Extremely detailed Sonic 2k6 impressions

Warning: Spoiler Content!

I've spent about three hours with the new Sonic game. So far? Consensus is: The game blows. Hard. Harder than almost any game I think I've ever played. I almost want my money back. This is $60 that could go towards a much, much better game. And this is coming from the guy who actually derrided some enjoyment from Sonic Heroes. Let's start at the top. I've only played as Sonic so far, up to the end of Crisis City.

Welcome to the City of Soleanna, where they worship the Sun God, Solaris. Why they worship it is kind of a mystery; as apparently, 10 years ago, Solaris visited Soleanna and nearly obliterated the entire planet, engulfing it in the flames of disaster. However, he was fortunately sealed away before any real damage could be done - and so, the citizens pray to the Sun of Soleanna at an altar at the center of the city. Perhaps they expect it protects them from Solaris' wrath?

Enter Dr. Eggman. He's heard that the Princess of Soleanna, Elise, wields a mysterious power, and that she knows the true key to unleashing the flames of disaster. As Eggman moves in to abduct the Princess, true blue Hero Sonic the Hedgehog shows up. After a bout of saving the princess, losing her, and saving her again, she finally falls in to Dr. Eggman's clutches once and for all after newcomer Silver the Hedgehog shows up, yelling at Sonic, declaring him the "Iblis Trigger", and that he will pay. Sonic is no match for Silver's powerful telekinesis, and Eggman makes off with the Princess.

Sonic eventually meets up with Tails and Knuckles (who amusingly follow him around, Sonic Heroes style), and end up trashing a lot of Eggman's robots. Eventually, Eggman gives them an ultimatum: Come to his base, White Acropolis, in the snowy peaks - give him a Chaos Emerald and he'll release the Princess. Sonic knows better than to expect Eggman to honor his word, but decides to check out what he's up to anyway.

What Eggman is up to is time travel; and his first test experiments are Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. Eggman is unsure where (or when!) they'll end up, but he doesn't care - before whisking them off to another time, he tricked Sonic into forking over the Blue Chaos Emerald.

The triple thread land - head first - in the ruins of Eggman's labratory. Mysteriously, they discover Rouge and Shadow are also there, somehow transported to the same location themselves. Rouge explains that they are in an alternate future timeline, far removed from their own. The only way to get back home is a massive expenditure of energy - Shadow proposes a massive and very powerful Chaos Control should do the trick. Sonic and Shadow agree to work together to find as many Chaos Emeralds as possible.

Sonic discovers that, whatever city they are in, it is in ruins. Fires burn everywhere.  Lava flows through the streets. And demonic lava monsters stalk the alleyways. Whatever happened here - it wasn't good. As they hunt around a bit more, they stumble upon Silver, Blaze the Cat, and a character that seems to resemble Shadow - all discussing something. Silver is obviously very angry; he declares - that he will find the "Iblis Trigger" and destroy him, as this new guy, who looks like Shadow, apparently claims that a Blue Hedgehog is the one who left the world in the ruined state it is in - he unleashed "Iblis", the monster that is responsible for the destruction. With that said, the Grey Shadow uses Chaos Control and they vanish. However, the computer they were standing in front of is left unattended.

Tails quickly logs in to it, and the first thing he looks up is what became of Princess Elise. Apparently, she died in an explosion on Eggman's battleship (along with Eggman and nearly everyone onboard). The explosion happened two days after the Sun Festival in Soleanna - and when Sonic and the gang were transported to the future, it had already been nearly 24 hours since the festival. They need to go back in time and stop whatever happens on Eggman's ship. It all feels a bit Chrono Trigger, when Lucca uncovers the log about The Day of Lavos.

Sonic reports back to Shadow, and while Sonic came up empty handed, Shadow already found a Chaos Emerald. However, just one probably isn't enough, so they must continue their search in the volcanic mountains...

That's as far as I've played. To be honest? I like the plot. The writing is pretty decent and the performances given are some of the best in a Sonic game (granted, that's not saying much). The game has a cinematic flair and the cutscenes themselves are very well done - better than the ones in the Gamecube/Xbox/PS2 games. It's actually kind of surprising me; the bits and pieces I heard from when the game hadn't been released sounded kind of dumb, but now that I'm seeing it as a cohesive whole, I'm really enjoying it.

Unfortunately, that is where the positives end, just about.

Control-wise, things have been changed from the demo. Sonic moves a little bit smoother and his homing attack has been changed a little bit - in the demo, if you did it when there weren't any enemies around, Sonic just shot diagonally toward the ground a bit. In the final game, Sonic actually shoots forward perfectly horizontally for a little bit before gravity takes over and he falls to the ground. It actually looks kind of crap.

