Only 15 years after the Sonic series started Sega decided it was time for a reboot. In the rush to release in time for holiday 2006 Sega released one of the most infamous games of all time. This is a review of the Xbox 360 version played on an Xbox 360.
Sonic Adventure?
More than any other Sonic game besides maybe Sonic Heroes this game plays like the two Sonic Adventure games. The most obvious changes are the playable characters being extremely slow and Sonic and Shadow not falling during homing attacks. Overall the game feels clunky compared to the previous 3D Sonic games, which were rather smooth and fluid.
Besides Sonic you get to play as a bunch of other characters who are actually the most fleshed out alternate characters in any 3D Sonic game, which is surprising given how the rest of the game plays. This is about the extent of what Sonic the Hedgehog does right compared to the Adventure games.
Very, Very Buggy
The biggest issue with the parts of the game that they managed to finish is that they didn’t have time to test them properly. If you don’t do exactly what the game expects you will probably die. If you don’t die, you can at least expect something unexpected and often funny to happen.
While the game does work if you play it exactly as intended, that doesn’t make for a very fun experience. The level design is far from impressive, even for a Sonic game. Sonic and the other characters also control very oddly, but not in a way that makes the game quirky but still enjoyable.
Something that did actually work rather well was the physics engine, which seems to have been provided by the Havok engine. This provides an interesting and unique experience, but Sonic Team did almost nothing to actually incorporate this into level design, so it is mostly up to the player to figure out how to make these mechanics fun.
What Did They Finish?
The things that were finished actually turned out rather well for Sonic Team. The sound track, for example, is one of the best out there despite being kinda strange in some places. The voice acting is also rather decent, though some of the cutscenes are awkward in a way that you wouldn’t expect in an Xbox 360 game.
The game also does a lot of things right graphically. It runs at a relatively high resolution (or at least looks like it does) and at 60 FPS when everything is working properly. Massive frame drops are common though, especially when the physics engine comes into play. The only exceptions to this are the places that seem to not have been finished. There are a lot of areas with mostly flat geometry and blurry textures mapped onto them. Other places like some parts of the hub world have clearly unfinished lighting. The areas that were finished are quite aesthetically pleasing, though.
Should You Play It?
If you are looking for a fun game, no. If you are looking for a good 3D platformer, maybe, depending on how desperate you are. If you are a Sonic fan, probably.
Even at 60 dollars the game offers about as much content as you could reasonably expect from a 3D platformer, and at this point it should cost you much less than that, so it is at least not bad from a value perspective.
This doesn’t get factored into the score but it is definitely one of the most important games of all time, and for some people that is reason enough to check it out. It is also fun a somewhat high amount of the time in a non-superficial way, which can’t be said of many games that were much more complete.
Overall the game is a 6 out of 10.
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