Well, the time has finally come. After years of sitting in the den, stewing in the sauce of regretful-purchase marinara, Sonic the Hedgehog, known better as Sonic '06, has finally entered the PS3 for play. For the longest time, that game remained the only game purchase I ever legitimately regretted. After some time, my view has slightly changed. Maybe all those YouTube review that try to find the positives or are slightly deluded helped that out, a bit.
Anyway, I recently finished watching the Game Grumps play-through of the game and was inspired to do likewise. Play the game, I mean. Not record a hit LP and achieve millions of subscribers. (Although, that would be pretty rad.) Naturally, my play session began with the Blue Blur himself.
Uggh. Sonic controls weird. But I'm sure you've heard that in 99+ reviews and videos already. OK. How about this: you can't revisit levels on the world map. I know, Sonic's campaign makes you play the first level almost twice (Once as Sonic, with a little section as Tails, and again, partly through, as Tails.) but in Sonic Adventure, you could return to most levels from the adventure field to get a second and third objective. I know there's a speed trial option or something, but it's still a little annoying.
Or, at least, it would be if I wanted to play the levels again. Which I don't. It's hard for me to think of things that other reviews hadn't covered. I could point places where the game tries to be Sonic Adventure but fails. (Oh, side note. I'm probably blinded by nostalgia for Sonic Adventure. However, it is a B-/C+ effort in 3D platforming, where Sonic '06 is more of an D-)
For example, Sonic's first level features a segment in which he runs away from a whale, much like Adventure's first level. The last level, Robotnik's base, has some hallways that (it might be a bit of a stretch) remind me of some segments in Robotnik's Adventure base. Much like Adventure, '06 also forces you to play other characters, consisting of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Silver. No Amy yet, but that's later. Sonic's final boss taunts you and goads you into attacking it much in the same way that Sonic's final boss in Adventure did. (Some of the lines are verbatim the same, even!)
I beat Sonic's campaign/story/thing having gotten 9 Game Overs total. Not too bad, I think. The biggest drain was probably the mach speed sections. I just couldn't steer Sonic!
I suppose I can't close up and finish my "review" since I haven't played either Silver or Shadow yet. I'm not looking forward to the Silver fights, either side. That bit of the game harkens back to Sonic Shuffle - unfair CPUs. Or maybe Adventure 2's VS fights that give the other character powers that you never get to use yourself? Well, let's not get too afield here.
Sonic '06 - One third done. Let's see what the next part brings...
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