Why I Like Sonic 06 | From a Gen Z Perspective

sonic come back to me to us [Music] it is at this exact moment that you must be wondering how did we get here well folks let's go back to the beginning [Music] the year 2006 was supposed to be a big deal for sonic the hedgehog by this point it had been five years since one of the most important and popular sonic games ever made was released sonic adventure 2 the game that was meant to celebrate the series anniversary as it had been 10 years since sonic the hedgehog dropped in the genesis in 1991 2006 being the 15th anniversary with that we were going to get four new sonic releases a part of the original sonic the hedgehog and the game boy advance which turned out to be a dumpster fire the 6th gen consoles received sonic riders a brand new and exciting racing spin-off that we'll certainly be doing a video on one day in 2005 the new nintendo handheld the ds saw the release of sonic rush sony also decided to get their hands dirty with handhelds as they released the playstation portable that got its own sonic game 2006 titled sonic rivals but the big game to celebrate sonic's 15th anniversary was to be a game simply titled sonic the hedgehog for the next generation of hardware the playstation 3 and xbox 360. this new game was an interesting spot as it was plenty hyped up in its own right but was coming off the heels of the game i reviewed last time 2005's shadow the hedgehog i understand that a lot of folks have come to this series of videos hoping for a critical defense of why the sonic games we 2000s players grew up with are not that bad but my want to be someone who just shares his perspective comes before anything else i can respect the fact that sonic team really tried to be something different with shadow of the hedgehog but as my previous video stated the game failed so spectacularly that it is beyond my ability to defend plain and simple i thought shadow of the hedgehog was a really bad game i thought the writing was putrid the controls awkward the structure repetitive the idea to be shaky at best it was just not a good game i have fond memories of shadow the hedgehog that's about as nice as i can get shot of the hedgehog also didn't do the series any favors critically as it was one of the most negatively received main series sonic games released up to that point so for that reason the highly anticipated sonic the hedgehog for next generation consoles had a lot riding on it i obviously don't need to tell the elaborate tale from that point on we all know what happened sonic the hedgehog for xbox 360 and playstation 3 was a complete and total disaster the game's title is sonic the hedgehog but similar to ratchet and clank on playstation 4 the fans have different names for it as to distinguish it from the games of the same name this one has had a couple of names over the years like sonic next gen but i think pretty much everyone has settled in the title of sonic 06 that's what i've been calling it for years and we'll continue to do in this video and the ones to come after this in brief and i do mean in brief sonic 06 was meant to be one of the greatest sonic games ever made but it just went horribly wrong the game was rushed out the door by sega meaning it ended up as a miserable disgrace with bad gameplay and glitches galore but sonico 6 was not like shadow of the hedgehog was just a bad and cringe-worthy game sonico 6 was expected to be a high-profile release to have a game with as much hype as sonic 06 turn out so badly has led to this be one of the most hated video games ever made look at lists of the worst games of all time you will pretty regularly see sonic 06 on the list right up there with the likes of bubsy 3d big rigs over the road racing superman 64 the cdi nintendo games are batman dark tomorrow games that are just broken are just generally awful and embarrassing when sonic oh 6 was supposed to be on the same list as games like ocarina of time this game cemented the fact that there was a dark age of sonic going on shadow the hedgehog might have been bad but it could have been a fluke if not immediately followed up by sonic 06 a blatantly unfinished game that happens to have a human princess kiss a blue hedgehog in the ending which became the poster image of just how bad sonic had become but believe me if you're remotely aware of the video game industry you know all this already you don't even have to be close to a sonic fan know that sonico 6 is the way it is like i said it's one of the most hated video games of all time it's not just that though it's also one of the most over reviewed video games in the history of mankind the whole act of reviewing video games online became popular on the time of sonic 06's release and with a game like this it was a popular topic of conversation and remains that to this day i remember when sonic dissected first got to talking about sonic 06 in like 2014 it got me thinking for the first time that in a world after clement reviewed sonic 06 in 2012 and some call me johnny followed that up in 2013 is there really anything else to add to the discussion of sonic 06 especially when sonic colors or sonic lost world were way more important to the future of the series than the experiment that crashed and burned at that point almost a decade ago well first of all look sonic 2006 is buggy has horrible loading times and everyone should hate it quite well this chapter is called discussing 06 and not well freaking duh so i hope you'll forgive us for not delving deep into the technical issues of the game for it i'll glad gladly direct you to well about 50 000 other in depth articles about why sonico 6 sucks it's like being in a train judgement competition what's the best terrain oh this one is a great engine it pollutes a lot this one is fast and good for the environment much better trend is this a good train and then there's a train wreck oh oh well this train is clearly the worst strain of the competition yeah thanks captain obvious you're welcome citizen judging its ability would be missing points the real issue is why is this train wreck even in the competition and what tragedy took place to make it crash same with those six its biggest crime is why is this released sonic adventure 1 is usually dubbed one of the most over reviewed games in history and videos discussing the matter however i've always personally had the reservation that i thought sonic 06 was that but worse everyone including people who don't know what a shadow the hedgehog is have given their two cents on this game with a company as obsessed with review scores as sega you can imagine what kind of effect this would have on sonic as a series the stench of sonico 6's failure can still be felt to this day but here's the thing the year i'm rating this is 2020 we're about to enter 2021 sonic the hedgehog for xbox 360 and playstation 3 is almost 15 years old if you watched all the videos on it or interacted with the twitter community you'd think sonico 6 is super relevant when it's not after o6 we still got some ambitious games that try to do something grand but thanks in part 206 they were met with similar ire but after a certain point they just decided to play it completely safe because sega wants to avoid comparison to sonico 6 at all costs ironic i'm saying this because it honestly is just shocking to look at how the series has progressed since 06 released every article that talks about sonic needs to mention something about the period that i call the dark age of sonic because well it was that infamous but it's truly sad to see just how much this game pigeon holds the series which leads me to the point of this video a long time ago i thought to myself that i probably would not do a review on this game because it's all been said and done probably just making a video on why it's not important to talk about 06 anymore but let's revisit the part where forces came out in 2017 and really made me rethink my entire stance in the sonic franchise and how much the original vision of making sonic games cool and boundary breaking as possible actually meant to me you guys should know that in 2019 i decided to go through sonic 1 2 cd 3k adventure 1 adventure 2 and heroes again but then i decided to a-rank sa2 and sonic heroes afterwards finding the experience really rewarding the next part of the story is that with nothing better to do i went back to a rank shot of the hedgehog and i was like yeah this game blows but at least i 100 at it i then decided to try all the s ranks with sonic o6 something much more interesting happened i remembered something when i was a kid sonic 06 was my favorite game of all time when i had an xbox 360. a countless amount of things have been said about sonic 06 on the internet but then i realized the one thing i could bring to the table what is sonico 6 like from the perspective of somebody who played it when they were a kid not really knowing that long loading screens meant that the game was in any way deficient people my age have discussed the fact that they didn't really think anything was wrong with it when they were young until coming to realize it was bad later on that is a much simpler tale to tell but my real point for this video is not to defend bad things because there is plenty obviously wrong with sonic 06 but i mean that i have an interest in reviewing sonic 06 as someone who can no longer say they hate the game or even thinks it ranks on the bottom tier of the series total catalog focusing on what this game gets right artistically how it plays how it felt to play growing up and what its story means to me and all that great stuff someone who can look at sonic 06 accept its flaws and see the epic adventure it was trying to be you guys know i'm gonna be 100 genuine with this video because you must have seen the shot of the hedgehog review i think that game sucks regardless of it being my first 3d sonic game i'm not going to write this review in a different fashion than previous games i'm just clarifying this won't be the next o6 rant video on the internet from the offset in preparation for this video i decided to go all out as stated the game was released from playstation 3 and xbox 360. i was going to review the playstation 3 version because it's what i've owned for the last few years but the ps3 ports of sonic games suffer from a lot of problems in comparison to the 360 counterparts in the case of sonic 06 the lighting and shadows of the game on ps3 are nowhere near as good as it is in the xbox 360. pretty much all the effects are massively downgraded while the game already suffers some technical issues on the 360 like long loading screens and occasional slowdown the ps3 version has them much worse the game also looks blurrier because of the port job that means there's a loss in clarity over the 360 version so yeah i decided to pick up an xbox 360 as well as a copy of sonic 06 because i want the best possible quality for all you guys watching the video with all that said and done it's time to begin the video proper this is why i a member of generation z thinks this game is due more appreciation than scorn in the year 2020 as well as what it means to me after all these years of differing opinions being thrown my way this is my review of sonic the hedgehog 2006. [Music] sonico 6 follows a familiar formula in particular being very reminiscent of the first sonic adventure game sonico 6 tells one story spread across three campaigns and a final one unlike adventure 2 and heroes we can only play sonic's at first when he comes across shadow and the newcomer silver the hedgehog then you can play their sides of the story like fincher one we begin in the city of water so lyanna as they're commencing the annual festival of the sun honoring their god solaris the event is led by the current sovereignty of the land princess elise iii as if on cue dr eggman arrives to ruin the day and take the princess hostage because he wishes to unlock the secrets of the flames of disaster which princess elise seems to be tied to also as if on cue slightly hedgehog arrives in what was at the time one of the best sonic cutscene moments in history so the game's already pumped full of adrenaline but then the princess gets captured by eggman anyway as she gives sonic the chaos and what she had to keep it away from eggman thus setting up the adventure sonico 6 is a pretty sloppy opening because of two things hub worlds and town missions or we can focus on that later sonic runs the details in the street as the two go after eggman savely thus setting up the first stage wave ocean on paper sonic plays the same in this game as the characters have in the last four games the objective of every stage is to get from the start point to the end point by bashing enemies collecting rings running through loops all the sonic staples are there including the moveset that sonic can now spin dash light dash slide homing attack as well as new abilities if there's a word i would use to describe playing as the main trio of o6 it would be functional i know not something most people would use to describe the gameplay of this game but hear me out look at the controls and movement of the main trio of sonico 6 i just see functional i can get from point a to point b without much issue coming from it compare the controls of sonic go 6 to shadow the hedgehog i think it's fair to say this game is an improvement in shadow the acceleration was higher than ever before seen in the series but it felt like you're on ice for the entire game leading to slipping and sliding off of platforms whenever the level design is more complex than running forward that is which is definitely not inherent to playing a shadow as sa2 and heroes obviously did not suffer from that particular effect in os6 i feel like i'm in control over the movement of sonic shadow and silver even if at the highest speed the sensitivity of the analog inputs is too high but i just don't think that creates a large problem when playing the game but then comes the new problem the gameplay isn't fun fun is obviously subjective it's something you experience rather than actually being something you can quantify because of that even if something technically isn't fun you can make it enjoyable in your own way i would know because if i were to name my favorite games it would be a list where they each have almost nothing in common at face value some having gameplay that technically isn't even that exciting serving a story that makes it worthwhile this brings me to the discussion of sonic 06 as a game and like i said when looking at the mechanics [ __ ] just isn't that fun when playing as an action platform protagonist something you want to nail down be the character just having a move set that is satisfying to mess around with in and of itself regardless of the world surrounding it this is relevant because as i established a few videos ago sonic adventure 1 adventure 2 heroes shadow the hedgehog and sonico 6 more or less have the same gameplay when you look at the individual games you can clearly see what is a character that is fun to play and what is not sonic might handle the same on paper in essay 1 and o6 let's look at the details in adventure 1 sonic handles really well as he turns with a degree of control that has yet to replicate it in the series since that aspect of o6 was handled poorly but more importantly the way sonic interacts with the environment in sa1 is night and day from o6 controlling a high speed character like sonic will always create problems the designers need to account for and the adventure games did this really well by having sonic gain and lose speed naturally on inclines allowing you to take advantage of shortcuts intentional or otherwise to skip parts of stages or find hidden collectibles via correctly timed spin dash jumps this is the biggest issue with the gameplay in o6 every single character goes at a set speed which isn't even that high in the first place meaning that if you were to take the sonic from 06 and place him on flat ground he'd handle the exact same whether he was doing that or going downhill or uphill like going down these hallways of aquatic base running along the walls of kingdom valley it all handles the exact same and that's lame sonic's abilities like sliding completely drops your speed on a dime and the spin dash like shadow the hedgehog requires you to stop completely in order to use it there goes a big part of the fun from sonic games even small stuff feels weird no 6 like how you can't consistently drop in a straight line even going as far as the screw up stuff shadow the hedgehog got right like how grinding had become a little more automated in that game losing the balance gameplay that existed in sa2 but in exchange we got something that worked really well and still allowed to gain a lot of speed in 06 you can't even switch rails like you could by tilting an sa2 and heroes now you must jump off the rail and jump onto the next one manually luckily the homing attack