Sonic 2006: A Fascinating Tale Of Ambition and Glitches

[Music] foreign Sonic 2006 Sonic 06 whatever name you call it is immediately recognizable purely by name alone I'm sure you hear the name and immediately think of everything you've ever heard that's wrong about it this game released 16 years ago and yet it's still haunted by its own legacy sonico 6 is a game that fascinates me it's a game plagued by issues and development and within the company but despite seemingly everything going wrong it has pieces of it that I admire it's not a good game fundamentally it's full of bugs glitches unfinished game design and definitely needed more development time just to finish the story in the gameplay however I don't think it deserved to be branded as one of the worst games of all time and become what allegedly killed the Sonic series according to many but before we can dive into the game let's look at what led up to it [Music] thank you [Music] Sonic the Hedgehog took his first steps into a fully 3D World on the Dreamcast on December 23rd 1998 in Sonic Adventure the game received critical Acclaim upon release for its transition to a 3D World and for its gameplay this encouraged Sega to start working on the sequel immediately after Sonic Adventure 2 was released only three years later on June 23 2001 to receive good scores once again Sega would continue to develop and release games on this very short development cycle for the years to come Sonic Heroes released on December 30th 2003 in Japan and on January 5th 2004 for North America Shadow the Hedgehog followed soon after on November 5th 2005. Sega was becoming known for their short development Cycles even if it meant having to rush out a game in time when it could benefit from a little longer in development 2006 was setting up to be an important year for Sega it marked the 15th anniversary for Sonic and Sega was no stranger to releasing anniversary Title Games Sonic Adventure 2 was released for the 10th anniversary of the series so it felt fitting to do a follow-up for 15 years [Music] [Applause] development for Sonic 06 started in late 2004 designed to be a new reboot for the series the team was focused on making the game more realistic and on a larger scale the new hardware of the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 meant that they could greatly improve the graphics to make the game look more realistic than any game prior combined with using their new Havoc physics engine the team was inspired to test multiple play Styles as well to sum it up the development team was more ambitious than ever this ambition would prove to be too much for this project as Sega was insistent on having a 2006 release date originally Sonic 06 was designed to release on the Xbox 360. PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii half of the team was working solely on the Wii Port but partially through development this port was scrapped and the team was tasked with making a new game for the Wii instead which eventually became Sonic in the Secret Rings with the team now split on two separate projects the Sonic 06 team was struggling to finish development in time with the looming deadline hanging over them then in March 2006 Series co-creator in the development lead Yuji Naka left Sega this was an incredibly difficult transition for the remaining development team who were struggling without their team lead to finish the game on top of all of this Sega was keeping the pressure on the team to get the game finished for the holiday 2006 release date the only way the team could meet this harsh deadline was to cut and so they did they cut out everything they could to keep schedule this meant gameplay features extra Hub worlds and more were cut down just to reduce development time development time was spent just finishing whatever they could as producer Takashi Azuka put it we didn't have any time to polish and we were just churning out content as quick as we could sonico 6 released for the Xbox 360 in North America on November 14 2006 with the PlayStation 3 release being held back until January 30th 2007. both versions were released in Japan on December 21st 2006. the immediate reception to the game was generally poor by critics and fans alike the most common points of criticism were the unpolished gameplay seemingly endless glitches and a story that felt too unlike Sonic games prior [Music] thank you [Music] I received a copy of Sonic 06 as a kid for Christmas it was the Platinum hits edition for Xbox 360 and I was so excited to play it as I had never played a 3D Sonic game before I had only tried and failed at Sonic 2 plenty of times I remember being impressed by the cutscenes in the hub world of soliana as a naive little seven-year-old I made it to the first level wave ocean and after sort of understanding how the controls work I made it through Sonic's first section and got to play as Tales I was so excited to play his tales I loved tales and Sonic too he was my favorite character I nearly immediately died because I didn't understand how to control his gameplay a few frustrating attempts later I figured out how to finish Tails a section and I get greeted by Sonic again in the new mock speed section I was thoroughly wowed and then I realized I could barely control Sonic's movements ran into an obstacle died and was out of lives I had also forgotten to save at any point before wave ocean so I had to replay the whole beginning I turned the game off and instead went to play something else I didn't touch Sonic 06 for years after that it sat on my shelf collecting dust I didn't touch it again until around 2014. in 2014 I was 14 years old I was really into YouTube and forums and video game content back in early 2010's gaming YouTube there was a whole lot of top tens in gaming reviews at this point in my life I was in my Peak teenage Sonic phase so I watched a lot of YouTube videos about the games and the characters there was a consistent negative focus on one specific Sonic game at the time everyone and their mother had posted a YouTube video were on forums about how Sonic 06 was in quotes all caps the worst video game of all time people made fun of every aspect of the game the story the characters and the gameplay so many video segments just focused on all the glitches they found in the game now this had 14 year old me thinking I owned this game had barely ever touched it in fact maybe I should play it and make fun of it myself for fun so I did what any 14 year old with too much free time would do sat down and played all of Sonic 06. it ended up being the first Sonic game I ever beat and of course after that I bought and played many others but this was my first real introduction to 3D Sonic it took me a while to beat the whole game with all three character stories in the final episode I encountered many many glitches and went through all the poor level design sections but even despite all the sections I got lost on or frustrated at radical train was a nightmare my first time playing it I still was stubborn enough to finish it I beat Sonic's