[Dr. Felix]

Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) is seen by most as Sonic's worst point in his history, even far as going calling it one of the worst games of all-time. Before this period, this game was seen as the return of Sonic, and was extremely hyped by fans and the public alike. The game was meant to look back on Sonic Adventure, and bring Sonic back to that formula for the next generation. Many features of the game were remniscent of Sonic Adventure, hub worlds, multiple playable characters, and such. The game was rushed by SEGA for Sonic's 15th anniversary, and vital members of Sonic Team had left during development of the game, one of the most important, Yuji Naka, the lead programmer of most Sonic games. This hurt the games production along with a rushed deadline. Many glitches or bugs were overlooked, or didn't have enough time to be looked at. Once the game came out, it was universally slammed, and has the reputation it has earned today. Many features promised during development were, either completely missing, buggy, or broken. Also causing a huge letdown to the fans.

One of the most asked questions in the Sonic community is.. what if the game was finished? Well, we don't exactly know, because the game was well... never finished. But the game certainly would have been better than what we have now. It could have been a great game to play if it had been released later, mid to late '07 maybe? The betas of the game also show the direction he game was supposed to go. Such as the TGS 2005 & E3 2006 demos, heck even the demo released on XBLN had looked better than the final game. If SEGA look back at this project and saw how much potential it had, they could make a full-out remake, it would be nice, but a director's cut would be more likely, even though either will never happen.



..So. much. potential. What's your take on this?

[Solid SOAP]

It still would have been bad, the core mechanics as well as the gameplay concepts in general just aren't fun. The town levels are just putrid with horrible mini-games and side missions, and as a whole it just isn't a fun game. If every glitch were removed, every bug fixed, etc, it still would be a highly automated, boring piece of crap. From a 3/10 to a 4 or MAYBE a 5/10.

[XD375]

It woulda been like the Adventure games - not the worst game in the world, but Sonic Team could do a whole lot better.

EDIT: And it also means everyone you know in real life will swear by it and say it's the only good Sonic alongside the GameCube ports of SA1 and SA2.

This post has been edited by XD375: 18 March 2012 - 08:18 PM

[Dark Sonic]

Ah Sonic 06. You know what it could have been an ok game. But they veered off in the wrong direction very very early on. I'm going to list what I thought were good ideas. Then I'll list off the bad.

Good
- Sonic's levels were based primarily off of the Sonic Adventure formula.
- Silver seemed kind of neat
- Switching off to buddy characters was a nice way to use Sonic's friends. Like SA2 only instead of doing pointless task, it was simply get to the end of the level or do X.
- Level environments. Nothing exciting, but traditional Sonic fare. Sonic Generations showed Crisis City's potential IMO

And now the bad
- Shadow is useless
- Hub worlds are too big and confusing
- Town missions
- Character models
- How the game itself played
- Story

And I could go on. If I wanted a good Sonic 06 I would have done the following:

- Make the game like Sonic Adventure 2, with two different stories that revolve around 2 different characters. Team Sonic could have been Sonic and Tails, Team Silver could have been Silver and Blaze. About 66% of each story would be devoted to either Sonic or Silver, the other 34% would be Tails and Blaze.
- Hub worlds would work similar to the little mission gates found in Unleashed 360. They're small little interactive levels with gates to go into different acts.
- Acts. The game would have had smaller acts instead of town missions.
- Sonic would play like he does in Unleashed. Tails would play like Sonic did in SA1. Blaze would play like Sonic does in Unleashed
- Silver would be fixed entirely. His move set would be more fluid like it was in his Generations Rival fight. He could shoot off energy beams, and he could move at speeds about as fast as Tails or Sonic when not boosting.
- Speaking of which, the slowest Max speed would be Sonic while not boosting. Every character shares the same max speed, difference being that only Sonic and Blaze can boost for more speed.
- Skills work like those in Generations. Unessential fun things.
- Add a two player race mode that works. You can use any character you want, since it would be possible to beat each stage as each character.
- Story. Elise - gone. Shadow - gone. Amy, Knuckles, Omega, Rouge - gone. We don't need em, so get them the fuck out of here. Silver still comes from a dystopian future, but not because of Iblis. Eggman creates a Metal Sonic that goes haywire and starts fucking up everything. It destroys everything, and having collected the 7 chaos emeralds after Sonic's death, it's invincible. Silver can hold it off, but can't defeat it. So he goes back into the past (who cares how) and tries to fix what went wrong. He mistakes Sonic for Metal Sonic at first and doesn't trust him, but soon realizes he has the wrong guy. At the end of the game they face off against Metal Sonic together and defeat him.
- Shadow and Knuckles would be unlockable characters you could play as for shits and gigs. There would also be a mode where you could play through any level as any character.