now targets rails but still total pace breaker grinding also allows you to do a trick like you could in shot of the hedgehog but this gains you absolutely no speed whatsoever taking grinding a mechanic that added to the flow and depth of stages and making it a part where you have to put the controller down watch the game play itself for several seconds straight speaking of watching the game play itself these are the few fleeting moments where you're allowed to go fast scripted segments have been a part of sonic games earliest sonic cd you could argue sonic 2 even and i've always been fine with that if it adds to the thrill of the stages in the moment and more importantly does not come at the cost of the player's ability to gain speed and be better at the stage by practicing it which was a fundamental part of the design for sonic 1's best stages by no 6 the player's movement options are completely flat so it only makes parts where a bunch of dash pads and springs carry you forward automatically only more drawing and unsatisfying regardless of what visual you're showing as without dash pads these segments look like this [Music] but of course there's no way to talk about going fast in sonico6 without talking about the super speed stages if any new player is going to lose a crap ton of lives in o6 it will be here the super speed stages are exactly what the name suggests these are parts of sonic's run of wave ocean crisis city radical train and kingdom valley always at the end where sonic will make a mad dash for the goal ring these sections being where a lot of the trailer shots of sonic's speed came from i can't say the concept was bad i can just say this this is some of the most miserable execution in the history of the sonic franchise to put it nicely o6's massive problem with collision detection becomes a hell of a lot worse when you're playing a sonic traveling at warp speed naturally he's super difficult to control because of the fact that you can't make him stop he'll just keep going regardless of what's happening and slightly bumping into something is enough to hurt you but then when you get hit in these sections like we'll do this tumbling break dance animation you have no control of yourself lining you up to get hit again and die the light speed dash comes in handy here as a way to adjust your positioning but your lack of control outside of that is still a leading cause of death the one in crisis city being the absolute worst is the whole thing is suspended over a large bottomless pit as another big problem rears its ugly head you cannot adjust your trajectory while jumping you can just jump and hope for the best like it's mario one from 1985. at speeds this high and obstacles you can barely see coming and react to appropriately you will die over and over and over and get a surplus of game overs getting a game over in 06 is kryptonite because that means if the stage came after a bunch of meandering town missions like in the cases of wave ocean and kingdom valley you'll be doing it all over again the kicker is making sonic and company inherently fun characters to play as an o6 and making these super speed sections fun is actually a really easy set of fixes they just happen to screw it up crisis city also loses a bunch of points as while the main stage is incredibly well designed sonic's version of it ends with the super speed section but also begins with the snowboard segment that was also seen in white acropolis the snowboard gameplay was absolutely perfect in essay 2. sa-1's version suffered from bumpy collision detection but was otherwise enjoyable so how did they mess it up so bad no 6. well we all know why but still i mean the turns are wide the stops are abrupt thanks to terrible collision the jumps feel wrong and glitchy it just doesn't feel remotely satisfying to play these segments at all which is a shame because of the fact that again the way the level design is arranged and the set pieces therein should be fun to play but the mechanics of this snowboard just so bad that it's impossible to overlook but super speed and boards are not sonic's only alternative playstyles in this game during his runs of dusty desert in tropical jungle sonic will carry princess elise throughout the stage in these he can't jump into a ball not that makes a difference you can't hurt enemies by jumping on them in 06 anyway you must use the homing attack to get through enemies and elise's powers to make it through obstacles the gameplay kind of sounds like a restriction however sonic stages with elise actually have the best level design in the entire game ah yes the level design that's something definitely worth talking about rewind the video a few minutes and i alluded to the fact that players can make their own fun with a game that might not inherently be that satisfying why do i enjoy popping o6 in and playing through all of its stages of sonic and shadow specifically that's because of the level design in concept the stages of this game have everything i'm looking for in a sonic game going back to shadow the hedgehog i cannot give that game's gameplay any credit because of the lackluster mechanics in the lame stages like i don't play levels of shadow and think to myself yeah i want to play that again because the levels when you're not just inching around looking for targets are just running forward with barely any roots to explore the game is just lame the level design in sonic 06 is the exact opposite and there are numerous examples i can point to just starting with the first stage of sonic's campaign wave ocean right here you can jump off this pole to skip this row of enemies that takes you up to a grind rail when you jump out of the lighthouse you can jump off of it and light dash on a trail of rings that send you through a trick ring the very same thing going on the other stages like dusty desert tropical jungle kingdom valley aquatic base and more like i can fight a circle of enemies at the start of dusty desert we can choose to jump up to the trick rings above it's no different than the light dash trail with the enemies that was placed right at the start of team dark's power plant and sonic heroes tropical jungle is the poster child of this where even if there might be a lot of grind rails there are just so many different ways to tackle it that it's always a joy to revisit for me that's the kind of design i can appreciate when playing a sonic game as you might notice that choice and its inherent connection to replayability has been something i have been appreciating about literally every sonic game i've given a positive review thus far not multiple pathways that are just different automated sections i'm talking about experiencing entirely different portions of level design that have elements that set apart from the other routes where you can explore for things like item boxes or silver medals of which several are hidden in every stage for every character but back to examples of differing level design you can run up this wall in kingdom valley or light dashing up to this spot on the other side of the area or here we can use the homing attack to get up this wall or using these ropes or how about in flame core we can skip the massive automated section by jumping from the stage's starting point to where the segment ends or using homing attack chains to reach trick rings placed above the enemy encounters i just think sonico 6's stages are filled with excellent design ideas that make coming back to playing its levels very fun for me as someone who encountered all the hurdles as a kid and can therefore just enjoy the parts of the stage that have what i'm looking for as an adult which finally begins the segment of the video where i begin talking about sonico 6's story the game's technical status is infamous enough but the story is equally so now where do i sit on the matter well let's talk about it starting with sonic's campaign on its face the plot is the sonic vs eggman dynamic from adventure 1 just a lot bigger in that aspect it's much inferior noticeably for sonic and eggman the personalities of the characters have been toned down from the previous outings however this is not something that bugs me much especially the case of eggman if the meta-era games have shown me anything it's the glorification of eggman humor has really dragged these games down for me nothing's going to top the weight dean bristow brought to dr eggman adventure 1 2 and heroes and hell even shuffle battle and advance 3 which is actually something mike pollock replicated pretty well in sonic x and shadow the hedgehog but dr eggman is pretty entertaining in this game you really don't need your villain to be flailing about and shouting to be entertaining there are numerous lines from dr eggman and sonic 06 that are memorable because for most of the game he's one step ahead of the heroes like he was in adventure one and two well i guess the difference is that now he's that way because the characters are idiots but still when he speaks in this soft voice that knows she don't stand a chance i like it you're late rest assured they're not dead yet do you plan to jump you've wasted so much of my time wouldn't the door have been easier i think the biggest issue is that in o6 we don't really see eggman doing anything for most of the run time like in sa1 he was running multiple schemes at once the big plot was using chaos to take over the world but first he tricked sonic and tails into collecting the emeralds for him he then tricked knuckles into fighting sonic 4 set emeralds he had the e series go collect froggy and other tasks and had e100 chasing after the bird amy was looking after eggman was most certainly the main villain of sa-1 prior to the last story because he was the cause of everything in every character's storyline he pretty much is that in o6 but the difference is that we just see him repeatedly capturing elise and uh sitting around the only time progress looks like he's being made is early in sonic story when he uses the prototype machine to send sonic tails and knuckles into the future on that note the main trio of the plot is sonic shadow and silver but each character gets two companions sonic obviously teaming up with tails and knuckles shadow obviously working with rouge and omega and silver works with blaze the cat from sonic rush and amy of those supporting characters the ones working with shadow and silver contribute to the plot pretty well but not so much for sonic knuckles being by far the worst example of this i mean tails a sonic sidekick so i'm not doing anything in quotes as i guess that's fine but as for the red echidna they really lost the plot with him by this point the sonic cast is visiting so lyanna and i guess knuckles the supposed guardian of the master emerald just has the free time to hang around the city and be given messages from dr eggman like this is that one episode of sonic x i said it three videos ago when it's a crisis like sonic heroes or shadow the hedgehog knuckles being in a story without the master emerald is fine for me but by ryder's no 6 he's just a tag-along of sonic often contributing little to the actual story as for sonic himself i think the dark age era of games we're trying to portray sonic is a bit more mature than previous games had but in o6 it just comes off kind of awkward for a couple of reasons i think sonic having a bit of a wisecracker's attitude is needed as a central part of his character i mean look at secret rings unleashed in black knight for example how to do this well if you have that like 06 actually does in its opening cut scene i don't see a reason why he can't be more serious in other moments balance is key here would i rather have sonic come up with some stupid line when being saved by amy and shadow from silver no thanks i appreciate it is plenty more appropriate in those cases i'm not gonna lie when i think of some of my favorite sonic cutscenes in the series two of them come from this game the opening i showed earlier and this scene here after the final boss of sonic's campaign where he and elise escaped the destroyed egg carrier which is back in this game by the way [Music] no standup routine could ever compare to that when i think of sonic i think it seems like the opening of sonic cd and the ending of sonic story is a perfect example of how i like my sonic action cut scenes fast paced energetic all that good stuff as we will see numerous times in this video i think the story of sonic 06 is mostly sound from the conceptual stage but the script was in desperate need of another draft or two do i think a more mature sonic works yes but in the game itself the real prop is so sonic doesn't really care about anything going on in the plot early on this works pretty well sonic wants to help elise from eggman because he knows eggman's always up to no good he doesn't really need to know why things are happening to take action here knowing why in the post-dusty desert cutscene is just flavor text for him where this presents a problem is later in the story when the situation is clearly more complex than it seems he still doesn't really care about anything going on the worst example of this would be how silver the hedgehog is the rival character for this game but sonic only ever thinks about him when he's right in front of his face silver wants to kill sonic because he thinks that will save the future somehow which sparks no curiosity from sonic at all i do like how easily sonic works with silver at the end of the story because again the previous rivals have made it clear that people can become allies rather easily but with this game's writing that plays into what i'm talking about even when they time travel to the future and see a shadow look alike the main villain of the game nephilis the dark telling silver that killing sonic will save the future this also gets no comment from our hero because of the fact that the only thing cares about in this story is saving elise so when silver attacks sonic again there's no dialogue about there being a misunderstanding or anything it just gets beat up until shadow saves the day speaking of shadow he and rouge were trapped in the future alongside sonic and friends and when they return with shadow and rouge nowhere in sight he doesn't even care they'll figure it out everything sonic does in this story is in service of his one-sided goal of saving elise which brings me to the crutch of sonic's campaign the relationship between sonic and elise i did a stream recently where the topic was mentioned and thanks to that i realize i'm walking on extremely thin ice here because people have a serious hatred for princess elise like i'm talking a fiery hatred that the entire atlantic ocean could not possibly put out princess leaves herself as a fairly simple character both her mother and father died when she was a kid and she has to act as an adult ever since and now that the free-spirited sonic is around she's taught by him what it means to live a little for once that's a pretty basic story arc one that really is not worthy of a passion and hatred i guess she escapes eggman and gets recaptured a crap ton but i do like the idea of her growing more initiative as the story goes on as this is what she learns from sonic above all else nothing starts until you take action if you have time to worry then run these lines are supposed to mean yes problems in everyone's life exist but how we deal with them is more important as nothing starts unless you take action if you have time to worry then run does not mean avoid your problems folks her sonic action is running towards the problem it's a simple message oftentimes misconstrued but we all know the real problem here i owe you a lot sonic uh sonic and elise are clearly meant to be the series's attempt at a romance plot from the scene where she's touching his arm in the grassy field with this kind of music playing to the clip i just played the infamous one we can discuss later or the agonizing girl talk scene between amy and elise and silver story that's female character writing 101 guys if two female characters are in the same room and their only topic of conversation is male love interests then you have failed amy and elise are both speaking of the same guy they just don't even know it which also comes up during sonic's campaign where you have to play the trial of love mission the goal here is simple pick between amy and elise for sonic's true love interest returning to a talking point from my shadow video i said there do exist ideas that aren't very good from a concept stage alone and sonic being given a relationship with a human character is probably on the list i say probably because this was actually a cut concept from the first sonic game as a matter of fact i'm not saying you couldn't just do it and have it be inoffensive i'm just saying it's probably not a great idea well let me set something straight from the beginning a claim often throw this game's way is that this game