Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
| Sonic the Hedgehog | |||
|---|---|---|---|
.png){kind=logo} | |||
| Logo of the game | |||
| Original title | ソ ニ ッ ク ・ ザ ・ ヘ ッ ジ ホ ッ グ | ||
| transcription | Sonikku za Hejjihoggu | ||
| Studio |
 Sonic team
|
||
| Publisher |
Sega
|
||
| Senior Developer |
Shun Nakamura Masahiro Kumono Atsushi Kanno |
||
| composer |
Jun Senoue Masato Nakamura Tomoya Ohtani Tatsuya Kouzaki |
||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
Xbox 360 : November 14, 2006 November 24, 2006 December 21, 2006 PlayStation 3 : December 21, 2006 January 30, 2007 March 23, 2007  |
||
| platform | PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360 | ||
| Game engine | Havok | ||
| genre | Jump 'n' run | ||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||
| control | Gamepad | ||
| medium | DVD , Blu-ray Disc | ||
| language |
Text : including English , Japanese , German and French Audio : English, Japanese |
||
| Age rating |
|
||
Sonic the Hedgehog ( Japanese : ソ ニ ッ ク ・ ザ ・ ヘ ッ ジ ホ ッ グ , Hepburn : Sonikku za Hejjihoggu ), also known as Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 or just Sonic '06 , is a 3D jump ' to better distinguish it from the first game of the same name in the series. n'-Run - video game developed by Sonic Team and first published by Sega in North America on November 14, 2006 for Xbox 360 and a little later for PlayStation 3 .
Due to the deliberately chosen same name as the original game from the 1991, the first CGI trailer in 2005, the promise to offer the "ultimate Sonic experience" and that this game should be tailored for the new generation of consoles of the time the expectations of the trade press and fans soared in advance.
With Yūji Naka's exit in the middle of the game's development, the halving of the development team and the management's critical schedule, which resulted in the game being prematurely released without any bugs being removed, this game was the average biggest disappointment advance in the series. With its serious mistakes it is considered to be one of the biggest, probably even the biggest low point in the Sonic series and is treated very critically, now in part even satirically by Sega himself.
The game is the sequel to Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) and the predecessor of Sonic Unleashed (2008).
action
In the idyllic port town of Soleanna the annual, splendid celebrations take place, during which the shy, reserved Princess Elise symbolically lights a fire so that the gods protect her people. But in the middle of the festivities, Dr. Eggman , with his robot army , brings destruction over the city and calls on Princess Elise to accompany him, as she has the "Flames of Doom" and a Chaos Emerald. Sonic arrives just in time , destroys the robots and saves Princess Elise at the last moment by escaping with her. With Tails' help, Dr. Eggman will be defeated first. Princess Elise tells Sonic that her people believe in a sun god named Solaris and that his anger is called the "Flames of Doom". Ten years ago these broke out once and Elise's father lost his life that day. He told Elise never to cry no matter what, and Elise is afraid that Dr. Eggman can provoke the "flames of calamity" again.
200 years in the future the world is completely destroyed by the "flames of calamity", there is hardly any life left and an immortal fire monster named Iblis ensures that this post-apocalyptic state will never pass. Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat, who grew up in this ruined world, may have telekinetic and supernatural abilities, but when they defeat Iblis, it keeps coming back. One day a mysterious being named Mephiles appears, who looks very much like Shadow. He promises Silver and Blaze the ultimate victory over Iblis if they travel back in time with him and turn off the "Iblis Trigger": the person who is supposed to be responsible for the fact that Iblis appeared, a blue hedgehog named Sonic. Once in the present, Amy Silver pauses for Sonic for a brief moment. Unsuspecting, Amy wants to help Silver find Sonic.
Shadow fulfills the assignment to find an agent from a base owned by Dr. Free Eggman. This agent turns out to be Rouge who stole the "scepter of darkness" there. Shortly afterwards, Dr. Eggman caught up and a fight ensues in which the scepter falls from a great distance and breaks. Dr. Eggman immediately runs away, while Shadow and Rouge encounter the released Mephiles, who was trapped in the scepter. Mephiles is very angry with Shadow for unknown reasons and sends Shadow and Rouge 200 years into the future, into the ruined world where Iblis rules, shortly after Silver and Blaze's departure.
