Sonic 06...

I WILL. TOUCH. IT.

The collision course.

Between playing Sonic and watching people's playthrough and review of Sonic games, lately I seem quite focused on what happened since I started to stop paying attention to the franchise.

Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, and Sonic Heroes... Sonic's jump into 3D was indeed a rough one.  The only 3rd generation consoles I owned were the Dreamcast and the PS2, and I think I must point this out for the sake of Sonic Heroes.  Unlike the 2D predecessors which I still love to this day, SA1, SA2, and Heroes especially all annoyed me for similar reasons.  The first would be the disobedient camera and clipping through the floor.  Now, that's not to say the classics were free from the floor clipping, but it was extremely minimal.  Also, it's not something I hold against the game designers now, but when I think about everything I disliked about those 3 games where SA1 and SA2 had me with their music, sort of had me with their graphics, and hit or missed me with their gameplay and Heroes just...

When I think of summing up my experience with Heroes, all I see is Team Sonic just clipping through the floor for no reason whatsoever and the lack of collision detection makes me want to call this Dreamcast Era, "The collision course."

Because by the time I finished Heroes, I decided that I was finished with Sonic.


By the time Shadow The Hedgehog came out, I remember the ads.  All I could think of was, "Yeah, I'm probably not going to buy this game."  In 2004 and 2005, I was extremely curious about the Advance series while I was working in the video games department of Target.  Eventually somewhere down the line, I played these games and they were truly awesome.  They were so good (or more specifically, a much better experience than SA1 to Heroes), I couldn't fathom how unpopular they were (and still are).

However, it eventually made sense to me when I thought back on Sonic's reputation on handheld games during the 16-bit console era.  Yeah, handheld gaming in general didn't always have the stereotypical legitimacy found in console gaming.  In spite of the fact that by the time the Gameboy Advance was hot, when it came to Sonic fans, the expectation actually didn't meet the old reality.  Well, in a way it met the old reality that there was actually a legitimate classic Sonic experience being produced very well.

I find it strange to think about where I was in life in 2005 and 2006.  I won't get into it too much, but I will say that like Sonic, they were not the best years of my life either.  Shadow The Hedgehog was avoided and Sonic 06 was completely off my radar, and now they seem to have my attention.  After watching Clement's playthrough of Shadow and Johnny's review of the game, I conclude that story in this series... is worthless.  It raises too many questions in my mind about how the game even came into fruition and the million dollar question is why did anyone, especially Rouge just simply tell Shadow what happened?  Because they didn't: Shadow The Hedgehog (2005).

This is the point of the series where it just collides into chaos and I was somewhere off in some MMO far away from the accident.

Due to my absence, ShTH and 06 are deserving of some attention due to my undying love for the franchise.  I think I've seen enough, though.  It's sad that in spite of 06 arguably being the worst game in the series, I find Shadow was just the most unnecessary.  I wouldn't mind seeing a game starring Shadow, but I believe it would've made a better handheld game.  A competent 3D Sonic gameplay should have been produced first because there truly was no need to release this game asap.

But at least I can credit it for being the last main series game with characters that were remotely confident (aside from them being able to be thinking characters in a serious plot, at least SA2 did that right), because after this?  Well... there's still Amy.

And by the time Sonic 06 was released, it's clear that unlike the scene in SA1 where Chaos destroys the city, or when Eggman splits the planet into 7 parts... this time, there were casualties for real, Sonic among them.  I would call this era of Sonic games "The crash site."


My return to console gaming in 2011 would eventually lead me to Sonic Unleashed.  If the PS2 version of Sonic Heroes at best succeeded in annoying me, then the 360 version of Unleashed would succeed in ultimately pissing me off.  If I were to review the game based on my first playthrough of the game, I'd probably rate the game a 4 out of 10.  What did I dislike most about it?  Certain werehog elements like the camera and no shadow or light beneath the werehog indicating his position if he were to jump.

Sonic 4... at first, I thought the game was okay, but eventually it began to bore me.  Never has a Sonic game that I've played, done that.  It was and still to this day, ununderstandable how Jun Senoue is responsible for the music.  At first I thought it was the composition, but later I realized it was actually the instruments that made most of the music sound so terrible.  I had never played a Sonic game before where the music was just an insult.

Generations was... good.

Yeah, really.  That's all I'm going to say for now.