endorses bestiality through this relationship that is a genuine farce a pretty gross one at that lacey chabert the voice actress of princess elise actually commented on this in the pre-release as she was interviewed by gamespy the question was asked that since elise is a human and sonic isn't did she think people were going to attack the game on the grounds of bestiality she laughed and said no it's not an inappropriate relationship she says i got that from sonic retro if you want to go find it yourself sonic is an anthropomorphic cartoon character not a real [ __ ] hedgehog and to throw an accusation as serious as that against sonic 06 and the people who made it you know that they were trying to tell a tale of sexual intent between a human and a lower animal for children to consume as negligent at best but pretty screwed up at worst if you ask me those last few sentences certainly sound like a defense but i already established that these scenes are cringe-worthy as hell so what's my stance well it's simple actually sonic and elise are supposed to be a romantic connection which is probably not the best fit for sonic's character but they certainly can do it if they want to the problem with sonic and elise is that well as a romance it's just not a very good one now love stories are not really my area of expertise let's just say but for what i have seen a good romantic plot requires two basic things at bare minimum one is chemistry this one should be pretty obvious look at sly and carmelita from sly cooper these are two people with great physical prowess that routinely fight against the forces of evil that are both interested in very similar things or bruce wayne and andrea beaumont from batman mask of the phantasm the two can connect over their loss of parents and personalities aren't exactly similar but bounce off each other really well like i said to make an audience care about a romantic connection or hell even characters just being friends you have to buy into the fact that the character personalities are compatible and from that point the audience can get invested in it elise would like sonic because she has never had any real friends before and sonic is freeing her from her boring life but sonic would have no reason to reciprocate always being on the move and having already met characters that are far more his speed so we already failed a basic element but this would not be the only story that does that so then what well from that basic tenet of romance comes the one where you actually can get an audience interested easily conflict this can be used as a crutch like sure anakin and padme have no chemistry but jedi can't love so therefore we should care about the feelings anakin has for her in attack of the clones right no it's lame romantic conflict does not have to be a crutch though using the dcau as an example again we can look at the justice league show and you have the arc of green lantern and hawkgirl their personalities are actually pretty opposed at first which gives them really standout moments in the episodes they're together in as we see them get closer and closer throughout two seasons which comes to a head in the spoilers star-crossed episode where it turns out that hawkgirl was a spy working for her home planet thanagar and that she was already engaged to commander hero talk but her feelings towards green lantern were actually legit this love triangle is really engaging and pulls on the heartstrings to watch i could explain it in more depth but i already did a 5 hour video on it go watch that if you need to sly cooper also pulls this off really well because the main thing separating sly and carmelita is the fact that she's an honest cop and he is by definition a criminal it creates natural drama and tension that serves with the main narrative through lines throughout the three games looking back at sonic 06 and what is the conflict elise would be sad if sonic left well okay then who cares taking it back to the top this didn't have to fail from the idea alone but they certainly botched the [ __ ] out of it in the final game but having said that i'm pretty much covered sonic's campaign it's the definition of highs and lows for all the reasons we've gone into thus far so now we shall jump into the new character storyline silver the hedgehog this world was devastated before i was born a harsh bleak place where we live in eternal darkness paradoxically silver story is how the plot begins but also starts several hundred years in the future silver the hedgehog lives in a world that was destroyed by the living embodiment of the flames of disaster the eggman was after in the present day the flames going by the name iblis it's been so long since the world was normal that nobody knows where iblis came from but silver desperately wishes to destroy it once and for all silver is accompanied by blaze the cat the character introduced in the previous years sonic rush and the ds as they fight against iblis routinely but never managed to put it to rest until a mysterious black hedgehog called nephilis appears and tells silva that everything has an origin and that they must return back in time to find the iblis trigger and take him out thus altering the course of history the ableist trigger according to mephilis is sonic the hedgehog thus setting up the journey silver as a playable character is quite unique as seen by the symbol on his hands silver is capable of telekinesis he can lift objects in the air stop bullets in midair grab enemies and send them all flying while also being able to hover short distances this sounds like the making for a pretty cool character but silver of the main three in this game is my least favorite to play right off the bat you can tell that silver's speed is much slower than sonic and shadows and they're already slower in this game than previous ones i don't need all sonic playstyles to be all about speed but silver is just a lot less fun to play as in the other two hedgehogs because of the fact that he's much slower compared to them and because his combat options aren't that great having a telekinetic sonic character could be cool but silver's main problem is two things one you can't control the objects that silver has grabbed onto this doesn't present a big deal on o6 except the times that it does inherently this creates less freedom when it comes to combat seeing as you have to hope the game's auto aim will work on your side also carrying multiple things at once has the tendency of the objects getting in the way of each other on the throw every now and again and that's annoying but then there's the other main issue silver cannot pick up enemies that are standing normally this isn't a real problem to me as that would probably be a bit too broken but then the grievance i have with silver is his lacking melee ability to grab enemy silver has to stun them first fair enough the psychic smash ability you unlock about halfway through is a game changer because it really simplifies the process of stunning enemies at close range but before that you have to use this psychic slap attack with a pretty pathetic range that will most certainly leave you open for damage i still think carrying objects and smashing them into each other has a pretty base level of satisfaction in it and i always loved carrying multiple enemies at once and then just letting go of the grab button and seeing them all die at once but still silver's levels are by far the worst of the main three i can play all the sonic and shadow stages and enjoy them but there really aren't any silvery stage moments where i think to myself yeah i want to play that again like i was talking about with the shadow game earlier i'd say the most enjoyable silver stages would be crisis city an effective introduction to silver's play style and world tropical jungle with its open-ended design and radical train making interesting use of the carry mechanic by having to balance the scales of the boxes to get ahead i do put silver style to use despite it being kind of limited but that doesn't make it inherently fun dusty desert is usually the worst silver stage immediately these giant spheres appear and you have to get them inside the slots before they explode you for some reason cannot grab them and can only alter their direction by slapping them let's get nothing on how the stage ends with the infamous ball puzzle taking the first segment and multiplying it by 10 silver must guide the ball from one side of the l-shaped tunnel to the other with your allotted nine hits i'm so used to brain dead sonic content that i have to give credit to the designers picking up a moment that requires the player to stop and consider their approach you have to think about how hard you hit the ball so it doesn't go out of control and need to angle your shots to avoid the pits in the area now that is just me saying the ball puzzles neat idea but of course it's totally terrible to play because the sloppy implementation of the physics engine is completely incompatible with this puzzle the ball will trip over all kinds of small bits of geometry it's really difficult to accurately predict where the ball is going to go based on where you stand how long you charge the slap feels inconsistent in distance these crates are meant to help you along the way by stopping the ball from going into the pits but instead they tip over like dominoes when the ball is going and anything above zero speed it's a total mess this leads players towards glitching through the door the puzzle unlocks and reaching the goal ring that way it's a shame really the ball puzzle feels like a really good embodiment of silver's playstyle in general silver's gameplay was a pretty good idea it just did not get enough time in the oven to feel fleshed out silver's character is just a tragedy in general he was met with such a perfect storm of crap in o6 be forever remembered as a joke every player will first encounter silver during sonic story after dusty desert where he tries to kill sonic for the first time silver's boss fight is absolute [ __ ] when you know what to do it's really easy still kind of annoying because the camera does not focus on him at all but the first time run will be a disaster as when you try to hit him he's completely invincible as any attack will have him grab you and say this it's no use [Music] it's no use [Music] take this it's no use then we'll end it it's no use this will end it this section is another live strainer at this point having something like omochao from sa2 would be pretty useful in that game omocha would give you hints on how to beat the boss fights if you died just telling the player to avoid striking silver directly and wait for an opportunity is plenty good enough for a hint but instead you will die again and again and again most of the boss fights in this game suffer from that same problem the camera is just not focusing on the boss fight the egg genesis and the final battle being the exceptions sad fact is when the camera does focus on the boss you get some pretty cinematic camera angles out of it but as is you need to focus on staying alive and trying to focus the camera yourself it's an unnecessary juggling act but back to silver's boss fight him spamming the phrase it's no use will become what the character is known for if you do get past the boss fight and actually decide to play as silver you're met with a character that is worse than sonic almost every way and has this stupid-ass ball puzzle a couple stages in it's nice that they still include him in sonic games despite the fact that this game ruined his reputation out the gate but still it's all a shame because i really like silver starting with the design looking at the wiki we can see that the main thing they wanted to portray with silver would be that he's from the future he's got more spikes than on sonic shadow or amy but also his hands show that he has some kind of power i think the bottoms of the gloves and the design of the boots just feel futuristic in comparison to the gear the rest of the cast has earlier designs of silver had been overdoing it when it comes to the spikes and other details but i think the final silver design strikes a nice balance but as if the character's infamous game moments weren't bad enough his silhouette is also easily made a joke hey siegel where the hell am i in the sonic colors game and me too huh oh that was silver oh you know the pothead looking guy you made hey no insult to shadow 759 i grew up on that stuff still got chuckle out of me today we're looking up the footage but anyway how about the story he begins the game wanting to destroy iblis at all costs and mephilis gives him and blaze the chance they have been so desperately looking for mephulus the dark is pretty obviously evil but silver and blaze don't know that which by the way the game never really states that blaze isn't any more worldly in knowledge than silver himself hell in the middle of the story her attitude is that whether it's right or wrong to kill people to change history you might as well try because otherwise the future will remain the same but as for mephiless i think an easy improvement in silver's campaign will be at the start of it making it a little more mysterious as to whether or not he's evil i mean he doesn't have a mouth that's pretty suspicious but shots like these and the evil piano music in the background really give it away i think mephilis being evil is pretty obvious in general but i think making those changes i suggested would help put the audience in silver's shoes a little more anyway silver and blaze get separated when mephilis sends them back to the past and it's here that we get to see that silver isn't just going to try and kill sonic he actually appreciates the world of the past everything he's ever known is just fiery ruins so to be transported back in time and see a field of brass and trees with the sun shining above is something to be marveled at for him or this part after he meets amy and they travel to dusty desert this looks so beautiful what you mean this desert everything is so great here isn't it when silver does find sonic he tries to kill him only for amy to step in and scold him where she gives us this uh nugget of information if i had to choose between the world and sonic i would choose sonic yeah that's a pretty bad line amy would gladly be sonic's fan girl if he literally destroyed the world it'd be pretty easy to rewrite this scene to where it's really good if you keep most of it though is silver really going to assassinate someone to save his world keep that angle but cut that part about the world and sonic instead of amy try to help silver and suggest that things are always more complicated than they may seem and that instead we should try to talk to sonic and learn what the truth is for ourselves but maybe have silver stick to the fact that he saw sonic and that projection from mephilis earlier and his sticking originally to what he believes and would cause amy to leave and then the story progresses as normal and we have a really great scene with amy there instead of what leaves you thinking the characters are being massively butchered back to the main plot silver actually does meet up with blaze and wonders this to kill someone to save the world is that really the right thing to do it is at this point where you'll probably wonder if contemplating the morality of killing someone to save the world really belongs in a sonic game my thought process is well yeah why not i mean nobody likes overtly preaching messages and media meant for adults it feels kind of patronizing when making things for kids though it seems like a good spot to put in some moral angle as someone who grew up on games like sly cooper i'm just incapable of seeing why silver starting out thinking he's doing the right thing with trying to kill sonic but then learning that there's other ways of saving the world when he gains greater perspective on the situation is a bad thing the game was rated e 10 plus maybe that particular theme is a bit much for a toddler maybe but i think the rating the game got and material within is certainly appropriate so silver after having gained more information about eggman in the situation he can clearly see mephulus is up to something as when he asks this totally reasonable question who is the iblis trigger why does he want to destroy the world methodist shadily says that it doesn't matter it's nowhere never to kill him and this being the only chance to save the future typical forced urgency manipulation tactic you see it in marketing a lot a sense of urgency might cause people to make decisions they would otherwise put more thought into this was the same logic blaze had earlier in the story you can see silver feeling guilty for what he thinks he has to do but luckily when he tries to kill sonic again shadow steps in to save the day and when silver mentions mephilus and his mission to save the future shadow who's also currently