In the present, Silver and Amy meet Sonic and Elise. Silver attacks Sonic and a fight ensues in which Silver wins the upper hand due to his telekinetic powers, but Amy throws herself in between and saves Sonic, while Dr. Eggman takes advantage of the confusing situation to kidnap Elise. Sonic later accepts an invitation from Dr. Eggman, after which he should exchange Elise for a Chaos Emerald in his base. Accompanied by Tails and Knuckles , Sonic hands over the Chaos Emerald, but Dr. Eggman sends the three with his latest invention also 200 years into the future, where Sonic, Tails and Knuckles meet Shadow and Rouge. To get back to their time, you have to find Chaos Emeralds to use Chaos Control. So the heroes can actually open a space-time column, but Shadow is the only one not going through because he sees Mephiles and wants to confront them. Mephiles tries to convince Shadow that he will be killed by the humans because they fear his power, but Shadow does not believe him and takes up the fight against Mephiles, who takes on his true form for it. E-123 Omega appears in the middle of the fight: After Rouge noticed on her return to the present that Shadow was staying behind in the distant future, she sought out E-123 Omega, so that it deactivates itself with a Chaos Emerald 200 years and now supports Shadow. Shadow and Omega can drive out Mephiles and then return to the present.
Silver now struggles with the idea of killing Sonic. But after Mephiles again speaks to his conscience, he challenges Sonic to a duel again and forces him to his knees. This time Sonic is rescued by Shadow, who now fights Silver while Sonic escapes. In Shadows and Silver's fight, both use Chaos Control at the same time and then travel ten years into the past. There they witness the failed "Solaris Project", with which Elise's father, the Duke of Soleanna, wanted to control Solaris, but instead conjured up the "flames of calamity" and thus created Mephiles and Iblis. Elise's father hands Shadow the "Scepter of Darkness" and Shadow can lock Mephiles, who meets Shadow for the first time and assumes his form, in the scepter, so that it later breaks in the present. Elise's father is forced to seal the "flames of calamity" in little Elise and in her soul before he dies. Then Shadow and Silver return to the present.
Shadow instructs Rouge to make a new "Scepter of Darkness" to seal Mephiles again. Silver tells Blaze that Sonic is not the "Iblis Trigger" but that Mephiles is trying to achieve his own goals. Dr. Eggman's Egg Carrier crashes, causing Dr. Eggman and Princess Elise perish. Sonic reproaches himself for not having saved Elise in time and finds out support from Silver, of all people, who helps with a double chaos control to open a space-time gap, with which Sonic travels an hour into the past, but Silver and Blaze in return to their post-apocalyptic future. In the fight against Iblis, Blaze sacrifices himself in order to actually defeat Iblis permanently in her timeline. This time Sonic is on site on the Egg Carrier in good time, saves Princess Elise and Dr. Eggman survived the accident. Meanwhile, Shadow, Rouge and E-123 Omega follow the trail of Mephiles and want to seal him in the new "Scepter of Darkness", but this fails and Mephiles escapes.
Just as Sonic and Elise want to enjoy the peace that they have apparently won, Mephiles appears and pierces Sonic's body with a dark beam of energy. Sonic dies and although her father once made it clear to her that he should never cry, Elise loudly weeps Sonic's death, whereupon the "flames of doom" sealed in her are set free. Mephiles absorbs the "flames of calamity", becomes a dark solaris and allows all worlds and timelines to merge into an abstract, confused mass. In this space-time distortion, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, Rouge, Omega, Silver, Dr. Eggman, Elise and Sonic's corpse together and all now learn of Sonic's death, which is emotionally mourned. It is also clear to everyone that all of this was staged by Mephiles in order to make the princess cry and thus set the "flames of doom" free. The protagonists decide to find the seven Chaos Emeralds together in the space-time distortion. With this power and a kiss from Princess Elise, Sonic is revived as Super Sonic. Together with Super Shadow and Super Silver, Super Sonic can transform the bad Solaris back into the original, good Solaris from before the "Solaris Project". It turns out that Elise's father was pursuing the "Solaris Project" in the hope of resuscitating Elise's deceased mother through time travel, as he promised his daughter that she would see her mother again. Now the world and all times are wiped out except for Sonic, Elise and Solaris and it is Elise's decision whether to stay alone with Sonic forever or to undo everything that has happened, which would completely forget Sonic and never get to know. Although Elise screams that she doesn't care about the worlds, she tearfully decides to reset everything by blowing out Solaris' flame. In the world without Solaris, Sonic takes part in Soleanna's celebrations, in which Elise shows herself to be a strong and happy princess, but she does not get to know Sonic because the festival remains peaceful and she only feels his breath of wind as he runs past her.
