by Plasma on Jan 24th, 2013

Recently me, Loggo and Camjo have had the oh-so amazing idea to play some Sonic games! I got this game for the PS3 for $5. I spent 3 days playing and completing it because I was very sick with the flu and I didn’t have much to do. Loggo played Sonic Adventure 2, Camjo played Sonic Rivals 2 and I played well…. this. Let’s begin!

Sonic ’06 has 3 campaigns which follow 3 different characters, Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic is the only playable character at first, have to unlock the other 2.), Shadow the Hedgehog and Silver the Hedgehog! Each character has their own gameplay styles. Sonic being the fastest and has the “mach speed” segments. Shadow focuses more on combat and….. driving vehicles. Not as fast as Sonic but still quite fast. Silver is much slower than almost everyone else but has psychic abilities and can hover for a short period of time. His gameplay focuses more on puzzles and a lot more platforming. The “Last” Campaign is unlocked after completing the other 3.

So let’s begin with Sonic’s campaign!:
The game begins with a opening intro that has some pretty amazing CGI. All of Sonic ’06’s CGI cutscenes look wonderful. Then the game switches to in-game engine graphics! Whoops! It looks…. okay, I guess. There’s a lot of random pop-in and most of it looks bland or the textures are very low res, even for 2006. So after the cutscenes are over, you can move around in the hub world. This is where the first problem begins.

The frame rate. Oh. My. God. This game struggles to stay above 10 frames it feels like. Running around town even causes the frame rate to drop massively. It is a huge problem in this game and you better get use to it because it happens all the time. There are town citizens you can talk to in the game. Some have helpful hints (sometimes), some have mini games and some just say things. They are labeled with Orange, Blue and Yellow explication points above their heads.
Sometimes you have to do the mini games to progress in the game, so… I talk to a citizen (i’d like to note that Sonic is freaking out as I am talking to this man.) and this is where the 2nd problem begins. The load times! They are long and poorly programmed. It goes like this, you talk to someone and you say yes, then it loads…. the man says(in text) a line of dialog…. then it loads again and now you play the mini game!  This also happens a lot and it gets annoying.
The first main stage is soon after and the stages usually split up into 2 acts. Now in each campaign there are 2 “Amigo” characters you switch off to every now and then during the main stages for a short period. Sonic’s being Tails and Knuckles, Shadow’s being Rouge and Omega and Sliver’s being Blaze and Amy. Many problems in this game appear in just the first level! The controls! Sonic is very fast and is very very very hard to control. The slightest movement causes him to run all over the place and a lot of times during the scripted runs on loops and things I’ll just… fall off and die! Or better yet! Fall through the loop I’m running up and fall into the water/pit/lava/etc. Towards the end of the level you are forced to play as Tails(yes the reasoning to play as him is just as stupid.) who’s just as sluggish and annoying to control as Sonic! The Amigo characters add nothing to the game and they are just there for the sake of being there.

Act 2 in the first stage is a mach speed part! This is another problem! It’s awful! Sonic runs super fast and it’s almost impossible to control him properly because he’s too fast and touch anything will hurt you and I mean anything. Also the frame rate is really bad sometimes but i’d consider that a gift because I’m able to see what’s happening!!! That’s pretty much all you do in Sonic’s campaign. Run a lot and die to a stupid glitch or something.
Sonic also has some different colored gems you can buy at the store that can give him abilities such as speed boost, slow down time, teleport(doesn’t really work) and some weird tornado thing that didn’t seem useful at all. Most of them suck and are worthless and some I just don’t understand. His combat is just mash homing attack until enemies are dead because Sonic Team had the genius idea of giving some enemies life bars!!

Shadow’s campaign!:
This is somehow worse than Sonic’s. I don’t think I’ve been this angry and frustrated at a game. Shadow focuses more on combat and it makes fighting enemies a lot less repetitive than Sonic’s combat. Shadow has a homing attack like Sonic but mashing the X button causes him to get extra attacks in. He also has some energy ball thing he can shoot that stuns enemies. Shadow is also easier to control but still can be pretty hard to manage sometimes at top speeds.

So with a better combat system it and a not so annoyingly fast character means it should be better right? Well! You get to the end of the first stage and you’re forced to drive a buggy. It’s bad, I mean really really bad. Touching anything at any speed damages your life bar. Also going on boost pads that launch you to different parts of the level that are required to do so damages you on impact. The controls are awful as well and you’ll be spending a lot of time backing up out of a random wall you hit. Shadow’s campaign in a nutshell: Decent combat but awful vehicle controls really ruin it. The Amigo characters play the same as others pretty much and offer nothing.

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