Tsuzura_Saki: Are you gonna play Sonic ‘06?
KenolaBar: Sadly, yes, I have to. God help me. How can you ask such a thing of your best friend?
Yeah Saki, how could you? You're an ass.
Well, here we are. Up to this point this blog series had been titled, “Diary of a Mad Sonic Fanboy” although I’ve spent nearly four installments praising the franchise for the most part. Well, it is now time for us to come to the “Mad” portion of our journey, as Sonic the Hedgehog would begin his eventual descent into madness for 7 long years with no end in sight. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the downfall of Sonic.
Lets rewind the clock to 2003. Sega Dreamcast had sadly been nothing more than a footnote in gaming history as it lasted barely even a year in the eyes of the gaming industry. While this was a major blow to Sega fans like myself we still held out optimism because now Sega could produce games for any platform they desired. This in theory is a good thing as now they have the freedom to design games for the platform of their choice and more of their games could be enjoyed and appreciated by a broader audience. In all honesty this should have propelled Sonic to new heights but history has shown that not to be the case. Still, in 2003 we got….
Sonic Heroes
Even though we had gotten ports of Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 for the Gamecube and Sonic Advance on GBA before this, me going to my local store to preorder the game on a Nintendo console just blew my mind. I never ever thought I’d see the day a major Sonic game would ever be released for a Nintendo console. I guess a comparison for today’s standards would be like seeing a new Halo announced for PS3. It was just one of those surreal “it will never happen what if” sort of things. I had no doubt in my mind that Heroes would continue the success of Sonic. Well, I was wrong. Not to say that Heroes is a bad game really. I mean, their intentions were there. Unfortunately this idea of Tag Team Sonic just didn’t work well within the context of traditional platform design that the series was accustomed to. Perhaps a slower paced RPG style of game would have benefited better. Often times this constant need to switch characters mid level slowed the pace of the stages leading to a sort of unevenness. You go from zipping at super speeds to sudden stops to where the game almost slows to a crawl. Couple this with some horrendously bad camera angles and you have a recipe for frustration. This game also marks the point where too many characters were added unnecessarily to the game’s plot. While the plot itself isn’t particularly bad, (It’s a simple story about how Dr. Robotnik is up to his old tricks while Sonic and pals rush off to save the day) but many of the characters were thrown in for the sake of adding characters and didn’t necessarily need to be involved. The game was too bloated for it’s own good and while it was never horrible really, none of the game seemed very polished and everything just had sort of a thrown together “meh” feeling as a result. Sonic felt like an old relic of the 90s who just couldn’t get with the times and be as fun and inventive as Mario. Sonic Heroes was a disappointment and the first real major Sonic game to be negatively received by most in the gaming community. Oh and it also happened to have the worst theme song ever. Thanks, dicks.
Shadow the Hedgehog
Well, Sega took these criticisms to heart and fixed that for their next installment right? With Sonic being in clear need of some fresh ideas he was shelved for awhile to make room for Shadow the Hedgehog who had become a very popular character in his own right since his SA2 debut. It was high time he had his own game and part of me was excited that Sega would give Sonic a rest for awhile until they could create some fresh ideas that didn’t feel rehashed or stupid. And Sega did create fresh new ideas. The problem is, they threw everything great about the franchise away and replaced it with crap! Seriously, a lot of people point to the game that came after this as everything wrong with Sonic in this time period and while they do have a point as that game was pretty lousy to put it nicely, I point to this game as being the first game to show signs that Sonic as a franchise was in some serious danger. This is the first major Sonic game I never bothered to own. My faith in Sonic Team was shaken after Heroes and I approached this one with trepidation simply only opting to rent it and test the waters before dropping my $50 on it. And lord have mercy were my fears justified. I mean just look at the cover. Putting a fucking gun in the hand of Shadow pretty much sealed this games fate before I even put the disc in.
Yeah at first it looks like the usual Sonic fare and a return to series roots with a fresh Shadow coat of paint. And sure while it didn’t reinvent the franchise in the ways it should have I could honestly have lived with that if that was all it was. But oh no. Sega decided the Sonic series needed some reinvigorating the only problem is that they had absolutely zero clue as to where that innovation should begin. Sonic the Hedgehog was all about fun and vibrant colors and displaying a general uplifting positive sense of feeling right? This one….not so much. Areas were dull and uninspired. Everything was dull and gray and unappealing to the eyes. There was entirely too much darkness. The musical style was atrocious. Jun Senoue should be embarrassed he had a hand in composing this musical ensemble of techno vomit. Seriously, one thing that you could always say about Sonic was that it had good music at least. Shadow the Hedgehog ended that tradition with a resounding thud.