Oh, and Colors was great.  Still need to play it more, though.

What would I call this era of Sonic games, though... from Unleashed to Generations... (or Episode 4.)

Probably "The Ego (False self) vs The Soul (True Self)".  More than just gameplay-wise, most of Sonic 4 easily represents a false Sonic to me.  A lot of Sonic in his 3D games represents his true self, granted he was definitely best in Unleashed.

endrant.

Sonic games I would like to play that I've never played before.

This will be ultra brief.

Sonic Rush Adventure - I like the artwork (not so much the 3D artwork), the characters, and the rush gameplay does interest me.  Blaze The Cat kind of interests me.  Currently, I own no handheld system, so who knows when this will occur.

Sonic Colors (DS) - From what I've seen, the story isn't... all that memorable.  Again, gameplay curiosity.

Sonic The Hedgehog (2006) - This is seriously up in the air right now.

Sonic Pocket Adventure - My pleasure button could possibly be pressed very firmly with this title.

Sonic Generations (3DS) - I'm actually kind of pessimistic about this title.  It couldn't possibly be as bad as Sonic 4.

"Roo-gey." And who's to blame for Sonic '06's failure?

Probably the most amusing moment in all of Sonic 06's story within the intro and ending cutscenes (because those are actually the best moments in the game, period).

... (... and Shadow kicking Silver in the back of the head.)


Seems like a number of Sonic fans still think it's their fault Sonic '06 sucks.  I believe I heard this when I initially began to learn more about why the game sucks (which was a long time ago).  Was it not some Sega or ex-Sega employee who made that statement?

Honestly, this has to be anti-intellectualism at it's finest.  It has to be.  It makes no sense for a company to blame it's customers (who had nothing to do with the development of the game) for their product being rushed.  First of all:

• What kind of a fanbase whines at a company to rush the development of their product?
• What kind of a business gives the customers that kind of power over them?
• What kind of a company blames their fanbase on their incompetence?

Simply unbelievable.  I can see how it would be believable if one never played '06 and just heard and saw how glitchy it is, how expressionless the characters are, how terrible the graphics are in general and how garbage the storyline is.  After carefully analyzing the game inside and out, it isn't hard to see that the design choices of the game are it's biggest flaws.  It raises a mountain of questions when they decided to prioritize programming a mountain of gameplay styles over refining smaller aspects of the gameplay to make it playable.  It's really like the game was carelessly finished after whoever took over the game had to finish what was previously started.

Whatever was going on at Sega during the time when employees were quitting left and right could be considered nothing but chaos for the Sonic franchise.  You'd think if the fans were this influential to Sega, Sonic 4 would've actually been... a pretty damn good series.

SEGA~ Sonic Team Presents... PS4/NextBox720

Watching SGB's Sonic 06 Let's Play, which offers more insight on SomecallmeJohnny's view on Sonic 06.  Currently on Shadow's playthrough and Johnny makes some really strong points about this game and more importantly SEGA's decision making abilities - the root of this entry.  How will it affect future Sonic games for future systems to come?

When I think of Sega's decision making with Sonic 06 with stupid small tidbits like the spindash only being able to be used being at a complete stop, the fact that you can't jump out of it, the fact that the spin attack is no longer an attack, it's like... who programmed this shit?  The point that Johnny made about SEGA was that they try to make Sonic do everything.  They make Sonic games where they try to make Sonic and his friends do something unrelated to what made Sonic good to begin with.  Now, we can look at the Adventure series and find that the gameplay styles outside of Sonic's gameplay were generally met with more negative criticism than that of Sonic's.  Or you can look at other Sonic games such as Sonic The Fighters, or newer titles like Sonic & The Black Night or Sonic Unleashed.  Agreeing with Johnny again on that it probably would have been better instead for Sega to incorporate these ideas (and further develop them) in different games... no game in the franchise speaks louder about how overcompensated the programming is than Sonic 06.  Speaking of other games, Johnny also pointed out that when you play a Sonic & All-Stars Racing game, how many of the other Sega IPs do you recognize that aren't Sonic?  Me?  VERY FEW.

For myself, it really does beg the question again why Sega would re-release Sonic The Fighters.  If there's one thing about Sega that hasn't really changed, it's their own unlaced ideas for promoting Sonic in ways that further his unpopularity through his weaknesses, opposed to promoting it through his strengths.  Since Adventure, we've been given so much nonsense in one game, it totally makes sense to me now why:

• a) Sonic Heroes was such a financial success outside of it's accessibility, and
• b) why Sega can't please their fanbase.

