Sonic '06 Done Right.

[Linneus]

Spend more than 5 seconds thinking about the game and you'll realize that this is CLEARLY an attempt to go back to the Sonic Adventure formula. But you know what? I want to take some time and say NICE things about that game. (If you've played it recently, chances are this next set of things to say won't faze you since you'll remember how terrible it is. To anyone who has either not played it in a while, or has never played it but HAS seen it, from walkthroughs or LPs, then I want you to think back and imagine that this is a Sonic Adventure game: Fun, not broken.)

First, this is clearly a Sonic Adventure 3 in concept, moreso than Heroes will ever be or ever was. (Well, ok, the way Generations groups them makes it feel like SA3 in retrospect, but that's beside the point.) You've got three character stories, each with 3 playable characters. It's basically got the SA2 idea, but with an extra story. And I thought the SA2 idea was brilliant! Sonic Adventure could almost get a little repetitive (especially because EVERY CHARACTER had to repeat certain things they were there for, like doing Sky Chase 4 damn times or fighting Chaos 4 three times). Fortunately, Sonic Adventure doesn't try to push every character so much you get sick of them. (Seriously, Amy and Big don't even have 5 levels!) So using the 3 character roulette was a good idea. But Sonic '06 did them one better... Instead of just having each stage be for a particular character, you got to play as different characters WITHIN each stage. That's ingenious! You get the focus on the main character, but you still get to play as other characters. It breaks up the monotony without you ever having to heavily deviate over the course of one of the hedgehog's stories. I loved that idea.

This game also breaks the SA2 and Heroes ideas of copypasta characters. It's a little disappointing that unless you're a huge fan of one of the 6 characters in SA2 (Usually a Dark character), those 6 characters really just felt like 3. Sonic '06 not only has 9 playable characters, but literally every single one of them is unique. Even the most similar characters (Sonic/Shadow and Knuckles/Rouge, needless to say) have their differences. It's literally the only game in the series to have more than three basic 'archetypes' for characters, yet still retain the same basic speedy gameplay idea of "Get to the end of the level," and even THEN, as if that weren't enough, they still mix it up. (A point where Rouge has to find keys, for example.) Some characters are slower than the others, yes, but you're not going Werehog-slow, for example. (I'm sorry, Unleashed. I love you and I said I'd never make a "Werehog" reference like that, but I needed to get a point across.) Even Silver, probably the third slowest (behind Tails and Omega-- YES, TAILS IS SLOW. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THE FIRST CHARACTER IN THE SERIES TO KEEP UP WITH SONIC IS NOW THE SLOWEST, BUT I SAID I WOULD SAY NICE THINGS ABOUT THE GAME), has interesting gimmicks and platforming. He's still relatively fast, just slow enough to accomodate his gameplay.

The best thing about this character roulette is that you can even play as the OTHER hedgehogs! Well, Silver's the only one that crosses over with them. (You never play as Sonic in Shadow's story and vice-versa.) But it feels so awesome when you switch over to a character that you've gotten to be a pro at in another story. If you're really good at playing as Silver, when you run into him in Shadow's Aquatic Base, you almost feel like you're showing for Shadow! And... Ah, man, I just love that feeling.

The game has a very cool idea of having 9 stages set in stone. Wave Ocean, Dusty Desert, Flame Core, Crisis City, Kingdom Valley, Aquatic Base, Dusty Desert, Radical Train, and White Acropolis. Heroes notwithstanding, Sonic Adventure 2 also has this thing where you play the same levels in each story, although they try to hide it by giving the stages different names (Radical Highway and Mission Street are the same goddamn level, come on), but '06 is very up front with it. BUT, the ingenious thing is that each character tackles the levels in a completely different order. Coupled with the different gameplay styles, this gives every level a completely unique feel every time you play them in each story. Dusty Desert is the second level Sonic plays, but it's the last level for Shadow! They're the same level AREA, but the actual feel of the levels is completely unique, and it really puts it in perspective for each character. Sonic Adventure kind of does this, too, but some stories are too short to take advantage of it. (Gamma's first level is /Final/ Egg, for example.) It gives the varied feeling to a set of identical levels save for level design and makes them feel completely unique, the kind of thing Heroes DREAMS it could do.

The last thing I'll say before getting to the damn point is does not suffer the problem of repetitiveness, at least in my eyes. Not in the same way as Adventure or CERTAINLY not Heroes. The game suffered from poor pacing that made it hard to feel when you were really moving along, but honestly, in the big picture, you were ALWAYS doing something different. It's really the only game in the series that does this, to be honest, with the closest being Sonic Adventure 2 behind it. The stages were always different, the level gimmicks and design were different, and the characters were all different. You never did the same thing twice, and if the game wasn't so glitchy or terribly paced, you'd actually understand what that means in relation to all other Sonic games.