Soleanna is huge, but most of it is blocked off at the start due to "repairs" and "construction", most likely caused by Eggman's attack earlier that night during the ceremony. In Soleanna, you can run around - it's generally a free roaming environment with a GTA-style (well, it's more Phantasy Star Online style) HUD and everything. You can talk to certain people, and take side-missions. Side missions really suck ass. If you ever played Mission Mode in Sonic Adventure DX, it's exactly like that. The missions are really simplistic and boring tasks like finding a lost dog, running through a set of rings before time runs out, or playing tag with some children. One such mission involved the Legend of Soleanna's "Three Musketeers" - each musketeer had a special ability; speed, flight, and power. Sound familiar? To complete this mission, you switch between Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, with some very vaguely defined mission objectives. It was at this mission I realized that most of these missions sprinkled in Soleanna don't have to be completed, and I probably will never, ever try and complete one ever again, due to how unendingly terrible they were to try and complete.

Sonic meets up with Tails, who promptly follows him around just as Tails usually does. After talking to an old man who gives you a new pair of shoes, you purchase an upgrade for these shoes that allows Sonic to light dash. Using this light dash ability, you find your way to the first stage - Wave Ocean, in hopes of chasing Dr. Eggman's battleship before he escapes with the Princess.

Wave Ocean, if you haven't seen it, greatly resembles Emerald Coast from Sonic Adventure 1. It's here you're introduced to the gameplay in full; basically, it's a standard Sonic Adventure game. Expect scripted loops, tons of enemies, etc. Sonic does this slide manuver across the water which looks really stupid and doesn't even make any sense at all. Eventually, you reach the titular killer whale Chase, which is so scripted you can pretty much put the controller down the moment it happens. Once it's over, Sonic jumps on to the killer whale's back and orders Tails to close the gate leading to the ocean, so the whale doesn't escape.

It's here the game switches over to Tails. You see, the game decieves you: You might select "Sonic", but every now and then, the game will go "Haha, Gotcha!" and Tails will take over. Tails is painfully slow, and his only method of attack is "ring sniping" - as Tails, if you tap the X button, he'll throw a ring bomb infront of him. If you hold the X button, you'll be able to aim where you want to throw the bomb (including how high, etc). The worst part about controlling Tails is his flying mechanics. When you fly as Tails, he ALWAYS flies forward. Always. You cannot make him slow down, speed up, or stop. He always flies forward in the direction he's pointed to. This gets EXTREMELY frusterating, especially in the aformentioned Soleanna city missions, where you often have to fly Tails through a series of rings and you have to fight his controls.

Eventually, you hit the button and the gate closes. Sonic flips over the gate and lands in the game's first Mach Speed area. Mach speed areas are where Sonic cuts loose and pours on the speed. It's also one of the hardest, and worst sections out of the entire game. Sonic moves way too fast and the obstacles they make you dodge and weave through are too small and narrow. It becomes less a matter of "watch the pretty scenery fly by" and more a matter of "the minute you get hit, find some more rings again before you stop flashing otherwise you're going to die quickly and easily".

Later in the game, you hit moments where, instead of a mach speed area, Sonic will be on a snowboard. These are even worse, as Sonic's collision detection and controls make it really messy. Infact, the collision detection in this game is very strange. The game treats objects like rings as solid objects, meaning Sonic runs into them and jitters a bit when he touches them - like he's collided with a solid object briefly. Generally, while you don't fall through floors or anything like the original Sonic Adveture, the collision detection in this game feels really underpolished and could use a lot of work.

As you control the snowboard, you must "Charge up" a jump, similar to Sonic Riders. If you don't charge it up, Sonic makes this half-assed little hop before he suddenly jerks back down to the ground again.

Back in Soleanna, there's one thing you'll notice: It feels like a Ghost Town. The city itself is huge - massive, even; bigger than Station Square, Egg Carrier and Mystic Ruins in Sonic Adventure combined, but there are very few people. This was excusable in Sonic Adventure: humans wouldn't be roaming around Mystic Ruins OR the Egg Carrier, and Station Square was pretty normally proportioned. But Soleanna is massive, and it's streets are empty and barren. Even worse, few of the people you DO see you can interact with; you can only speak to specific people with exclamation points over their heads. Different color exclamation points denote their designation: Either they're going to tell you something useless, they have a side-mission, or they have something important to tell you. It's actually kind of nice you can tell this stuff just by the color of the icon.

Graphically, the game is a mixed bag. This is the sort of game that might've been doable last-gen on the original Xbox platform, but at 30fps. Textures are of decent resolution and the characters look fine, but their shadows twitch around their bodies unrealistically and compared to newer games coming out like Gears of War, Sonic looks more dated than ever before. All the humans in Soleanna are generic human models likely plucked from some bland pre-made model package somewhere. They all look dull and lifeless. Musically, the game is alright, but not outstanding. Some of the tunes gleefully seem to evoke classic Sonic games like Sonic CD, while others are very generic and forgettable light-rock.

However, there ARE moments when the game clicks; when everything falls in to place and works as it should. But those moments are fewer and farther between than any Sonic game to come before it. This game needed a lot more development time before it would be ready for public consumption, and it showcases just how far Sega is willing to exploit their little blue hedgehog to make a fast buck.

Based on three hours with Sonic through about four levels, if Sonic And The Secret Rings turns out to be crap, this might just be the end of the Sonic franchise as we know it.