123 has a very dodgy and unreliable lock on system, only it won't show you where you're aiming. Amy is slow as hell, has a wasted double jump that kills all movement, and out of nowhere can turn invisible. Blaze, in a surprise break of tradition, is probably the most fun character of all to play as, as she can run fast enough to qualify as a Sonic character, and has some fun moves, most of which involve fire and speed, a winning combination. The most fun in the whole game can be had during the level entirely dedicated to Blaze, which says a lot about the efforts of Sonic Team in the creation of their latest Sonic game. One memorable stage, crucial to the course of events in this "Sonic" game, will see you playing as every character in turn except Sonic (I don't know why, but something in my memory is bugging me... some sort of claim about something...). Pretty much all of the main characters have bad voice acting and bad lines, except Dr Eggman, who has a good voice but wastes it on really bad lines.

As you play through the game, you may notices scores and rankings materializing. You may initially feel motivated to go back and replay levels to improve your rank, but will find yourself quickly discouraged once you gain an understanding of how the scoring and lives system works. Sonic games continue to cling to the dated system of limited lives and 1-ups, which have no place in home console use. You get 5 lives, and lose one every time you die (remember how easily Sonic can die in Super Speed areas - 5 lives can be burned through inside 30 seconds during these), thereafter being ejected to the title screen. Of course, none of this matters during high score attempts, because when you die, you also lose all of your points, regardless of how many checkpoints you've touched. Even this would be forgiveable during the short stages of Sonic's 2D outings, but not during the 5-10 minute epics of Sonic '06, and especially not during the glitch filled later levels, which become drawn out coin flipping contests as you race through hoping that each of the glitches (things like falling though floor, homing attack screwups, camera problems, etc) can manage to all "not happen" at once.

You will probably also notice, as you play, load times. Lots of them. Many, many, very long, load times. Your typical boss fight, for example, will consist of a load screen, followed by the boss taunting you while its name appears onscreen, followed by another load screen, followed by the fight. You will also encounter several short "side games", most of which are less than a minute long, but all sandwiched by double load screens resulting in roughly a 50/50 loading/playtime balance. You will also encounter load times frequently during levels. Apparently, this is what the next gen is all about.

And yet, would you believe, under all this crap there is a game. A good game. A game that just might have been worth putting a few hours of your life into, if only there wasn't so much rubbish in the way. On paper, this should've been one of the greatest games of the new generation, had any of the claims made upon announcement been true. Sonic, and only Sonic, running through vivid polygon-filled environments and jumping on stuff, fighting Eggman's many mechanical creations from time to time. Time travel? Telekinetic hedgehogs? Human love interests? *gasp* Other characters? How did this even happen? Even so, even with such a rubbish plot and a saturation of characters, the theoretical makings of a great game were still there - plot can be ignored, and characters reduced to their movesets, after all, and these basic things can still work wonders (recall that Tails and Sonic had identical movesets in Sonic 2) - and yet still they decided to make all but one of the secondary characters useless, boring, and slow. The rest is just lazy developing, simple and straight. Too much effort into creating pretty graphics and composing awesome music (which, to give credit where due, was done very well), and not enough into, say, reducing load times and fixing glitches. Pointless afterthoughts like Sonic's game breaking gem moves and the little minigames that you are sometimes forced into feel like they came from nowhere and acheive nothing. The end result of all thse problems is a game that for all its attempts impressiveness continues to underwhelm and fails to really impress. Load times, glitches and bad characters should not ruin a game, but given sheer numbers, they can collectively force a sense of sheer neglect on the best of games, an effect which Sonic 06 has clearly fallen victim to,

I'm not generally one to employ sophism in a critical setting, but can anyone think of a game that both underwhelms AND overwhelms the player at the same time? Expectations are built to ridiculous levels, but the number of small problems overwhelms Sonic 06 and causes it to become mediocore.

If you can find it within yourself to battle through the main plot and achieve top ranks in all levels, you might find some value in additional content that comes in the form of added hard modes (friendly reminder: difficulty only becomes fun when the rest of the game is perfected) and entire levels for "amigo" characters (there's that thing bugging me from the back of my mind again... I feel like I should remember something but just can't...). But in my honest opinion? Don't bother.

Verdict: 3/10

+ Excellent Graphics
+ Excellent Music
+ There's some fun to be had just playing through the game

- Flawed controls
- Return of the exceptionally bad camera
- Far too many glitches
- Load times too frequent, long
- Saturated with characters, unnecessary new characters
- Nonsensical, convoluted, cliched, problematic plot, even with suspended disbelief
- Completely fails to live up to basic expectations
- Lack of focus on Sonic, or on Sonic style gameplay
- Too unbearable to make one want to bother with extra content or achievements

Is Sonic dead? Not just yet. It has been demonstrated that Sonic games can still work in the new generation (see: Sonic Rush, Sonic Advance). But making Sonic work in 3D is going to take much, much more effort than Sonic Team seem willing to put in at the moment. But even if Sonic is alive, trust in the series is at an all time low, and it's going to take something special to truly revive him.

Truly, no character has fallen so far, and so spectacularly from grace as Sonic the Hedgehog. If you believe that there is justice in the world, or that God exists, or anything in that vein, you are advised to hope with all you have that Sonic '06 represents the bottom of that fall.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/18/07, Updated 06/19/07