Sonic 06 is well-known for being the worst Sonic game in existence. A month ago, I decided to play this game just to see how bad it really is. I just beat the game a few days ago and holy SHIT were they right about Sonic 06. I'm now going to briefly summarize everything wrong with this game.
Negatives
1) Gameplay - The gameplay in this game is really boring and slow-paced. All of the characters move as fast as snails (except for E123 Omega for some reason), About 95% of the time in levels you are just spamming the Attack button to defeat enemies and unlock new areas with the other 5% doing mindless bullshit like those crappy Mach Speed sections in Sonic's story or trying to solve some puzzle. What makes things worse is the unresponsive and otherwise slippery controls as well as the weird hitboxes on certain characters when it comes to attacking or getting hit by enemies. Plus, the shitty physics engine they were using makes certain parts like Silver's gameplay more annoying. Overall, this has repetitive gameplay and some poorly programmed sections of the game. Speaking of poorly made sections of the game...
2) Silver Boss Fight - Now you are probably wondering why I chose Silver out of all of the boss fights in Sonic 06. That's because his fights are one of the most dumbest and infuriating part of the game. Why? Because if Silver were to get you with his Telekinesis, he'll hurl you across the stage and he'll keep doing that until you somehow escape or you die! This has happened to me a good number of times and I was raging when it did. This is the most poorly programmed boss fight in the whole game. It's so bad that it deserves to be a flaw.
3) Side Missions - In certain parts of the game, the game forces you to do tedious side missions that have absolutely zero effect on the plot other than to reach the next level. Things like escorting some dumbass to the goal, sneaking into a train station with some of the most garbage AI ever and trying to find the Captain who is CLEARLY standing right in front of you are just some of these bullshit missions. All these missions do is artificially lengthen the game for no reason at all. They just serve as pointless filler to pass time.
4) The Plot - Sonic 06 has the most confusing and laughable storyline in the whole Sonic series. Sonic and friends have to save Soleanna from Solaris and some stupid Princess who goes by the name of Elise. Anyways, long story short, there are a shit ton of plot holes, Elise getting kidnapped more times than Princess Peach does in the Mario series, scenes that try too hard to take itself seriously, crappy action sequences and many more! SPOILER WARNING: The one thing that mostly aggravated me was the ending. Turns out after Elise blew the candle, all of the events in the game were reverted, meaning that NOTHING happened!So exactly WHY did I have to go through all that shit just to find out that the whole story isn't even canon?! What a huge waste of time that journey was! The events in Shadow the Hedgehog are more canon than this game and Shadow the Hedgehog is a goddamn spin-off game!
Sonic 06's plot makes this game look more like a bad Saturday Morning cartoon. At least the antagonist Mephiles makes for a great villain... Speaking of the Mario series, doesn't this cutscene remind you of something seen before..? Sonic 06 Cutscene: After Wave Ocean (Sonic's Story)
5) Graphics - For a game which had the nickname of 'Sonic Next-Gen', it sure doesn't live up to that name. Visually, the game looks like a PS2 tech demo. Even the likes of Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic R look better than this mess. I don't have much else to say on the matter. The game just looks ugly. The CGI cutscenes look cool tho.
6) Slowdown - Sonic 06 suffers from a crap ton of slowdown, especially when there's a lot going on in a certain area. This just makes the game even more slow-paced than it was in the first place. These issues were not rectified in this version, which isn't surprising considering how lazy Sega can be when it comes to re-releasing their games on different consoles.
7) Level Design - Sonic 06 suffers from the most bland level design ever seen in a Sonic game. Most of the level design doesn't change between stories and for what it i, it's looks pretty garbage. Like, I've seen better level design in games like Sonic Lost World 3DS and Sonic Heroes compared to this shit. Especially when you play as Silver on the End of the World level and you have to dodge those black holes as that slow ass character. And one other thing I noticed while playing this game: Why the hell are the levels so goddamn long?! Playing through the game, it literally took me 10-20 mins to beat most of the levels. The levels drag on forever like a never-ending road. I'm not sure why Sega would think that this was a good idea. Then again, it might have to do with the fact that I have to defeat X amount of enemies every 10 seconds or deal with stupid sections of the game.
8) Bestiality - Ohhhh now THIS has to be my biggest gripe with the game. So throughout the game, its hinted that Sonic and Elise both share a certain romance for each other (puke). So after Sonic dies in the Last Story, The rest find the Chaos Emeralds and to bring him to life, Elise does the unspeakable... she kisses Sonic. She KISSES Sonic. Now think about this here. Why in the living **** would Elise, a human being, kiss a dead hedgehog?! Huh?! Who in their right mind thought that bestiality and necrophilia should be acceptable in a Sonic game?? And there is a quote from Lacey Chabert, the VA for Elise trying to justify this, saying that;
Chabert: "Ha! No, you're just being silly. It's not an inappropriate relationship. Let's just say Sonic and Princess Elise have an attraction for each other."
No. I'm sorry. You CANNOT justify this cringe-worthy cutscene! Sonic and Elise's relationship is like a bad fanfiction, which only goes further south with that one cutscene. This should have never have been a thing in the first place. That's like if Princess Peach decided to make love with Bowser in front of the rest of the Mushroom Kingdom and expect them to be okay with it!
Apart from the music, Sonic 06 is by far the worst entry in the Sonic series. Glitches, bad gameplay, shitty story as well as other things show that the game was clearly not even 50% finished before releasing this. It's a shame that this pile of trash is what Sega came up with for Sonic's 15th birthday. The developers should have just taken the time to complete the game and release it later, rather than push it out for Christmas sales. I'm gonna take a long break from Sonic games after playing that game. This game was one hellish experience that I never wanna play again.