So my point, and this whole topic, is this: Would you want to see a Sonic '06 remake? Think about any of the complaints people had with this game's successor, Unleashed. They're pretty much ENTIRELY different. With Sonic Team's current skill, it's easy to see that no matter what ideas they have, be they good or bad in your eyes, Sonic Team has shown us that they know how to put a game together. And if this game could be put together properly, I'd love it. My opinion is not this game is bad or poorly made-- but that it isn't FINISHED. FINISH THIS DAMN GAME SONIC TEAM. MAKE IT THE SONIC ADVENTURE 3 IT SO DESPERATELY ASPIRES TO BE. (Heh, that rhymed.)

Would you want this game finished? And what complaints would you have outside of the regular "fixing the game"?

Lastly: Don't mention glitches unless you have a relevant point to make regarding it. Saying Sonic '06 is glitchy is like saying it gets dark at night.

[Dejablue]

If they did a remake. besides the obvious fixes that would need to happen with the gameplay. The story needs a nice little overhaul as well. As far as I'm concerned, pretty much a bottom up make over.

They'd need to give extra amounts of love and attention.

Well ok so I know video games have super fast deadlines most of the time.

Also pffft @ your sig. The Tornado is carrying a car.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Dejablue

[Eternal EX]

Sorry to sound rude but I've seen more of these topic than there are members here. It's been done before and failed every time.

Topic wise, this game would have had to go through a MAJOR redo just to make it passable in gamers eyes. Mechanics, story, hell even the music would need some help. In short, it needed to be scrapped and built all over again. There was really no hope for this game in September 06 when they gave us the demo. And no hope when they released it even with the patches they released for it.

[Dejablue]

I honestly never participated in any of those "Fix 06" topics. Kind of wish I had.

[-Mark-]

Sorry to sound rude but I've seen more of these topic than there are members here. It's been done before and failed every time.

Topic wise, this game would have had to go through a MAJOR redo just to make it passable in gamers eyes. Mechanics, story, hell even the music would need some help. In short, it needed to be scrapped and built all over again. There was really no hope for this game in September 06 when they gave us the demo. And no hope when they released it even with the patches they released for it.

Even the music? What soundtrack were you listening to? I thought most people generally accepted that the soundtrack was the only part of Sonic 06 that was actually decent.

I mean, each to his own and all, but I think that's the first time I ever heard someone put down what was generally seen as the game's one redeeming factor.

[Scarecrow]

They just need to make the game not broken. level design, story, music, everything else is brilliant. there's so much good in this game, but it is all udnercut by the basic gameplay being broken. Fix that and you have an epic, and brilliant Sonic adventure.

[Dejablue]

I'm sure you guys have torn into the gameplay many times over. To the point where its just raw with no feeling.

But what about the game's story? We've been on about stories in Sonic games recently.

[-Mark-]

I liked what Sonic 06 was going for plot-wise, but it just came off as a mess.

Elise as a character was a nice concept, but she was written so poorly that it just didn't work. Sonic spends the best part of 2-3 days rescuing her from Eggman (repeatedly- that gets old fast to the point where it feels almost like a running gag), spends more time in Eggman's clutches than she does with Sonic, yet somehow manages to fall head-over-heels in love with him.

Mephiles spends the whole game manipulating Silver to kill Sonic, then cheaply asspulls out of nowhere and kills him at the last minute. Why didn't he do that to begin with?

I'll admit, I do miss the more serious stories in Sonic games. It does kind of make me wish they'd pulled off the one in 06 a little better. Yes, I know time travel stories ALWAYS screw everything up and will inevitably have some plothole or problems, but 06's plot had issues that didn't even stem from the time travel element.

Like I said, I think the 06 plot was a nice concept that was just poorly handled. The concept of Solaris existing in the past, present and future all at once sounded deliciously epic... then I actually fought the boss.

Oh dear.

[RDNexus]

If the game nowadays used the Generations Hedgehog Engine with a more polished, revised storyline and with the side-missions set as SIDE then I'm sure with at least all that the game could have awesome hopes, since it was truly epic but unfortunately INCOMPLETE!

