gaming Is Sonic 2006 Really Bad?

[Chales 129]

So I finally got Sonic the Hedgehog for Xbox 360 for Christmas (oh yeah, before I forget Merry Christmas to everypony). I've always wanted to play this game as I've wanted to complete as many sonic games as possible and because I've wanted to see how bad it really was. I've seen gameplay videos and I've read many reviews about the game so I went into Sonic 2006 thinking it was going to be unplayable.

 

Surprisingly I've actually had a lot of fun with this game, possibly ranking it up as one of my favorite sonic games. I had little trouble in parts where others kept failing and I only died 4 times, 2 times from miss judging a jump, 1 from a glitch and 1 from being too cocky and running into enemy fire without any any rings (I've only finished 50% of Sonic's story).

 

So I'm wondering, is this game really that bad? Yes it has quite a silly story and the load times are a bit long but the gameplay (I found) wasn't as bad as everyone has made it seem to be. Is this game just underrated due to every reviewer jumping on the bandwagon?

[Kapi 215]

I never thought it was a terrible game. You're right, the story is silly, but hey, it doesn't affect the gameplay, so that's not too important at all. My biggest complaint is the loading times, but its kind of like a game in a game, how long can you go without going completely crazy.

 

I think most of it comes from the glitches, and yeah, this game was full of them, but to be fair, so was Pokemon Red/Blue, and look how popular those became. Maybe I'm comparing apples to oranges, but its the truth, a lot of 06's glitches are harmless, and I guess could just be there for the lulz, I haven't hit any bad glitches myself, so it could be worse. I think my second biggest complaint is Silver's story, its cool, but it was kind of meh to me.

 

Quite a lot of the criticism comes from the same people that said Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Heroes were. I though Heroes was awesome, sure it was gimmicky, but it was really fun. That damn Shadow the Hedgehog was different, I didn't like it. Again, it was a coll idea, but yeah, it wasn't for me.

 

Sonic 06 wasn't terrible, but it wasn't the best either, I think too many people see the negativity online, and just jump on the bandwagon and say it sucks, even though they never tried it. These are many of the same people that adore Halo and Call of Duty. I don't like them, BUT, I'm not saying they suck, if they did, they wouldn't be as big as they are today. Neither of them are fore me though.

[Driz 1,552]

I can't say much since I never played it, but from the gameplay videos I saw on YouTube, it looks like a kinda below-decent game to me. There seems to be little things that makes the game rather unbearable, these things being the exaggeratedly long loading screens, the tasteless and confusing overworlds, the unnecessary and weird blend the Sonic world had with the real world, glitches that may-or-may-not interfere in the game flow, immersion-breaking segments, and some others.

 

But then again, a fun game doesn't necessarily need to be a good game - you can even have some laughs at it if you will, and that is already enough to brighten up your day. You can't refuse playing a game based solely on other's opinions. For instance, I love Sonic Heroes and Sonic Adventure, and these also had their share of mean critics.

 

Again, I never played Sonic '06, but from what I've seen, it doesn't look very satisfying if you're going to judge it wearing a monocle, top hat and holding a glass of wine (i.e. looking at it as a game). It still does look very fun to play, and I want to give it a try sometime~

[Vaporeon 1,168]

I'm going to be the odd man out and say, this game...my god. It's bad it's really bad. And I have played it, in fact I've beaten Sonic's Story and Shadow's story and im near the end of Silver's story. The story, the gameplay, the glitches, everything but the music is farily bad. I mean there's a reason it almost killed the franchise. But while I could just go over why the game is so bad, I would rather show you. And please this is just my opinion I realize some people like this game and that's fine but there are things you just can't ignore in this game.

 

 

If your still not convinced a Youtuber who's channel I've been subscribed to made a multi-part review of the game, explaining everything wrong with it. Note that there is quite a lot of fanboy rage and cursing, considering the reviewer [AKA Clement] hates the game with a passion. For the sake of this post I'll only post part 1.