story first then completed Silver's and ended with Shadow's story in the final episode it felt triumphant to actually complete it so now that I persisted through it and won I put the game down after that and returned a few years later for the 10th anniversary of the game and now years later I still return once again so to reiterate my point at the beginning I am fascinated by Sonic 06 we know the sheer Insanity that occurred during development and how the dev team had to just finish what they could I know it's a bad game yet why do I still enjoy it so much so let's break down the game by starting with the story foreign [Music] I will be summarizing Sonic's story if you do not wish to hear my summary here is the time stamp to skip ahead to my thoughts the game starts off with Sonic's Story fittingly the soleiana festival is underway with Princess Elise in the center of it she suddenly sees a vision of her country soleiana becoming engulfed in flames but she is quickly snapped out of it after her vision the festival is attacked by none other than Eggman he demands that Elise hands over her Chaos Emerald that she holds but Sonic appears to save Elise from the attacking robots this doesn't last as Eggman kidnaps her soon after but she hand Sonic the Chaos Emerald before being taken away Sonic meets up with Tails and the two track down Elise they rescue her from Dusty desert but Eggman reveals that he needs Elise to awaken the Flames of disaster Sonic and Elise escape and on their way back to soleiana she explains that the Flames of disaster refers to the wrath of Solaris the god they worship according to Elise ten years ago they almost dealt with solaris's rage but they were able to quell it before it could attack however her father died in the process to cheer her up from her sad memories Sonic teaches her to just run and take action whenever she is worried about something after this the two make it back to soleiana but they are attacked by silver who claims to have been looking for Sonic who he calls the Iblis Trigger or the one who is doomed to destroy the future after a fight between the two Elise is once again kidnapped by Eggman and silver says he must destroy Sonic for the sake of the future Amy runs into Shield Sonic and prevents silver from killing him Sonic thanks Amy and he escapes chasing after Eggman Sonic meets up again with Tails and Knuckles Knuckles offers a letter that Eggman had given to him to hand off to Sonic in the letter Eggman offers a trade to Sonic hand over the Chaos Emerald to free Elise despite tales skepticisms about it being a trap Sonic says he'll go anyway as it's a chance to free Elise and Tails and Knuckles agree to follow at their confrontation Eggman ambushes the trio after taking the chaos emerald and he sends them into the ruined future through a time machine Eggman reveals that he needs elise's power to awaken Solaris in an attempt to take over the world hinting that he can use solaris's power to control time in the future Sonic and friends run into shadow and rouge Shadow explains that they are in the future and that they can go back in time by using Chaos Control as they're searching for the Chaos Emerald Sonic Tails and Knuckles oversee a conversation between Silver Blaze and methylus nephilis reveals to Silver and Blaze that Sonic is destined to awaken Iblis which will destroy the future methless sends silver and Blaze to the past and Tails read some data that reveals that Elise is destined to die after being captured by Eggman after finding a Chaos Emerald in Crisis City Sonic Tails and Knuckles meet back up with shadow and rouge again they all head to Flame core to search for a second Chaos Emerald while there they made a giant flame monster known as Iblis after a battle with Iblis they reclaimed the Chaos Emerald that lied there and Sonic and Shadow use Chaos Control to open a time portal to return back to their time newly determined to prevent the events of the future Sonic goes to save Elise once again however after saving her they're attacked by silver who insists on ending the Iblis trigger for good the during this confrontation Elise is again kidnapped by Eggman even though he literally just saved her silver is stopped by Shadow who led Sonic Escape also pointing out that this is the second time somebody had to step in to save Sonic from getting killed by silver but whatever Elise is tired of being held prisoner by Eggman and Having learned from Sonic that she should take her own fate into her own hands she decides that she would rather die than be held prisoner and so she jumps out of eggman's carrier luckily Sonic saves her and they escape from eggman's robots while the two head back to soleiana they stop for a moment in an empty field Elise opens up to Sonic about how much she has enjoyed their little adventure and how it helped her feel like she was something other than just a princess for once she still does love her home and her people and she reminisces about her parents as she says she will protect her country for them she understands that it is her responsibility to protect her country as her parents did before her after this she heads back to soliana not long after returning home eggman's Fleet approaches soliana and he threatens to destroy the country unless Elise surrenders herself not wanting to let her people suffer she willingly goes along with Eggman she asked him why he wishes to bring upon the Flames of disaster and he reveals that Solaris can alter the flow of time and manipulate it at will he wants this power to control everything in all events of time Sonic heads to Kingdom Valley too once again save a lease for the hundredth time I swear he is aided by silver this time who admits that the circumstances have changed and he wants to help save Elise eggman's ship begins to malfunction and eventually it crashes killing Elise just like it was told in the future this devastates Sonic Silver suggests that they travel back in time to save her so the two use Chaos Control which allows Sonic to go back in time he reaches eggman's ship just in time and with the lease they escape from the crashing ship the two make it out alive and share a laugh over their adventure and Sonic's story concludes [Music] Sonic's story is the weakest of the three character stories to me it has a lot to set up in explaining the world of soliana and why Elise is important but it just Falls flat and being a compelling narrative because it's way too repetitive of a story there's too much back and forth between Sonic and Eggman and with a lease in the middle of how many times she has to be saved Elise struggles to be her own character outside of her connection with Sonic she learns from him and grows as a character throughout the game but there isn't enough to keep me interested in Sonic story alone she may have a tragic backstory with the loss of her parents and the fact that she can't cry or she'll unleash the Flames of disaster but she only gets short Exposition dialogue to explain all this before it's back to the status quo of her being