At the end of the day though, if this was the game they made, well that wouldn't have been Sonic 06 would it. It would have shared 4 characters and level tropes. By this logic, Sonic Heroes is the same thing as Sonic 3 & Knuckles

This post has been edited by Dark Sonic: 18 March 2012 - 08:46 PM

[OSM]

Looking at that early trailer now, I have to honestly wonder why I was so fucking excited for it in the first place. It would have turned out shit no matter what.

[Andrew75]

shadow the hedgehog was pretty bad in my book maybe even topping 06

[corneliab]

Why are you making so many damn topics. They're not even very interesting topics. >_>

It's pretty much impossible to say what this game were to be like if it were "finished", since it's difficult to assume just what would be fixed. Load times and glitches are a given, but you're still left with a game that has shit level design characterized by frequent gameplay interruptions with poorly-implemented side characters, terrible physics, next to no enemy variety, bad graphics, a stupid story, and some godawful VA. The game would have to be completely rehauled to be salvagable- to the point where it would be completely different.

I'll sometimes see people practically salivate over the idea of a "fixed" or "finished" Sonic 06. You know what's funny, though? It probably would've ended up being worse than Unleashed regardless.

This post has been edited by corneliab: 18 March 2012 - 08:44 PM

[jasonchrist]

This game will always be a reminder that Sega should never again try to appeal to the portion of the fanbase that watches Sonic porn. Let's say for the sake of argument they made 06 THE best in the franchise gameplay wise - with all the fairytale nonsense, inter-species romance and anime looking characters with very niche appeal - nobody would be attracted to play it except complete losers.

[OSM]

jasonchrist, on 18 March 2012 - 08:44 PM, said:

This game will always be a reminder that Sega should never again try to appeal to the portion of the fanbase that watches Sonic porn.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

[KeebeeNacho]

Basically what Jasonchrist said.

They could have delayed the game and worked on it more. And then what would we get?

A linear springchain-fest with bad acting, terrible story, useless and obnoxious characters and interspecies romance.....with no glitches! :V

[ashthedragon]

If it had been done right,it would had been Sonic Adventure 3. And I love that. If only it had been finished...also, the Elise thing is not very interesting, but the rest is. Mephiles is the best villain I've seen in the entire franchise, IMHO

This post has been edited by ashthedragon: 18 March 2012 - 09:42 PM

[Knucklez]

OSM, on 18 March 2012 - 08:49 PM, said:

jasonchrist, on 18 March 2012 - 08:44 PM, said:

This game will always be a reminder that Sega should never again try to appeal to the portion of the fanbase that watches Sonic porn.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

LMAO. Wow, that just made my day. I just love the stuff people come up with when they're in all out rant-mode.

All kidding aside though, Sonic 06's storyline is so irrelevant and convoluted, if it wasn't for Generations remaking Crisis City, Sonic Team could have just came out and said.. Hey, this shit takes place in an alternate Sonic Universe.. and we'd be done arguing over how shitty this game is.

[Dark Sonic]

Speaking of Generations, seeing as how Crisis City wiped itself out of existence, how did Eggman stumble upon that time line again? He would remember it happening, since he actually was never in Crisis City even when it existed in a timeline.

But then one could ask, why couldn't Eggman have just done to Sonic what he did to all his friends? And then I don't care again.

[Kharen]

I've been toying with the idea of "fixing" Sonic '06 once I have the experience and knowledge in programming. I've been watching through Pokecapn's Let's Play since I don't own a copy and I was curious just how bad it is. Given all the negativity towards it, I think it's not really all that bad.

