3/5 ★ – BlueSorcerer's review of Sonic the Hedgehog.

So Sonic the Hedgehog for next-gen consoles, otherwise known as Sonic ‘06. This may or may not come as a surprise to people, but I actually kind of liked it. Don’t get me wrong, this game is borderline unpolished and unfinished, but outside of this I think that it still has its merits. If anything, Sonic ‘06 is arguably a game that you shouldn’t judge entirely by its cover. The game’s story is a bit to process and to keep track of, but I think it’s fine for the most part. I quite enjoyed Shadow’s and Silver’s story in the overall plot, but Sonic’s story just doesn’t jive with me. But before I go there, I should provide some context. The story itself begins during the festival of Soleanna, the aptly named “City of Water” that worships a deity known as Solaris. It is here that we are introduced to Elise, the current princess of Soleanna and someone you will either have no problem with or have many problems with—for understandable reasons. But out of nowhere, Eggman savatoges the festival in pursuit of Elise who bears a Chaos Emerald and is secretly connected to a concept known as the Flames of Disaster. But before Elise’s chariot awaits, Sonic speeds onto the scene and takes care of Eggman’s mechs with no difficulty. Sonic escapes the festival with Elise, yet for some reason when a few other mechs show up on their path, Sonic puts Elise down to take care of the mechs but then Eggman immediately snatches her back because Sonic let his guard down. Sonic, that is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen you do. You are telling me that you can casually avoid missile-fire from Eggman’s ship while holding Elise, but then when three other small mechs show up you can’t just avoid them too? You can literally homing attack the mechs in his levels while holding Elise, so why not just do that here as well? Just what gives, Sonic? Ok, that’s enough of a ramble. Anyway, as Elise is being captured she throws her Chaos Emerald to Sonic, Sonic promises he will rescue her despite the fact that he could just run up the buildings and intercept Eggman in the air right there, and Eggman’s ship flies off without Sonic even trying to chase it down. An honest attempt sure wasn’t made here. The next day, Sonic meets up with Tails in Soleanna and they give chase to Eggman’s ship in Wave Ocean, a pretty good starting level with some interesting set pieces. But the two miss the ship probably because they learned nothing from Sonic Adventure, Tails weirdly deduces that Elise is in another location, and they advance to Dusty Desert where they find her without issue. Until she is captured again, saved again, then captured again, then saved again, and finally stands up to Eggman when she threatens to destroy Soleanna but literally just gets captured again. Oh… my… lord. No joke, the rest of Sonic’s story is you going back and forth rescuing Elise from Eggman and it feels like a glorified goose chase. This is why Sonic’s story doesn’t jive with me because it feels like a rip-off Mario plot. Peach getting kidnapped in several Mario games does get old too, but it somehow gets old so much quickly in just one Sonic game. Dear… lord! Well after Elise dies and Sonic travels back in time—more on that later—Eggman is defeated, Elise is rescued for the last time, and Sonic’s story comes to an end. Could have been better and could have been worse, I guess, but I’m going to move on from it. Shadow’s story is where things start to get really interesting. It starts with Shadow infiltrating Eggman’s base while working under G.U.N. Wow, wasn’t expecting that plothole. Shadow comes across an object known as the Scepter of Darkness where a being known as Mephiles resides. Mephiles is an interestingly written character. He takes the shape of Shadow because it’s implied that Shadow sealed him away in the past. And although this is confirmed later on, the time travel can come across as confusing. After he is released, Mephiles transports Shadow and Rouge to the future where they find the world completely incinerated and nothing but flames. Omega is even among the ruins and it’s implied that he killed Shadow in the past outside of his own programming. That’s very dark and interesting, but it’s never elaborated on afterward which is a letdown. I would have liked to see what caused Omega to kill Shadow, but I guess we might never know. Eventually, Shadow and Rouge come across Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles who were transported to the same time by Eggman’s machine in Sonic’s story. The two teams then work together to find two Chaos Emeralds to perform Chaos Control and send them back to the present time. Everyone except Shadow heads back to the present time, while Shadow confronts Mephiles and learns how he was decommissioned by humanity because they feared his power. That’s also pretty interesting, but again these kinds of things are never elaborated on afterward. Shadow denies Mephiles’ claims, takes him out, Omega comes to assist Shadow likely because Rouge changed his fate in the present time so he would help Shadow in the future, and they manage to head back to the present time when they jump into Mephiles’ portal as he flees. Later on, Shadow seemingly takes out Mephiles for good in the present time and that’s where his story ends. There are some other things to address regarding Shadow’s story, but they will make more sense