 

 

As for me I don't hate it because everyone else does, I legitimately find the game awful. And I like some of the other "bad" Sonic games, Heroes was fun, Shadow was.....ehhh last time I played it I liked it but I'd have to replay it to state my opinion, I enjoy Sonic R and Sonic the Fighters which are quite fun with friends, Hell I can even tolerate the Werehog from Unleashed but nothing in 06 makes me like it, aside from the music of course. And the thing is I don't want to hate this game, I think it could have been really good, there are lots of good ideas, Mephiles is a cool villain, [and a much better one for Shadow than Black Doom] but for whatever reason, whether it was rushed, not play tested, or Sega and Sonic Team just stopped caring, the game ended up bad and almost killing the franchise.

Edited December 26, 2012 by N-Harmonia

[Retro*Derpy 3,191]

I haven't played the game, seen gameplay though, and it looks....just alright. Nothing to freak over. I've played Sonic generation though, and I thought that game was a blast.

[Chales 129]

I'll admit, the game isn't great. I wouldn't compare it to Mario 3 or Dark Souls. But it wasn't horrible, I had fun playing it. Yes it has glitches and gameplay design choices that are questionable (overworld was a little pointless).. But I feel many reviewers play it as if its a bad game and exaggerate its flaws.

 

Many games have flaws like weird spawning in some multiplayer shooters or unlimited money glitches (like the one in Oblivion). If you focus on these problems yes it breaks the games. The one glitch where Omega can access any part of the level is game breaking but its your choice to use it, who will really use it during gameplay. The money exploit in Oblivion is there and its the players choice to ruin their experience by using this, its the player's decision to do it.

 

Yes the game has flaws but if you play it as a sonic game and not as a "look at all the glitches and bad game lol" its not really that bad.

[MagicRythm 13]

sir you have no idea how bad this game is. when i was younger this game looked cool but when i played it i was pissed how awkward the controls were.

[Radiance64 7,053]

I don't know, I have not played it but have seen videos as well. Playing as Sonic seems fine, just like other 3D Sonic games really, but playing as Silver looks unbearably odd...

Sonic Colors is the best 3D Sonic though.

[Crispy 5,563]

Yes, it's bad.  It's a great example of things you shouldn't do in game design.

 

Constant forward momentum in air (aka Simon Belmont syndrome), broken abilities, an insane amount of gameplay styles, bland and uninteresting hub worlds, poor hit detection, glitches at every turn... it's a mess, yo.

 

I mean, don't let it stop you from having fun with it if you enjoy it, but understand that it's a flawed product that could have been much, much better.

[Yellow Diamond 7,574]

Oh yes. The game is quite awful. Between the frequent loading screens, the numerous glitches, the awful controls, the poor writing, and the incomprehensible story, Sonic '06 is crap.

 

I'm glad you're having fun with it, but I wouldn't touch the game with a 10ft pole. I cannot think of a single redeeming quality of Sonic '06 outside of the humor derived from some of the atrocious bugs.

[DusK 1,264]

 

SO PRO

 

I only played the demo, but what I did play, I wish I could un-play. Thankfully, there's this great game called Sonic Generations...

[Megas 27,742]

I've only played a quick demo, but from what I've played, I wasn't impressed. I'll have to play more to make an opinion.

 

But I will say this, my best friend is a huge Sonic fan, and he hates this game. He also considers Shadow The Hedgehog to be one of his favorite games, a game which is also considered, by both many gamers and myself, to be one of worst games in the series right after this one. Let that sink in.

[thor9356 540]

look up game grumps: sonic 06. it's an ongoing series between egoraptor and jontron. It's truly a funny series which not only point out how bad it is but how funny they make it.

[Magpie 623]

I've only seen gamegrumps videos of it, so I can't form an opinion about it really. I will say the storyline is bad, and there are glitches a-plenty. But the game didn't seem that bad, of course, I have no idea how it controls.

[Lost Profile 644]

OK... first off... the game isnt bad... it was rushed for one of the 360's launch titles...

 

the gameplay may be a bit glitchy... but most noob sonic fans dont look past that...

 

listen to the story... the story was big and well thought out...

 

listen to the music... it was awesome!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VHnFwVskl0

 

this game is awesome!!! its too bad the fans hate it.... but its not in the worst top 5... its a good game! 