Also, bring realistic Eggman again and revamp him to a more Generations-style appearance, to make him less "scary" to many people around here xD

I even devised this idea for the levels:

|SONIC|

Wave Ocean

EGG-CERBERUS

Dusty Desert

SILVER

White Acropolis

Crisis City

EGG-GENESIS

Kingdom Valley

Aquatic Base

EGG-WYVERN

|SHADOW|

White Acropolis

Flame Core

IBLIS PHASE2

Tropical Jungle (Rouge)

MEPHILES PHASE1

Radical Train

SILVER

Aquatic Base

Dusty Desert

MEPHILES PHASE2

|SILVER|

Crisis City

IBLIS PHASE1

Tropical Jungle

Wave Ocean (Blaze)

SONIC

Radical Train

SHADOW

Kingdom Valley

Flame Core

IBLIS PHASE3

|LAST|

End of the World

SOLARIS

Yeah, not all levels are available to the 3 hedgehogs during Story Mode but they could become unlockables after finishing each one's story xD

Edited November 30, 2011 by XRick

[Skyward Sword]

Fixing 06 is the equivalent of dividing by zero.

[RDNexus]

Fixing 06 is the equivalent of dividing by zero.

Could you care to explain with more detail, please?

[HeroMystic]

I'm sure you guys have torn into the gameplay many times over. To the point where its just raw with no feeling.

But what about the game's story? We've been on about stories in Sonic games recently.

-Mark- gives a decent rundown on what went wrong with the story, but the real culprit of the plot was it's tone. The game took itself too seriously as if Sonic Team was screaming "WE'RE GIVING A SERIOUS PLOT GUYS!" They even redesigned Eggman to look more serious (I gotta admit though I wanna see that design again).

Sonic's plot significance was actually very little. Considering how many times he saved Elise, he could have easily just sat around to get his ass handed to him by Silver, then killed by Mephiles, which was actually his major plot point so Elise could cry. The problem with this is despite there being three main characters, Sonic is simply there because of Eggman and nothing more (hell, Eggman didn't really do anything either). The significance of the plot actually goes to Shadow first, then Silver second. Sonic's "meat" of the plot is actually forming a bond with Elise, but it really felt so unnatural and forced that it kinda made you uncomfortable at times. The final scene in Sonic's story is the only time when I really felt a genuine connection between them... until Sonic said "Nice smile!" Then we're back to uncomfortable. This in turn made Sonic's death feel very forced. It doesn't help how cheap the death was either, as if Sonic Team couldn't think of an elaborate plot to kill Sonic and instead just said "fuck it lets shoot him". So what I assume was supposed to have a similar emotional feel to Shadow's death in SA2, instead only came off as either disgusting or outrageously funny, neither of which are even close to the emotion that Sonic Team was gunning for.

I have major problems with Silver, mostly due to the fact he was a completely pointless character. Silver was tricked by Mephiles to kill Sonic, except he never did that. Silver was also meant to beat Solaris, except Blaze did that. The only thing Silver did that he can call his own is representing the future in the final boss fight. I can't really count opening a portal to the past because Sonic and Shadow already showed they knew how to do that, and the plot only needed a minor tweak for those two to fix that. It could have also allowed Sonic to learn of Mephiles and deliver a stronger plot point to his eventual death. Silver is like Vaan from FF12. He's just there to appeal to fans and to fill up space.

I have no qualms about Shadow's story. Shadow as a whole I say was very well done, even in gameplay. Though, that's only in comparison to the other two. It also helped that Shadow easily fit the tone of the whole thing. In fact I'd say you could easily cut out Sonic and Silver as playable characters and rename this as "Shadow the Hedgehog 2" because of how well Shadow was done compared to the other two.

Would I like a remake? While it would be nice to see how well this game would fare if it was actually complete, I can still see this game being a total flop even then. The game would have to be rebuilt from the ground up to fix all of the problems it had, even with it's story. I rather just see Sonic Team just make a better Sonic Adventure game than to go back a few steps.

[Drunk Michael Myers]

"Let's make shit taste good"

It can't be done.

[Winston]

I'm honestly just happy calling Sonic 06 "The worst Sonic game of all time". A remake doesn't need to be done, unless SEGA wants to push people farther away from Sonic.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Christmas-Hedgehog

[RDNexus]

Yeah, but the thing here is if it were redone right it could become a great epic...

[Octarine]

I've occasionally given some thought to what I might do if I were adapting the stories of the games as a comic or television series and I didn't feel like skipping '06 outright. Its story is a mess, but with some effort and a little creativity there might be something to be salvaged from it... it's almost kind of a challenge. Even just spicing up the dialogue and mixing up the three stories properly would do it a world of good. It still probably wouldn't be particularly great, and it definitely wouldn't be the kind of story I'd ever want to write for Sonic myself (boo hiss time travel and recolours), but it could at least be brought up to a less embarrassing level.

As far as an actual remake of the game, though, I don't think it would ever be worth the trouble. The amount of effort that would be required to fix '06's problems could just as easily be put toward a brand-new game that wouldn't have to struggle with the stigma of being a remake of one of the most notoriously crappy games in history. Are the two or three good things about '06 really worth the trouble of trying to save?