Gameplay
In Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) the player takes control of the blue hedgehog Sonic at the beginning in a three-dimensional platformer. As the game progresses, the two other characters Shadow and Silver are unlocked, each with their own skills and gameplay focus. If all three story lines are played through, the final story is unlocked. All characters have in common that they move in three-dimensional worlds. The three upper worlds (old town, port city and forest of Soleanna) connect the individual action stages with each other, plus numerous side quests and mini-tasks, some of which are necessary and some are optional. When touched, the golden rings can be collected; If the pawn takes damage, it loses the rings. If the character takes damage without having rings or falls into a deadly abyss, he loses an extra life, of which you have five at the start of the game. The item boxes can contain an extra life, a random number of rings, a protective shield, temporary increased speed, temporary invulnerability or a gauge-up . Checkpoints in the form of lanterns mark the reset point in the event of a loss of life. All three main characters can buy new abilities on the upper worlds, some of which are necessary and some of which are optional. Within an action stage, other characters appear sporadically, which you then control for this section of the level, namely Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, E-123 Omega, Amy, Blaze or Sonic, Shadow and Silver outside of their own story line. After each successfully completed level or boss fight you receive a gold medal and a rating from S to D. Gold medals are pure collectibles that can also be found in upper worlds. There are also silver medals in Action Stages and if you collect all silver medals from an Action Stages, you will also receive an additional gold medal. There is split-screen multiplayer and downloadable content (DLC) that includes Very Hard , Team Attack Amigo, and Boss Attack modes .
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic's gameplay consists of reaching the goal of each level in the shape of a large ring. Most of the levels are designed for speed and often have several places for grinding. In addition, there are new passages in which Sonic has to run very quickly (e.g. to follow Dr. Eggman or a train) so that he cannot turn around, the controls become much more sensitive and even small mistakes are punished with a loss of life. When jumping, Sonic has the Spin Attack , with which many opponents can be defeated by touch. With the jump button in the air, the homing attack can be carried out, with which Sonic steers directly towards opponents in the immediate vicinity. In the action stages you control Tails, Knuckles, Shadow and Silver for a short time in certain sections. Sonic's story contains ten action stages in the order Wave Ocean , Dusty Desert , White Acropolis , Crisis City , Flame Core , Radical Train , Tropical Jungle , again Wave Ocean exclusively as Tails, Kingdom Valley and Aquatic Base as well as boss fights against Egg-Cerberus, Silver , Iblis, Egg-Genesis and the final against Egg-Wyvern.
Shadow the Hedgehog
Shadows gameplay consists of reaching the goal of each level in the shape of a large ring. The levels are designed more for action. In the Action Stages, Shadow uses a number of vehicles such as cars, motorcycles, combat ships or gliders. In the Action Stages, you briefly control Rouge, E-123 Omega, Sonic and Silver in certain sections. Shadows Story includes nine action stages in the order White Acropolis , Kingdom Valley , Crisis City , Flame Core , Tropical Jungle , Radical Train , Aquatic Base , Wave Ocean and Dusty Desert as well as boss fights against Egg-Cerberus, Iblis, Mephiles, Silver and the final against Mephiles.
Silver the Hedgehog
Silver's gameplay consists of reaching the goal of each level in the shape of a large ring. The levels are designed more for exploration and puzzles. Silver has telekinetic powers and can levitate rocks, opponents and other objects at the push of a button and shoot telekinetically with them, for example at switches or opponents. Silver regularly comes across a small, glowing symbol on the floor, where he can use his powers to do even more to move forward. For example, steel girders can be bent like a rubber band in order to shoot it up, or it automatically rebuilds destroyed bridges or paths that it can then walk on. In the action stages you control Amy, Blaze, Sonic and Shadow for a short time in certain sections. Silver's story includes nine action stages in the order of Crisis City , Tropical Jungle , Wave Ocean , Dusty Desert , White Acropolis , Radical Train , Aquatic Base , Kingdom Valley and Flame Core as well as boss fights against Iblis, Sonic, Egg-Genesis, Shadow and the final against Iblis.