Heroes was kept simple with two gameplay styles which gave players the access to characters they (more than anything) simply wanted to play as, even if their playstyle didn't completely reflect their actual abilities (i.e. Amy being speed based... Big being... okay, he was being big.)

But thanks to games like Adventure 1 and 2 and it's successors, the fanbase wants more story, more story that's edgier (SA2), more story that's dark (Shadow The Hedgehog), more Big The Cat (SA1), more hub worlds, more playable cast, more playable cast that has it's own gameplay (SA1/Sonic 06), more Chao Garden, another Shadow The Hedgehog game, more Sonic The Werehog, another storybook title, another isometric Sonic game, another Sonic RPG, a sequel to Sonic R, another Tails game, more Silver The Hedgehog, a successor to Knuckles Chaotix, a THIRD Sonic 4 episode, and the list goes on.

The problem with everything I've listed is that it is all the pinnacle of Sonic mediocrity or worse.  There is a group of fans out there who likes these things, and all Sega can do is say to themselves from their efforts, they have made this little blue hedgehog famous and simultaneously infamous.  It makes me wonder if Sonic's popularity will outlive Sega's financial stability because this strategy of popularizing Sonic's image over his gameplay that made him good in the first place doesn't seem like a long lasting tactic.  What better example of this could you find of this fact that's not Sonic 4 Episode 1 & 2 from the marketing to the music and the meat and potatoes of the gameplay.

And now, I appreciate Sonic Heroes a bit more because even though I found it's story weak and disenganging, it took the Adventure gameplay and streamlined it.  It was probably better on paper than it was when the game was finished, but I can honestly say it had much less to fix because it was... simple.  A lot of people were pleased.  Unfortunately, I wasn't among them, but look at the sales #s.  Someone did something right, obviously.

Sonic really has no need to try to go head to head with Mario anymore, but to some extent maybe he should for the sake of an almost futile comparison.  I do not closely follow the franchise, but I am a huge fan of it.  It is a wonder why there are no fully 3D Mario titles for the Wii systems as of late.  Everything has seeming fallen back to it's SMB1-3  2S roots.  I don't know if Nintendo is trying to save money or what, but it's easy to say the franchise has made some smarter decisions be it transitioning from 2D to 3D and back to 2D, some racing games that were mostly successful, and some RPGs to go down in RPG's history of great RPGs with successful spin-offs starring Luigi or Princess Peach without turning the cast into something it wasn't.

Whereas Mario's identity was established and streamlined literally by Super Mario Bros, Sonic was an identity crisis once he landed in the Adventure series.  Where Mario remained simple, Sonic tried being complex and wound up being complicated.  No Luigi in Mario 64?  Welcome to Sonic & The Gang.  1 hub world?  Here's 3.  No mini games?  Oh we've got plenty in Adventure, from pinball, to shooting an airplane, to raising Chao and even playing Frogger.

You see, Sega forgot one thing that made Sonic a worthy competitor to Mario.  Maybe you've seen it on YouTube when Sega reps were comparing Sonic to Super Mario World graphically.  Some Sega reps (or maybe it was Naka, idk) said something on the lines that Sonic was able to look just as impressive because they made the most out of their system in spite of the fact the Genesis was technologically inferior to the SNES.  To their credit, they called it "Blast Processing" (and I know, for Sega it was a challenge to make Sonic work the way it did), but Sega made no commercial comparing Sonic to say... F-Zero.

My point here is that less was more with Sonic's success from day 1 to today.  If you look at the main series console titles and their success from each predecessor, the evidence is clear.  SA2 was more successful than SA1 because it streamlined the gameplay from the first game.  Sonic Heroes was more accessible than SA2 was, but it lacked the excess of SA1 while offering a little bit of everything while being even more streamlined.  Sonic Unleashed succeeds Sonic 06 for offering a promising 3D AND 2D Sonic experience (non-werehog), more hub worlds, just 1/10,00th of the sizes offered in 06 that are full of optional things.  Sonic Colors rids the hubs, rids the mandatory non-Sonic gameplay all together, focuses on 2D through a condensed and modified Unleashed style gameplay.