 

to be honest... this game is in my top 5 favorite sonic games

[Silver Boulder 123]

Well the main reason the game is bad is this

 

The game itself is just awkwardly put together considering the game itself was rushed. It shows due to glitches that you can find on youtube. Plus, this game's story is like with shadow the Hedgehog. Its trying to go this mature route and it just comes off as goofy and you don't really take it seriously

 

Sorry but the story itself is not well constructed. There are a ton of plotholes in the game's storyline and its just a goofy story to begin with. We've gone from Hedgehog fights evil mad scientist to...saving the future along with a hedgehog named Silver with telekinesis and Sonic having a relationship with a human and...I don't get why people take this story seriously xD

 

I'm sorry but I can't find the relationship between Sonic and the princess nothing more but laughable. Plus the load times are horrendous, it could had been good if the game wasn't rushed but if you're willing to forgive that...its decent. I'd rather play that then Shadow the Hedgehog in all honesty

 

Really the most standout thing of the game itself is the soundtrack of course

 

So, yes...Sonic 06 is indeed a bad game due to a rushed development cycle and this game I would put as one of the fine examples of how not to make a game

Edited December 26, 2012 by Silver Boulder

[Nas 2,873]

It was Sega's first step into the seventh generation of gaming gone bad. It had its ups and downs, but mostly downs.

 

First off, production was rushed (BIG messup here), much like the Japanese version of Sonic Adventure was. But in that case, they patched it up and released another version, which would be the version translated to the NTSC release. But no, they didn't release another version of 06, because apparently that game was to screwed up to begin with.

 

What it had artistically, it lacked in gameplay. It was very, very glitchy, unacceptable for a game released at that time. You will easily find some rather obnoxious bugs in the game, but not after you take notice of two things first. The graphics and lighting in some parts, heck, most parts of the game are beautiful, same goes for the music.

 

Case in point, this very well could have been the end of the legendary Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. What probably saved it was the few good parts of this game. But under the hood, it is a disastrously broken video game that is an embarrassment to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 libraries. In the end, it isn't the worst game in the world, but it is an excusable mistake produced by Sega that will never be forgotten.

 

On the bright side, they easily recovered with the games after, as they introduced another Sonic gameplay style featured in Unleashed (2008), Colors (2010), and my personal favorite, Generations (2011), and it is, in my opinion, the greatest Sonic gameplay engine ever. Bless Sega for making such a wonderful and beautiful comeback.

 

Video related. Broken games can be fun.

 

[Kapi 215]

listen to the music... it was awesome!!!

 

 

It doesn't matter how bad a Sonic game is, the music is ALWAYS epic. The entire game can be complete crap to the point of not working, and the music will still be awesome. So, at least it would have something going for it!

 

Let me go a bit in depth with my own feelings for the game.

 

Loading Times: I mentioned this already, but it needs to be mentioned again, they are sooo f***ing annoying, and that's sad. Poor Omochao is crying at the fact that he's been beaten by a static screen that does absolutely nothing useful. What could they have done differently? I dunno, try fixing the game to keep it from loading every 5 seconds, literally, all it is is Sonic talks to an NPC -- Loading -- NPC says something useless and/or irrelevant to what is to be done --loading-- fail the mission --loading-- and so on and so forth. And trust me on this one, installing to the hard drive doesn't help much. Yeah, save the space on your hard disk.

 

Overworlds: Sonic Adventure did it just right, have a little hub where you can freely move around and access the different stages and bosses. Simple, to the point, and rather fun too. Sonic 06 basically takes the map from Grand Theft Auto 4, and calls it an overworld. Now, its even impossible to find Eggman in this game, and he's probably the biggest thing in this game other than Sonic's ego!

 

Story: I'm split on this. They clearly took a lot of time to develop the story and the characters, and it fits together incredibly well. I think Sega screwed up by making it too romantic though. Certain parts of the game make me feel like I'm watching a Disney movie, or even Pokemon: The First Move. While that's not really bad, Sonic's about speed, not about love. Sonic's about kicking ass and taking names, not frolicking through the fields with a princess. While great, it doesn't make me feel like I'm playing a Sonic game.