kidnapped now thankfully the other character stories help explain some of this but for this being the first story I think it needed to explain a little bit more to make her interesting and help the player understand her so much of the overarching plot of the game is only briefly brought up in Sonic's story we get to see methylus for the first time we learn about Solaris we see Iblis but Sonic's story doesn't dive into it at all it takes the other character stories to actually explain what's happening so Sonic's story struggles to be the first one you're supposed to play because you finish it not really understanding what's happening Eggman also hardly feels like a threat in this story because while he has a plan and he explains his plan about what he wants to do with Solaris we aren't in the point in the story where we understand what it means we don't know enough about Solaris or why using solaris's power is dangerous and also we don't even know how he intends to use a lease for her power it seems like he doesn't even really know what to do for that now while I do like that it is setting up Solaris with how Eggman mentions that Solaris can control the flow of time it's just such an easy thing to miss in the story that it feels like it could have been completely written out now let's talk about Sonic himself to me he always just felt kind of toned down compared to the previous games he's a little bit more boring than the usual charismatic protagonist we know but overall I don't really have an issue with how he's portrayed overall he's still Sonic but the main thing people will bring up in regards to Sonic's story is Sonic's relationship with Elise this was a very heavily talked about subject years ago in relation to the game you could not find any review of the game without somebody mentioning how weird Sonic and elise's relationship was most players hated it I think it's weird but mostly I just find it very boring much like the rest of the story I think they work much better as a friendship dynamic than a romance because he definitely inspires her she learns to open up and become more Carefree but also taking that responsibility he doesn't worry he acts and Elise learns this along the way but we'll put a pin in their relationship for later as it'll come back once we get to the final episode other than Sonic Tails and Knuckles hardly get to do anything in the story which kind of sucks Tails gets to hang around more than Knuckles does within the story but Tails doesn't get to do a whole lot other than you know following Sonic around his most key important role in the story is finding out what happens to Elise in the future but other than that he doesn't do a whole lot and Knuckles has that one story important scene where he gives Sonic the letter and then other than that you could completely rewrite him out of the story and nothing would change overall I think this story in particular needed the most rewrites and drafts it struggles to be interesting especially compared to the other stories and it's a really poor first impression for the overarching story of the game everything else is more interesting than this at least narratively we're going up from here everything after this is much more interesting to talk about and next up we'll be talking about silver story [Music] [Music] Silver the Hedgehog is our newcomer in this game silver starts off his story by explaining how his world has been devastated for many years due to the Flames of disaster also known as Iblis silver alongside Blaze are on the hunt searching for Iblis to stop its destruction however Iblis cannot be defeated for good that easily it always Rises up from its Ashes to cause more damage this frustrates silver as he wants to completely destroy a bliss and save his home but he has no solution to do so a mysterious figure appears before them known as methylus and offers some advice to Silver to find the being responsible for freeing Iblis if they can prevent iballists from being awakened then perhaps their future will be saved mephilis uses a Chaos Emerald to present silver with a vision this allows silver to see a blue Hedgehog the Iblis trigger mephilis then sends silver and Blaze to the distant past to rewrite history by killing the one destined to destroy the future silver finds himself in the past now separated from Blaze but he is amazed to see the world around him free from Devastation silver quickly continues his mission to search for the ibless trigger silver sees Sonic at the soleiana festival and tries to stop him but he is soon interrupted by Amy who mistakes him for Sonic they don't even look alike silver doesn't even look like Sonic Amy apologizes for interrupting silver in a Grace to help him find the person that he was looking for even though she doesn't know he's actually searching for Sonic so even though she agrees to help him she ends up getting distracted still wanting to go find Sonic herself she drags silver along much to his displeasure at first but still he agrees to help her anyway as he loves being in the past he's enjoying taking in how full of life everything is around him and so a whole detour ensues of Amy dragging silver around all the way to the desert but eventually they make it back to soleiana in soleiana Silver Spot Sonic and confronts him calling him the ivless trigger and saying he must destroy him before he can condemn the future Sonic and Silver fight with silver eventually stopping Sonic from escaping before silver can land a final blow Amy jumps in front of him guarding Sonic Amy is shocked that silver would be trying to hunt down Sonic of all people and she fights back on his claim that Sonic will be the cause of Destruction in the future disappointed she claims that no matter what she will always stand by Sonic's side and she runs away silver is now left alone to contemplate his mission and his morals Blaze finds him next to the ocean lost in thoughts as he debates whether or not it is right to kill someone if it means that it will save the world in the end while silver is stuck at a Crossroads debating what's right and what is wrong Blaise counters his idea by saying that they can't possibly know if it's the right or wrong course of action but that this is their chance to change the future and they cannot miss that opportunity the pair run into mephilis and silver asks who the Iblis trigger is and why he would want to destroy the world in the first place mephilis counters this by asking why it even matters to Silver and he tries to get him to refocus on the mission silver decides that Blaze is right and so he continues on his mission to find the Iblis trigger leading him to radical train where he confronts Sonic once again after another fight this time they're interrupted by Shadow while Shadow buys time for Sonic to escape silver mistakes him for mephilis Shadow introduces himself and the two start to fight during their fight they both use Chaos Control and open up a time portal by accident silver refusing to lose insists that he will be the one to change the past