Sonic is sort of becoming the Lil Wayne of Gaming: had a run of very good games in the beginning, then found its rhythm and made absolutely fantastic material later on, had its success go its and hit a low point, temporarily bounced back to give fans a glimmer of hope of returning to the glory (Sonic Colors, Generations), only for another disaster to come through and damage the name even further. And through the good times and bad, Sonic and Weezy have had a very devout fanbase sticking with them even in their most embarrassing moments for better or worse. While their maybe some hope left in Tunechi's career, Sonic The Hedgehog has been disappointing its fans for well over a decade and is only serving up another reminder as to why it may be time to leave him in the dust.
Released as a tie-in to the television series of the same name, Sonic, Knuckles, Amy and Tails go on a time traveling quest to stop a villain named Lyric the Last Ancient from creating a twisted metal universe. The supporting characters are as annoying as they've ever been here, echoing back to one of the biggest gripes about the series' past the whole way through. You will pray a meteor falls on the cast by the time you've heard the second of 30,000 one liners they'll shrilly spout out if the framerate decides to holds up for more than 3 seconds. The game is poorly built and optimized, having the framerate slow to a crawl during any sort of combat in the game and then to a stubbed limp during any of the fast paced running sequences, for as few of them are in the game. Although there have been platforming games in the series before, this is the absolute slowest game to bear the Sonic name in history. The controls are awful and actual platforming is rudimentary in design and downright inept the further the framerate drops. The platforming is as basic as it is just slow and uninteresting. The combat is painfully dull for each of the characters and the solo sections for certain characters rips away further at the enjoyment. Two player coop only makes the game worse, making the games graphics look even uglier and slowing the framerate to the single digits.
However, the game falls apart entirely due to its glitches, some of which completely break the game. The (now patched) Knuckles infinite jump glitch made it possible complete the game in less than an hour, as well as unfinished levels with designs that will make you fall straight through the terrain you're running on with no way to bypass it. Since the game gives you no indication of where you're meant to go, you'll go to areas clearly not meant to be accessed yet and it will ruin any progress you attempt to go through later. It just screams rush job and you will quickly not even bother to finish playing this mess within an hour of gameplay. There's more enjoyment to be found out of rubbing a hemorrhoid on the roof of your mouth with broken glass and baths salts than to be spend playing this game anywhere longer than 5 minutes. At least that level of pain would be remotely stimulating.