 

Graphics/Sound: Arguably the best thing of this game. The graphics are beautiful, they were very well done, and Sega should be commended for that. The music is just plain awesome, and this can be said for pretty much any Sonic game. Even if you can't enjoy the rest of the game, look at a tree and listen to the music, you won't be disappoint.

 

And that leaves me with, The Glitches: Yes, this game is full of glitches. Whether it be Sonic standing at the top of a loop, or Silver sending your sorry blue butt into space, its riddled with glitches. Many of them are harmless, yet funny. Some of them make you go "WTF?" There are some that do hurt you though, not often, but they're still there. This can be said for ANY game, as I mentioned, Pokemon Red and Blue had their share of them. Sure, there's a lot more to go around in 06, but still, you'll always see glitches in games, just step right back, chuckle a bit, and move on.

 

Why do I think the game sucks? I really think it was rushed. Sega got greedy, they wanted a major game out in time for the holidays. From a business standpoint, this was a good idea, but in the real-world, it bombed. Remember, this is the same decision that killed Sonic X-treme, but that decision ultimately killed both the Saturn and the Dreamcast. I could go into more, but I won't.

 

All I can leave you with is this, don't judge a book by its cover. You have to play it to enjoy it. Sure, its not perfect, but enjoy it for what it is, not what it isn't. If you don't like it, by all means, throw it away, hang it from the ceiling like a disco ball, or use it as a cup holder.

 

EDIT: I do have to add in though, for the first Sonic title for the 360/PS3, they did a pretty decent job in my book. While other Sega games had already taken advantage of the new hardware, I'm sure Sonic Team had to adapt to the new environment, and you can tell in later games, they really, really learned a lot since this game came out. Remember that for the Adventure series they used their own in-house engine, and RenderWare for Heroes and StH, the PS2 version of Heroes suffered a lot lot of troubles. So, when they used Havok, they had to re-learn a lot.

 

@@DusK, I lol'd, hard. That was funny!

Edited December 26, 2012 by Kapi

[Moon Rat 4,772]

In all honesty, I found this game to be REALLY HORRENDOUSLY HORRIBLE. First off, the load times and amount of Load Screens are attrocious

 

Next would have to be the amount of times I died for no reason. Seriously, I would be running through and empty pathway and apparently trip and die for no reason :/

I couldn't even get past the first boss because of this :/

 

This game was really the least fun I have ever had in... ever

[NavelColt 22,881]

It had lots of glitches, the voice actors weren't that great, I personally found Elise to be the most cliche princess in distress ever, and there were other issues, but no, the game is not nearly as heart-wrenchingly horrible as 95% of the Sonic fanbase will tell you. I should know, I've been there for ten years.

 

It was rushed like hell, which is why it lacked so bad. If it wasn't rushed, it could have been like the Sonic Adventure 3 people had been wanting to see for years.

[Winona the Dog 1,984]

It had lots of glitches, the voice actors weren't that great, I personally found Elise to be the most cliche princess in distress ever, and there were other issues, but no, the game is not nearly as heart-wrenchingly horrible as 95% of the Sonic fanbase will tell you. I should know, I've been there for ten years.

 

It was rushed like hell, which is why it lacked so bad. If it wasn't rushed, it could have been like the Sonic Adventure 3 people had been wanting to see for years.

To be fair it was the fans who pressured the developers into rushing with the game. The staff originally wanted to sell it a year after its initial release for its 16 anniversary.

 

Im going to stay somewhat neutral here and say that the game and say I decently liked playing it despite its loading times and somewhat lackluster story. Sonic's story is by far the worst story in the game and its the only story where most of the glitches and bugs are Not to mention the whole Princess Elise love interest doesn't really help him out either (zoophelia anyone?). Shadow and Silver's story are all pretty darn cool Shadow because he's badass and there's actual a good plot and antagonist in his story. Silver's is especially entertaining because he's from a post apocalyptic future not to mention the heartbreaking scene you go through in the end you just feel so bad for the poor guy. Of course I'm also obligated to admit the only ONE major flaw that makes it a very bad Sonic game is that there's really no speed or times where your going really fast. Sonic games are suppose to be one of those games were you get a adrenaline rush as you dash st the speed of sound and that's were Sonic 06 fails miserably at. Instead your greated with levels where your forced to stop and kill enemies to advance further.

