Sonic the Hedgehogis not a bad franchise, regardless of what the series’ discourse has been twisted into. Between the 2D and 3D entries, there are more than enough high-qualitySonicgames to ensure the series’ place in history – something anyone with any real understanding of the medium can recognize. All the same, it’s impossible to deny the hiccups inSonic’s resumes.
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WhileSonic, as a whole, has its merits, its worst games tend to be quite awful. A “bad”Mariogame is hard to quantify because the averageMariogame is still coherently designed even at its worst. Not necessarily the case withSonic, and certainly not the case withSonic 06– one of the single worst video games of all time.
10The Blaze Conundrum
In one ofSonic 06’s strongest assertions of its incompetence, it simply forgot that Blaze was an established character with an incredibly specific backstory which more or less allowed her to serve as the main character in the firstSonic Rush, the firstSonicgame on the Nintendo DS – a game mostSonicfans would have played before06.
Imagine their surprise when Blaze shows up and: is not from her alternate timeline, does not interact or even acknowledge Sonic, and is saddled with Silver for the entire game, a character who had absolutely nothing to do with Blaze. Also, she’s now from the future instead of an alternate dimensionn – whichRush Adventurestraight up ignores.
9Elise Seriously Never Cried?
The main conflict inSonic 06primarily centers around the fact that if Elise cries, she’ll more or less bring upon the apocalypse. Okay, not a bad plot, in theory, it’s something rooted in classical mythology that actually fitsSonic’s aesthetic well, but here’s the thing: Elise is a grown woman. If she were a little kid, this would make sense, but she’s a grown woman…
Whose father has already died by the time she meets Sonic, by the way! Elise doesn’t cry for her literal family dying, but Sonic the overgrown Hedgehog? Well, that’s enough to break her into pieces. Oh, also, Sonic dies.
8Sonic The Hedgehog Literally Dies
Talk about pranks gone wrong. AsSonic 06was attempting to go for a more mature and serious storyline (really the series’ natural next step following the ill-conceivedShadow the Hedgehog,) it makes sense to feature some doom and gloom. Heck, even some casual death would work. But the death of the main character?
This is like killing Mario on-screen or like killing Donkey Kong: you just don’t do it. Not only is there no narrative value in killing Sonic here, all it does is stand out as a needlessly shocking moment. Funny enough, though, it’s not even the game’s worst scene.
7Sonic The Hedgehog Kisses A Human Woman
This is actually a plot point rooted in the original game’s development. While developingSonic the Hedgehogfor the Sega Genesis, Sonic Team actually envisioned a human love interest for Sonic himself: Madonna. Perhaps realizing the insanity of such a move, however, Sonic Team opted to give Sonic no love interest, let alone a human one.
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Then comesSonic 06, where Sonic the Hedgehog and Elise not only have aggressive sexual tension from start to finish, they lock lips on-screen in a passionate kiss that brings Sonic back to life. On one hand, Sega’s audacity and shamelessness is kind of admirable. On the other, uhhhhhhh…
6Sonic 06 As A Soft Reboot
Arguably the strangest thing aboutSonic 06is its complete disregard for the rest of the franchise’s history and lore. Aside from a few key characters returning,Sonic 06essentially serves as a soft reboot, setting new ground for the series to build off of. It was such a colossal failure that this didn’t happen, but it was always a poor idea from the start.
Keep in mindSonic 06was supposed to be a celebration ofSonic the Hedgehog’s history. While the 3D titles weren’t as consistent in quality as the 2D ones,Sonichadn’t lost his goodwill by 2006. Which makes it all the stranger thatSonic 06refuses to engage with the series’ history in any meaningful capacity.
5Time Travel
It’s always tricky whenever a series randomly introduces time travel as a concept. Rarely does it ever culminate into a net positive, butSonic 06was adamant to try anyways. To be fair, the set up isn’t too terrible, basically lifting fromTerminatorandDBZ’s Cell arc as far as post-apocalyptic futures go, but the rules of time travel are just dumb.
By using two Chaos Emeralds in conjunction, it’s now possible to travel through time inSonic. Is this ever mentioned again? You bet it isn’t. Does it even make much sense in the context ofSonic 06? No, but you already knew that.
4Silver Is Just Future Trunks From Dragon Ball
Sonic the Hedgehoghas a lot of references to Dragon Ball– Super Sonic/Super Saiyan, 7 Chaos Emeralds/7 Dragon Balls, Knuckles is red Piccolo– but Silver really takes the cake. He’s not so much a reference as he is a blatant rip-off.Sonic 06just decides Hedgehogs are Saiyans as has Silver replicate Future Trunks’ role wholesale.
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He’s one of the sole survivors of a destroyed future, he goes back in time to save another timeline, and the story is ultimately framed through him even if he’s not the main character. The only thing missing is Shadow being Silver’s father.
3Shadow And The Secret Rings
We mentioned thatSonic 06doesn’t honorSonic the Hedgehog’s history as a franchise, but that isn’t quite true. There is one piece ofSonicmediaSonic 06gleefully references despite the fact it had zero basis or build-up in the games: Shadow’s rings. InSonic X, Shadow’s rings on his wrist suppress his true power.
At the end of Shadow’s story, he releases his strength out of nowhere and… that’s it. This has no lasting consequences on either the game or the series. It’s a strange detail fromSonic Xthat exists inSonic 06for truly no discernible reason.
2Mephiles, The Worst Sonic Villain
Mephiles has a pretty decent boss theme, but he’s a strong contender for worst villain as far as theSonic the Hedgehogfranchise is concerned. As is the case with most 3DSonicgames, a decent chunk ofSonic 06is dedicated to hunting down the Chaos Emeralds– only for it to be revealed that Mephiles can summon the Chaos Emeralds to him pretty much whenever.
To make matters worse, he is a blatantly evil character who inexplicably manages to manipulate Silver. Mephiles also has no real relationship with Sonic, despite being the one to kill him, makingSonic 06’s last act feel incredibly hollow.
1None Of This Matters
The only solace to come out of the fresh hell that isSonic 06is the fact that Sega at least had the human decency to wrap the story up in a way where quite literally nothing players did for dozens upon dozens of hours (just counting the load times, of course.) Come the end ofSonic 06, the timeline has been reset and everyone’s back to square one.
Considering the game’s story, it makes senseSonic 06would opt to go for a time loop ending. In theory, it brings everything full circle – but how surface level is that?Literallybringing things full circle? That’s not impressive or cool. It’s not even particularly interesting once you stop to think about it for more than a second.
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