and fix his world but Shadow interrupts him by saying that mephilis is not trying to save the future but instead destroy the past Shadow tells silver to follow him into the time portal if he wants to learn the truth and silver joins him the time portal ends up sending them back to soleona 10 years ago and the two witnessed the failed experiments done by the king to harness solaris's power this event is also known as the soliana disaster the resulting explosion caused by Solaris results in the original forms of Ibis and mephilis trying to escape shadow goes to stop mephilis while silver takes off after Iblis while silver tries to take hold of Iblis the king steps in insisting that it is the duty of the royal family to control Iblis in order to put Iblis to rest it must be held by a royal soul and the Flames of Iblis are sealed within a young Elise the only way the Flames will be freed is if Elise cries Shadow and Silver head back to the present time and silver tells Belize everything that he learned in the past to stop eggman's plan of Reviving ibilis The Two agree to help Sonic save Elise after rushing through Kingdom Valley it turns out they were too late to stop eggman's ship from crashing silver comes up with the idea to use Chaos Control to let Sonic go back in time to prevent this as Sonic agrees to do it to change elise's fate silver and Blaze decide to head into the ruined future again silver now understands that changing the past won't fix the future instead they decide they must seal away Iblis in their world to stop it for good while silver tries to seal Iblis within him it rejects him as a vessel Blaze steps in saying she will be accepted as her soul is already won with the flames with blaze now as the vessel she instructs silver to use Chaos Control to send her away to a different dimension so that Iblis is gone from their world for good silver can't find it within himself to send away his friend and closest companion so Blaze does it herself and wishes him good luck and she leaves their world forever future is now saved from the Flames of disaster but silver can't bring himself to celebrate [Music] silver story really feels like a step up from Sonics to me silver is dedicated to his mission to free his world of peril and Destroy what causes the Flames of disaster from being released while he is naive to trust mephilis I think it shows that he initially will do anything to save his world which is why I find him to be such a likable and interesting protagonist I always liked how genuinely happy he is to be in the past in a world free from ruin and destruction and how he just Marvels at all of his surroundings while Amy may not be the most important to the story I do like that she causes silver to rethink his actions and morals over his mission it's an interesting moral dilemma for a main character to have to go through is it just to kill someone who will bring destruction to the world in the future and while we learn that Sonic does not in fact awaken Iblis intentionally anyway but we'll talk about that later getting rid of him wouldn't solve their problems in the future by learning of the past and how Iblis was sealed within a vessel silver is able to find the solution to his world's problem Blaze was always an interesting character for me in the story as her sacrifice at the end of the story is so impactful she never returned in the story not even for the final episode sealing herself away with Iblis saved her world but now silver is alone at least in the ruins he had his friend with him but now he has to continue on alone outside of her sacrifice though I do wish Blaze had more to do in the story other than occasionally offering advice to Silver she doesn't get many lines or much input on the situation it always makes me wonder why she goes along with methylus's plan with no hesitation while I do believe it's definitely in character for silver to go along with mephilis's plans with no question asked but for Blaze I think she would definitely be more skeptical about it and not trust him immediately but all of this does let silver have more room to shine as the main character and go through his own troubles and character development this story also uncovers some lore about elise's powers and why she has the Flames of disaster sealed within her and how the Flames of disaster came to be we learned later on why the King was trying to use Solaris for its powers but I like how they'll want to use their literal God's power as it will is what doomed them all to a ruined future it's also pretty messed up that the last thing that King did before dying was to see all this dangerous God within his daughter a literal child she didn't even get a say in it she was unconscious when it happened she probably just woke up and was told what happened we know Iblis can be sealed only by somebody who is accepted as a vessel and the royal family had claimed to be the ones to watch over it but it sets up Elise to grow up without her parents and she can't even cry or else she'll release Iblis I wish the story explained why Elise crying is what will release the Flames of disaster because it seems kind of odd that the only known way to release this literal flame God sealed within her is to either die or cry if it was explained that any extreme emotion can break the steel holding Iblis I would understand a little more but crying is just very specific anyway we have one last character story to cover before the final story next up is foreign [Music] [Music] story starts with omission Shadow is now working for gun and he is tasked with rescuing Rouge who went missing after being sent to retrieve mysterious item from eggman's base he finds her in the two escape and head to Kingdom Valley but Eggman chases him there demanding they return the item she stole calling it the scepter of Darkness during their fight the scepter accidentally Falls and releases a dark energy from within it the dark energy forms from within Shadow's very own shadow taking a similar appearance to him the figure calls irony in the fact that it was resurrected from Shadow's shadow of all people and he thanks him the figure introduces himself as meffalus the dark it implies that he knows Shadow from somewhere prior mephilis uses his own powers to send shadow and rouge to the distant future a ruined world full of flames in the future the two run into Sonic Tails and Knuckles who were also sent to the future but by Eggman the group think of how to get back to their own time and come to the conclusion of using Chaos Control with two Chaos Emeralds to open up a time portal after shadow and rouge find their Chaos Emerald in Crisis City they see Omega among the ruins Omega is in standby mode and has been shut off for seemingly many years they wonder what could have happened in this world to the point where everything's destroyed and Omega shut off but they can't dwell on that much longer and they return to find Sonic after reuniting with Sonic and friends they find their second Chaos Emerald located in flame core but before Rouge can