I know I say I don't usually write about Sonic the Hedgehog these days but sometimes I still might and today I will. This year marks the 20th anniversary of this fateful video game that we love to hate called Sonic The Hedgehog 06, which was released on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, (also known as Sonic '06). A Nintendo Wii version was in development but got cancelled.
I knew about the game which was also known as "Sonic Next Gen" about a year before it came out. Promising to "reinvent the Sonic franchise". But Sonic's 15th anniversary was coming up fast, and Sega had to develop this game fast. And fast they did.
The plot of the game centered around Sonic and his human love interest, Princess Elise who lives in the town of Soleanna. She gets captured by Dr. Eggman and Sonic must go on an adventure to save her. It's a pretty basic story. It's also the first time we get introduced to the time traveling character Silver the Hedgehog, which would show up in later Sonic games in the future ("It's no use!") Sonic 06 goes back to Sonic Adventure era open hub worlds with the levels and town missions in between.
The game focused mainly on the 3 Hedgehogs, Sonic Shadow and Silver. You can play separate stories with each character. After completing the three main stories you'd unlock the last Super Sonic story.
The original 2005 tech demo of Sonic 06, which ended up being nothing like the game itself upon release.
Sonic 06's development was filled with technical issues, glitches, unfinished parts and bitter behind the scenes drama. It's really unfortunate because it would have been the last Sonic game for a while to use the Adventure era style open world and gameplay. Until Sonic Unleashed which was released a couple of years later in 2008, was a much better effort both gameplay and story wise.
Upon release, Sonic 06 was deemed a laughing stock and was one of the worst selling and reviewed games in Sonic's history, which is a shame because it has a banger Soundtrack. For me, I can tolerate playing Sonic 06 but the constant Loading times and other annoyances are indeed a frustration. It's a shame that Sega ended up rushing this game. It could have been really great.
Stages from Sonic '06 would indeed end up in other Sonic games, such as 2011's Sonic Generations and 2024's Shadow Generations (Crisis City and Kingdom Valley respectively). It is a shame that, how great it is to play these levels in more of a complete form in Sonic and Shadow Generations, felt like what Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 could once have been if it wasn't rushed.
Also 20 years ago, Sonic's 15th Anniversary included the release of Sonic Riders, a futuristic techno inspired Air Boarding racing game, developed by Yuji Naka (the same guy behind Sonic '06). I very much enjoyed Riders, and it's sequel - Sonic Riders Zero Gravity, but not so much Sonic Free Riders for the failed Xbox Kinekt device.
Sonic Riders released on the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox back in 2006 also turns 20 this year.
Sonic 2006 had a lot of things cut from the final game. One such thing I remember was a long lost day / night cycle I remember seeing in old E3 demos. They would cut that feature out of the final game. A proper day / night cycle would not be used for a Sonic game again until 2022's Sonic Frontiers.
Rare Sonic 06 footage from Tokyo Access in 2005 which featured a cut day and night cycle.
It's hard to define what Sonic 06 is now, whether it is a cult classic or a meme (probably the 2nd option), a game that was released during dark times for Sega and Sonic the Hedgehog for a while became a laughing stock. 2008's Sonic Unleashed felt much better but it wasn't until Sonic Colors that Sonic started to reinvent itself, despite the flaws of that game also. The main series has since still had plenty of ups and downs, but 2022's Sonic Frontiers feels like more of a current modern Sonic game done right. Yes, it has its flaws too but an expected Definitive Edition of Sonic Frontiers is due to be released sometime in June 2026 which hopes to fix many bugs and graphical issues the original game had.
It's a shame Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 can't get remastered or fixed up in today's modern environment like Sonic Frontiers is, I guess that Sega and Sonic Team want to forget this game exists. But I don't mind coming back to it every now and then purely for nostalgia reasons. At least it's not as bad as Balan Wonderworld. That game sucks.
No comments:
Post a Comment