Sonic the Hedgehog

"Severely underrated and a litlle overrated."

In the months before I got this game I kept on hearing bad things about it. My friend who didn't even play it kept on saying it was really bad. So I told him off for saying that because he can't say that without playing the game. He got even madder and told me to buy it. A year later I downloaded it off of Xbox Live Marketplace.

Story 4/10: I actually think they ripped off part of the story from Mario. Sonic goes to save a princess in the Italian city of Soleanna. At an important event Eggman attacks the city and tries to kidnap the princess. He succeeds and the story goes on from there as you meet Shadow and a new hedgehog named Silver. He comes from the future and his mission is to eliminate Sonic. The score isn't bad because of the story itself. It's bad because of the poor execution of it. There are so many plot holes with the time-line and the future it isn't even funny. And at points you're just supposed to assume something in order for the story to make sense. I almost forgot to mention it's really hard to put the events in each story all into one so you know when each event happened. It's really a mess with the different time periods.

Game-play 7/10: I'll divide this section into 4 parts: Sonic, Shadow, and Silver and Overall.

Sonic 7/10: Sonic's game-play is... okay. It's not great, but it isn't bad. It's like other Sonic games where you try to get through the stage as fast as possible. Let me tell you something: The description under the Home tab is a dirty lie. According to the description: ...get ready for the reinvention of Sonic The Hedgehog, in his most intense, high velocity escapade to date. I'm sorry... what?! His most intense, high velocity escapade to date?! Are these people MAD?! After that rant, Sonic does not go fast in this game. Imagine him as going about half as fast as he went in Sonic Adventure 2, maybe subtract a little, and you'll have an idea. Anyway you try to get to the goal as fast as possible. At SOME levels there are a few points where you go... fast! Around Sonic Unleashed speed. However these areas are very hard to control and are often glitched so you have to go through it a certain way so you don't fall to your death. Even though his levels can be annoying, they're addicting. I don't know why, they just are.

Shadow 8/10: This is almost the same as Sonic's story except it's more action-oriented. You have more moves so you can kill enemies faster. You can also use vehicles to help you. Unlike Shadow the Hedgehog, these vehicles are required and because of that they're actually useful. They also go faster than Shadow himself but that's mostly because Shadow goes at the same speed as Sonic. Also, there was a LOT of laziness with Shadow's story. A lot of his levels are almost the exact same as Sonic's. The only difference is more enemies and in some of them, a different objective. Overall though, Shadow's game-play is just better than Sonic's. It's more fun.

Silver 6/10: Silver's story just bored me. Silver's levels are completely different from Sonic's and Shadow's. Silver attacks by picking up objects with his mental powers and throws them at enemies. He can also stun enemies and throw them at each other. This is really hard though as the only way to do this is go in and hit them when you're 1 foot away from them. More often than not you'll be hit in the process, thus losing rings. Now you may think, "Oh, you can just pick the rings up." You can, but Sega went out of their way to make this frustrating. They made it so when you touch a ring it flies back, and you don't collect it.. This happens randomly and can be very frustrating. Silver also goes really slowly compared to Sonic and Shadow, and that's saying something. This can be really annoying in the town hub (more on that in the overall section).

Overall: Even though the game's called Sonic the Hedgehog, you use 2-3 other characters in each hedgehogs story as well. These areas are rather dull compared to the parts where you play as the main hedgehogs. So overall, you play as 9 different characters. So why call it Sonic the Hedgehog? Why not Sonic Adventure 3? Let's talk about the town hubs. There are 3 in total. The town, the city, and the forest. These are pretty easy to navigate as Sonic and Shadow, but as Silver... it's a mess. The towns are too big for him and he runs so slow. There are also town missions. These are generally just a time extender. As Silver, you have to wander around the town for 10 minutes to find all of the missions if you like to beat games 100%. It's really annoying. There are even some missions that are carbon-copies of others. Now let's look at the loading times. A two word description is: Ridiculously LONG! The loading times are 17 seconds each! And they happen A LOT! Let's look at it through example. You talk to somebody to start a town mission, LOADING SCREEN, you get one sentence describing it, and often these are useless, LOADING SCREEN, you start, LOADING SCREEN, part 2, LOADING SCREEN, part 3, LOADING SCREEN, part 4, ANOTHER LOADING SCREEN, congratulations, results, LOADING SCREEN, back to the regular game.

Graphics 8/10: Very good. Some of the people look realistic. The animals look good. The characters are still kind of shiny, but not as much as other games. Eggman looks like a real human! I'm not sure if this is good or bad though.

Sound 7/10: There are a few memorable tunes, but a lot of them I seriously can't remember for my life. The memorable ones are excellent though.

Game-play time 8/10: One of Sonic's longer adventure's this game will take you over 10 hours to beat if you try and get 100%.

Replayability 5/10: I like the game, but I didn't find it that fun to replay. You can do the hard mode levels if you like it, but they're not worth it.

Overall 7/10: I know I've made this game seem bad. but it really isn't. It's kind of hard to notice the similarities between Sonic and Shadow's stories. The only problem I would have liked them to delay the game to fix is the loading times. It's a good game, severely underrated, and it should be bought. Rent it if you're skeptical.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/06/09

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