once I touch on Silver’s story. Sonic ‘06 introduces Silver, a time-traveling hedgehog who intends to stop the future destruction of the world as shown in Shadow’s story. With him is Blaze from Sonic Rush for some reason, and the two engage the aforementioned Flames of Disaster known as Iblis. Silver and Blaze take care of Iblis, but because he is a being that lives all throughout time he is not completely taken care of. Eventually, the two turn to Mephiles as he suggests that he knows the true means to destroy Iblis. And what that ultimately boils down to is framing Sonic as the one responsible for awakening Iblis and that Sonic must be stopped to prevent the future destruction of the world. You would think that Blaze would call that blasphemy, but she doesn’t appear to recognize Sonic despite there being hints that she does. In all honesty, Blaze is probably just here so Silver has a companion throughout the story like everyone else does. But still, that causes a plot hole that I don’t know how to discern. Anyway, Mephiles sends Silver and Blaze back in time to find Sonic. But before Silver manages to confront Sonic, he is caught off guard by Amy who mistakes Silver for Sonic. Man, every introduction for a new character in this series that is a hedgehog is going to have this trope, aren’t they? Despite the misunderstanding, the two work together to find who they are looking for even though they are both clearly looking for Sonic. Silver starts to get along well with Amy as he is a softie deep down, but she abandons him when he confronts Sonic for the first time because Amy can’t have that and knows that Sonic isn’t responsible for such future destruction. The aftermath of this exchange serves as a means for Silver to reflect on his actions and whether or not he is doing the right thing to kill someone to save the future. Blaze assures Silver that regardless of his feelings, they have to do what they must if they want the future to change. It’s overall a nice character moment, but I think they could have done a little more with it since the moment is over as soon as it starts. The two then pursue Eggman but get no leads, while Amy somehow ends up on Eggman’s ship and saves Elise from one of her many captures. Silver eventually locates Sonic once more saving Elise but is interrupted by Shadow who he initially believes to be Mephiles because of their similar appearance. The two fight until they are panting, and Shadow does one of the coolest things in the Sonic series: roundhouse kicks Silver as he aggresses him one last time using Chaos Control. Man, that moment never gets old. But when the two use Chaos Control at the same time, they open a portal to the past that Shadow tells Silver to follow if he wants to know the truth about the world’s future destruction. What they find is that Elise’s father was trying to maintain the deity of Solaris using an electromagnetic machine, but the machine lost control and released Solaris’ two halves: Iblis and Mephiles. Shadow soon seals away Mephiles as alluded to earlier, but Silver is unable to stop Iblis and Elise’s father decides to seal Iblis inside of his own daughter. But if Elise ever cried, she would release Iblis and the Flames of Disaster would wreak havoc on the world. There’s just one problem with that: How can you go your whole life without crying? You cry tears of joy and sadness when you experience deep emotions, so Elise can’t have none of that? How would she even be able to manage so in the first place? Man that’s just stupid. Elise herself isn’t a bad character, but I wish they wrote her differently and didn’t portray her as a damsel in distress most of the time. As Shadow and Silver go back to the present time, Silver leaves his Chaos Emerald behind with Elise which ends up being the same Emerald that she has at the start of Sonic’s story. Now knowing the truth, Silver meets up with Sonic in Kingdom Valley and the two chase after Eggman’s carrier that suddenly explodes, effectively killing Eggman and Elise. In order to change this, Sonic and Silver use Chaos Control to travel back in time. Sonic goes back to the past to change the fate of Eggman and Elise, while Silver and Blaze travel to the future to seal away Iblis for good. But because Silver is not able to contain Iblis, Blaze ends up being the one to seal Iblis and it kills her in the process, leaving light to cast on the ruined world but a sadness to overtake Silver’s heart at the loss of his dear friend—ending Silver’s story. But, nothing ends there. However, I will touch on this later on. For now, I would like to discuss the rest of the game leading up to the end of the story. Saying that Sonic ‘06 is a glitchy mess is a dead horse that I won’t bother beating, but I think the overall gameplay is pretty solid. Sonic controls pretty well and so do Tails and Knuckles for the most part, but I don’t like how Amy controls. She has a decent double jump, but she is extremely slow and her hammer attack can only be used at a standstill—she just isn’t fun to play. Sonic’s levels themselves are honestly pretty memorable and have some pretty good level design like Dusty Desert, Flame Core, and Aquatic Base. The environments don’t look too bad either. I like the beach aesthetics of Wave Ocean, I like the destroyed landscape of Crisis City, and I like the lush nature of Tropical Jungle. The game’s presentation is pretty decent, but the models and cutscene animations