Last story
After playing through the story lines from Sonic, Shadow and Silver, the final unlocks with the Last Story . In the plot, the finale begins with Sonic's death by Mephiles. The Last Story contains the action stage End of the World , which is based on places that have already been seen, but space-time instabilities that result in immediate loss of life when touched have to be avoided. These appear more and more frequently and larger with increasing time in the level, but can be reduced briefly with eagle statues. You play one after the other as Tails, E-123 Omega, Knuckles, Silver, Rouge, Amy and Shadow, before you complete the final boss fight against Solaris in two phases with Super Sonic, Super Shadow and Super Silver.
synchronization
Compared to its predecessor Shadow the Hedgehog , all relevant voice actors in English and Japanese have been retained. While Bella Hudson last spoke to the President's secretary, this time she took on the role of the character Blaze and David Willis, the voice of Espio the Chameleon, now speaks the Duke of Soleanna and the GUN communicator. It is noticeable that some speakers often also took on a second role from supporting characters. Most notably, Dan Green spoke to Knuckles as well as Mephiles and a scientist. In addition, a speech mistake by David Willis in the role of GUN communicator was forgotten to be removed. In the shadow story, the GUN communicator starts a sentence, makes a promise, mumbles to himself and starts the sentence again, this time to pronounce it correctly. This was never patched or removed.
| Voice actor in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Figure in the game | English voice actor | Japanese voice actor |
| Sonic the Hedgehog | Jason Anthony Griffith | Junichi Kanemaru |
| Shadow the Hedgehog | Jason Anthony Griffith | Kôji Yusa |
| Silver the Hedgehog | Pete Capella | Daisuke Ono |
| Miles Tails Prower | Amy Palant | Ryo Hirohashi |
| Knuckles the Echidna | Dan Green | Nobutoshi Canna |
| Amy Rose | Lisa Ortiz | Taeko Kawata |
| Rouge the Bat | Kathleen Delaney | Rumi Ochiai |
| E-123 omega | Maddie Bluestone | Taiten Kusunoki |
| Blaze the Cat | Bella Hudson | Nao Takamori |
| Dr. Eggman | Mike Pollock | Chikao Ōtsuka |
| Princess Elise | Lacey Chabert | Maaya Sakamoto |
| Mephiles the Dark | Dan Green | Takayuki Sakazume |
| Duke of Soleanna | David Willis | Kenji Utsumi |
| GUN communicator | David Willis | Keiji Okuda |
| Solaris scientists | Dan Green | Keiji Okuda, Yoshikazu Kozuma |
| Court ladies | Amy Palant, Lisa Ortiz | Hikari Yono |
| announcer | Mike Pollock | Kenji Utsumi |
development
According to an interview with Yūji Naka, work on the game for Sonic's 15th anniversary in 2006 began at the end of 2004. With the prospect of the next generation of consoles with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the game was targeted for the then new HD consoles which were still in development designed, also initially in parallel with Shadow the Hedgehog , which was published in November 2005. It was agreed early on that the next-gen game would only be given the simple title Sonic the Hedgehog to underline its importance, "to offer the ultimate Sonic experience" and to carry out a reboot to a certain extent. Similar to how Sonic Adventure once revised the design of the characters, this time too they wanted to make the characters look more adult again and therefore made them collectively larger and longer. The biggest overhaul concerned Dr. Eggman , who was portrayed much slimmer and more human. However, he only kept this design in this one game, since after clear criticism one then returned to Dr. Eggman's previous design returned. The other characters didn't look that long in the following games either.
At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in May 2005, a pre-rendered CGI sequence was presented to selected people and developers behind closed doors, which should show how the Sonic team imagined the finished, new game. In it, Sonic runs through a forest and defeats Dr. Eggman's robots, until a whole horde of robots manage to bring Sonic to the ground, uses the seven Chaos Emeralds to become Super Sonic. However, this CGI sequence was unexpectedly uploaded to the Internet, including on the then still new video platform YouTube , and spread quickly. So Sega made this sequence public in September 2005 at the Tokyo Game Show . The impressive trailer, which promised great potential, fueled huge expectations and anticipation in the Sonic community.
