The 15th Anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog 2006

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Honestly, no. It's places like this that try to paint it as purely negative, but no. Sonic has plenty a person, or event faction that doesn't regard him as negatively as the jaded folk do.

Sonic 06 did leave a mark, but it's not done irreparable damage, regardless of what it's popular to think or say here, to the point where Sonic spent all those years with a bad reputation.

If you wish to see it as nothing but bad, that's fair beans, silly a notion as it is.

[Wraith]

A lot of gamers over the age of like, 15 still make fun of sonic. They're just outside sega's target demo so they dont have a reason to care. 

Neither do we to be honest. It's just always going to be a thing. No need to let it bug you.

[Kuzu]

Should be noted that people have always been making fun of Sonic long before 06, as far back as the 90's. If you were a teenager in the early 90's and weren't already a fan of Sonic, nine times out ten you thought he was a tryhard who would never make it out of the 90's.

 

Its just something you kind of need to accept about this series, it has just about as many haters as it does fans.

[Dreadknux]

7 hours ago, Wraith said:

A lot of gamers over the age of like, 15 still make fun of sonic. They're just outside sega's target demo so they dont have a reason to care. 

Neither do we to be honest. It's just always going to be a thing. No need to let it bug you.

This thread is starting to veer a little off-topic (less about the game and more about whatever existential crisis the Sonic fanbase is apparently supposed to be going through this week), but this particular point by Wraith I think is interesting to think about. There's something of a bell curve when it comes to liking things from your childhood (not just Sonic), where you tend to 'grow out of it' in your teens/early adult years because you think it's "cringe" or whatever (that actually happened to me during Sonic's original 'dead period' circa 1995-1999) before potentially returning to it as an adult and finding the fun once again (although not every adult goes back to being active fans of a thing they liked when they were kids; real-life commitments and all that).

Obviously Sonic 06 had an impact in terms of the online discourse surrounding the Sonic franchise, but 15 years later I don't really think it moves the needle in terms of people's mainstream opinions of Sonic. Sonic Generations and Sonic Mania tend to be fondly remembered, and I don't think Sonic 06 is really the first thing anyone thinks of anymore when it comes to the franchise (unless they're being either a troll or... you know, one of those angsty teens that thinks everything in "cringe"). I certainly don't think Sonic 06 is in the mind of anyone at Sonic Team these days, when making a new game; after a certain point, you gotta realise that SEGA is trying to refresh the gameplay every now and then simply because they feel it's time, not because they have to "avoid another Sonic 06 at all costs".

It was an unfortunate point in the Sonic franchise, and it's definitely worth pointing that all out, but in the context of the here and now, it's ancient history. Just a dumb meme people bring up. And every single franchise (bar some exceptions) has a weird period where things don't quite work out. Hell, look at Star Wars.

It doesn't really matter anyway because

Spoiler

None of it actually happened in the end.

--------

Anyway, for me Sonic 06 was one of those games that probably irritated me more at the time because of that social impact it created rather than the quality of the game itself. I'm over that now, though, it's been 15 years. Honestly, while the whole game felt pretty weird to me and obviously it had its issues, I think I only ever got affected by it once I started trying to earn S Ranks in the stages. I didn't mind getting spanked by flying cars in Crisis City and losing all my rings when I was just burning through the story, but once I tried gunning for that S those glitches really matter.   Maybe one day I'll get the courage to return to it.

One of my favourite things about the game was discovering a glitch with one of the Sonic shoe gems. I think it was the one that shrunk Sonic, or the one that allowed you to double jump? Can't remember, but I know if you held the trigger down and just kept jumping while the gem was active, you could continue jumping into the air ad infinitum (a bit like the infamous Knuckles glitch in Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric). That was a fun afternoon.

Also, justice for Sonic Man.

[Kuzu]

The gems are definitely the best part of the game I agree 

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

You know, Sonic '06 always have a place in my heart, even though it's overall the worst Sonic game rated by others. 

It's not my worst game I've ever played, that belongs to Secret Rings - but with '06 I loved the stage environments, the fantastic soundtrack and some of the cutscenes that made me laugh such as:

It was also the last mainline Sonic game to play as Amy, my favorite Sonic character. It was the last mainline game to play for almost....everyone.

I also love Kingdom Valley. Ok, not as Silver but with Sonic and Shadow. What a beautiful stage.

I haven't replayed '06 in years, but I still have the game on PS3 and probably will return for a replay someday. But I'm not looking forward to those horrible high-speed sections, 5-10FPS drops, long loading screens (urgh...), random glitches and very slow Silver gameplay.

[sploit]

I haven't played the game in a while. I never actually got to play it upon release as I didn't have a 360 or PS3 at the time. I believe I got a 360 in 2010 and first played it then.