are pretty stiff. Don’t even get me started on the animations for the townspeople. The lip synching isn’t the best either. Shadow’s levels are basically harder versions of Sonic’s levels like in Sonic Heroes, and they often incorporate vehicles and aircrafts for Shadow to utilize—and they control fine for the most part. I don’t mind the combat-oriented style for Shadow, but I don’t fancy it a ton either. Rouge and Omega are here, too, and they control fine. Silver’s levels are fine, but they slow the game down tremendously even though the game itself lags (another aspect that needed to be fine-tuned). Silver just doesn’t move like Sonic and Shadow do, meaning his levels are more methodical-based which I don’t mind but don’t highly esteem either. Blaze is probably my third favorite character to play as since she reminds me a lot of Sonic and she can utilize some fire-based techniques. She at least helped speed the pace of Silver’s story when it was slower otherwise. The hub worlds aren’t too bad either, but they don’t feel as charming as the hub worlds in Sonic Adventure. There are townspeople and set pieces to interact with, but they just aren’t as charming as those in other games. Some townspeople will have missions you can do but they aren’t much to write home about. Most of them will also make you wait through two loading screens just to exchange one line of dialogue in the middle. The loading times in this game are just terrible and you could spend as much time on them as you would from anywhere to a quarter or half of a character’s story. The bosses in this game weren’t that bad, and I especially liked Sonic and Silver’s bosses. Although the rival battles are pretty easy to cheese and often conclude before they begin. Yet in Sonic’s story, Silver absolutely bodied me the first few times I fought him, but then when I was on my last life I somehow figured out how to beat Silver and only took one hit. The mind is a strange thing, folks. Then there’s the music which is definitely one of the best Sonic soundtracks in the entire series, perhaps in my top five. My favorites include the themes of Soleanna, Dusty Desert, Crisis City, Flame Core, Kingdom Valley, Aquatic Base, the Extras theme, the vocal themes—especially Dreams of an Absolution—and the results theme. It’s so somber and easy on the ears, and it ends each level nicely. But now, it’s time to talk about the endgame of Sonic ‘06. As established, Sonic does manage to save Elise, and Silver and Blaze do put a definitive stop to Iblis. But it turns out in the Last Story, Shadow destroyed a copy of Mephiles leaving the latter to locate Sonic and Elise and stab the former through the chest. Sonic… flippin’... dies! And the emotional pain is too heavy for Elise that she cries and releases the Flames of Disaster from her body. Mephiles reunites with Iblis into Solaris and completely destroys the fabric of time and space. Yet Shadow, Silver, Elise, Eggman, and the others remain, but all hope is lost as Sonic is dead and the Chaos Emeralds are missing. But Elise suddenly feels Sonic’s presence in the wind and believes that she is not dead, which motivates everyone to search throughout the entire space to find all of the Emeralds and revive Sonic. This effort is shown in the game’s final level titled End of the World, and I quite like this level. It throws a lot at you and the instant-death portals are a nuisance to avoid, but the levels are decently structured and even use set pieces from older levels in the game. Excluding Eggman and Elise, the other seven characters manage to find the Chaos Emeralds and revive Sonic—we are not talking about the kiss—and Shadow and Silver join alongside Sonic in their super forms to put an end to the awakened Solaris. And the final boss with Solaris… kind of sucks. It’s not hard by any means and you have the ability to switch between the three hedgehogs when their ring supply runs low, but the boss itself feels weirdly programmed. I don’t understand how attacks connect, I don’t understand why one hedgehog does more damage than the others, and I don’t get why the boss is made out to be straightforward but feels like it’s a lot more complex. Regardless, the Super Hedgehogs succeed in defeating Solaris and the aftermath leads Sonic and Elise to discovering the true flame of Solaris, a flame that if put out would erase Solaris from existence but also the events of the story itself. And for some reason, Elise would rather lose all care in the world if it meant never meeting Sonic yet she clearly showed care for her world earlier on when Eggman threatened to destroy Soleanna. This, along with the fact that the three hedgehogs are able to time travel at will with the Chaos Emeralds, makes the story feel convoluted. But regardless, Sonic tells Elise to smile and not fret over what she will lose and she soon blows out the very flame. The story ends as it started with Elise enjoying the Soleanna festival, feeling Sonic’s presence but not necessarily knowing what it means, and Sonic standing atop a tower watching the peaceful events unfold before him, ending Sonic ‘06. After hearing my thoughts, you may see more positives or negatives with this game, and whatever you choose to feel is your decision. But in my opinion, Sonic ‘06 is a pretty decent Sonic game that is certainly rough and needed a great deal of fine-tuning, but I think it still has more going for it outside of what’s on the surface.