grab it a giant fire monster appears named Iblis once they defeat it Sonic reclaims the chaos emerald in Sonic and Shadow use Chaos Control to open a time portal the foreshadow can go through the portal he sees mephilis and he decides to go after him Rouge back in the present now seeks out Omega and explains the situation to him she gives him the chaos emerald and requests that he deliver it to shadow back in the future Shadow confronts mephilis asking if he is the cause for the destruction in this timeline mephilis explains that after the world becomes destroyed by iballistics Flames the people started looking for who was responsible for causing this the people feared Shadow and his powers and hunted him down and sealed him away in a prison-like trap mephilis asks if Shadow will join him in punishing the world for their humanity and take back what is fair while he says that shadow has every right to want Justice after hearing all of that shadow disagrees calling the notion of surd and refusing to help he will determine his own destiny regardless of what people think of him mephilis transforms into his true form and the two fight during their fight Omega shows up to help nephilis tries to escape through a time portal but Shadow and Omega follow this sends them back to the present time but Memphis is nowhere to be seen they meet up with Rouge and determine that Eggman is looking for mephilis so shadow goes alone to ask Eggman what mentholus is and why he wants to track him down Eggman hints at the idea that mephilis is somehow linked to the soleiana disaster from 10 years in the past the Solaris project that killed the former king of soleiana Eggman tells shadow that if he captures mephilis and brings it to him he will reveal what the Solaris project really is now looking for answers Shadow leaves and ends up near radical train Shadow finds Silver and Sonic fighting and so he interrupts their fight letting Sonic Escape silver mistakes Shadow for mephilis and the two fight the two both use Chaos Control during their fight which opens up a time portal Shadow tells silver to follow him into the portal if he wants to learn the truth about mephilis and the Flames of disaster this time portal takes them to the soleiana disaster from 10 years ago they witnessed the Solaris project reject itself and cause an explosion freeing it Solaris breaks into pieces one half being evilous the Flames of disaster and the other half being the original form of mephilis the haves tried to escape but Shadow and Silver go track them down while silver goes after ibilis shadow goes to track down mephilis but before he can go the king gives him the scepter of Darkness to seal methylism Shadow stops mephilis with Chaos Control so he can seal him within the scepter of Darkness while mephilis tries to resist he asks whose Shadow is and Shadow Reveals His name nephilis vows Divine Shadow one day and bring death to him but he is soon sealed away within the scepter Shadow leaves the scepter in the past as he already knows what will become of it in the future by using Chaos Control they open another time portal and shadow goes through its head back to the present time Shadow meets up with Rouge again and he wants to learn what the scepter of Darkness was made of so he can attempt to seal mephilis in their time meanwhile Omega has been hunting down mephilis and has cornered him at wave ocean methylus tells Omega that this proves that he was made to stop Shadow mephilis admits that Omega is ultimately the one that will defeat an imprisoned shadow in the future Omega reveals this to shadow and rouge and the three have a moment to express their emotions about it Rouge is upset and calls it unfair that shadow who has always been there to help the world is treated like a monster Omega responds that people feel like someone is a threat when they are too powerful and they will become the enemy Shadow who has been silent this whole time tries to walk away but Rouge interrupts him telling him that no matter what she will always stand by his side he tells her that he will remember her words and he leaves the trio head to Dusty desert to track down mephilis once more they deduce that mephilis is hunting for all the chaos emeralds because he can use them to join with ibilis again Omega remarks that he will stop and seal mephilis before that can happen they find methylus with the chaos emerald and he offers Shadow one last chance to join him on his side and rewrite the future Shadow refuses once again calling it a deceit Shadow points out that mephilis only craves destruction not Revenge after they fight Shadow attempts to seal mephilis within the scepter of Darkness but this fails in the scepter shatters mephilis is now too powerful to be sealed away he tells shadow that he cannot stop him and it's futile anyway as the world will betray him in the end why would Shadow even want to fight to save the world when it doesn't matter and the people will still view him as the enemy anyway Shadow says that if the world chooses to become his enemy then he will fight like he always has he removes his inhibitor rings and he alongside Rouge and Omega fight through the hordes of mephilis clones a shadow story concludes [Music] Shadow's story is the highlight of Sonic 06 for me it not only serves as a conclusion to Shadow's story arc all the way from Adventure 2 to 06 but it is another team dark storyline and I love Team Dark stories they are such a fun combination of characters Shadow has such an interesting plot following him in his story we learn who mephilis really is and what his motivation is Not only was mephilis deceiving silver but he was actively taunting Shadow along the way to try to get him to side with him having methless show Shadow what his future holds and that Omega of all characters will be the one to seal them away is heavy he knows Shadow's power and he wants him on his side methless this whole time has been plotting out how to get rid of the people who are the most of a threat to him use silver to kill Sonic with Sonic gone he's not a threat and Sonic is the key to having Elise unleash Iblis and then silver will be on methylus's side as silver thinks that mephilis is trying to help save the future and then have Shadow side with mephilis so that he's not going to be a threat to take him down I like that we know that mephilis is just scheming this whole plan from the sidelines having everyone do the work for him to help take out the people that will be the biggest threat to him and we know Methodist only cares about releasing Iblis so that he can form again with Iblis to become Solaris once and for all but we'll get to that again later now the main issue with mephilis's plan is that shadow doesn't buy it Shadow will never team up with mephilis Shadow has spent the last several games coming to this point in the story where he does what he's gonna do he's not gonna be somebody else's Pawn Shadow throughout this whole story is just trying to understand who and what methless is from the beginning but along the way he learns