A Fair Review of Sonic 06 | Retrospective in Reverse
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- This video is the next one in my Retrospective in Reverse Series. It covers Sonic 06. The "worst game of all time". I hope you enjoy the video!
#sonic #sega #sonic06 - Hry
Ok, I finally finished watching this video I gotta say, I absolutely adore your reviews! It's so nice to see that after all these years later that games like 06 and Shadow are finally getting a fair analysis and aren't being thrown under the bus for being "edgy", or "having a dumb gimmick", or "including Sonic's stupid friends". Later Sonic games released after 06 avoided implementing these features because of stupid loud-mouth “influencers” like the Game Grumps. I 100% agree that a lot of people online over exaggerated 06’s shortcomings just to get the CZcams clicks and they actually get paid for it! I hate influencer culture, it’s as if people can’t think for themselves any more! I also love how you pointed out IGN giving Sonic Adventure 2 for the Dreamcast a 9.4 but they give Sonic Adventure 2 Battle which released in the same year for the GameCube a 6.9, that makes zero sense to me and goes to show how biased these gaming critiques are against Sonic.
The failure of 06 devastated me on a personal level. Prior to the release of 06, the Sonic Community was in a bit of a civil war. Not only was the fandom split apart at the time due to the controversial change of voice cast, but the fandom was split up even more due to the fact that 06 was not going to be released for the, at the time, upcoming Nintendo Wii. After Sega went third-party, most Sonic fans became Nintendo fans and felt “betrayed” that 06 wasn’t coming to Nintendo’s console. I unfortunately had a very bad experience back in 2005/2006 defending Sega’s understandable reasons for not developing 06 for the underpowered Wii. Nintendo fanboys then got upset and wrote nasty comments saying crap like “Nuh-uh, Nintendo’s not weak, Sega is weak! They’re the ones who aren’t a console anymore.” or “How dare you criticize Nintendo’s console! Nintendo saved gaming, and they saved Sonic! Sega owes Nintendo and the Sega HQ should burn for siding with stupid PlayStation and Xbox!” or “I hope this game sucks! It’ll serve them right for betraying Nintendo!” or “I HATE YOU SEGA! I hope you go bankrupt and have to sell yourselves to Nintendo!” This incident really annoyed me and caused me to dislike Nintendo and hate the fandom for the next decade and a half. And when Sonic and the Secret Rings was finally announced for the Wii, the Nintendrones STILL weren’t happy and put on this BS superiority complex and would boast about how Secret Rings would be better than 06.
Unfortunately, they were right. In the end, Secret Rings was the “better” game from a functional standpoint, but the game was immensely less ambitious and smaller in scope than 06 which kept me from enjoying it as much. And if Sega didn’t kiss Nintendo’s @$$ and just waited to develop Secret Rings after 06 was complete (or not develop Secret Rings at all), then we could have probably avoided the ‘Dark Age’ of Sonic completely. It pisses me off how these Nintendrones got their malicious wish after speaking all smack, and they probably still weren’t happy with their little Wii game anyway.
Anyway, I have finally made time to watch your entire review and I love a lot of the points that you made. And I 100% agree with you that a lot of people jumped on the Sonic-Hate bandwagon just for the CZcams clicks. The Game Grumps for example have even admitted that their Sonic playthroughs are their most popular videos. Thanks to clowns like them, Sonic Team strived to stay away from themes and features that 06 had (multiple playable characters, serious stories, free roaming gameplay, AKA things that made Sonic so great), and decided to play it safe during the 2010s and people still weren't happy!
So anyway, there are a few points you brought up that I wanted to comment on. In regards to Blaze, I heard that Blaze saying “blue hedgehog” was a mistranslation and she was supposed to say “naive hedgehog” suggesting that it may be Silver’s actions that doom the world. It’s also theorized that the development of Blaze was similar to Cream, where Sonic Team made a character that was made for a mainline game on consoles but debuted earlier in a side game on a handheld. It’s also believed that 06 takes place before Rush and Blaze remains in the Sol Dimension that Silver sent her to and after the game’s story erases itself.
