So… Sonic 06, do people hate it because it’s the cool thing to do?
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Here us out first! Is it a great game? No. However it isn’t 100% awful surely? Could it be just an average game that combined with being the first “next gen” Sonic, and over hype by the fans, just led to a heightened disappointment? All we know, is that we played it recently and thought, “Oh this isn’t all that bad”. Maybe we are just delusional. There are two very different opinions this episode, we would love to know where you side on this discussion!
Also in today’s episode we have a Voice Actor themed ‘Defeat Donnie’ and one of Uncle Poxxy’s emails turns into a live phone call that goes off the rails! Oh, and we also have a really heart felt email from a listener who isn’t having a great time, and things get emotional. We love you guys!
If you have a question for Uncle Poxxy or want to appear on Defeat Donnie (skype required), message us at thesonicshow (at) gmail.com or message us on Facebook.
WARNING: (Explicit Tag)
Honestly, people definitely take it too far with how awful they make Sonic ’06 out to be. Half the people burying it haven’t even ever played it, and the other half are absolutely hype following bandwagoners. Again, its not a great game. It’s barely a good game. But I’ve seen and played games both genuinely worse and technically better that I’ve enjoyed less.
I despise Sonic Heroes, and my main point of comparison is that ’06 is what it is; a broken, unpolished piece of shit. Heroes was fully finished and polished and complete, and I’ll never play it again, if I can get away with it.
To be honest Sonic 06 wasn’t that bad of a game it was the closest game to Sonic Adventure 3 due to the fact that the gameplay was exactly like the Adventure formula it also had multiple characters just like both adventure games it also had a deep edgy storyline that took itself seriously the only thing that made it a bad was because it wasn’t complete making it have a bad reputation making it one of the worst sonic games.One more thing check out my video “Sonic the Hedgehog’s Future : Next Game 2015 Sonic Adventure 3 ? (PS4 Xbox One)” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-yGboN0v-g
Why hate Sonic 06?
– Technical mess, surpasses even Sonic Adventure 2 in number of game-intrusive bugs, plays like a beta version
– Neat ideas, bad execution (mostly due to the technical bugs)
– A script that tries too hard to combine anthropomorphs with humans and ends up being “weird” (it’s like trying to combine Basketball with Football). Eggman looks weird, and the kiss is… ugh.
– Shadow’s Story, the most generic one of the three, is actually the most interesting as well
Why love Sonic 06?
– Very nice soundtrack, Tomoya Ohtani (and Wavemaster in general) never let down
– Some nice camera angles
– Crisis City!
– Intertwined story lines, where one reveals elements needed to understand the other (I like this)
I personally enjoyed Shadow’s story. I like the idea of Mephiles trying to convince him that no matter what he does, humanity will still hate him. It feels very much like X-men in that regard. There’s also the friendship he has with Rouge. The scene where she says that she’ll stick by him, no matter what happens, is one of the few heartwarming moments in that game. And the fact that Omega was apparently built specifically to defeat Shadow was a neat little twist.
And the conclusion that Shadow comes to at the end feels like a natural progression of his character after Shadow the Hedgehog. That he’ll keep fighting, no matter what the obstacle, or who turns against him. Which I like to think is the message that Never Turn Back was trying to get across.
It doesn’t excuse the rest of the story, of course. But it is good to see that some decent character development and story came out of this.
Which is why it saddens me to see Shadow turned into some half-baked Vegeta clone in RoL…
Exactly my thoughts! That was my favorite story by far.
He was a Vegeta clone from SA2, I think alot of the Sonic characters took on DBZ archtypes in attempt to make them seem more edgy.
Sonic – Goku
Knuckles – Piccolo
Amy – Chi Chi
Silver – Trunks (Lol, where is FalconKick?)
I see zero resemblance with those characters, if anything Amy is a little like Chi Chi in some games.
That’s fine. A lot of other people do.
Goku only works if Sonic is in Super Form. other than that no resemblance.
I can definitely see why you’d like Shadow’s story even if I find it kind of boring. It’s cool to see that, hey, he’s matured and grown stronger since his spinoff title. Too bad 06 was meant to be a reboot and thus disconnected from SA2, Heroes, and Shadow. 🙁 But we can ignore that little detail in light of new information regarding 06’s canonicity, eh?
I’d liken Shadow’s RoL appearance to his in Free Riders appearance, actually. In FR, Shadow was selfish, sneering, and sociopathic– all attempts to make him seem dark and edgy that fell flat as he ended up coming off as an obnoxious jerk.