dealing with mephiless illuminates the whole thing nephilis isn't trying to help you create a better future he's trying to eliminate the past what what are you talking about to discover what happened it seems we must see what took place 10 years ago [Music] follow me if you want the truth this is where the story takes a turn for the better for silver's character he and shadow travel 10 years into the past to see the inciting instant of the story that was brought up early in shadow's campaign which i'll get to in a moment this was the solaris project attempt by the duke of solyana to control the time-space power of their god solaris the experiment was a total disaster and resulted in solaris as getting split into two forms the mind becoming the black shadow called nephilis and the power was the flame iblis silver and shadow split up to chase their targets as silver sees the duke selling the flames inside princess elise before he passed away from the explosion thus showing the audience why eggman is after her in sonic's story what silver cares the most about though is how this kid just lost her father showing that silva really is a kind-hearted character as i said silver has completely changed by this point the truth is nephelus is evil and is trying to join with iblis once more to become solaris eggman wants to capture elise so that he can find out how to unleash the flames and control the power of solaris for himself this being when silver puts everything else behind and teams up with sonic at kingdom valley i'll bring up issues with the story later but for right now they fail to save elise and when sonic travels back in time for the finale of his storyline silver and blaze actually go back to their timeline with a new plan silver having seen what the duke did to seal iblis inside elise is going to try and do that on himself to save the world after the final boss fight silver's plan actually fails because the duke mentioned that you needed a royal soul to be a vessel of iblis which silver is not blaze steps in and says that since she already has fire manipulation powers this might work on her but silver's friendship with blaze makes him incapable of doing what it takes to transport blaze and iblis to another dimension like she asked him to and while she does absorb iblish she dies here because of it so silver started the story wanting to do anything to save the future and through this grand journey has accomplished his goal but at the cost of his only real friend a sad but great way to end silver's campaign like shadow and sa2 or knuckles and sonic 3 or even blaze in sonic rush silver was a new character in sonic 06 and went through a character arc that lasted from the beginning of the game to the end that has clearly stuck in the memories of sonic fans ever since but of course this story is very flawed in many ways earlier in this video i said that the ideas are not bad and in a lot of areas the execution is good but in others it's not which leaves the script in desperate need of another draft or two silver's best friend blazed the cat being a perfect example it's hard to say what they're really going for here sonic o6 had to have been in development at the same time as sonic rush so i was thinking it could have been a case like cream and sonic advance 2 where the character was created for heroes but debuted on the gba but those two cases did not conflict with one another in sonic rush blaze had the backstory being from the sole dimension and traveled to sonic's world to fight eggman and another new character from her world called eggman nega ino6 blazes here in the future with silver and then sonic rivals which came out right after 06 eggman nega is now from the future too i can delve into this more when i talk about sonic rush and sonic rivals but for right now just creates a massive inconsistency of the backstory of these characters i know a guy who runs a channel called the sega scourge and he just did a video on blaze and 06 which you can check out but i'll just show you this part at the beginning where he talks about what shiro meikawa the writer of this game was thinking now the writer for sonic 06 shiro mikawa stated on twitter that when 06 was being written or concepted or whatever the hell he said that the initial idea was that it would be connected to sonic rush in some way sonic rush obviously had come out a year before in 2005 and blaze was now appearing in o6 and there was supposed to be a connection here now my kawasan said that the concept was abandoned uh in development i don't think it was i think that 06 could serve still as a very good origin story for blaze it's hard to definitively nail anything down because the story in 06 often times does not give enough detail to be able to say anything like that with certainty it's easy to think sonico6 is just retconning blaze because the story never explains it and treats it like her being in the future as normal though but a fantastic example of the story not explaining its elements sufficiently would be the part where the duke seals iblis in the young elise and silver story the big plot threat of sonic's campaign is not just that the princess is closed off and robotic because she wants to be but also because the flames of disaster are released via princess elise crying which i don't get how that's supposed to work as has been said countless times over the years if eggman chops some onions in her eyes does that mean it's now time for the apocalypse or say someone tells a joke it's really funny then she has tears in her eyes is that the end of the world too it makes no sense but then i also don't really fully understand the process of stealing iblis either the duke says you need to have a royal soul okay so he can't do it himself because he's dying i guess and the story clearly establishes that the flames of disaster were released at the scene in sonic and silver story after kingdom valley where the egg carrier explodes so the flames are released upon death too but everybody dies so would it have to be like a burdensome legacy process where heirs are chosen to do this for life i just don't get it i mean now that i think about it that idea i just came up with that's not a bad idea it's just not in the story leading me to another thing that really bugs me about the story of sonic 06 introducing the yada yada effect this is when the story writers of osex cannot come up with a way to make things naturally happen so they just sweep that part onto the rug and make them happen anyway look no further than this part in silver's story where it just cuts to amy after she has abandoned silver inside eggman's base how'd she get there well that happened off-screen like prison island in sa2 but then elise just walks out of a door that was right next to where amy was standing so now luckily they can escape and have the girl talk scene [Music] but oh wait if elise is freed then what would be the point of sonic storyline well just have eggman swoop in problem solved or this part of sonic's campaign where they can't come up with a way for sonic and tails to naturally go to eggman's base so off-screen eggman gave knuckles a message explaining where the base is and how he'll totally return elise if he gives eggman the chaos and what he has and it was a trap who could have foreseen this with this machine i'll be able to control the flow of time itself [Music] so far this video really has been a roller coaster of highs and lows but now it's finally time to dive into the areas where i really appreciate o6 transmission from hq there's an sos coming from dr eggman's base our last communication with our agent was 26 hours ago we expect an immediate rescue shadow the hedgehog understood initiating the mission now shadow's storyline is easily the best of the three campaigns in sonic 06. as you just saw shadow begins in white acropolis as an agent of the united federation's military law enforcement team gunn shadow has raided dr eggman's base in search of the agent who went missing inside that being rouge the bat rouge was inside eggman's base located artifact called the scepter of darkness as shadow and rouge escaped the fortress only to be ambushed by eggman at the rendezvous point at kingdom valley the conflict resulted in the scepter of darkness getting shattered and the black essence within taking the shape of shadows shadow this being how methodist the dark was first released setting him up as shadow's main antagonist for the duration of the campaign like always shadow plays very similarly to sonic but the problem now is that the handling of sonic 06 isn't that good so having a sonic that's much slower doesn't really make for the best formula i mentioned earlier that i can actually do a full run of sonic and shadow stages in o6 and enjoy myself this first starts with similar reasons as the sonic campaign i still think levels like white acropolis crisis city flame core or aquatic base are still fun to explore as shadow but overall shadow stages are like if you took sonic's mechanics and mixed it with silver's combat ever since sonic heroes the series has been doing more and more of that kill all the enemies in the area to move on trope i complimented the combat in heroes because while it could have used some tweaks like i mentioned in that review i thought the combat in that game had some real kinetic energy to it now is the time i go more in depth in the combat no six health bars on enemies are in o6 like they were in heroes and shadow in those games their specific gimmicks avoided this being too much of a pace breaker the power type in heroes was meant to plow through foes just as the most powerful guns were meant to in shadow when starting the sonic campaign of o6 you just resort to spamming the homing attack button because sonic has barely any other means of attacking with the homing attack not nearly having the kind of rapid fire potential i had in the first four 3d games once you've unlocked sonic's bound jump that problem is alleviated for a shadow at the beginning he has more moves to use like chaos spear allowing you to stun enemies or his ground kick is effective when dealing with the smaller guys the main difference with sonic and shadow's homing attack that the attack itself is how you deal with enemies as shadow it is instead mashing the jump button after doing a homing attack this is as simple as it looks it requires no thought or strategy and the closest thing to that would be how shadow's air attacks can do damage to nearby enemies if the one you attacked died before you finished the combo but that effect is unpredictable from my experience lacking in depth or not i can't not enjoy fighting enemies as shadow because when i was a kid playing a shadow and wrecking enemies with air punches and kicks like well there was no strength in numbers in the face of the ultimate life form was just really awesome not a particularly convincing argument i am aware because if you aren't as easily amused as i am this gameplay really does just land as an inferior sonic but i'm going to be honest with the fact that when it comes to combat i as an adult obviously want to play complex games like devil may cry 1 3 4 and 5 or just has some kind of strategy to it at all like arkham but i do have an appreciation for combat and games that's much simpler than that and a good way to sell it for me is the sound design i think o6 mostly relied on a pretty stock set of sound effects but that certainly doesn't make them bad i just mentioned playing a sonic and using the bound attack to smash a bunch of bots at once [Music] my favorite thing to do as shadow in o6 is something that never gets old would be how shadow's homing attack actually has a longer range than sonic's this is an effect for all characters in o-6 but distance stuns enemies and sometimes makes them even take more damage charging up your throws as silver will land harder than it would have otherwise as shadow hitting the big enemies with a distance homing attack will always stun them and that freaking sound effect always feels like you just did massive damage to these enemies i'm here for it so i'm playing a shadow i get inherent enjoyment from plowing through enemies and the game rewards me with a bunch of points which gives me an s rank so i think it's easy to see how i can get enjoyment out of his stages similar to sonic shadow gets a bunch of other gameplay games to mess around with mainly vehicles it's funny the shadow game prided itself on having vehicles to hop into mid gunfight like his halo or something but they were all completely horrific to control unless we're totally useless like the bike and lethal highway a total liability compared to the much faster running on the ground the rides in o6 being a lot more fun to use even if they still aren't that great we get four of them the hovercraft that shadow uses to get over water is kinda cool i like using the high jump to snipe enemies in the platforms of wave ocean but this vehicle is also used during kingdom valley where players who don't know what they're doing are going to get killed by this crumbling castle set piece thanks to the incompetent camera the buggy fires missiles on the side that are required to destroy the searchlights in white acropolis and this ride could have been way more satisfying by allowing you to run over enemies but you usually can't and when you do you take massive damage like in crisis city the motorcycle is again way better than the shadow game when it comes to controls and speed but it's still not that exciting lastly is the hang glider uh it's better than the 8-bit sonic 2. yeah not a great roster of vehicles but i don't think they really take away from the stages as badly as the snowboard and the super speed sections did for sonic now this review has been going for a long time and obviously if you look at the time bar we're not even close to done but i think it's pretty clear already as to why someone who was my age 106 came out would enjoy it so much look at all the stuff we've already gone over we've traveled hundreds of years into the future 10 years into the past uncovering an attempt from a legitimate monarchy to take the powers of a god seeing characters go through a lot and change fought against hordes of enemies and played through daring set pieces like escaping tornadoes running alongside the water at light speed jumping down the depths of a swamp scaling the size of desert ruins this was supposed to be an exciting journey i mean before this i had played whatever i could of sonic 1 2 and 3 i'd played advanced 3 sonic heroes shadow the hedgehog and sonic riders but look at this game my young might not be able to tell you a difference between an epic quest like sly 2 and sonic o6 i spent every school day for years looking forward to playing moro 6. the next cutscene was a great reward for playing the game who knew where it was going to go next but i can tell you i do know where this review is going oh how ironic fate can be methodist the dark he's a pretty interesting character i mean he has the ability to travel through time which is actually how he manages to be in multiple places at once you can tell the difference because the methodist that got accidentally released by shadow and ruja kingdom valley has this aggressive tone to him after spending 10 years in the scepter of darkness it's a pity shadow the hedgehog truly ashamed that you wish to go against me while the methodist that lies to silver has a more laid back tone why does that matter to you unless you complete your task your future will remain the same forever they also distinguished by the color scheme on their bodies that's a cool detail i can't really wrap my mind around but it exists looking at methods as a villain i can say i'm a fan like he has no mouth but moves his eyes and face like he does when he talks it's like he's ghost freak or something who knows what he's really made of i love his awakening scene and shadow story like look at him walk like a zombie with this piano music in the background i thank you shadow the hedgehog [Music] who are you and how do you know my name [Music] i'm methodist nephilis the dark what did you forget me i owe much to you shadow [Applause] oh yes what you gave to me i now return to you a one-way ticket to oblivion methodist's motivation and silver story seems pretty weak given the fact that he repeatedly demands that silver kills sonic when he's perfectly capable of doing it himself that's really not something that can be explained with logic it's just more like mephilis is sadistic and enjoys causing pain and misery it's in the name mephilus obviously taking inspiration from mephistopheles and the devil and yeah it's totally wikipedia on the screen not much of a theological scholar myself gotta make sure i'm not wrong here as i was saying someone as nice as silver trusting mephilis killing sonic thinking the future is saved when that only would cause the destruction he was trying to stop that