Sonic Generations? Generations brings back an alternate gameplay that reflects the classic 2D gameplay, brings back 1 hub that accesses everything on a 2D plane, makes use of the cast in a non-invasive way, dumbs down the Unleashed style controls (a positive for the most part), but condenses the level design making it more about speedy platforming in open  3D areas with 2D areas that don't take advantage of Sonic's abilities enough.  Generations was as much of a small step forward as it was a small step backwards where there is a flexibility a lot of Sonic fans are all too familiar with.  It's a safe game that offers our favorite dishes of Sonic microwaved instead of freshly cooked or served edibly raw.  After what's derived from Unleashed be it Sonic 4 ep1, ep2, Colors and Generations, it's about time for a new recipe or to expand/ improve these foundations instead of making their portions (of the gameplay) smaller and refined to a fault .

And finally, what do I expect of Sonic for the next Gen systems since the PS4 has officially been the talk of the Internet town?  At first, I thought SA3.  Really?  Sure, why not?  They've had over a decade to get it right and I can still have some optimism.  However, after what a Sega forum mod said about their financial standings being that chances are there won't be a Sonic game that takes full advantage of the new graphics capability, perhaps it's time that Sega... like Nintendo has done with Mario - really go back to his roots?  If 2D, I hope Sonic Team makes a real 2D Sonic game and doesn't bite off more than they can chew for crying out loud.  Generations focuses on what works well with Sonic, but there's so much more that could have come out of both gameplays that's easily found from the games they originate from, being daytime Unleashed and the Genesis titles, or even the Advance series most people overlook.  I know Sega wants to popularize Sonic through other mediums, but he's a video game character.  He needs good video games to be worthy of being morphed into a stuffed toy or an action figure or an energy drink.  I feel like everyone is going to lose if the next Sonic game doesn't do better than Generations did, but Sega usually succeeds when it means bringing something new to the table that's Sonic related.

After 06, how can a fan not worry, though?

btw, Johnny's playthrough is making me change my mind about wanting to play 06.  Gamegrumps makes it look bearable, but Johnny?  I think it's because I've watched his Silver playthrough while the grumps are still on Shadow's with an incomplete Silver run.  The missions look atrocious and redundant, Silver's gameplay look redundant and uninspiring.  The story promotes anti-thought and when it tries to promote thought, it's not even thought provoking (yet I can understand how that aspect holds allure to some).  Johnny responds with the question, "What were they thinking?" towards a lot of things in this game, but it makes me ask...

"Were they even thinking at all?"

*drops mic startling everyone he put to sleep*

Everything about Sonic 06 that could be said.

So "The Great Clement" did a thorough review of Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 some time last year and it is about a good 3 1/2 hours short.  Personally, I have never played this game, but because it is Sonic, and because of it's overall reception, I find it a very difficult game to ignore.  Yesterday, I decided to read about the legacy and impact of the original 16-bit version of Sonic The Hedgehog, the "Genesis" of the series and how it stood out leaving a permanent positive checkmark on gaming history and how it paved the way for future platformers.

... and then, 15 years in the future, there's Sonic 06.  After all that I've heard of it, I'm actually interested in playing this game that allowed not only Sega, but anyone anti-Sonic to feed off the rage of what remains of the Sonic fanbase - because it's had every right to be what most fans of this franchise dreamed of: Sonic Adventure 3.

Though Clement's review is long, it's really just an episodic review of the game being played but focuses on what there is you'll encounter rather than what he says during an uncut playthrough.  It is all rather entertaining and literally drives home the significance of the design choices this game made, which in turn reflects Sega's decision making during their time of crisis as this game was being developed.  I really do appreciate it.

Even more recently, SomecallmeJohnny also covered a few things and offers another perspective about 06 that Clement didn't touch in 1/7th of the time.

And of course, who's perspective of Sonic 06 could best the powers combined of EgoRaptor and JonTron a.k.a. Game Grumps?  Of course, this isn't a video review but just the two of them casually playing, singing, raging, and touching themselves (while raging)... literally... I'm serious.  More importantly, their playthrough proves that there's yet more to be said about this game, because Sonic 06 is a dead horse that refuses to rot and cannot be buried even if Sega banned it out the series though the game's story retcons itself out.  It is immortal, morals.

Case and point.

I know you had to be thinking the same thing.