Why include '06 in this little thread? we all know it sucks, but how much it does suck is subjective: some regard it as the worst pile of trash to ever grace the polluted taint of the gaming industry, others like myself say "get over yourselves, there are worse games out there."
With that said, I'll include it anyway. and keep in mind it's my own opinion
Sonic Adventure 1: while it was really rough around the edges with a rather unreliable camera which even critics of the day complained about, and it started the trend of "Sernic's frernds, herr derr" (Seriously, don't these people consider others who actually want them playable? such as me, and an entire generation of Sonic fans?), but it was a successful jump, incorporating much of what Sonic popular, the high speed action platforming sprinkled with a medium dose of exploration, a kickass soundtrack even moreso than other 3D games, slick visuals for the time (this game did kickstart the 6th generation after all, don't expect Silent Hill 2 here), awesome abilities to use and find, and most important of all, it was fun, and the fun didn't stop at Sonic.
I don't really like competitive racing so I am not a fan of Tails (why should he race?) and Knuckles would be more suitable to beat-em-up combat if his name was any indication rather than the exploration he was shoehorned into. I oddly enjoy the thrill of destroying things and gaining itty bitty numbers to add to an ever-decreasing timer of Gamma's shooting, and Amy's stages are, if you need to have speed-less platforming in a Sonic game, how you do it. Though Zero did force me through the stages, limiting exploration much and rushing me to a death. I don't even need to mention Big the Cat, you're living under a rock if you haven't heard of his gameplay yet and how much it monumentally sucks.
Then there's the replay value: the chao garden with that rock-solid music, and while I find the hubworlds bare-bones compared to the ones just full of personality in Unleashed, I can excuse them for being something of a first-try and at least you can explore them for emblems, and after such a magnificent first try, how on earth could they top it?
Short Answer: they tried.
Long Answer: Sonic Adventure 2: it's treasure stages are mercilessly dragged out with a messed up radar and combining it with an arbitrary time limit is where poorly-designed starts to test my patience; The shooting stages make no sense whatsoever in any reality, tear, hole or dimension (unless you're from BioShock Infinite) in Tails perspective, a missed opportunity to improve on his Adventure 1 gameplay, and cheap enemy placement and the usual camera bugger these stages up completely, the speed stages have been reduced to eye-pleasing set-pieces with small amounts of platforming and exploration. The story has fans completely split: some argue it's full of holes, inconsistencies and is "too weawistic", others think it's masterfully told with drama, intensity, a natural flow, a logical progression of events, and even a few romantic hintings here and there, never taken to an extreme as to become a constant bother. I personally am indifferent. Shadow is here and that's all that matters to me.
But it's like I sometimes say: they just removed all of Adventure 1's bumfluff ,and half of the good stuff they improved and half of the good stuff they botched. The presentation is top-notch compared to Adventure 1 (now only slightly below the standards of a typical game of the 6th generation), the music, while less varied than Adventure 1, is still memorable, the game added Rail Grinding, the rank system, an improved chao garden and with it's release on the Gamecube as Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, adding many multiplayer options, introduced many gamers to Sonic the Hedgehog. Many consider Adventure 2 the best, me not so much. But where could they go from here?
we all know where. Heroes was ok, Shadow was stupid and 06... *sigh*
Sonic the Hedgehog, or Sonic Next Gen, or 2006, or 06. Widely regarded as one of the worst Sonic games ever created, we all know about it's rushed schedule to meet Sonic's 15 anniversary, how people won't STFU about it after better games have come out, how Yuji Naka left during development, how Sonic Team japan were split in half to also work on Secret Rings, about how overhyped this game was, claiming it would fix every issue previous 3D Sonic games had (an issue I think is debateable. the only real bad game was Shadow, and it was because it dragged on for far too long), features like day-night cycles, individual character stories, Metal Sonic, blah de blah de blah.
Since there are few positives, I'll start with them first. The graphics are highly debateable, I've seen forums fight over whether they're brilliant or they suck. I've noticed a few things, like how many, but not all complainers are also detractors of the Sonic + Realism = brilliance concept, and people praising the graphics seem to not acknowledge the Hedgehog Engine, the graphics engine used to power Unleashed and Generations. IMO, they look amazing for they're time and still hold up to day, but c'mon, you can't beat the Hedgehog Engine... unless you're id Software or Quantic Dream or something. Character modals are also impressive, even if the animations make you think that the game is the president of the Ride to Hell Retribution fanclub
The music is also very good, as is the standard. I've found a few people who don't like the fact that it's classically oriented, with strings and horns and a distinct lack of guitars or drums. I say "open your hearts guys, stop having nostalgia for SA2 and appreciate this soundtrack." True, the melodies leave a lot to be desired when it comes to how... sonic-like they are and I think that Kingdom Valley's music is highly overrated, but it's still a great soundtrack with high production values.