Nice topic. Although I’m confused why you make a homage to SA in every podcast. That constantly looping music is way too loud and makes paying attention to the content an ear-sore! Music doesn’t seem necessary at all in podcasts, except for transitions.
I enjoyed the game, but frustratingly quit so many times because the load times, good God. Felt like I spent more time on a loading screen than the actual gameplay. Yeah shitty camera angles, bad design in areas, whatever, that’s what lives are for, but when it reloads and starts again and that takes forever, well to hell with you Sega. I’d love to see a remastered version cooked in the oven another year.
I made an argument like this a year ago, especially considering something as bad as Boom.
But to drive the point of how bad this game is, it takes a few minutes and a side quest, just to get to the first stage! In Wave Ocean, when switching to Tails (there are character switches in a stage), DO NOT DIE EVEN ONCE before clearing the stage, or the entire game will boot back the SEGA logo/title screen/opening cinematic cutscene – James & Mike Mondays.
SomeCallMeJohnny went into depth with all the games features and flaws, and this game destroyed The Completionist in his 100th review. Aside from actually playing as Silver and knowing what his abilities and physics are like, Nintendo owners weren’t missing much (we also had Sonic Riders that year).
It’s also sad, because Silver could’ve been an interesting character, if he were more like Seighart from Rave Master (a character who had a similar role, minus the time travel). But alas, he became a Shamyalan’d incarnation of what could’ve been. Luckily, instead of being erased from canon like Mephiles (until further notice), Silver had a backup debut game, Sonic Rivals, which gives him a less-convoluted role. People just choose to remember and hate him from Sonic 2006, to discredit anything from that game as much as possible.
Overall, while Sonic 2006 was not only rushed but tried to hard in plot, Sonic Boom was not only rushed but DID NOT TRY at all. Sonic Boom is hardly a Sonic game as it is. Just a bad licensed title based on a cartoon loosely based on a video game series. It does even take it self seriously, almost like a worse version of Ghostly Adventures (another dork age rebranding/spin-off). At least some care went into Sonic 2006, despite going about it the wrong way and with a strict deadline. It wouldn’t have been Sonic Adventure 3, or a 15th anniversary title, but with more time and care, it could’ve been a decent game, maybe better than Shadow the Hedgehog.
Have you looked at the development for Boom at all? Sega is debatable, but Big Red Button clearly did put effort into the game. It was actually much like Sonic Team circa 2006– it started off with high ambitions and big plans to make an amazing game, but misplaced priorities, rushed development, mass employee firings, and just a general cocktail of bad ideas eventually demoralized the team and forced it to cut a lot of content and leave a lot of unacceptable glitches in, as well as leaving a lot of graphical elements unpolished and in some cases incomplete.
I mean, I’d agree that Rise of Lyric isn’t much like a Sonic game, but I don’t think its due to lack of effort. Rather, I’d blame it on Big Red Button stubbornly refusing to give up its dream of making a Crash game even when making a Sonic game.
(Plus I don’t think its worse than 06, if only because 06 throws BS like ridiculous loading screens and moon logic puzzles at the player. At least Rise of Lyric doesn’t have the audacity to pop four+ long loading screens per mission and one in the middle of a level, and its terrible puzzles don’t take hours without glitches. But that’s just me. 😛 )
After Boom I went back to 06 and confirmed for myself that yes, 06 is still far worse then Rise of Lyric. Which I suppose shouldn’t shock me.
Wow I always thought I was the only one who felt that way lol
Terrible game, it had potential though. It was stupid to make Sonic go THIS dark, and the hyper realistic setting didn’t help. Sonic Next Gen is just an all around bad Sonic game, only good thing was the soundtrack.
The amount of time not being able to play this game, wanting to play it(since it was announced) has made me incredibly obsessed with it. I’ve seen hours and hours of gameplay videos and the more people bash it the more I want to play it.
Sonic 06 doesn’t even compare to actual trash like Sonic Boom.
It’s a shame this game was rushed. I heard that all other characters were supposed to have their own episodes but eventually ended up as amigo characters due to time constraints…
I liked the story (despite the time paradoxes) but definitely not the romance between Elise and Sonic. To this day, I still can’t understand what the story writers were thinking…
I actually liked the gameplay. With the romance and glitches gone, this would have been a great game.
I must say though, I know that this is a glitchy and buggy game but I think people really exaggerate it when they talk about this game. I got to play Sonic 06 about 5 years after it was released and from the things I had heard I was really scared to play the game. But I saw that it wasn’t THAT bad at all. But that’s just me.
Was Sonic 06 Really That Bad?
Yes.
But it did have great music. So we have that.