that the people will blame him and fear him for his power and try to stop him even if he has had no involvement Shadow finding out he will be imprisoned and sealed away in the future is always such a dark moment but I always like that shadow just disregards it anyway in the moment after the initial shock the real moment that gets to him however is the reveal that Omega will be the one to seal him away his silence in the scene shows How Deeply this affects him even if he may not verbally express it it's such a sad realization that the person that will be hunting him down is his own friend rouge's comments during the scene stick out as well she has always been there to help and support shadow in her reaction to the news is to be upset and call it unfair and she's right even if Shadow has been there to help the world for years he will still always be unfairly treated as the villain her comment that no matter what happens or what people think about him she will still stand by his side Just Hits hard I really believe in the connection and friendship that these characters have together the ending of the story is always so good too mephilis asking why Shadow would even bother when it's pointless to save the world only to have Shadow counter by saying that no matter what happens he will fight like he always has such a powerful character moment to me it just feels like everything this character has gone through in previous games has led up to this moment he now fights for what he believes in and all this combined with the fact that he takes off his inhibitor rings to continue the fight is just such a great way to end it and he's even backed up by his friends and they will fight alongside each other in the end but now that we've gone over all three of the character stories it's time to go over the last episode [Music] [Music] the last episode starts with mephilis he finds Sonic and Elise together he distracts them and with his power he kills Sonic with one strike this causes Elise to cry releasing the Flames of disaster that were sealed within her with Iblis now free mephilis can join with it again mephilis draws power from all the chaos emeralds he's collected and he becomes one with Iblis now forming the god Solaris solaris's power distorts time and space and Tails Knuckles Amy Silver Shadow Rouge Omega and Eggman were all caught in the distortion as they all try to make sense of what's just happened they turn around to see Elise still mourning over Sonic whose body lies beside her the group are shocked and horrified over learning what's happened to Sonic but Solaris will consume all the timelines if not stopped soon Solaris would need to be stopped in the present the past and the future at the same time silver is determined to find a way to defeat Solaris in each time period but Shadow says it would have only been possible if Sonic was still with them Elise notices that she can feel Sonic's presence in the wind and that it might not be too late to bring him back silver suggests they find the chaos emeralds that have been scattered around all the distorted worlds and then they can return them back to Elise to perhaps revive Sonic everyone agrees on this Mission and they all separate to go find the Chaos Emeralds after everyone returns with the chaos emeralds Elise praise to them wishing to save the world and right the wrongs of the past she prays for their power to revive Sonic she turns her attention to him and says it is time for her to return everything he gave her regardless of what happens to her she pleads for him to return to not only her but to everyone she kisses him and don't worry we'll talk about that later and the energy from the chaos emeralds fills the air around them after the blinding light from the chaos emeralds fade Sonic is revived and now in his super form having used up all her energy Elise Falls but Sonic catches her and he thanks her for everything Sonic turns towards Shadow and Silver and he shares the source of his power with them giving them the energy and strength to turn Super as well the three go to Solaris to fight and destroy it before it can Devour the whole universe they defeat Solaris and everyone celebrates in Sonic Shadow and Silver return a bright light surrounds them all and all the damage caused is reversed Solaris has been reverted back to its original Flame we see Elise and Sonic now head towards the original Solaris flame but then there is a flashback elise's father is showing her Solaris called The Flame of Hope her father tells her that when the flame grows bigger it will allow them to travel between time and control it at will to alter history and change the past Elise asks if it will allow them to see her late mother again in the king remarks that they will both see her mother again one day the flashback ends and we see Elise and Sonic approach the original Flame Elise notes that this small flame is where everything began if they put it out Solaris will never exist which will save their world from the Flames of disaster however putting out Solaris will change the course of history everything that happened up to this point will no longer exist this means that Sonic and Elise will have never met she cries at the thought of this and admits that she doesn't care what happens to the world in a moment of sorrow and selfishness Sonic tells her to smile like he had done prior she shows him one last smile and she blows out the flame of Solaris it's the soleiana festival once again and as everyone celebrates we see Sonic running through the town to see the Festival himself as he runs past the boat Elise is on the Wind surprises her she stops for a moment feeling Deja Vu she remarks that it felt like someone was calling her even if it was just the wind it still felt so familiar [Music] foreign the final story wraps up all the conflict quickly and easily mephilis finally achieves his goal of unleashing Iblis by having Elise cry I always will think it's crazy that they actually killed Sonic yeah he gets revived but how many times do you see Sega or really any company do something like that silver being the first one to suggest finding ways to defeat Solaris and also to be the one to convince Elise that she can revive Sonic is just so fitting silver is such a problem solver I love it now the main talking point here for everyone is the Revival Scene I think it makes sense for Elise to be the one to revive Sonic and everything is all fine and good until the kiss I talked about it in the Sonic story section but they did not need to have the romance aspect happen at all it makes so much more sense for it to be a friendship where he just inspires her Adventure aside to help her stand up for herself and her people and not be so much of a romance then why did she have to kiss him to bring him back to life could the chaos emeralds not have done their job sooner people are really hit or miss on the ending as well where it you know reverses everything that happened in the game I do like in the end that everything resets itself they effectively reset the timeline