 

Sonic Colors is a nice example of what a Sonic game should be like nice fast paced action.

[NavelColt 22,881]

To be fair it was the fans who pressured the developers into rushing with the game. The staff originally wanted to sell it a year after its initial release for its 16 anniversary.

 

Im going to stay somewhat neutral here and say that the game and say I decently liked playing it despite its loading times and somewhat lackluster story. Sonic's story is by far the worst story in the game and its the only story where most of the glitches and bugs are Not to mention the whole Princess Elise love interest doesn't really help him out either (zoophelia anyone?). Shadow and Silver's story are all pretty darn cool Shadow because he's badass and there's actual a good plot and antagonist in his story. Silver's is especially entertaining because he's from a post apocalyptic future not to mention the heartbreaking scene you go through in the end you just feel so bad for the poor guy. Of course I'm also obligated to admit the only ONE major flaw that makes it a very bad Sonic game is that there's really no speed or times where your going really fast. Sonic games are suppose to be one of those games were you get a adrenaline rush as you dash st the speed of sound and that's were Sonic 06 fails miserably at. Instead your greated with levels where your forced to stop and kill enemies to advance further.

 

Sonic Colors is a nice example of what a Sonic game should be like nice fast paced action.

Let it be a lesson to not listen to whiny fans who have no patience. Quality>Quick to release.

 

Sonic Colors and Generations were great, with the later being an improvement further.

[Gone Airbourne 21,977]

Yeah it is quite terrible and a shame SEGA put out this garbage! Sorry but I"ll stick with Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 on the Dreamcast.... 

 

But I have to commend SEGA on the sonic generations and the advance series on the GBA! Sonic rush was really nice too.

 

 

Live n' Learn everyday its a way of life.

[Acoustic Cloud 2,202]

So I finally got Sonic the Hedgehog for Xbox 360 for Christmas (oh yeah, before I forget Merry Christmas to everypony). I've always wanted to play this game as I've wanted to complete as many sonic games as possible and because I've wanted to see how bad it really was. I've seen gameplay videos and I've read many reviews about the game so I went into Sonic 2006 thinking it was going to be unplayable.

 

Surprisingly I've actually had a lot of fun with this game, possibly ranking it up as one of my favorite sonic games. I had little trouble in parts where others kept failing and I only died 4 times, 2 times from miss judging a jump, 1 from a glitch and 1 from being too cocky and running into enemy fire without any any rings (I've only finished 50% of Sonic's story).

 

So I'm wondering, is this game really that bad? Yes it has quite a silly story and the load times are a bit long but the gameplay (I found) wasn't as bad as everyone has made it seem to be. Is this game just underrated due to every reviewer jumping on the bandwagon?

The reason it is perceived as a terrible game is that it could never live up to Sonic and the secret rings... that was sarcasm.  But in all reality, it isn't the gameplay that made it terrible, but the stupid loading screens.  

 

My least favorite one is the example of racing that guy dressed as sonic who claims to be the real sonic 'or whatever'.  So you challenge him and whatnot, the screen loads for a minute or so, it unloads to him saying something along the lines of "let's do this", then it loads again for another minute, you race, if you lose you have to talk to him again! and wait on loads!

 

But in all reality, they haven't made a good sonic game since Sonic CD, some are alright like the sonic adventures series was good or sonic colors, sonic adv. maybe even sonic heroes was considered pretty decent.  but nothing will trump the classics.

 

Anyways back on topic... all in all, I would say the game is meh... and just meh. Nothing more, nothing less.  

Edited December 27, 2012 by Rainbow Dashey

[DoctorWhovian1902 596]

Aside from the music and graphics, I really didn't like Sonic 2006. Then again, I couldn't find where I was supposed to go next, so that might have helped.

 

My sister, on the other hand, is a huge fan of Sonic the Hedgehog (perhaps a bit too big of a fan), and said that if she were trapped on a deserted island with only one game (and obviously the console for it), she'd pick Sonic 2006.

 

So there's two contradicting opinions for you. And just for the record, I'm a Sonic fan too, and actually liked "Sonic Unleashed", to an extent anyways.