Crashman’s Theme is pretty good, but honestly other than that even the music seems sub-par imo.
Shit I mean Flashman. MY JOKE! RUINED!
We all know why this article exists, Sonic Boom RoL makes any other Sonic game look great!
Though I have to say liked the music, the art direction, Shadow’s story, the amount of playable characters and the speed sections in Sonic stages.
It was an unfinished mess. It was inexcusable to release it in that state and I don’t think anyone can deny that. It bordered on unplayable. That said, there were solid foundations there. Had it spent maybe another six months* or so in development it could have been something great.
*I don’t know how long these things take. It felt 30-40% complete though.
Pretty much everything you said I agree with, minus, the development thing. Video games for the PS3 typically take about three years to develop. 06 would have needed two more years to get to a polished, refined state, one and half to be in an acceptable state for release.
I’ll be honest: when I played Sonic 06 with Bruce, we didn’t have fun. But, it wasn’t the most unpleasant thing in the universe that makes me want to rip my own testicles off. It was dull, boring, slow, uncontrollable, and is pissed us right the hell off. It’s the worst Sonic game, by a landslide. But we’ve played so much worse games. There’s so many worse things in the world than Sonic 06. But I refuse to let that be an excuse to not give the game shit. People try to salvage this thing because it did element X better than other game Y, but the problem is that the cons outweigh the pros. That’s why stuff like Rise of Lyric is still not nearly as bad as this. Any cons this game has can also outweigh the cons every other below-average Sonic game has. Rise of Lyric is boring? This game doesn’t even let you PLAY it while you’re bored. It’s just loading screens. Unleashed has bad controls? This game can not let Sonic reliably jump from one platform to the next. Shadow’s character portrayals were bad? I can’t remember a single time in this game that Sonic acts like Sonic outside the intro. It’s just “lets get going” or “we need to hurry” or “Eliiiiiiiisssseeehhh….”. Seriously, that last line is MMX4 levels of apathetic voice acting. For all the flaws of the other games, this one feels outright so lazy, so much like the devs weren’t even trying. I don’t care if it had potential, they squandered it. Come back when the fans have mad a full working port of this with every original element intact.
Tl;DR 06 is the worst Sonic game but there are worse games out there and everyone overreacts when it comes to any bad sonics
One of my biggest issues of the game was the poor voice acting coupled with the convoluted over-the-top storyline, which to be perfectly honest I felt that even Rise of Lyric had a leg up over 06 on that front.
In my opinion, yes, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (as the title states) was that bad….. However, it isn’t the worst in the series. And no, I don’t think it was Rise of Lyric either. It’s bad, but I don’t see it nearly in the same boat.
Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, Sonic and the Secret Rings, and Sonic Free Riders are all worse games than ’06 to me… in that order.
Two words: Princess Beastiality
Yes AL Princess Beastialy like Sonic doesn’t really care about Amy Rose anymore he only cares about Princess Elise a lot it’s like comparing to one spoiled Mario saving Princess Peach from Bowser a lot in Mario games, but in this Sonic game in 2006. Sonic is actually saving Princess Elise more when you see the a lot cutscenes of Sonic save Princess Elise from Dr. Eggman to kidnap her more then that kind reminds me a lot in Mario games if Mario Fans to see Sonic O6 Sonic The Hedgehog save Princess Elise from Dr. Eggman more from people thinking about Sonic The Hedgehog rescue Princess Elise from Bowser in Sonic O6 people will feel mad Sonic is actually a Mario clone on Sonic O6 only but is well it’s like SonMar all over again for people a lot all over the world Sega did it to Sonic Fans & Mario fans for blaming the fact of Sonic is actually saving Princess Elise from Dr. Eggman one time in Sonic O6 only!
I never even realized the romance was implied until that godawful kiss scene, which made it seem completely out of left field for me.
Considering that it was never meant to be a Sonic game but rather Shadow 02 its not that bad, the first Shadow game was a god awful mess and Shadow 02 simply followed that tradition .
Sure getting forced to shoehorn Sonic into it in less then a years time with only a third of the staff present and a limited budget will result in any game being awful.
Before someone yells at me that this is not Shadow 02, I just ask everyone to A: Look at the cast. B: Look at the story and C: Compare both with Shadow’s background story.
It is not Shadow 2, it doesn’t matter what theory you come up with, it is not shadow 2, nor was it ever going to be Shadow 2.
Da FAQ is Shadow 02 anyway? I only know Shadow The Hedgehog. Since when did Shadow have a sequel?
Let’s just be glad that it didn’t.