by putting out Solaris because their current timeline as they knew it would not be able to exist without Solaris at various points in the story we see characters learn that they cannot alter history by changing the past both Silver and Shadow experience this at various points in their stories silver learns that he must seal Iblis in his future and Shadow decides he must fight mephilis in his present a big part of the story of this game is how the past affects the future and how when given the chance people will look to change the events of the past rather than confront the present circumstances we see this with elise's father in the Solaris disaster he wanted to harness the power of Solaris for selfish reasons and change the past he wanted to see his late wife again this backfires and Solaris refuses to be contained and controlled and as an event of an explosion freeze Iblis and methless in the process this leads to everything we learn will happen in the future Elise has to become the vessel for ibilis now which in the future causes her death in the Flames of disaster will awaken and wreak havoc on the world which is what we see of Silver's future or as we see in the events of the last episode mephilis will find a way to make Elise cry and release iballist still it's inevitable mephilis will do whatever it takes to be formed with iballis again because that's what it wants that's its one desire it's the only way it will be whole again is Solaris if the Solaris project had never happened it never would have split that one event changes the course of history so much for all these characters silver even Falls victim to the idea of thinking he could change the past to fix the future but throughout his story he learns that that actually will not work and that he needs to seal Iblis in his time mephilis tells Shadow everything that's gonna happen to him in the future and even if his fate is destined to be something awful Shadow doesn't dwell on it because the future doesn't matter to him yet Shadow has learned to focus on the present not focus too much on the past or the future he'll accept what happens to him in the future when it becomes the present but until then he's not going to worry about the future it's a message of learning to confront the present instead of dwelling too much on the past and I like this message a lot it's so easy to get stuck in what happened in the past and Linger on regrets rather than look towards the future for change but now that we've covered all of the story sections I think we'll move on to the gameplay [Music] anyone that has played Sonic 06 knows that the gameplay is what makes the game stand out in all of the worst ways when people think of this game they usually think of how glitchy and unfinished it is and there are so many other YouTube videos that can tell you everything about it and what makes it wrong and unfinished and terrible to play so I don't think I need to spend too much time going over what makes each gameplay style feel unfinished as there are plenty of others that have already done that but to summarize quickly each character story has three playable characters within it Sonic's story lets you play as Sonic Tails and Knuckles Silver story lets you play as Silver Blaze and Amy and in Shadow's story you play a shadow Rouge and Omega now that's a lot of playable characters is what I'm hearing you say and yes it's a lot and they all do not play very well some of them play decently others play really really bad like Amy Amy's gameplay is so bad but instead of going over how each character plays I want to talk about the stages the game reuses every stage but they remix the way you play depending on the character for example let's look at the first stage of the game wave ocean Sonic's story starts at this stage and there's three sections of it the normal Sonic style gameplay then it switches to playing as tails in the middle for a short section and it ends with Sonic in the new mock speed section which is exclusive to Sonic's gameplay we also see the stage one more time in Sonic's story Tails gets to play through the whole level by himself at around the halfway point of the story the level design changes to reflect Tails play style but it's a much shorter level than the first time in silver story Blaze is actually the one that's used for this stage you only place her and silver never goes through wave ocean Blaze's wave ocean stage is similar to Sonic's version mimicking their similar gameplay styles it is also a shorter variant of the stage in Shadow story shadow goes through the stage in a three-section structure like how Sonic's played Shadow starts the stage by using a glider and shooting down enemies the second section has you play as Omega before switching back to shadow in the last section you play as the normal shadow gameplay Style Shadows gameplay is very similar to Sonics but it's like slightly more combat focused he also does have some of his chaos abilities returning from Shadow the Hedgehog and as I mentioned Shadows gameplay sometimes involves using vehicles and I actively avoid using the vehicles if I can because they control so poorly anyway the last time we see wave ocean is in the end of the world stage which I'm going to be talking about soon Rouge has her section in the stage in wave ocean and her section is very different to the rest of the times we see it until the end where it mimics Tails a section Sonic 06 mostly does a good job of reusing stages but making it feel distinct to each story and character I almost never disliked going back to a certain level with some exceptions Silver's Dusty desert section is one of the worst things I've ever played but I always appreciated the stages that let you play as other characters because of how rare it is to do so now in the current games and it's just fun to play as the extended cast characters I will always find it fun to be able to play as e123 Omega or Blaze I wish every character played well but I still enjoy that it was still an option I am honestly always surprised they didn't cut the other playable characters from development considering how many other things they cut the last thing I want to talk about in this section is the last playable stage before the final boss the end of the world I love this stage the end of the world has you play as Tails Omega Knuckles Silver Rouge Amy and Shadow in that order as they collect the chaos emeralds in a final effort to revive Sonic and defeat Solaris each character goes through one of the game's stages in a brand new section to reach the Chaos Emerald at the end Tales goes through Crisis City Omega to Flame core Knuckles to Tropical jungle silver to Dusty desert Rouge to wave ocean Amy to White Acropolis and lastly Shadow at Kingdom Valley I appreciate that they've made brand new versions of the stage for each character instead of just reusing it which would have been really easy to do for characters like Silver and Shadow who have already had to play through these stages and I feel like most of the stages are short enough