sounds like something methods be entertained by but this is another example of the yada yada effect the explanation of methodist actions is just my interpretation and it's hard to root that in factual evidence maybe you just had a fine i'll do it myself moment or something like that it might make more sense as a villain for shadow i think mephilus really shines but first his ability to time travel as he does creates some big discussion time travel has the potential to screw up any story it touches so how does it work in sonic 06 well there are a couple of things i'd like to say on the matter mechanically methodists as the brains of solaris a god that exists outside time and space can time travel at will the heroes counteract this by the use of the series staple chaos control this ability having full on time travel powers is new to the series sure however it's not like it wasn't there before at all we just never saw it used chaos control has always been a time-space altering ability as sonic and shadow could use it to warp but in sonic heroes and shatter the hedgehog chaos control could stop time for the user when activated from a writing standpoint i really like how shadow doesn't just use chaos control to time travel as if this has always been a thing he explains the whole thing right here that means this methodist character has the power to control time his power feels very similar to my own chaos control shadow and rouge find out that they're in the future meaning that mephilis sent them into the future and shadow just said it the sensation felt like chaos control now why does this specific maneuver require two people to use chaos control at once the chaos emeralds have always had undefined power as early as sonic 1 when it took six of them to put flowers in a field but seven of them to turn sonic into a super saiyan the last time two people used chaos control at the same time and resulted in the space colony arc resetting its position in space while it was crashing going back to its appearance before it started falling but of course i didn't notice that myself that was the sega scourge but still so now it is established that chaos control having the ability to time travel doesn't really cause any problems with the established cannon what does become an issue i have with the plot is just how easy it is i really like the cut scene with sonic and silver after kingdom valley however them having to realize that they can time travel and all it takes is saying the words chaos control with two emeralds that they already have is such a goofy thing time travel as seen in o6 just trivializes conflict while the heroes use time travel often they never realize that stakes are reduced to ash via unlimited time travel use not that i can think of a way to do it myself but on principle making time travel more difficult to pull off would make it feel more satisfying from a narrative perspective if any of you guys can think of some way to do this and keep the pace of the story intact feel free to share this is more of a nitpick but i've never really liked stories that treat time like an address on a street method sends shadow and rouge to the future which just so happens to be the exact point in time where eggman warped team sonic 2 like the same month week and day only separated by five minutes arrival this is also the exact moment in time that silver's method sends him and blaze back to the past as if there's just this nebulous space called the future where all this stuff happens relying on that contrivance would really suck there are multiple ways to tell a time travel story though sonico 6 seemingly works off of a fixed timeline angle where actions that occur in the time stream are always meant to happen and don't get interfered with example mephilis knows shadow at the start of the shadow campaign but shadow does not know mephilis later shadow and silver travel to the moment of the solaris project failure and the duke gives shadow the scepter of darkness that he uses to seal mephilas this being the moment that nephilis meets shadow shadow was always meant to time travel back to the experiment disaster and seal mephalus which is why elise first mistakes sonic wore silver in the opening cut scene because she remembered and got the blue chaos someone from silver when he traveled back in time from the present day despite him not having done it yet in the present timeline another example would be sonic rescuing elise like he said he would but silver's future is still being ruled by iblis that's because iblis would be released somehow no matter what happened before which is why silver's new plan of stealing iblis himself on paper is a better one than meddling with the past the story pays no mind to the nature of time travel well it's pure fiction i guess doesn't have a nature but my point is this in the future shadow and rouge find omega but he's busted up in standby mode when shadow stays in the future to fight mephulus rouge gives omega in the present a chaos emerald and says to help shadow when the time comes which is why he was in standby mode in the future omega comes to save the day during the first methodist boss fight and the two used methodists time portal to get back to the present and meet up with rouge again but the story pays no mind to the fact that this would technically mean that there are now two omegas in the present timeline but that's enough time travel for right now shit's a headache shadow's campaign is a great story for the character with shiro meikawa back as the writer we no longer have to worry about the terrible characterization written by azuka in the shadow game for now i mentioned in passing that in this game shadow's status quo is that he's an agent of guns something people have a hard time buying considering shadow's backstory as someone who has lost a great deal thanks to the organization it is also a point that this game introduced time travel into the story so in theory giving shadow the ability to time travel back to before maria died and prevent that from happening let's tackle these two things back to back as they are directly related to the same thing everything about shadow in this game actually goes back to the last line of shadow the hedgehog goodbye forever shadow the hedgehog [Music] in adventure 2 shadow's backstory motivated him to want to destroy the world until he realized he was wrong and saved the day in sonic heroes shadow not remembering his past was part of his motivation in tracking down dr eggman alongside rouge and omega in a shot of the hedgehog his again not knowing his past caused everything that went down during the black arms occupation of earth when he finally remembers that maria died wanting shadow to save the world what more needs to be said that's the important part of shadow's past directly working with gun on the other hand might seem like a weird move given their history ignoring the laughable trend of that already happening but anyway there was this moment from the archie comics where shadow explains why he's an agent all of which are things demonstrated in o6 actually like being able to rely on other people for information so he can do field work or being able to just go to kingdom valley or radical train without having to go through the dumbass trials and tribulations that sonic and silver do if shadow wants to save the world it only makes sense to do with people who can maximize his efficiency at the end of shot of the hedgehog the president realized the mistake that was made in doing what they did to professor gerald and shadow by association something that comes up from the gun commander and the president in shadow of the hedgehog's post game mode expert mode shadow do you read me first i want to apologize for the other day actually i just became a grandfather last week and i was thinking of maybe having you over i know that training is tough but try and do your best [Music] mr president you're late for your tea time with the chief cabinet secretary of japan oh yeah i almost forgot shadow i'll talk to you later shadow it's me again sorry about last time i've been busy planning the reconstruction i'm just going to assume that freaking black doom being in that mode is not canon but if shadow's going through some kind of training that reaches the ears of the gun commander and the president it could be for no other reason than becoming an agent i mean rouge is one so why not shadow just join because he has nothing better to do as seen in sonic battle that is something i've always liked about shadow he's a sonic rival that has not tied down to any particular location or vocation knuckles was supposed to be the guardian of the master emerald on angel island at first they kept bringing him back by bringing that back too but then they had to drop it since it was not sustainable long term metal sonic had his character tapped into in sonic heroes but never again just being an eggman lackey after that blaze is from the soul dimension jet the hawk only races in the x world grand prix silver's from the future etc shadow had his mission in essay 2 but besides that was involved with something different in every game he was a part of because shadow is a character you can do a lot with and have it work as for maria this one's interesting one it is worth noting that for a reason i'll explain later by the time the story is over nobody remembers that chaos control can time travel at all but within the context of the game i'm not complaining for two reasons the first being the promise shadow made to maria was to protect the world that certainly does not include time traveling back to safer when nephilis the dark is on the loose trying to destroy all time space secondly shadow might have lost a lot because of maria's death however is he really the type that would just let go of rouge omega and sonic even something that would definitely happen if he changed history like that just so he could live in the past i don't think so the final lines of shadow the hedgehog whether you like it or not state that shadow's intention is to put the past behind him and snuff out evil as motivated by the promise he made similar to shadow joining gun i feel like these explanations are pretty convincing but i think they just should have been in the script somewhere not requiring my citing non-canon archie comics and expert mode dialogue it would just help the story at the end of the day to include more explanations the fact that we ultimately don't control what our favorite characters do or don't do is something i've had a hard time coming to terms with over the years as a reviewer we don't have to think everything character writers come up with is a strong direction for the characters we love but if the execution is good i'm certainly willing to look at it on those merits on that note mephiless the dark makes for a fantastic villain for shadow at this point in the character's story we're dealing with a shadow that's sure of himself he does not have a crisis of identity here so while putting him up against a dark reflection of himself might not seem like a great idea it works out really well one of the main thrusts of shadow's campaign is that methodist seeks to break shadow's morale completely he claims he wants shadow to come to his side but that's obviously not true mephilus hates shadow for sling him inside the scepter of darkness but like i said with silver mephilis seeks to cause as much pain and misery as possible beating shadow is one thing but causing him to turn against his allies and give up his belief system then getting beat by mephalus that'd be way more entertaining for him since shadow no longer has any issues with his past methodist goes for a different tactic that's you after the world was devastated by iblis's flames what do you think happened a search for the guilty he's using the future against shadow which is why shadow giving up his tension with gun in his past is a great narrative device there might actually be a reason for shadow to feel doubt because according to mephilis when the flames of disaster are released the humans in an effort to search for the guilty are going to blame shadow since he might have the power to unleash that level of devastation i mean after all he has tried before so now shadow's being told that yes after he finally let go of the past he finally put his trust in people to work for them as an agent when something goes wrong that's not remotely his fault he's used as the scapegoat for simply being created as the ultimate life form i think that's a pretty good motivation for shadow to turn evil because past present or future shadow will always be getting betrayed by humanity so it's even the point of being a good guy at that rate well the promise to save the world that's what leading some of my favorite shadow scenes of all time nephilis makes a pretty good pitch here assuming he was actually being genuine but wanting to help shadow which he's not but if he was his argument is convincing to someone who would act irrationally like the amnesiac shadow that had to do with black doom but a shadow that has already dealt with all that is not going to fall for it it's only fair to give back what was intended for you you have every right to want justice that's absurd whatever it is you want to do you can do it alone you forgive humanity this folly then i determine my own destiny regardless of what happens in the future shadow's goal is to defeat this monster at all costs this was easily the most compelling part of o6's story when i first played it i don't want to dwell on this too much however i want to say this when i was young i dealt with a lot of anxiety induced issues things you wouldn't really want elementary school age children to think about like the impermanence of life the uncertainty of the future and what other people's actual intentions are i don't know why i was settled with that role but obviously for a younger mind it's distressing stuff and comes my adoration for shadow story in o6 he like i have hammered in has managed to live in the present despite the stuff that happened to him in the past and continues to remain centered and fight the foes he's currently dealing with even in the face of an uncertain future my next favorite scene in this campaign is after wave ocean when mephilis continues to twist the knife by revealing that what happens in the future is that shadow was not only falsely hunted down for being the one to unleash the flames of disaster but omega himself is the one given the order to do it unlike meta-era shadow this shadow actually does believe in friends and allies so we can visibly see that this news comes as a shock for him one that hurts to prove how much shadow does care about the people around him we have these scenes here when eggman attacks rouge over the scepter of darkness at the beginning shadow sees this and decides to catch rouge and not the scepter knowing it would unleash methodists he probably would have done the same thing or here after crisis city when they find omega in standby mode shadow is the one to tell the audience that fact because he's familiar with omega's circuitry clearly rouge has to convince him to leave it alone it's not like we can do anything for him now yeah or when silver is attacking sonic for the second time when shadow saves the day no snarky line about sonic's inferiority he just saw a friend in need and dove in when hearing that silver is under the influence of mephilis he decides to help him discover the truth back to the wave ocean scene rouge is also upset at the prospect of people turning on shadow just because it's convenient leading to this moment even if you believe everyone in the world will be against you know that i'll always remain by your side remember that [Music] i will we don't even get drama of shadow being skeptical towards omega now just because he might fight shadow in the future shadow is censored enough and confident in the relationship he has with team dark that's been built ever since that sonic heroes opening cut scene to where this is not a problem and they feel the same way about him as the story has shown they need to defeat mephilis and that's all that matters they've been through too much thus far to let mephilis get in the way of that leading to the finale of shadow's story as team dark faces off against mephiles this final moment being my favorite shadow scene of all time one that i'm pretty sure most fans of the series would think of when asked about the best shadow moments in the franchise mephilis has powers so great that even shadow might not compare as mephilis continues with the same angle the world will betray you why fight it all why risk your life for those who will persecute you later if the world chooses to become my enemy i will fight like i always have [Music] i mean that is perfect shadow does not dodge the difficult idea if that ever happens he will deal with it then but he's going to fight mephilis