A huge part of it probably is because people just do it because it’s the “cool” thing to do, bash on something everybody already agrees is terrible. Really I never thought the game was that horrible, it was a bad game by definition, sure, but it wasn’t the worst Sonic experience we’ve ever seen, and it felt a bit more put together at time than Rise of Lyric seemed to be. What is important was that despite everything it still felt like a Sonic game, which is always the most important factor of a main series title. That’s why I feel that if Sega ever wanted to just cash in on past success in the direct manner I feel it would be smart to recreate the first 15 years worth of console titles in the Hedgehog Engine format, ending with Sonic 2006. If the problems that it had were rectified, then it would be one of the most authentic and epic Sonic games ever made, I think.
Generally, we should never “accept” one’s opinion as a base for discussion if they say that they hate something on its entirety, ie. if they say that there was not a single thing they liked. Sonic 06 has been universally claimed to be bad, lots of players hated it, but it still had some very nice stuff, even if only Sonic fans would like those. For me Shadow’s Story, Mephiles’ voice acting, the idea of Mach speed sections (which were implemented in Unleashed a lot better) and the soundtrack were high points of the game. But I still consider Sonic 06 to be an atrocity as a game.
Oh yeah no doubt. My point was that people just tend to go where the crowd seems to be, so half the time Sonic 06 was only brought up just to be relevant. Just switch that with Boom and you’ve essentially got yourself a new easy target for everyone to get higher views on their YouTube channels. And yeah, there were some parts of the game that I actually enjoy. Despite having the bad luck to debut in such a doomed title, Silver was probably the strongest part of the game for me, character wise. He seems to be the only one who goes through any kind of character development, while Sonic is just the same guy he usually is (nothing terrible in itself, but that just makes his journey pretty two-dimensional), and Shadow’s story is more or less just a confirmation and re-emphasis of the end result of his character arc in his own game. There’s a YouTuber who said it better than me, forgot his name, but he made a top 7 actually good things of Sonic 2006 video. The idea of Mephiles as a villain felt very entertaining, and in a lot of ways he feels like the most legitimate threat to ever appear in the franchise. The music has been praised to death, so I won’t linger on that too long. All I can say is that there is not a single track that I can’t fondly remember. And I also liked the idea of the Mach Speed sections…I just wish they had controlled better. In a lot of ways Sonic 06 is one of the more terrible games to have come out of the 7th generation of gaming, but there is still plenty to like about the game. In a sense, the same can be said about Rise of Lyric, only in my case (and perhaps that of many others) that list of good things is a bit shorter, and that list of bad things would make even 06 blush by comparison.
Sonic 06. Haven’t played it, don’t intend to, however, I do believe you can get a enough information from videos of games to have a good idea of what they’re like. And from what I’ve seen, the loading screens are obnoxious, the game is super buggy, the plot is a mess, the art direction is terrible (the cartoony aspects just aren’t integrated well into the realistic aspects and as a result Sonic and crew stick out like sore thumbs :/ ), dying is made a way more painful affair than it should be, and it was waaay too gimmick-oriented what with its telekinesis for Silver, vehicles for Shadow, Mach Speed Sections for Sonic, and the like. However, it still isn’t the worst Sonic game out there for me. The soundtrack was pretty good, for one. I also think people’s criticisms of the story tend to be somewhat exaggerated– for example, Sonlise has many issues, but bestiality isn’t really one of them given how they’re both humanoid enough to be classed as different breeds in the same species and they both have the same mental capability to consent to a romantic relationship. Plus Shadow’s story had some cool moments, even if I did find most of his story boring.
I suppose in a nutshell, I think its worse than Rise of Lyric but better than Sonic Labyrinth. Much as I hate it when people try to excuse bad games with “Oh, but it had good ideas!”, I’m even more irritated when people act like anything in Sonic 06 is automatically a bad idea just because Sonic 06 sucks. It certainly shouldn’t be brought up as the end-all rebuttal to those who think the franchise should continue, or who want some aspects of Adventure back into Sonic.
An interesting thing you bring up is how Sonic X Elise is a flawed relationship even IGNORING the bestiality concept. There is no chemistry between the two, their love leads them to say some stupid things, and it’s honestly a little insulting to some fans (not me, really, but..) that Sonic would go after a human princess he JUST met that isn’t anything like him at all over Amy Rose. Sonic isn’t the kind of guy who would gaze upon a girl who is sheltered, doesn’t go on adventures, and doesn’t really have much of a sense of humor…. especially upon literally just meeting, as I said earlier. I don’t feel like the relationship between the two really works, and once the ending comes, it seems really out of place and awkward; as if some random fan just came up and kissed Sonic… it barely even felt like an honest bond.
