[Spoilers] It being the ass of a disastrous game it is, Sonic the Hedgehog probably came out of Pandora's box.
Like other 3D Sonic games before it, "Sonic the Hedgehog" has multiple characters to play through and then a final story at the end of the game. All of these are equally terrible if not worse than one another. In fact, I've read some Sonic fanfction that is a lot better than this.
Sonic's story revolves of saving the princess of the fictional town of Soleanna multiple different times (losing, saving, losing, saving, I could go on forever.) The implied relationship between the two around the story is awkward and questionably disturbing depending on how much of a fan of the series you are. As a big one, I'm pretty sure that I found it really awkward on my first playthrough (hell, it still is.) Sonic Team cranks it up to eleven for the worse though, when Princess Elise kisses Sonic back to life when killed by Mephilies in the last story.
Shadow's plot surrounds the pursuit of some silly looking Shadow re-color named Mephilies who apparently comes from the past and has intents of joining a demon that would then cause chaos onto the world. Shadow probably has the rather more interesting plot as it really actually does make some sort of sense, and is not nearly as awkward.
Newcomer Silver the Hedgehog's story involves the hunt for the "Iblis Trigger", who he is hunting due to being manipulated to think he needs to kill Sonic to save the future. Sounds interesting, but a plot hole comes in when Blaze is introduced. For those who have played Sonic Rush, Blaze had been introduced as a character that ended up in Sonic's world somehow and returned within the first game. In this game though, she's from the future. It just confuses me to death on how Sonic Team can't make up their mind with characters.
"Sonic the Hedgehog" has been known around the gaming scene for its infamous gameplay. There are so many problems that picking out all of them from camera problems to very obvious glitches would make me actually feel I'm giving the game recognition.
The game's camera is just so much of a laughable attempt, that I have only seen a few other games have less stable camera systems than it. It feels like the only job it has is just to make your time with the game a living hell. The camera likes to get in the way whenever it wants, especially in tight situations, causing you to die because you can't see what may kill you, have you not forced the damn thing to go towards your favor.
Sonic runs so insanely slow in comparison to old games, that the levels have boost pads seemingly all over the place in order to prevent you from feeling the heavy lack of speed (or at least the sense of.) Sonic also controls like you're on an ice rink with zero experience; one simple movement on the controller will cause Sonic to go flying into whatever direction you intend on going towards originally, even if it was a subtle movement. In fact the best times of Sonic's story is when you can just let him control himself; let him come to a full stop though, otherwise you're very likely going to die. This also applies to when you hit boost pads. Possibly the most infamous of all of the stages though are the Mach Speed sections, where Sonic runs automatically and it's even harder to control because he doesn't move left or right fast enough at times. It can also be that one screw up will probably cause you to die and have to start over a fifteen minute stage if you're caused to get a game over out of complete and utter frustration. There are also two awkward levels where you need to carry Princess Elise throughout the entire level, and you get the power to walk on water… and sand… because I guess hedgehogs sink in sand or something. To be fair though, the brief powers you get also allow you to become partially invincible, so that's kind of cool. Sonic can also buy different gems that will give him a diverse power each, but good luck dealing with your patience grinding enough rings to buy all of them; you're going to be there for a while.
Shadow stays somewhat true to his play style in Shadow the Hedgehog released the year before… which is a far from even decent thing when you bring in mind that this is using the Sonic 06 engine. Not only does Shadow run slower than Sonic, he has a tedious and a more shallow than a kiddie pool of a combo system. Not only that, but vehicles are used for Shadow again. While these are rather more imaginative than the 'variety' Shadow the Hedgehog had, they hardly even control well and you're just better off ditching them when the opportunity is visible. They just hardly cooperate with you and rather get you killed faster than otherwise.
One would expect that with Silver being the new character, it would deliver a new change of pace. While it does, it's none to be excited about. Silver is the slowest of the bunch and is probably one of the least interesting in the end. While his psychokinetic powers are interesting, the execution is just so weak. You can use the meter to help you hover, but it is rather brief and is either overused or underused. You can also pick up objects along with enemies in some cases and throw them at other enemies. This is a cool idea, but once again, it's so badly executed that Silver just throws them wherever he feels like it. I guess that is quite some next-generation AI the game has.
Throughout the game you may complete missions for the citizens of the world for rings, and a lot of these are just really terrible. There is one where you need to talk to the guard to find out which one will let you into another part of town, and that guard is, you probably guessed it; the one who gave you the challenge! Some other ones like chasing kids around the town are also some dumb ones, but I really can't list them all because it'd then be a walkthrough.
I hope you like loading screens, because this game has a lot of them that are molasses slow. Accumulated, the loading screens will occupy at least ten percent of your time with "Sonic the Hedgehog". The worst offenders with these are the missions: accept mission, loading screen, hear the objective, loading screen, do mission, loading screen, get congratulated, loading screen. Your mileage may vary here if you install the game onto your hard drive, but it does not help too much and you're better not wasting your time doing so.
The graphics in the end are not too good, even for a Playstation 3 launch title, and an early era Xbox 360 game. To be fair, the pre-rendered CGI cutscenes that Sonic Team likes to use look great, but the technical portion of the game tries so hard to be good that it comes out bad. Characters love to glitch, twitch and get into odd situations of their own. The textures are not that good and look a bit blurry at times, and the frame rate has a good chance at being your personal enemy as it occasionally struggles to keep up just after hitting an enemy. Most of the game is colorful except for the stages of the game that take place in the future. The game looks like it's actually trying to make fun of the next-gen game gimmick of having bland environments and little contrast by also being it. The cut scene animations also occasionally have the habit of being either odd or out of place, but your opinion will vastly vary here.
The game's music is something that really can't be dismissed for being bad, since it's actually not half bad. Some of the music is actually somewhat memorable, while also having a few that don't belong here and there. My personal favorite stage music is probably the one used for the final boss.
Voice acting though is where the game likes to get hectic with its sound quality. It honestly sounds like as if the work was done way before Shadow the Hedgehog's voice work since Sonic sounds like he's always talking in an up-and-down tone, and Tails probably sounds most like a girl here. Some voices like Shadow, Blaze and Eggman though are ones I find tough to complain about, while Rouge's doesn't seem it would fit literally under any circumstance. While the cast that starred in this game would come to improve in later installments, "Sonic the Hedgehog" is probably the bottom of the barrel. The odd and horrible lines of Sonic in this game help neither.
It's tough for me to want to play this game even before finishing a single story of the character. Even though you may spend around fifteen to twenty hours trying to complete it, you probably will spend a lot of those due to getting lost or dying a lot. If you really want to S-Rank every stage, good luck trying to S Silver's stages, you'll be there for a while. "Sonic the Hedgehog" also has a multiplayer mode, but it's so weak you might as well pop in Sonic Adventure 2 instead.
In conclusion, "Sonic the Hedgehog" is probably worst in the series as far as the 3D games go. To be fair though, Sonic Team was rushed badly by SEGA to get it done by the holidays, and it truly shows here. Even with playing it with an open mind, you probably will not find too much enjoyment in this game at all. I'm sorry but probably only the biggest of the modern Sonic fanatics will even find a little enjoyment for what the game really is; an unfinished and busted disaster.
Plot – 3/10
Gameplay – 3/10
Graphics – 4/10
Sound – 4/10
Replay Value – 4/10
Overall – 3.6/10 (3.5 rounded)