now because that's what matters that's what being centered is about tomorrow might not be great yesterday might have been traumatic but that doesn't mean we let go of today it's an excellent lesson that's popped up by these higher than life circumstances it really resonated with me when i first saw it to say the least now while i wish i could end this review on the note like that we still aren't done this game is a technical aspect this part pretty much speaks for itself the loading screen is like 25 seconds of pop and this game loads frequently prices city has sauna coming with four of them segmenting every major part of the stage moments like this made it past play testing e123 omega has engaged head to the wave ocean head to wave ocean agent shadow e123 omega has engaged methodists head to wave ocean immediately now what just happened there you may ask well it'd be like if i flip the design well it'd be like if i flubbed up the line and left it in the video this game is also notoriously buggy like how the silver boss fight as sonic has this massive invisible wall in front of it but you can escape the wall and get tossed out of orbit it's no this use [Music] [Music] uh [Music] this game is not well put together at all that's because the game in the state it was released in was obviously not close to ready this overshadows everything else and while that is fair because this will be what players focus on when they first play the game i just think it's a shame that this has overpowered the kinds of thought the creators put in when making the game talks of a vision and passion it's all things i've been pointing towards for this whole video series sonico 6 wasn't any different from the rest the game makes a point out of how this adventure takes place in the foreign land soleana it's not an excuse for levels the culture of soleanna was thought out and was supposed to feel grand even if it all gets lost in the shuffle the festival of the sun the thing the game opens on is sonic's story it shows that the people of this nation worship solaris because they think he will wipe them out if they don't it's easy to say why is that in a sonic game although i hope that's an idea this review has persuaded you out of saying but regardless i think it's interesting nobody in town ever acts like that's a bit strange because to the people who actually live here that's normal details don't exist for no reason like the part in shadows play through we need to create a new scepter of darkness at the fountain of the priest there are three fountains in castletown this one is the fountain of the sage you pray to it the hope is becoming more intelligent this is the fount of the goddess and it represents beauty and the fountain of the priest represents peace in a time of crisis like this explains people were hanging around it none of these things have to be in the game but they are i've always looked at these maps of the various areas of soleanna and wondered how exactly they were supposed to connect as a single body of land and of course it turns out the people making the game thought about that and created this found that in sonic retro if you were curious vision was most certainly there in crafting the world undermined by the fact that the player guidance in this game is absolutely terrible that's basically the theme of sonico 6 the developers undermining themselves every chance they get at the beginning of sonic's campaign it takes over 10 minutes to start a stage because you have to work with this shoemaker to go through rings and buy the lightspeed dash and then you may finally play a stage i'd say the worst example is probably the part in sonic story where you have to travel to new city to meet up with knuckles instead of starting this segment of gameplay with the camera clearly pointed at where to go you can wind up running around the massive castle town hoping to find the warehouse since this place is huge but to no avail similar to adventure 1 this game has three hubs but these ones are much bigger than adventure 1. the hardware is light years ahead of the dreamcast so i get that but what needs to be done is to have a far better system of telling which direction you're going in like in jak2 or designing your hubs have a more memorable focal point for players to be able to easily orient themselves regardless of location the game tries to do this as everything in solely on a castle town revolves around the sun festival spot in the water and how new city has the giant bell in the center of the area but the camera on the navigation speed also makes this a difficult task speaking of the navigation speed that is also what makes soleana's forest so infamous i mean this map is not complicated i could draw it from emery it's an open space with an altar going towards kingdom valley with the path towards it coming from castle town and a fork in the road in the right where one leads to the stage tropical jungle and the other is the trees area that goes to new city but the speed the characters especially silver go at just makes crossing from one side to the other a total chore did somebody say chores because sonic 06's hub worlds have that in abundance sonic shadow and silver have to and sometimes may optionally complete ridiculous tasks from the town's townspeople sonic and silver's campaigns both took me three and a half hours to complete and shadows was under three hours i think the gods honest reason for that is because shadow has the least amount of required town missions in the game silver has such exciting highlights like putting fruit inside of a barrel and sonic has great ones like going through rings or the worst required bit of gameplay in the entire sonic franchise before sonic can enter new city you must first guess who the captain is the captain is the guy who asked yeah thanks [ __ ] keep making people guess your identity while the princess is abducted good to know we're making good use of paid time here the town missions probably would not feel nearly as bad well one if they were fun it starts there but also because they have the baffling technical flaw of selecting yes resulting in you having to sit through a 30 second loading screen that being told what to do 30 seconds later and you may now play succeed wait 30 seconds result screen 30 seconds hub world if you fail need to restart that is 30 seconds you failed 30 seconds pub world and then resume the four previous loading screens i just mentioned how did this get past play testing the townsperson literally tells you what you need to do before you say yes what is the point of the text box in between it makes no sense in any event i cut the voice acting topic out of the shot of the hedgehog video and i decided i'd do it this time i cut it because the shadow video was getting long but uh here we are i feel like this is a pretty appropriate video to discuss the four kids are voice actors in though because this game has the biggest cast of them all well actually shadow the hedgehog had more but whatever details details jason griffith had the interesting role of playing sonic himself as well as shadow and newcomer from sonic riders jet the hawk interesting that he doesn't voice silver since he was doing every other main sonic rival at the time not counting knuckles i feel like by this point knuckles wasn't even close to being remembered as an enemy of sonic like he was in the 90s but anyway during the early episodes of sonic x many of the actors were meant to sound like the ones from the sonic adventure era when sonic x was done the actors transitioned towards being in the games they sounded a bit different of all the four kids era sonic games i think sonico 6 has the second worst overall performance which actually doesn't say a whole lot because i think all the rest of them like secret rings rivals 2 zero gravity unleashed and black knight hold up good to great acting so being the second worst not a big deal 806 i think the cast the aforementioned jason griffith but also including mike pollock as dr eggman amy palin as tales dan green as knuckles lisa ortiz amy pete capela as silver bella hudson as blaze and kathleen delaney as rouge are pretty definitive voices for these characters they just sound very different from the adventure era is the thing jason griffith being a completely different shadow from david humphrey but being equally good i'm shadow the hedgehog i'm shadow shadow the hedgehog the problem in sonic 06 that there's a lot of stilted delivery of lines what what are you talking about and moments that become infamous because of the voice direction sonic's big cast of characters has been cited as one of the series's big problems i obviously think that's poppycock but characters like knuckles standing around not doing anything certainly doesn't help that image but what does even more damage is when the extra cast are all awful to play it really is not a joke that this game ruined extra playable characters in sonic games i mean people have been critical of the extra gameplay in sonic adventure 1 and 2. but in the case of o6 it is impossible to deny that many of the extra playable characters are just borderline unplayable the three best amigo characters as they're called in this game would be tails omega and blaze actually getting their own dlc pack believe it or not tails is way better than knuckles but i wouldn't put him on the functioning list he's far slower than sonic which is not a crime in and of itself but come on at this speed characters like sly cooper jack or mario can get around way quicker this is a joke it gets his combat from sonic heroes the few fleeting moments where you controlled the flight characters out the other two beneath you would see tails tossing fake ring bombs this being his only method of defending himself in o6 problems start with the fact that it's really difficult to tell which rings are real and fake when there's a bunch of them on the screen this attack and rouge's bombs have no reticle to aim with although it's as simple as pointing towards the center of the screen that's no excuse his bombs chug the frame rate as well his flight is limited he drops like a rock he takes off like a rocket and can't stop the forward momentum easily the worst playable tails in history as for the other two what the game considers good ones we have omega and blaze i actually think these two are fine omega for some bizarre reason actually runs faster than sonic in this game he's nowhere near the powerhouse he was in sonic heroes but he can spam fireballs in midair and by charging it up you shoot lasers that cover a lot of the enemies in your area but of course the best part of playing as omega is mashing the jump button during his glide doing this allows omega to stay in the air indefinitely and skip massive chunks of stages like this entire part of dusty desert as shadow can be skipped over like so blaze is the only one of the amigo characters that plays like sonic and shadow she runs fast does the homing attack and has her own little fire span and useful double jump she's definitely fun to play as in theory problem is the only players are three times in silver story and all examples are brief so it's quite short-lived in each character's campaign there is a solo amigo stage tails and blaze running through wave ocean on their own and rouge plays through tropical jungle after she gets separated from shadow tails playable wave ocean is one of the worst parts of sonic's entire campaign in o6 every character will go through every single stage when an sa-1 sonic had the most stages but the rest had like none in comparison i think the important thing to look at when it comes to stage justification is can you simply cut the stage from the story in o6 the only example i can think of that would be tails solo wave ocean sonic is nowhere to be seen for whatever reason elise is recaptured and tails tries to save her by running through a stage we already played and fails back to sonic however most of the stages you could argue are in need of cutting like rouge and silver and tropical jungle are about as essential as sonic's speed highway from sa1 a level representation of a story concept instead of actually looking for the iblis trigger we just play a stage or two to show we're doing something it's easy by that logic i can't cut any of the stages from the roster except the one i just said which was actually pointless but back to the playable characters rouge and knuckles are both really terrible rouge fights along with bombs that have the same problem as tails although i do think she has easier time doing more damage at once knuckles as combat is the worst in the series because it's so awkward to use and either whiffs or just gets you hit in the process we all know the real problem here technical problems in this game are pretty frequent long loading screens are pretty bad but i think the worst of them all is just when knuckles and rouge are climbing walls and they just won't jump off when you press the button and then you have to hope that they will when you just keep mashing the button that's something i guarantee that 99.9 of players had seen and there is just no excuse for this [ __ ] this is the game just not functioning like it's supposed to rouge and knuckles aren't fun anyway with this god-awful doom glide but this climbing thing just makes them nigh unplayable but the character that is actually unplayable with no questions asked is amy if you thought she was bad in adventure 1 this game makes that look like the sa-1 sonic campaign i'm pretty sure she's the slowest character in the roster has one really terrible attack her hammer requires you to stop in place to use it but the hitbox is so small that'll almost never hit anything and she also comes with this double jump legitimately kills all air momentum and that will lead to your death what were they thinking with this and as if that wasn't bad enough i guess espio decided to train amy in the arts of invisibility like what the is it fair that these characters were ruined because playing as the 106 was that bad honestly i kinda see it with the extra cast being this bad i understand why they would cut back and just focus on one or two styles going forward but it's an example of sonic team learning the wrong lessons as usual amy as a character is not the reason she's terrible to play as it's because she was given god-awful mechanics but alas trying to get sonic team to learn the right lessons is a lost cause at this rate visually i think the game looks fine artistically and when it comes to the actual rendering of environments then the game looks pretty alright besides flat grass and sand but the lighting in the models they're okay we're looking at the cut scenes and the animation is better than it was in the previous games but between sa2 and this game the lip sync might be the worst it's fine for the most part but you will definitely see moments of characters mouths moving after they are already done speaking or not moving at all once they've already started speaking the lip sync is once again tied to the japanese dub with the game they just didn't bother fixing it or in the case of o6 nobody had the time to the human characters also look pretty weird and undetailed just kind of gross looking also suffer from that thing i never even noticed until this playthrough where they move at like five frames per second when at large distances from the player artistically this game was going for a realistic aesthetic when it comes to the environments and people in it and as for its effect on the characters i'd say most of them look pretty normal it's just that sonic is taller now than ever before kind of disproportionately so but not to a terrible degree i just think that sonic has looked better in other games cg cutscenes are here in abundance they look fantastic when they actually are cg cutscenes that is half of them in the game are these beautifully animated scenes likes of which the series has never seen before and barely since but then the other half these pre-rendered scenes that use the in-game character models don't know what happened there but it's easy to recognize the difference i feel like most of the things in this video have come with some sort of a butt at the end of it but you know what doesn't get that treatment the absolutely all-star soundtrack the ost for sonic 3 3d blast and the genesis adventure adventure 2 heroes and shadow had june sonora's fingerprints all over them a style i'm certainly down with i mean you've seen how i've praised these soundtracks in the previous videos but i always mention that none of them are my favorite sonic osts that was all to build up the music in sonic 06 led by tamoya ohtani the complexity of the compositions the variety in the instruments and genre styles just really does it for me here this is my favorite sonic soundtrack and i think it seriously belongs in the conversation when mentioning gaming's best music like of all time this