Despite its problems, I really did enjoy it. The main frustration for me was probably the insane amount of loading screens. Obviously some glitches now and again, but I don't remember experiencing that many. I enjoyed the Sonic stages and I remember really enjoying the Silver stages too, despite being slower the telekinesis centric gameplay was different and quite fun. I enjoyed the story (despite plot holes etc) and the music was great.

 

I had been thinking about revisiting it recently, guess that it is a fitting time to do so given the anniversary. Maybe I'll try the PS3 version this time around.

 

Happy 15th Anniversary, Sonic The Hedgehog 2006!

 

[KnuxDLX]

On 11/15/2021 at 8:44 AM, Kuzu said:

People tend to not like games that are bad. Novel concept, I know.

 

Ya'all gotta judging these games on what they could have been and judging them for what they are. Do I like a lot of the concepts in 06? Absolutely and would love to see them again in a Sonic game, especially since they were done better before 06 came out.

Does that stop 06 from being a shit ass game? No it does not. Judge the finished product, not the imagined version of it.

Again, the visuals, levels, character design, and all that are excellent. I’m more one to appreciate the idea of a thing more than the thing itself. 
 

And Sonic ‘06 gives me big ideas. It’s fine that it didn’t succeed on its own. It was always about something bigger than itself.

[Kuzu]

I mean, I admire that mindset but if I'm paying money out of my pocket for a product, then I kind of want the product to be good. 

[Josh]

Also, I think the visuals are mostly pretty bland and uninspired (Kingdom Valley mach speed being the main exception that comes to mind), and the character designs are TERRIBLE and uncanny. The game's whole aesthetic doesn't remotely convey anything I associate with "Sonic the Hedgehog." I consider it a silver lining that 06 bombed hard enough that everything that encapsulated this misguided attempt at a soft reboot was summarily abandoned.

Actually, I came across this info from Wikipedia, and it put everything in a new light:
 

Quote

After finishing Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, Sonic Team began to plan its next project. Among the ideas the team was considering was a game with a realistic tone and an advanced physics engine. When Sega reassigned the team to start working on a new game in the bestselling Sonic series, they decided to retain the realistic approach.

No wonder 06 doesn't feel anything like a Sonic game, it wasn't even conceptualized as one. This whole era, right up to Naka quitting during development, seems like the inevitable result of Sega burning out Sonic Team on their flagship character. In the Saturn/Dreamcast years, they were able to branch out and pursue other projects (NiGHTS, Burning Rangers, PSO). But after Sega went third-party, and more particularly after the Sammy merger, it was non-stop Sonic games cranked out on short dev times, as they reinvented the wheel on a game-by-game basis, possibly just to keep things creatively interesting for themselves. I've never blamed Naka for walking, especially under those conditions.

[BadBehavior]

I might've mentioned this before, but just as an indicator of how opinions on this game have softened: when SomeCallMeJohnny reviewed 06 back in 2013, he had to suffix his opinion that Sonic's story was better than the entirety of Shadow the Hedgehog as, and I quote "...an extremely bold claim to make". Because back then, praising something about the game that wasn't the music was simply inconcievable. Like trying to imagine a whole new colour.

Fast forward today and there are about as many positive (or at least not damning) 06 reviews as there are leaves on a tree.

[Zoomzeta]

14 hours ago, BadBehavior said:

I might've mentioned this before, but just as an indicator of how opinions on this game have softened: when SomeCallMeJohnny reviewed 06 back in 2013, he had to suffix his opinion that Sonic's story was better than the entirety of Shadow the Hedgehog as, and I quote "...an extremely bold claim to make". Because back then, praising something about the game that wasn't the music was simply inconcievable. Like trying to imagine a whole new colour.

Fast forward today and there are about as many positive (or at least not damning) 06 reviews as there are leaves on a tree.

This is sounding more like people trying to cope from trauma than a genuine change of reception on an objective level.

[Kuzu]

Yes, a bad game getting bad reception, so traumatic.

[batson]

On 11/16/2021 at 12:05 PM, Kuzu said:

Should be noted that people have always been making fun of Sonic long before 06, as far back as the 90's. If you were a teenager in the early 90's and weren't already a fan of Sonic, nine times out ten you thought he was a tryhard who would never make it out of the 90's.

I don't think that's true. Sonic's tryhard in-your-face attitude was so ubiquitous in the youth culture of the early 90's that I don't see why anyone would single out the character or franchise for ridicule at the time. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there were people (adults) at the time who even back then groaned at the totally radical Bart Simpson-esque "tude" that prevailed eveywhere, but Sonic was just a drop in the ocean of that stuff. Really, the only thing that made Sonic stand out in regards to his attitude (and a large part of why he became so popular) was that he was one of the first video game characters to be marketed that way, essentially bringing what was already popular in other media to the gaming medium.