Voice Actors are an extreme mixed bag, the 4kids actors are the marmite of Sonic, you either love them or hate them. There's something about Jason's Sonic I like more than Roger's, and you honestly cannot keep a straight face whenever Kirk's Shadow opens his flap, I'll take Jason's any day. That's all I'll say on the matter, but their performance here is ok compared to Unleashed, where he pretty much perfected it.
Really, if you want to complain about the characters not sounding like themselves, don't blame the actors or anything, blame the voice directors and the writing team that write the characters, and here is where I go into the negatives.
Story, for the 2nd time in a row, is pretty bad. But it's one of the major problems with this game I cannot explain in enough words. there are more than enough documents criticizing or praising Mephiles the Dark (you're doing something dumb when you make every single character a moron to make the main villain look smarter. no matter who you're propping up on the pedestal, everybody suffers from your lousy skills), enough explanations of plot holes like the Blue Emerald paradox, enough Silver the Hedgehog hatred that it's actually become less about the character and more about the game he's in, which is all kinds of unfair, and enough fan-fiction rewrites of the story incorporating a number of things, like Chris Thorndyke or Sally Acorn. Just take my word for it that if you're buying this game for the story, please don't, unless you set your expectations to the lowest low.
I actually liked this game when I first played it, exploring the hubworlds, I thought that other people were playing a completely different game. Of course I didn't play many Sonic games at that point and the more I did play, the worse it became, and the more critically I looked at it.
The characters controls are extremely stiff and precise, this game is the complete anti-thesis of "genesis physics" (though whether Sonic 4 Episode 1 is worse in this aspect because the designers actually made the game the way it was is another story entirely), there is little traction on any sloped surface, jumping is stiff, turning is loose, the camera is worse than ever before and they waste two whole shoulder buttons to it when it's mapped to the damn right stick, Sonic's spindash is stiff, the hit detection in general is unbalanced... and the glitches...
To be fair, IMO, there is a fine line between being poorly programmed and poorly designed. poor programming is getting stuck on walls while playing as Knuckles and Rouge, something easily fixable in a patch (or a mod if you're Melpontro). Poor design is the medals from Sonic Unleashed. it's not bad because it wasn't implemented well, it's bad because it was implemented in the first place. It's more offensive than bad programming because the very designers cooked up this stupid idea and told the programmers to put it in. More examples are the bomb-gate-wily boss thing from Mega Man 2 that forces a restart if you run out of weapon energy, cover systems in recent survival horro titles, and a debateable one is the requirement to replay westopolis 10 times to get the true ending to Shadow the Hedgehog.
many 2006 examples are bad programming. off the top of my head, I can't think of any bad design from 06, maybe Silver's ball puzzle combined with bad programming, SIlver's final boss supah-huge-magma-ball attack had me going to an amateur video on because it's so unintuitive, and the black holes from the end of the world could have been a good idea if they weren't so cheaply placed... still not as tough as Eggmanland though.
in my experience, the only glitch that is over 90% unavoidable is the Knuckles/Rouge climbing thing, I ran into a glitch in Kingdom Valley where Sonic would spazz out on the wind trail grind rail, either locking in place or reversing direction. I managed to trigger the Flame Core sequence break with Knuckles after some effort, I also triggered the Wave Ocean sequence break with Omega. But all of what I encountered was either directly triggered to entice some excitement, or was never really frustrating enough to get me to quit playing. When I wasn't exploring for hidden goodies or thrashing badniks in some actually pretty satisfying combat, I was just idly watching the abundance of scripted events, moaning as I had to play as another character not in the main trio or gawking at my score. "I didn't get hit ONCE in the radical train mach-speed section, how did I get a frakkin A rank?"
Overall, if I were to give these games scores, Adventures 1 and 2 would be high and low 8's respectively while 06 would be a somewhere in the middle 5 out of 10. It is the worst Sonic title, but how good or bad something is doesn't affect how much fun you can have with it, there is no shame in guilty pleasures. We've all seen the purists who prefer the System Shock to the BioShock series for numerous arbitrary reasons, and I've also seen an 8/10 review for Bubsy 3D on gamefaqs. no joke. I had fun with each installment and they each hold a special place somewhere in my collection, because saying "they hold a special place in my heart" is just dumb and cliché.