is not something i can just put into words as i'm not a music guy when listening to the music for sa1 or tour heroes i love it but it still feels like i'm listening to really high quality and badass video game music but 06's soundtrack is such a sophisticated edge to it while not abandoning the rock and guitar style from the previous games as it's here in [Music] abundance [Music] the variety is high in 06's soundtrack and that includes tracks that are primarily guitar based it's easy to think of the guitar as tied to high energy moments but whenever an instrument like that is used for slower segments in a game like sonic it certainly catches my attention an artistic soundtrack if i could describe it in any way giving stages like crisis city or kingdom valley this orchestral tone that stands quite tall in the sonic music library [Music] do which doesn't leave out cut scene music i might add packing real emotion into these cutscenes further cementing their impact the vocal collection as well is also a banger a thematic element in this story is that since this is a time traveling adventure each of our main characters represent a time period sonic is the embodiment of the present shadow of the past and silver the future something i think the vocal themes of these characters captured pretty well as sonic gets his world as the main theme of his character and the game itself being a much different style from his previous themes feeling more modern with this fast-paced beat actually being my preferred sonic theme over it doesn't matter from essay 1. crush 40 took a massive back seat for the soundtrack of this game but despite that their contribution to the series is still recognized as they got to do the theme of shadow in this game a rendition of magnafi's song from shadow of the hedgehog all hail shadow i do prefer magnifi's rendition from the last game but you definitely can't go wrong with the johnny gioli vocals and june snowy guitars but my favorite of this bunch actually goes to silver's theme dreams of an absolution it's a techno track but much different from the harsher tones of the one shadow had in adventure 2 and heroes being a mix of techno and romantic elements it's great [Music] [Music] my friends we are finally looking towards the light at the end of the tunnel because now the last important thing pertaining to the mechanics of o6 would be the s rank experience i did say s rank as sonic rush bumped the top rank from a that was seen in essay 2 to shadow to s the console games now adopted this and will be the top rank for the duration of the series i think it's most interesting to compare s ranking this game to a ranking shadow as like most things it's more enjoyable than no 6 than shadow in that game i couldn't tell you the rules it felt so lame and easy here in 06 it's what i have called in the past broken surprise surprise sonic 06 has something broken in it but seriously the only rule in sonic 06 is to get 50 000 points in each action stage that is the sole requirement to get an s now while i get that a point tally is also what sa2 and heroes had but the difference is that in those games i actually felt like the game was grading you on performance in its entirety with stages in o6 being a lot longer reaching 50 000 points is pretty easy to accomplish in most stages you need a good time bonus to make it to the full 50k however in stages like aquatic base or dusty desert as silver and shadow you can seriously just kill enough enemies and get enough bonus points from doing that to where you can reach the goal with 50k points sit there for 10 minutes and still get an s in essay 2 and heroes the point tally was based upon the stage itself and what would require the most amount of points for that stage for example in the dreamcast version of cosmic wall from sa2 the point tally was too low a requirement so they upped it on the re-release so that it could be more challenging sonic stages are generally shorter than the other two but the sloppy programming is still easy to abuse sonic unlocks a lot of powers in this game like shadow and silver this bar was supposed to decrease as the powers at grants cannot be abused the manual even tells you that when using sonic's abilities the bar is supposed to be decreasing but they forgot to program that in so you can use the powers of the purple jump to bypass stage segments with ease more importantly you can just endlessly use the red gem in a stage to get a stupidly large time bonus in sonic stages i did this trick in kingdom valley as sonic and i guess my time bonus was so good the game couldn't even calculate it and it gave me zero points for a sub 10 minute run of kingdom valley but still for most stages you actively have to fight as many enemies as you can as many enemy groups will have leaders and killing them will cause all the enemies to die and you get a big point bonus for that you need to use the trick rings i mentioned earlier because you'll get a higher rank because of that point bonus i thought s ranking sonico 6 was a neat experience because it might seem unforgiving at first but when you get used to the rules things start to become easy to do consistently i'm not that great with silver's levels because i usually die and also dying in sonic stages is what cost me the rank a lot of the time but on my shadow run for this video i actually s-ranked the entire playthrough except for this embarrassing death at the end of dusty desert sa2 did not rate the players on boss battles but that started in sonic heroes as the great was based purely on time 06 has boss ranks that are much more difficult i had to do so many of these boss fights more than once because of the fact that with encounters so short it becomes a massive juggling act of doing it quickly would get the time bonus but also needing rings for the ring bonus silver's egg genesis being my least favorite and sonic's egg cerberus with one head is the second worst as you need to destroy with these statues in the arena in order to get that time bonus o6 also came with a plethora of dlcs such as the boss attack mode that's reminiscent of the adventure games with even more content you also get these big enemy arenas to contend with and there's also the team amigo stages that i mentioned before i think having level design specifically made for tails blaze and omega was neat but no thanks my favorite of all the dlc are the very hard stage packs for every character think of it like the super hard and expert modes from the last two games but behind a paywall i think sonics are fairly simple just remixing the stage to include more difficult platforming elements also giving a cool bonus of being able to explore sonic's amazing dusty desert stage completely without elise which is my preferred way to get the most out of that stage in each of the very hard stages you need to get 100 000 points for the s rank instead of 50 000 points which is actually something i can't always do consistently i did it for every character in my ps3 save file last year but if you don't take advantage of every single opportunity to get points you can as quickly as possible no less then there will be no s rank for you it just feels like you earned it when you actually get the 100k overall i don't know why they made dlc for a game that was so poorly received but the dlc ironically shows they were actually pretty self-aware of this fact sonic's stages are the tamest of them all probably because people might actually buy them but for shadow and silver i feel like they really made these for the fans in the case of silver i think they remixed his stages to include a lot more taxing platforming and dealing with enemies on top of that white acropolis being an excellent example of the enemy as you need to maximize the enemy score or else your ass is not getting an s aquatic base being the best example of introducing more platforming and hover navigation into silver stages and you gotta love using silver's hover to get past the stupid metallic ball set piece damn things nearly impossible to control and explodes on impact leaving you for dead but anyway when doing silver's very hard dusty desert i was terrified what kind of dastardly scheme where the devs going to come up with to make the ball puzzle even more frustrating i thought when the door is open you see this giant [ __ ] laser grid telekinesis points and enemies guarding cages there is no ball puzzle here they just use silver's mechanics in different ways than the original stage i thought that was actually funny because they had to have known what paranoia that laser grid would have put in the players who are dedicated enough to s-rank the existing stages now as for shadows dlc levels these are by far my favorite i already said why i find shadow inherently fun to play as but for the dlc stages they pulled a really nice surprise with the exception of wave ocean where shadow must do the super speed section of sonic stage with the motorcycle and find a way to get 100 000 points doing it no less all of shadow's other very hard stages have an element that the other character's dlc levels didn't they are each a shared stage where you trade off members of team dark to reach the end of the stage in white acropolis you play a shadow first and then you play as rouge who has to find keys to get through the gates that omega can tear through the enemies that lead a path for shadow and the buggy to destroy the increased amount of searchlights it's no lie every single one is like that and it's super fun mainly because when i s ranked this game there were eight stages dedicated to team dark being a team in every stage characters doing things without sonic has become very scarce in the modern sonic series so because of that this whole setup was super refreshing it's put a smile on my face to play they must have known how much of a fan favorite this team was and i can't come up with another reason why they would design the levels like this the fun doesn't have to stop there for shadow's dlc stages this really was made for people who would buy shadow dlc and sonic 06 with a straight face there are a bunch of exploits you can use in shadow's main stages two of them being omega's ability to fly forever and the other being shadows chaos smash ability which can glitch through barriers like cages and electric grids here in dusty desert and omega's skip of the stage i mentioned before is blocked by a laser grid but here in kingdom valley radical train and dusty desert shadow fights endless enemies that keep respawning to build up your gauge so that you can glitch through the laser grids it's required or when rouge has to glide past a big pit don't take this part lightly because this is probably where players are going to learn that knuckles and rouge can only climb on walls they are specifically programmed to do so on in the main game dusty desert not being on the list is definitely abysmal programming incarnate but hey put a smile on my face the culmination of all this is the last story this is the final last story segment in the series i mean this game being panned caused the entire adventure formula to be abandoned including the story structure so let's dive in and see what we're in for silver's methods had enough playing around and he blindsided sonic and elise after the events of the sonic campaign's ending murdering sonic by firing a laser through his chest that's it it just kills sonic this being the event that drives elise over the edge as mephilis intended from the beginning releasing iblis they can finally join together as solaris i find it kind of interesting that silver's mephulus is lying to silver when he says sonic's the impulse trigger and all that but it's not necessarily a lie he says that sonic's the iblis trigger him by killing sonic that released iblis so that part of it was true i think that's a good detail that nephilis as the manipulator is taking the truth and twisting it to make it a lie but speaking of mephalus i'm pretty sure he's one of the few sonic villains you can say actually won his goal was to just release iblis and become solaris and destroy time space he accomplished this goal sonic dying was meant to be a really impactful moment but as the culmination of this game instead became the perfect irony for the fate of the series again it seems to be a running theme today something's supposed to be grandiose but becomes a perfect metaphor for the game itself unfortunately the story then falls victim to the yada yada effect once more after that great scene mephiles then warps the chaos and was to himself to commence the joining process he spent the whole shadow campaign looking for emeralds and now he can just summon them maybe iblis being released gives him more powers inherently but the problem is that nobody explains any of this instead it just looks like the writer's just yada yada ing us to the next scene solaris is reborn he literally destroys the entire time space continuum in a few seconds another yada yada moment is that all the main characters minus blaze are here on this platform in a time space rift time is so unstable right now that it has created this pocket dimension time doesn't really exist anymore which is how silver can be here at the rest of the cast once more nobody explains why only the main characters are here anyone else would be pointless i know but again even an excuse as to why that conveniently happens would be nice i hate the yada yada effect because it distracts rightfully to an extent from moments that i think are really good moving on i've always enjoyed this part where the characters find out that mephilus killed sonic it's no joke he's dead sonic's theme his world has been used numerous times during the game to portray his faster than light action and attitude but now that he's dead his theme becomes this piano track [Music] [Applause] [Music] sonic dying has a negative effect in our practical sense because of the fact that he's always the one to pull through and save the day but he's [ __ ] dead the team optimus is not here to say we can do this we've no time to waste we've got to defeat it now no it is a transcendent life form that exists in the past present and future defeating it here now would do nothing and that is when we get silver my favorite moment for his character in this game confidently ready to fight anyway regardless of the hopeless odds no i won't give up there has to be a way if you say it exists in the past present and future i'll destroy them all at once certainly it might have been possible if he was still alive a video on silver's character i watched you should totally check out cited this scene as an example of how much of an optimist he really is i mean in summary silver's whole character routine is traveling back in time to try and alter the outcome of the future i don't know if you can make a character more of an optimist to a fault than that i mean even the ultimate life form thinks we're screwed but silver still doesn't want to give up elise then checks notes feels sonic's essence in the wind as though he's not dead yet ahem which gives silver the idea that we can use the chaos emeralds gemstones that turn thoughts into power to bring sonic back to life elise is the perfect one to try since he saw himself when he traveled back to the past that she has the power it takes to do this and now the character's ready to try and save the day solaris flung the chaos emeralds to the distant corners of this distorted world to collect them all in time we'll have to split up i'll go too because it's for sonic so elise watch over thus beginning the final stage end of the world tales amy knuckles shadow rouge omega and silver must travel through what remains of the world is being pulled apart by solaris to find the chaos and once before it's too late now i could focus on the fact that this level is shall i say difficult as knuckles silver and amy especially becomes really obnoxious to fight through an army of enemies and time portals that pulled you towards them and fling projectiles at you from a design standpoint it's pretty unfair the camera angles aren't good mixed with the game chugging in the frame rate department and playing as a lot of characters that just don't work right but you already know that i want to focus on what i've been saying here since the beginning when i was a kid this level was absolutely terrifying for a much different reason than the game design we're literally playing through the world in its final moments the more time passes in the stage the colors will become increasingly off more time portals will open time portals are the eyes of solaris colored red and purple the essences of iblis and mephilis the characters are fighting through this hellscape for a chance to save the world even if the odds could not be grimmer nor the challenge more demanding that's impact that is a feeling i shan't soon forget when thinking of this stage to temporarily stave off the effects of solaris