So no, Sonic becoming something widely ridiculed was definitely something that occured later on, not something that was always a thing.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Also worth a reminder that Sonic rivaled Mario during the 90s. You don’t achieve that status with ridicule, but you can certainly lose it and earn ridicule as a result.

[Josh]

2 hours ago, batson said:

I don't think that's true. Sonic's tryhard in-your-face attitude was so ubiquitous in the youth culture of the early 90's that I don't see why anyone would single out the character or franchise for ridicule at the time. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there were people (adults) at the time who even back then groaned at the totally radical Bart Simpson-esque "tude" that prevailed eveywhere, but Sonic was just a drop in the ocean of that stuff. Really, the only thing that made Sonic stand out in regards to his attitude (and a large part of why he became so popular) was that he was one of the first video game characters to be marketed that way, essentially bringing what was already popular in other media to the gaming medium.

So no, Sonic becoming something widely ridiculed was definitely something that occured later on, not something that was always a thing.

It's hard for me to say for sure because I *was* a kid in the 90s, but I did read a LOT of magazines and spend a lot of time online. And I don't remember Sonic being a target of mockery for its actual content. The mainstream press had nothing but positive things to say about the main series, they were just flabbergasted it wasn't on Saturn. The folks online who would dunk on Sonic were always dunking on Sega, too, and they did it from that hyper-tribal "console wars" mindset that the whole industry pushed back then.

But I do remember the specific point where I noticed the tides were turning, and I think BlazeHedgehog summed it up well:

Quote

On the Dreamcast, there was plenty of debate on whether or not Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 were good games, as reviews scored them pretty favorably there.

The moment they released on the Gamecube, the gloves came off. Those games received a thrashing from critics, and the hate train only continued when Sonic Heroes released. Those three games were when the “3D Sonic is bad” stigma began in earnest. There’s a bit of a meme going around lately about how all Youtuber reviews of Sonic games start with a particular line about Sonic’s “rocky relationship” with the third dimension or whatever, and that line is literally in Gamespot’s 2002 review of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle:

This is the exact moment when everyone decided it was fair to start calling these games out. It was all down hill from there.

[batson]

12 hours ago, Josh said:

It's hard for me to say for sure because I *was* a kid in the 90s, but I did read a LOT of magazines and spend a lot of time online. And I don't remember Sonic being a target of mockery for its actual content. The mainstream press had nothing but positive things to say about the main series, they were just flabbergasted it wasn't on Saturn. The folks online who would dunk on Sonic were always dunking on Sega, too, and they did it from that hyper-tribal "console wars" mindset that the whole industry pushed back then.

But I do remember the specific point where I noticed the tides were turning, and I think BlazeHedgehog summed it up well:

This is exactly how I remember it too. From what I can gather, even the Dreamcast releases of the Adventure games were somewhat devisive among hardcore Sonic fans but appreciated by just about everyone else, and then the Gamecube releases of the Adventure games were the point when people in general started questioning whether the series had truly survived the jump to 3D with its quality intact. My own history with the online Sonic fanbase starts around the time of these Gamecube releases (I had been a Sonic fans since the Mega Drive days but this is when I became able to regularly use the internet) and I can tell you one thing from personal memory; even in the time preceeding the release of Sonic Heroes many fans were hoping that it would be the game to set the series back on the right path again, meaning that they were already of the opinion that the series had lost its way. The relative disappointment of that game made people even more cyncial about the current Sonic franchise, and by the time the first trailer for Shadow the Hedgehog came out and became universally ridiculed a lot of the gaming community were like "well of course, what else than something insane like this can you expect from the Sonic series at this point".

[KnuxDLX]

On 11/20/2021 at 2:00 PM, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Also worth a reminder that Sonic rivaled Mario during the 90s. You don’t achieve that status with ridicule, but you can certainly lose it and earn ridicule as a result.

One thing I’ve learned over the year’s is that Sonic’s overall popularity still rivals Mario’s. They’re still the two most recognizable video game characters of all time. 
 

Sonic is long past the point where bad games can change his icon status.

The bad Mario & Sonic games have already proven that.

 

 

[batson]

1 hour ago, KnuxDLX said:

One thing I’ve learned over the year’s is that Sonic’s overall popularity still rivals Mario’s.

That's honestly not true. Mario games still sell exceptionally well, usually enjoy high critical reception, the franchise as a whole is often considered the best in the gaming medium, and everyone of every generation knows who Mario is. Sonic was a genuine contender against the plumber, but that was a very long time ago. But granted, in sheer recognizability among the general population Sonic still ranks higher than almost any other video game character other than Mario (Pikachu undoubtably ranks higher as well, and maybe also the eternally iconic Pac-man).