You know, I’d probably be a bit more understanding on the bestiality problem if the two looked similar enough. In other media, animals and humans are in a relationship all the time… but the reason it’s so bad to many here is because, well, frankly it’s disturbing to some that a realistic human princess is settling down with a giant cartoony blue hedgehog who’s head is bigger than her body. Generally, in other media, or even the beta version of Sonic the Hedgehog 1, the human and animal either are proportionately similar to the point where it looks like a real relationship, or, they’re both pretty cartoony in their own way to make it less jarring. I firmly believe that the inter-species love would probably be much better if it weren’t so awkward to look at. I know that goes into art direction, but again, the relationship itself doesn’t work because it’s shoehorned, and takes Sonic out of character.
Yeah. It just isn’t in character for Sonic to go chasing after some princess the moment he meets her. He already has enough trouble admitting that he likes Amy– why should Elise be any different?
If a German Shepard and a Chihuahua can be considered the same species, I don’t see why a blue hedgehog and a human can’t, especially if they’re both bipedal and sapient. I agree that their proportions are way different, but that’s less of an issue with the relationship and more to do with the game’s poor art direction. Sonic 06 didn’t embrace the cartoony aspects of the established cast and didn’t embrace the realistic aspects of the human cast, resulting in everything looking awkward even in the graphically-improved fan-made PC port.
I really feel like the species intertwining is not the problem with the relationship. It LOOKS awful due to the game’s art direction, but had Princess Elise looked cartoony and proportionate to Sonic, people would most likely make less of a deal about it. So yes, it is really an art direction problem…
But again, it just seems like a relationship that was badly written to me… and that’s why I think it is really not needed.
Well, that and people like to just hate on 06 in general. You know how it is with the internet– if it feels like hating somebody, it will go full hog, even if it has to make up some lies or fudge a few facts in the process.
I still prefer Sonaze or Sonamy… *holds onto ships tightly*
I couldn’t get past the very last level of the game trying to get all the Chaos Emeralds to help Sonic. So I got soooo frustrated and pissed at how broken the game is, I broke the game itself… end of story and I was free at last from that game’s terrifying clutch. I was curious like some people because I couldn’t afford a PS3/360 back then so I had to wait til now and my God…. Ok I’m done! That game left a little but permanent scar in my brain.
Watch Clement’s review of the game to find put just how fundamentally broken 06 was in every department. He says it much better than I ever could.
Sure, RoL was junk, but it was generic shovelware junk. 06 was a flop of monumental proportions.
For me it was one of my favorite sonic games. No lie.
Was it one of your first?
Does anyone care that the loading screens probably spawned from the fact it was a VERY early 360 title therefore they didn’t know how to get such a big game to run any better on that infrastructure or didn’t get a chance to figure that out before it was pushed out the door too early then chances are, when the PS3 port happened, they couldn’t fix it for whatever reason? No? You’d all rather moan about it instead of seeing reason and thinking logically about it? Ok then.
I honestly think if they fixed all the technical problems up, it could easily be a Sonic Adventure 3. All the Sonic Adventure elements are there, it’s just everyone ignores that in favour of moaning about the technical issues and “OMG BEASTIALITY!!!111!!1!”. Then there’s that amazing soundtrack and, honestly, aside from Sonics part of the story, the game had two amazing and well-written stories in there but again, most people ignore that fact in favour of the whole Elise issue.
In short: yes, the overall game was massively technically flawed but it wasn’t all bad. It had some truly great bits in it, they just ended up in a broken game. Maybe if the good bits were in a movie instead, people wouldn’t moan so much now. Oh, who am I kidding? This is the Sonic fandom!
Well, somewhat. I mean, nothing about the game ITSELF was bad. The plot, setting, and the concept of the game was great. The thing that was bad about it was the bull crap controls and camera angles. It just made the game WAY more harder than it should be. Like, if they made it like a year ago, instead of making it back in 06, it would have a decent chance of being tolerable, because of how much gaming has progressed in almost a single decade. It also doesn’t help that Sonic fans demand way too much out of Sega. See… THAT is the problem here. It isn’t the games, it’s Sega’s fans. They demand too much out of their games. See, if Nintendo had fans similar to Sonic fans, Mario wouldn’t be where he is right now.
Bottom line, I honestly didn’t have a problem with Sonic 06. The only thing bad about it was the controls and camera. I believe that when the game was announced, people gave it too much hype and the game didn’t live up to that hype.
Oh my god I am glad I am not alone I quite liked the Sonic 06. I didn’t think it was that bad. I can survive through it without encountering glitches. I dig it