...or basically what Dio said down below. '06 is built upon a rotten foundation of awful ideas; I think trying to find a way to turn those ideas into something passable is an interesting experiment, but it's certainly not going to produce any kind of masterpiece.

Edited November 30, 2011 by New Year's Oct

[turbojet]

I don't recall a Sonic game ever being made in 06.

There wasn't a Sonic game in 06 or 07.

Well there was Secret Rings...but that is it.

[Diogenes]

Yeah, but the thing here is if it were redone right it could become a great epic...

No. It wouldn't. It really, really wouldn't.

'06 is not good. It is not special. It is not some brilliant idea buried in the rubble. It is not some grand missed opportunity. It's a mediocre idea that thinks it's a brilliant one, and has somehow fooled other people into going along with it.

[RDNexus]

Maybe, but in terms of plot, at least I thought '06 had it great, none of the games after it have had such a kind of story.

Heck, even Unleashed to me is mediocre... In terms of plot.

And I REALLY want a new EPIC story to the series... SEGA!!!

Gameplay... Yes, you guys can throw as many comments you want because it really deserves such.

Edited November 30, 2011 by XRick

[VO.SUPER]

No. It wouldn't. It really, really wouldn't.

'06 is not good. It is not special. It is not some brilliant idea buried in the rubble. It is not some grand missed opportunity. It's a mediocre idea that thinks it's a brilliant one, and has somehow fooled other people into going along with it.

Couldn't the same be said about Sonic Adventure 2 if it was an awful game? I mean, this game is almost exactly the same in tone and atmosphere. Ooh, an evil doppleganger who impersonates Sonic wants to destroy the world, oh and Sonic's friends are coming along. Big, freaking, whoop. Not a very intense summary now is it?

I think you're letting your anger towards '06 get in the way of solid judgement. If a bad game is remaked into a good game, then it might as well be a brand new game, especially since such a game like '06 would probably have to be remade to the point where it has to be different. There's no point in letting any idea, especially one like '06 rot away when it had the opportunity to be good, because it did.

I saw the development, and the concept ideas and they seemed good enough.

[RDNexus]

Heck yeah! You've hit the right spots

Sonic Retro can give you a lot of intel about many nice things left behind due to time constraints that could have made the game awesome.

Like I said, if they were to use the actual engine with a more polished plot and gameplay it might become epic.

And they could also polish realistic Eggman's design, I'd so much love it for sure!

Edited November 30, 2011 by XRick

[Diogenes]

Couldn't the same be said about Sonic Adventure 2 if it was an awful game?

So what if it could? The SA2 we got isn't good enough to be worth dredging up the corpse of something that's '06-bad.

I think you're letting your anger towards '06 get in the way of solid judgement.

No. I've looked at this as objectively as possible, there is very little good here. Scavenge the few bits that aren't rotten for future games, if you want, but the game as a whole is unsalvageable.

If a bad game is remaked into a good game, then it might as well be a brand new game, especially since such a game like '06 would probably have to be remade to the point where it has to be different.

Then why bother with this? Why not just make a new game, instead of clinging to this crap and desperately hoping it'll somehow be "fixed"?

There's no point in letting any idea, especially one like '06 rot away when it had the opportunity to be good, because it did.

No, it really didn't. '06 is rotten to the very core. There are terrible ideas in just about every aspect of the game.

[VO.SUPER]

So what if it could? The SA2 we got isn't good enough to be worth dredging up the corpse of something that's '06-bad.

No. I've looked at this as objectively as possible, there is very little good here. Scavenge the few bits that aren't rotten for future games, if you want, but the game as a whole is unsalvageable.

Then why bother with this? Why not just make a new game, instead of clinging to this crap and desperately hoping it'll somehow be "fixed"?

No, it really didn't. '06 is rotten to the very core. There are terrible ideas in just about every aspect of the game.

But you have still yet to provide me a reason why not to make a remake to '06. There's absolutely nothing to be lost making a bad game good.

And I don't know where you are going with terrible ideas, because I see none in '06. All the ideas (aside from story) look basic Sonic, and very good. There's absolutely nothing wrong in concept that abandons the formula that was established in the Adventure titles we liked. Again, noty seeing the objectivity in your words.

[RDNexus]

On my point of view, Diogenes, you really seem to have a deadly hate of the game...

Edited November 30, 2011 by XRick

[Scar]

Or here's an idea. How about use deveopment time that could be used on remaking this crappy game and put it into making a brand new game. Or if you're really looking for a remake, choose to remake games that were already good, like SA1 or SA2 and make them better.

At least with those titles there is a least some nostalgic attachment.