[KnuxDLX]

11 minutes ago, batson said:

That's honestly not true. Mario games still sell exceptionally well, usually enjoy high critical reception, the franchise as a whole is often considered the best in the gaming medium, and everyone of every generation knows who Mario is. Sonic was a genuine contender against the plumber, but that was a very long time ago. But granted, in sheer recognizability among the general population Sonic still ranks higher than almost any other video game character other than Mario (Pikachu undoubtably ranks higher as well, and maybe also the eternally iconic Pac-man).

The games are incomparable, Mario has always had better games than Sonic. 
 

But as characters, they are quite equally iconic and recognizable, regardless of how their associated media (movies, TV shows, games, etc)  are received.

[MH MD]

2 hours ago, batson said:

That's honestly not true. Mario games still sell exceptionally well, usually enjoy high critical reception, the franchise as a whole is often considered the best in the gaming medium, and everyone of every generation knows who Mario is. Sonic was a genuine contender against the plumber, but that was a very long time ago. But granted, in sheer recognizability among the general population Sonic still ranks higher than almost any other video game character other than Mario (Pikachu undoubtably ranks higher as well, and maybe also the eternally iconic Pac-man).

it's not all about games sales. for example, other media like TV series, comics, you see Sonic is more recognizable there, hell, even on mobile space, sonic games actually doing way better than any Mario Mobile game that released there, despite the sales of main games , so what i em saying is that what sonic lack in games department, he already compensate for it in other places where mario is not as dominant, making it about equal, if anything, the sheer success of mobile games for example make Sonic more accessible to a lot of new audience, not tied to one expensive peace of hardware, while you could find sonic on basically everywhere.

 

To not even speak of the movie success, literally one of the most successful videogames movies of all time

 

the most recent survey i found conclude that they are still recognizable on basically the same level

 

[Jango]

Man, I never actually played '06, but God knows I really wanted to in 2006. I loved Heroes, Shadow, Riders, I really was at that age where I just wanted to play every Sonic game available and couldn't tell if a game was actually good or bad. There were things I knew were bad in those games, like Shadow's waaaay too many endings and Riders / Heroes controls, but never enough to throw me off.

I didn't had a PS3 untill 2010, and at the time, I was a member in a Sonic forum in Brazil (and I also lurked here a lot!). I grew cynical of '06 because of what people talked about it online, so... I never bought the damn thing and treated like a plague lol 

I didn't lost interest in Sonic, only Sonic '06. I still found ways to play all the Rush and Advance games, Secret Rings and Black Knight and of course, Colors and Generations. Even Sonic 4 was something I was looking forward. I was stuck in the infamous Sonic cycle for years. Untiiiiiilllll Sonic Lost World. That game set me free. Older and more cynical than ever, I realized those games I loved where not really that good, and the new ones where just... Meh. And that's a thing untill these days. I still very much can enjoy Gens, Colors, Unleashed and Heroes, it's just that their flaws are much more clear. 

But yeah, never played '06 and perhaps I'll never will lol

 

[Maxtiis]

Can't say I was expecting this to be a topic of discussion when I decided to pop by and see what's changed. Seeing all the posts from users saying they've only experienced Sonic '06 vicariously through either friends or let's plays of it does not surprise me in the slightest, but it does make having first hand experience with it feel weirdly quaint now that it's fifteen years old. I didn't play it initially when it was brand new, but well after its reputation had been set, so roughly around 2010-11, and at first I was in semi-denial about its quality. Even now I'm mostly ambivalent to the game itself, it certainly isn't the worst game I've played, and definitely not the worst game of all time. However, given the pedigree a series that's seen as much success as Sonic has over the past 30 years, there's no denying that it's a shameful release on Sega's part.

The stigma the game's reputation has had on the series is something I'll never forgive it for though. Every sensible person already knows its a long decayed dead horse to beat on and doesn't anymore, but it made even discussing this franchise a very touchy subject to me for years and even now I'm not entirely comfortable with explaining my appreciation for this series' games to people without feeling as though I'm completely invalidating any criticism I could give a piece of media. Even if the game has fallen well under the radar, that stigma will always cling around unfortunately, something Sega has a habit of rekindling far too often.

Doesn't keep me from keeping a spot for Sonic and his games in my heart though. My niece has separately developed an appreciation for the series on her own, so it shows me that in spite of its online reputation, there's still appeal to this series to be found. I don't participate in this forum at all anymore, but I'll keep a tab on the news for Sonic Frontiers or whatever the newest title will be called, and praying that it'll be unequivocally fun so people can talk about a Sonic game for once without ripping each other a new one.

On that note I miss Mania. When's Mania 2 Sega? That was a good game... At least Sonic '06 gave us this brilliant moment in gaming.

Spoiler