Ok so the presentation sucks, how about the story? God, I dare say the plot to this game is worse. Look Sega, no one plays Sonic for plot. I think Adventure 2 kind of got too plot heavy for my own tastes but it was still within the realm of simplicity for the most part. Shadow takes it to a ludicrous level of overdramatic. I’ll attempt to keep this as concise as humanly possible…
Basically…oh fuck it this is what Wikipedia said, let them explain this horseshit.
The G.U.N. (Guardian Units of Nations) is an unnamed country's military federation that is run by the G.U.N. commander. When completing "Hero" missions, Shadow helps them,[10] as well as other characters from the series such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, Amy Rose, Rouge the Bat, Charmy Bee, Vector the Crocodile,[5] and Espio the Chameleon.[12] Their aim is to protect Earth from Doctor Eggman and the Black Arms. The Black Arms is an alien race headed by Black Doom. Black Doom sends an extension of himself, called Doom's Eye, to spy on Shadow and assist him in his missions. When completing "Dark" missions, Shadow helps them, as well as Doctor Eggman. Their aim is to obtain the Chaos Emeralds for themselves
….God enough. Do I really need to continue? This game drove the franchise so far off the rails it isn’t even funny. The gameplay actually managed to be worse than Heroes with a lousier camera angle and Shadow controlled like a drunk ice skater. They tried to add branching plot paths by making you either good or evil depending on your actions in the stages but most of us didn’t care. The play control was so fucking awful we were just happy to beat the damn things with our asses intact much less how we approached the stage. Shame on you Sega for taking everything about Sonic and pissing on it. No Sonic character should EVER use guns. No Sonic character should EVER drive vehicles. (Yes, despite being able to travel at the speed of light Shadow resorts to driving tanks and stuff) No Sonic game should ever be “dark” or “gritty”......what the fuck is wrong with you people?
I mean, Jesus H. Christ can it possibly get any worse?
OF COURSE
You know, I wont lie. When I first saw E3 2006 and a preview of this new Sonic game titled simply “Sonic the Hedgehog” I was like “Oh, thank you Lord! Sonic the way it should be.” I had figured after the disaster known as Shadow the Hedgehog and to a lesser extent Heroes that maybe Sega would have learned their lesson and finally delivered us a true 3D Sonic game worthy of the franchise’s storied history. And for awhile it did seem that way.
But as time continued and a rushed released date was announced by having the thing release before Christmas of that same year, it became more evident to me that this game was going to be a fucking train wreck in the making. In fact, not only did I ignore this horrible game upon release, I completely ignored it for several years as I hadn’t even played it up until this point. But for the sake of this blog series I ran out and got a copy of the game despite all of the horror stories and tried it.
Oh. My. God.
Honestly I don’t even know where to begin. The problem when discussing Sonic the Failhog ( I refuse to dignify it with that other name) is that there is SO much bad about this game that it’s hard to even know where to begin. Well, providing us with the absolute STUPIDEST moment in Sonic history ever is a great place to start....
I hope someone was fired over that. How can this have gone through so may channels for so many people to say “Wow this was a good idea lets use it!” Does the plot make much more sense outside of that? Let us turn to our friend Wikipedia, who actually cares enough to try and make sense of it…
Princess Elise is the beloved ruler of the peaceful city of Soleanna. During the Festival of the Sun, the city is attacked by Doctor Eggman who is seeking the secret to a powerful weapon, the "Flames of Disaster," that will help him take over the world, which Elise possesses. However, Sonic arrives and helps Elise escape, though Eggman quickly tracks him down, sends more robots to attack them, and successfully captures Elise while Sonic is preoccupied. Before being taken away, Elise gives Sonic her Chaos Emerald. The next morning, Sonic meets up with Tails and sets out to find Elise. Before long, Sonic manages to rescue her, and Tails splits up with Sonic to divert the attention of Eggman's robots. Noticing Sonic got hurt, she blames herself for it. Sonic tells her to smile and that her smile is all he needs. Elise then explains to Sonic that the Flames of Disaster Eggman hopes to unleash is the fury of Solaris, a sun god her people worship, and that she holds the secret to this power. Upon returning to Soleanna, Sonic is attacked by a telekinetic hedgehog named Silver, who calls him the "Iblis Trigger" and tries to kill him, saying that it will protect the future. While Sonic and Silver fight, Elise is once again kidnapped by Eggman. Amy arrives out of nowhere and prevents Silver from finishing off Sonic, allowing Sonic to chase after Elise, thanking her briefly. Sonic reunites with Tails and finds Knuckles at the Warehouse of New City with a message from Eggman, and the three head over to Eggman's base in White Acropolis, where Elise is being held. There Sonic agrees to give him his Chaos Emerald in exchange for Elise but, unsurprisingly, Eggman goes back on his promise and traps the trio in a time machine, which thrusts them into a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles encounter Shadow and Rouge, who are also trapped in this future. In order to return to the present
Ok I've had enough. You get the idea. It’s absolute HORSESHIT. The amazing part is that this only scratches the surface of this inane plot. I'm serious. This is by far easily the absolutely most atrocious, nonsensical, overdramatic, silly, out of place plot for a Sonic game ever made. The amazing part is that people actually seriously try to defend this crap. What is wrong with you people? I’ve read better Sonic plots from 14 year old fan girls on Fanfiction.net. Someone seriously got paid to write this crap. If you want proof that this is truly a shitty world, there you go. This game encapsulates in every aspect everything absolutely wrong with Sonic the Hedgehog. This was not a reboot or a return to roots. This only added even more useless characters, game design and camera work was even more horrible than before thanks to a rushed release date and if I ever hear the words “Princess Elise” or “Silver” ever again I will fly to Japan and kick some Sega employee in the nuts.