that they don't overstay their welcome too much while some sections definitely feel longer than others I never find that it feels too tedious to play through because it's taking too long but one of the coolest things I find about this stage is the way that it shows how time and space are beginning to distort due to Solaris within each stage several eyes of Solaris these giant orbs appear and begin to alter the stages colors of the stage change to become dark and distorted in these eyes are dangerous and will instantly kill the character that touches it some variations of the eyes will throw items at you to damage you and some of them will pull you closer to them if you are in range making them difficult to avoid the only way to prevent these from spawning all over the stage is by touching these orb statues that make them vanish for a set period of time I like the urgency felt within the stages not only in the story but in the gameplay itself you are constantly looking for the next orb statue to prevent more eyes of Solaris from spawning but the stages place them in good spots so you don't go too long without finding the next one on the path but it still gives time for a few to spawn speaking of the end of the world it leads me to my next section [Music] foreign [Music] Sonic 06 has an amazing soundtrack and I could talk about it all day but I just wanted to highlight a few songs the end of the world conveys emotion through characters and the music look at any YouTube video of the music for this stage and you'll see plenty of comments about how the music reflects each character each section of the song corresponds to a character let's break down each section of the stage for each character [Music] first off Tails a section just feels so sorrowful and it hits hard the short Loop of the song I think helps portray this feeling of emptiness and sorrow [Music] Omega section builds off of tails is and makes it more intense more focused Omega is focused on his mission to find the Chaos Emerald [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Knuckles section feels like the backdrop of omegas with the intense Focus but there's also a more sad note in front of it he's focused on finding the Chaos Emerald as implied by his dialogue but he's still sad deep down over losing his friend foreign [Music] silver section departs from the previous buildup into a new more eerie feeling theme as if everything he's done up until now is for nothing but that still won't stop his determination was Blaze's sacrifice meaningless if ibilis was still released but it doesn't matter he will find the chaos emerald and he will save the day foreign [Music] Rouge takes the base of silver section and adds a new Melody it also has hints of a sad melody in them but Rouge can't let that show not when she's on a mission [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Amy's part deviates from the music again into the saddest sounding piece in it it reminds me of a willing cry and at first it has the same empty feeling that I get from tails's section but it gets a beat to it that proves that Amy will do anything to bring Sonic back foreign [Music] ends with shadows section Shadows builds off of Amy's section with an added intensity the emotion is still there but regardless Shadow will see it through to bring back Sonic and Save the Day this is one of my favorite songs in the soundtrack for how it reflects each character and their emotions on the situation the use of his world as a light Motif is present throughout most of the game and it's pretty easy to point out most of it his world is Sonic's theme in this game so many times where he's on stage we'll hear it one of my favorite uses of this song is in the song Sonic Appears a 54 second song that plays in the first cutscene of the game despite its short run time it fits Sonic's introduction so well [Music] foreign [Music] love the stage themes of Crisis City and Kingdom Valley but I also want to highlight aquatic base in both its versions for being incredibly underrated stage themes if you take away anything from this video just listen to the whole soundtrack it's so good [Music] thank you when I first beat this game I was so glad it was all over I enjoyed parts of it but as a 14 year old who watched too many angry reviews of the game I had been led to think about all the negatives of the game it was buggy controls were bad the story was all over the place etc etc no that's not to say I didn't like any of it I liked the music I liked the character interactions and I didn't hate the story that much but it really took me a few more years to actually go back try it again and have a fresh and open mind to it on a replay something started to mesh for me I was enjoying the story and actually paying attention to it this time I loved all of the characters in their own individual character arcs that they were going through in the story I loved Shadow and Silver's stories I didn't hate Elise or everything she stood for in the series I actually kind of liked her story so now many years later I look back on this game with fondness I can see it in the bigger picture all the good and all the unfinished I do think with more time and development it could have been something special as an adult now I prefer to look at the positives of this game because everyone has already pointed out everything wrong with it for the last decade and while I could sit here and name every single gripe I have with the game I just would prefer just to discuss the things I like more and that's not to say I don't recognize any of the flaws of this game because trust me I do I've played this game more than once I've gone through glitches bugs bad gameplay Bad characters the story is not always very good so I understand what its flaws are and why people think those flaws are so damaging but I am happy that this game has shifted in the fan base from irredeemable garbage to a flawed but very ambitious game with remakes like project 06 showing how the gameplay can be updated and improved people are finally open to seeing what this game could have been I love the work done with project F6 and I can't wait to see where it goes from here after Sonic 06 they quote dark era of Sonic continued for a few more years we saw Sega continue to be ambitious with Sonic's storytelling in the storybook games in Sonic Unleashed but in 2010 everything changed with colors Sonic Colors marked the start of the modern era of Sonic games and everything experimental of the Dreamcast and dark era were scrubbed away while I long for Sega to return to those eras for inspiration I suppose that could be a video for another day in conclusion I like Sonic 06 I like how much it tried to do something Grand even if it didn't go according to the original plan I respect their efforts and I will forever love returning to his world [Music] [Music]

Channel: Rose Celebi

Views: 11,573

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Id: UGpekl-lGIU

Length: 66min 56sec (4016 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 14 2022