In March 2006, Sonic team president Yūji Naka, who played a major role in Sonic's creation and all of his previous main games in the series, left the development studio for unknown reasons and went into business for himself. Responsibility for the game was passed on to Shun Nakamura. According to former Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske, "Sonic's heart and soul" left the company with Naka, possibly because he did not have enough confidence in the upcoming game.
Then Sega also requested a port of the upcoming game for the Wii, which was announced for the end of 2006 . It quickly became clear that due to the technical differences, the game developed so far could not have run on this console. Therefore Sega halved the developers of the Sonic Team: Half of Shun Nakamura had to develop Sonic the Hedgehog for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on time despite the loss of Naka , while the other half had to be tailored to the Nintendo Wii under the direction of Yojiro Ogawa Sonic game, which was released in 2007 under the name Sonic and the Secret Rings . The mini-games actually planned for Sonic the Hedgehog were instead moved to Sonic and the Secret Rings and only implemented there. The heavily decimated half of the team for Sonic the Hedgehog now had considerable problems in further development, but Sega's business floor pushed for a release in 2006 in order to finish the game for the 15th anniversary. The team was under so much pressure that more developers left the team or called in sick, which made the situation even more difficult.
As requested by Sega, the unfinished game was released in late 2006. Later statements by several developers confirmed the massive problems and pressure in the development of the game. On the day of the deadline, the last levels simply had to be saved, even though they were not completely finished and the positions of opponents, rings or backgrounds had not yet been finalized. Sega's "Quality Assurance Department", which was responsible for finding game errors, bugs and performance problems, had created lists of game errors that should have been fixed, as is customary in the industry, but due to the time pressure they could not be processed become. The game eventually went into production and sale without even starting to edit the bug fix lists. A port for the PC that was planned in the early development phase was never implemented.
Originally, Crush 40 was supposed to deliver the title song of the game, which was titled "His World". However, they decided against Crush 40's version and instead recorded a new "His World" version with the band Zebrahead , which ultimately formed the title track. But the game contains the song "All Hail Shadow" by Crush 40 and "Dreams of an Absolution" by Bentley Jones. In addition, a remix of the Sonic-the-Hedgehog 2 credit song "Sweet Dream" was created by the band "Dreams Come True". The R&B artist Akon adds vocal passages to the remix.
reception
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
With the CGI trailer released in 2005, the expectations of the press and fans of the "next-gen Sonic", which also promised a reboot through its name and "the ultimate Sonic experience" through Sega, rose to immeasurable heights. In the end, Sonic the Hedgehog from 2006 was dubbed the "worst Sonic game ever" by many, which is a subjective opinion rather than a subjective opinion, considering for example Sonic Blast (1996) or later Sonic Boom: Lyrics Aufstieg (2014) Represents fact. But due to the extremely high expectations and the deeply devastating result, Sonic the Hedgehog from 2006 certainly caused by far the most obvious disappointment of the franchise. On average, the Xbox 360 version, for which the game was tailored, was rated slightly better than the PlayStation 3 port.
According to the trade press, the complex plot of the game seems well prepared in the greatest style, but due to the deadline pressure, as well as the levels, worlds and character animations of the game, were incomplete and prematurely completed. The soundtrack and the more complex CGI cutscenes were received positively. The graphics are praised for their good textures, but there is often a lack of graphic elements, which sometimes makes the worlds seem a bit empty. The too often occurring, sometimes minutes-long loading times as well as the sheer number of game errors and bugs have to deal with severe criticism. There are places in the game where the character suddenly falls through the ground or there are racing passages where the character cannot keep the intended course and falls into lava. The player has to learn the mistakes by heart and in addition to the intended level of difficulty learn to circumvent them. That was not well received by the trade press and fans.
The game also fell short of its expectations commercially, which is probably due to the fact that word got around quickly about the quality level of the game. For both consoles together, Sonic the Hedgehog from 2006 was sold a total of 870,000 times worldwide.
Web links
- Official Website (Japanese)
- Sonic the Hedgehog on MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Sonic Sonic Video Game Sales