you do have one thing at your disposal if you touch this rock you can slow the time space rift just slightly these eagle statues are here to help the eagle this is an aspect of o6 i've yet to address the eagle is everywhere in soliana you can find depictions of the eagle throughout dusty desert eagles take you from place to place throughout kingdom valley eagle machines give you paths forward that you do not have before the silver and gold coins have the emblem of the eagle on them solaris final form resembles the eagle silhouette scene throughout the game his head in his first form looks like one and now these eagle statues are your only savior in the midst of the end of the world developers don't do things like this for no reason i decided to look into what the eagle has meant symbolically and it's interesting note that across different cultures it has meant different things like most ancient things i suppose but i mean to say that i don't find it a coincidence that the shape of the eagle is the one destroying the world while also being the symbol of protection in numerous stages power divinity protection it's all there while solely on is kind of a weird place when you think about it the rituals the royal aesthetic entirely it just makes sense symbolically when you put it all together as cemented before the culture of soleanna is thought out appreciating that and the natural dread of these twisted areas is why i have nothing but positive memories of this level even if i have to play as someone as terrible as amy with that done it's time to bring sonic back to life as elise prays with the chaos emeralds another moment that was supposed to be impactful but became the most infamous scene in the history of sonic the hedgehog sonic back to me to us [Music] it is at this exact moment that you must be wondering how did we get here well folks let's go back to the beginning looking back it's really easy to wonder just how we went from sonic freeing animals from captivity and green hill zone to this game where the characters are literally running through the end of the world on top of a game with a heavy subject matter i've already gone into but this obviously did not happen overnight it took 15 years i've been stressing the whole sonic is distinctive theming since sonic 1 because of the fact that this sort of thing has been there since the beginning sonic 1 was not just a game where you bounced onto nothing enemies they put thought into the way the game would feel to play like how dr eggman was the boss of every stage this just creates an inherent want for the player to see what machine is going to try and come up with next and maybe you can finally take him out when you get past scrap brain zone act 2 you get plunged into another round of labyrinth zone directly by eggman and i think that's genius it makes the player more amped up for final zone with climactic music to go along with it that game set the standard for sonic since then they've been trying to top themselves with each game sonic 2 ends on a fight with the ultimate eggman mech with no rings in sight as sonic gets saved by tails from falling to his doom a heartwarming ending because of the fact that the game had been trying to build that connection with him in a way that mario and luigi hadn't done before sonic cd created metal sonic a heartless artificial reflection of sonic that you must face for the good of nature's preservation and amy and time itself sonic 3k gave us knuckles a character who goes through a transformation from enemy to ally in a 16-bit game with no dialogue that clearly conveys to the player that dr eggman's not messing around and that these chaos emeralds do have more history to them than just being game mechanics see what i mean sonic adventure tells the story of chaos now that relates to the echidnas essay 2 introduces shadow when the grand stakes ended the game it's this effort to keep trying to build upon the world of sonic and the threats he faces that brought us to this moment trying to create a memorable experience is by no means a problem having a human being kiss sonic the hedgehog as the face of that in a game that's not finished just becomes a joke rather than what it was meant to be besides that infamous kiss i still love this scene sonic is revived as super sonic and now his theme becomes this operatic track that seriously something was ripped out of a hollywood movie every character has a reaction to all that goes on here even if we only see them for a few seconds and they don't even have to say anything it's just such a well-made scene the smaller than usual amount of dialogue especially making an impact as besides thanks what else needs to be said it's time to save the day with super shadow making his final appearance in the games at the time of writing and super silver making his only one [Music] now we have reached the final boss fight and this is probably the best boss in the game honestly none of the issues we had before the camera not focusing on the boss properly are here nor do we have to worry about rings for a ring bonus the mechanics are also really easy to work with you control the super powered hedgehogs on 2d plane as they have their respective attacks sonic charging towards the monster shadow firing chaos spear and silver catching its projectiles and throwing it back at it when you're running low on rings you press the top most face button to go from sonic to shadow to silver back to sonic you need to charge up their attacks in order to do damage it's a pretty good setup the only issue i have is that you start by playing as sonic who does not do any damage switch to shadow who also does not do damage which to silver he says aligned and can finally do damage the trick is that you can first only attack as silver then shadow and finally sonic which makes it weird that they literally had you start with the characters literally in reverse order from what actually works not even explaining it the only real bit of bad design i can really point to in this fight but when that's done you have only beaten phase one is it over no it's not over yet i guess it's not gonna be that easy in phase one solaris had all the power accompanied by this desperate choral music [Music] now the tables have turned in favor of the heroes here we get the 3d sonic staple the supporting cast all rooting for the playable characters besides the lame final boss fight and generations this is the last time we see this and looking back is something i really miss the root of all our problems i will defeat you solaris let him have it silver protect everyone's future shadow i'm trusting you to do this time to unleash the ultimate power you can do it shadow don't let him beat you sonic sonic i believe in you alright it's my turn let's have some fun solaris as the thematic angle of sonic shadow and silver representing the present past and future is on full display here as only with the three of them combined battling solaris at every corner of the time space continuum could they win the day i will protect the future i'll release you from the chains of your past the present day the here and now that you've stolen time to take it back and of course there's the music previous 3d sonic final bosses have played the vocal theme or a vocal track but that would not have been good enough for this moment instead we have his world turn into the most epic and bombastic final boss theme in sonic history providing a great send-off for the journey [Applause] [Music] [Music] that was incredible [Music] beating the final boss is one thing but there are still eight minutes left of the story solaris is defeated however that's not the end sonic and elise go back to where it all began with a flashback to the events leading up to the solaris project with elise and her father the duke of soleanna back before the experiment solaris was merely a harmless flame the queen of soleanna had passed away by this point and the duke wanted to harness the powers of solaris that he could have the ability to stop her from dying for both him and elise an experiment that began with positive intentions but just went horribly wrong bringing us to sonic and elise face down with solaris in its flame form the music in both the flashback and this scene are great but that goes without saying people's hatred for elise is cemented with the dialogue here saving the day is as simple as blowing out the flames that none of this ever happens i to tell the truth [Music] i don't care what happens to the world i think this moment's pretty interesting elise is crying first and foremost something she's now allowed to do because the flames are gone this is elise's most passionate moment in the game which i have to assume is intentional she's been acting like a robot for the entire game she was forced to be a robot for her entire life because crying would have released ibolus yes putting out the flame means saving the world however sonic is the only person she's ever experienced happiness around since the death of her father he's somebody she doesn't have to deal with the immense pressure of ruling a country with i think this line makes perfect sense to me but sonic just calls back to what he said before i think elise's character is spared from the implications of that line because she knows sonic is right his whole lesson was that doing the right thing is important because it's the right thing we need to enjoy what moments of life we can while we have it instead of lusting to control we can't doing that what the duke did caused this whole thing in the first place if at least didn't blow out the flame for the sake of keeping her friendship with sonic she wouldn't be any different if at least at this point say took sonic hostage for her own selfish gain then she'd be a pretty bad character however she did the right thing because sonic reminded her of what matters the most even if it's the hardest choice thus bringing us to the final scene it's the same setup as what we started the game on the festival of the sun this time dr eggman does not show up nor is elise haunted by the threat of the flames because there are no flames of disaster because they went back in time put out the flame to stop solaris from becoming ibles and methodists during the events of the project the events of o6's story to the characters is some kind of distant memory it never happened it is canon meaning that the story progresses from sonic 1 all the way to sonic 06 but the flame gets put out which starts a new timeline where the events of osic don't happen because of it a fascinating ending complemented by the best cg cutscene in the game with top notch cinematography [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and that my friends was the end of sonic the hedgehog 2006 the credits being joined with the final vocal theme in the game my destiny the theme of princess elise this being my favorite one in the game as far as tracks really capture the essence of sonic are concerned and the series as a whole there are numerous better examples of that than this but my destiny is a beautiful song thanks to all the people who composed and performed the various elements of it but most importantly donna delore doing the vocals [Music] you gave me [Music] but as for sonico 6 as a whole is there anything else worth saying at this point besides i don't know the multiplayer mode i've talked about this entire game from top to bottom i've certainly hammered in the big talking points throughout in 2020 i'm very able to tell you that sonico 6 is not a finished product it's buggy it's glitchy the loading screens are terrible it's broken has way more bad gameplay than good but i just don't see the point of bashing it anymore sonico 6 failed clearly but i just feel bad because i don't think this game is funny to laugh at i think this game's a tragedy this game had a passionate vision to be the greatest sonic game of all time i think that potential is all there there exist bad games that are just struggling to simply exist with whatever conditions the developers were met with sonico 6 is not one of those games i've been talking about this game extensively today and how its flaws could simply be improved to become what it was meant to be maybe the game wouldn't have been a 10 out of 10 for everybody if it was finished but it certainly would have been for me given how much value i find this game as a package already i think it's important to look at sonic 06 in a more positive light nowadays because of the fact that the series had since stripped away everything sonico 6 stood for and it's hardly better for it because most of these games are garbage that still got panned anyway despite doing none of what 06 did actually the series is currently missing everything sonico 6 had a passionate direction to take advantage of next-gen hardware to produce the best possible sonic game that sentence is everything i want from sonic summed up and it's a tragedy to see that because this game was rushed they could not finish it properly because of sega wanting it out for that 2006 release date we ended up one of the most hated video games in the history of mankind as opposed to the highs the developers were shooting for everyone knows sonic 06 was not a finished game for all the reasons i've mentioned but i think it's time to dig beneath the surface and be inspired by a game like o6 take the ambition of o6 and make a finished game one that makes you stop and go wow that was really good when the credits roll instead sonic 06 is the reason we have asinine rules holding the franchise back you can't tell a story because 06 had that you can't have a big cast of characters worth the damn because 06 had that or being inspired in general because of sonic [ __ ] 06 it's so old and tired this game is 15 years old now it is well beyond time to let this game just rest in peace already and move on honestly this is the saddest part when i think of what i want in a sonic game i don't say mech shooting treasure hunting or even adventure styled gameplay i just want an exciting next generation experience that leaves an impact after you shut off the console a game you actually want to play again sonic games get promoted still we might get a cartoon show the new game might get trailers brand promotions all that but they really went all out with sonic o6 when looking at the sonic wiki for information on sonic 06 i find it so interesting to see that what i've come to call the dark age of sonic almost didn't happen shadow the hedgehog might have sucked but it was all riding on this game to be good to avoid the current timeline of sonic we have now this game was seriously hyped up bus decals store displays cards magnets ties mugs magazine ads magazine front covers i have no doubt that if sonico 6 was finished sonic would have gone a completely different trajectory than the one it did after o6 launched the first half of sonic's lifespan was spent building towards a game as large as this one it's been 15 years since i don't really know what style of video this retrospective is going to be for the coming games because of the fact that these six videos as well as their accompanying episodes were trying to tell one story that sonic the hedgehog for better or for worse is was distinctive believe me we're not done yet there are 15 more years worth of sonic games left me to look at but the difference is that all that content the second half of sonic's life was made with sonic 06 in mind games that all to varying degrees ran in fear of this game but in the meantime now the video is over well i hope it's my last time making a video game review that is this long but more importantly i hope it's clear as to why someone who grew up playing sonic 06 and enjoying it immensely can look back on it accepting its flaws but also enjoying it and thinking the series has far more to gain than lose from taking inspiration from sonic the hedgehog 2006 you

Channel: J's Reviews

Views: 578,236

Keywords: sonic 06, sonic, sonic 06 review, sonic the hedgehog, positives, sonic the hedgehog (video game series), sonic 2006, positive review of sonic 06, a positive review of sonic 06, sonic the hedgehog 2006, sonic '06, sonic team, sonic the hedgehog 06, sonic the hedgehog (video game), sonic 06 rant, sonic 06 sucks, sonic 06 rocks, sonic 06 multiplayer, sonic 06 bad game, positive review of sonic the hedgehog 2006, sonic 06 gameplay

Id: vT5v4AoeobA

Length: 120min 4sec (7204 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/n8han11]

Have standards for this series seriously fallen so low people are trying to unironically say 06, one of the glitchiest, buggiest, poorly-written and designed games in the entire franchise, one that permanently damaged its reputation for years to come (and is still doing so to this day) is actually a good game?

[u/LeFakerFlash]

Absolutely my thoughts after listening to the video.

[u/The_WereArcticFox]

Yes.

06 is the Phantom Menace of the Sonic series