1: Tweak the "Mach Speed" segments. Either replace them with level design similar to Sonic Unleashed, Colors, or Generations, or change it from turning being angular to side-stepping from the left or right. The biggest issue I've noticed is that a small adjustment sideways too easily launches Sonic to his death. Either method would fix that problem.

2: Most obvious, fix the constant loading times. All the loading screens to show a single line of dialogue or the Results screen can no doubt be completely removed with a bit of adjusting. If the levels themselves are too large to remove the loading times, tweak the levels themselves and break them up into individual Acts like the classic games did. Mach Speed sections can be changed into their own Acts, and extended to fit, if needed. If they're fixed to play properly and be fun, then it shouldn't be an issue to the player if they're longer or make up entire levels.

3: Remove the unused gauge at the bottom right corner for all areas where it's not used. It's an eyesore when it's just sitting there for no reason, and shouldn't be too difficult to have it only appear when an ability is activated.

4: Add invisible barriers to vehicle or snowboarding sections, and implement Sonic Adventure styled jump ramps and their mechanics. White Acropolis's beginning area really seems to suffer because of those two things. Everything else seems fine as is or with very minor tweaking.

5: Fix the Homing Attack by adding a targeting cursor to show what's currently being targeted, and removing the massive cool-down time between strikes to what was used in Sonic Adventure to Sonic Heroes.

6: Have Silver's telekinesis attacks utilize homing and a targeting cursor as well, and launch objects in a straight line rather than using the Havok physics engine. For long distance or precision attacks, give the option to use a first-person view like the bow/slingshot in the Zelda games.

7: Shadow's vehicle segments don't work well in the Havok engine, either. Remove them from the levels, and implement their own game engines. The glider areas would work well in an engine like Starfox 64's, and the jeep/motorbike areas would work well with a racing-type engine. Heck, just rip-off Starfox and Mario Kart if using a new engine is so difficult.

8: Remove the health from common enemies so that one attack kills them rather than multiple attacks. Sonic games are meant to go quickly, not turn into massive slug-fests with an attack as repetitive as the Homing Attack. Also, allow normal jumps to harm enemies instead of requiring the Homing Attack for absolutely everything.

9: One of the most problem areas in the game seem to be the vs. Silver battles. They seem like two minor tweaks are all that's needed. One, have a help symbol to state the Silver can only focus on a limited number of objects at a time and can only grab you if he's not holding other objects. Two, have some sort of on-screen indicator to show where the enemy is, like the map used in town, or the destination arrow from Crazy Taxi.

You know, a lot of people complain about this game, and it seems like a lot could be done with even minor tweaks. We have the tools to edit a lot of the games in the Sonic series, including 3D ones like Sonic Adventure. Why doesn't anybody put any work towards this game if it's so bad? You would think a hack that even just acts as a bug fix or reduces loading or something would be a major celebration. I mean, Retro's got people already hacking Generations to bits and back, why doesn't anybody here look at this game?

[Dude]

Sonic 06 was meant to be an improved Sonic Adventure. It is such a shame they failed because it succeeding would have radically altered the course of the games.

IMO the biggest reason the game was as bad as it was, is because like usual, SEGA demanded the game ship way too early. Yes the story sucked, and yes the VA work was miserable but if you've got solid gameplay underneath it, those things become tolerable. Like the OP says, from the demo version you can tell there was an internal build with better physics that got pulled for some reason or other.

Most of the complaints behind the adventure style of gameplay come from the fact that the genre never fully matured. Bringing an open, explorable sonic game with good flow is a big problem to be solved. It was truly deeper than boost-to-win, and while some people claim it is an unworkable fantasy, I know for a fact that such a game could succeed. It would just need the kind of love and polish that Unleashed got, and IMO unleashed didn't even deserve it. Unleashed's style of gameplay is too forced, and not liberated enough. I sincerely hope that the current formula gets an infusion of less-forced and more organic gameplay at some point. The current style makes for good games, but there's just something missing without Adventure's 'go-anywhere' personality that I sorely miss.