I don’t really even need to get into game design problems but I will attempt to anyway. For starters, again entirely too many characters break up the action. Your guys can’t even do the Sonic stages right, lets focus on that before we even try adding other characters. The stupid city hub between stages is pointless and stupid and there’s a reason they ditched it in Adventure 1. This game is even sillier making the character models look more realistic rather than cartoonish and clash horribly with the cartoony look of Sonic and his pals. The music is dull and bland and totally doesn’t have that high energy uplifting feel that Sonic games are supposed to have and most of it sounds like crap that belongs in an elevator. The voice overs are atrocious as every single voice actor except for maybe Eggman completely phones in their performances here. But given the crap they have to work with I can’t say I particularly blame them. Sonic the Failhog is regarded as the worst Sonic game of all time and I’d be hard pressed to disagree. Nearly every single gaming publication declared it completely awful and an embarrassing insult to Sonic and it’s fans. (Except Dave Halverson, but everyone knows he’s nuts anyway) It’s amazing the franchise survived after this one to make…
Sonic Unleashed
Well, our Sonic crap tour finally comes to a close with Sonic Unleashed, which in all actually wasn’t all that bad honestly. The story wasn’t TOO overdone, Sonic gets accidentally zapped with a beam by Eggman that transforms him into a beastly “Werehog” form whenever the moon is full. What follows is a journey for Sonic to try and discover a cure for his affliction and to stop Eggman once more from his mad scheme. Mercifully many of the stupid characters added to Sonic 06 were excised as they had no reason to be there and most stages were centered around Sonic which for the first time were actually decent. The camera was improved drastically and best of all Shun Nakamura, the man responsible for the 06 disaster stayed far the fuck away from it only working on the level design as someone at Sega mercifully booted his ass out of the producer’s seat. Unleashed showed signs that maybe Sega was starting to get it and indeed in some areas Unleashed was a breath of fresh air. However Sega still didn’t truly get what we Sonic fans had been craving all along and felt the need to tack on some silly Werehog gimmick to sell copies. The Werehog stages were boring and dull and felt like a poor man’s God of War. It was again an unnecessary, totally out of place addition to a franchise that didn’t need it. This sort of stuff isn’t why we play Sonic the Hedgehog. Ultimately this game was very much like Sonic Heroes in that while it had good intentions its clear that this isn’t the Sonic game to return the series to former glory and overall not a big enough step in the right direction. Still, at least it stopped the hemorrhaging of the franchise as just when it seemed Sonic couldn’t possibly get any worse this title helps it rise from the depths of hell somewhat.
Next Time: Well, we finally put a merciful close to the first few years of “consoleless” Sonic as Sega FINALLY puts a stop to the bleeding and gets a hint as to where the Sonic franchise should head. Some major and I mean MAJOR reconstruction is going to have to be done over the next few years and in 2010 Sega would be ready to try to reclaim the empire Sonic once had after nearly a decade of misteps. The only question left, can they do it? Find out in the final chapter of Diary of a Mad Sonic Fanboy.
Sonic, why did they put us in such a shitty game?
There there, Tails. It's ok that mean ol' Shun Nakamura can't do this to us anymore.
There there, Tails. It's ok that mean ol' Shun Nakamura can't do this to us anymore.
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