I also love how intimidating Eggman was in this game. Eggman calling Sonic a rat/rodent gave me SATam vibes. And I agree with you that there’s a ton of undeserved hate that people give this game just in an attempt to be funny and get clicks such as Clement whining about seeing Eggma’s eyes in a cutscene (Seriously, who cares?). This game also has the best writing for Shadow as a character. This game gave us a Shadow who was confident in himself, put the past behind him, treated Rouge and Omega like family, respected Sonic, and acted as a mentor figure to Silver.
I am also one of the few people in the world who doesn’t think of the whole Sonic x Elise as a ridiculous idea. People need to realize that Sonic having a romantic relationship with a human woman was just a simple nod to a scrapped idea from Sonic 1. Sonic was originally going to have a human girlfriend named Madonna and the accusations of beastiality is just downright ridiculous. Stories like ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ are able to have romantic relationships between humans and anthropomorphic animals, so why is it a crime when Sonic does it? And the kiss was just a simple ‘Sleeping Beauty’ breath-of-life scene, you don’t even see their lips meet. And it was hinted that Sonic and Sarah from the OVA had something going on, she even kissed Knuckles on the cheek, so why is Elise such a big deal? Also, I find it funny how people claim that they wouldn’t be as turned off if Elise was an anthro, but if they did that, then the SonAmy shippers would be furious. And what people have to realize is, Sonic falling in love is out of character for him anyway, hence why the game erases itself from the timeline. Since the game erases itself, we are free to experiment with romance and other themes that we normally wouldn’t have in your average Sonic experience that doesn’t involve time-travel.
I also feel Mephiles was overly hated, people mock him for being Black Doom 2.0, I always thought that Mephiles was an awesome villain, and his attempt to recruit Shadow but rejecting the offer goes to show how much Shadow has grown as a character. I think 06 gave us the best writing for Shadow in the games. Also, I never heard of the theory of Silver being Shadow and Blaze’s son, prior to the games’ release, a lot of people were expecting Silver to be the son of Shadow and Rouge from what I’ve seen and remember. Honestly though, if anyone, I think Silver would be a descendant of Sonic because his enemy, Eggman Nega, in the Rivals games admitted to be a descendant of the regular Eggman, so I think it would be fitting to see the descendants of both Sonic and Eggman fighting 200 years in the future.
Anyway, I’m loving your reviews. Also, your comment of 06 being 3 games in one package makes me wonder how the reception of this game would have been if it had an episodic release like Sonic 3K and Sonic 4. Mind you, digital releases were not very big yet back in 2006, but still, I wonder how a $29.99 Sonic, Shadow, and Silver package released 6 months apart from each other would have worked? Anyway thanks again for making a fair review of Sonic 06 and not jumping on the 06-hate-bandwagon for the sake of clicks. 06 had pretty much everything that I wanted in a Sonic game (aside from the fact that it was an unfinished glitch-fest of course).
Hey, I don't have anything to reply. But, I enjoyed reading your comment and glad to see you enjoyed the vid 😊
@@NintenDeen Yeah I look forward to more of your reviews. 👍
As an 06 fan, no matter what you say at least you were fair
Post watching this video fully I never thought I see the day that based 06 would be praised this highly. thank you
I'm so happy you enjoyed it! Thanks for sticking it out, I worked a ton on this vid so it's good to see people appreciate the effort :)
I’m 11-minutes into this video and I completely agree with you calling out the unfair criticism towards Sonic games and the blind bias these critics have towards Mario. And it doesn’t stop with just Sonic, I’ve seen interviews with the founders of NaughtyDog who felt that Crash Bandicoot 1 was unfairly criticized just because it was competing with Mario 64, and to this day I see Nintendo fanboys riding on the Zelda OoT 99/100 score on Metacritic, and yet they don’t acknowledge that 4 out of the 17 OoT reviewers on Metacritic have the word “Nintendo” in their name! -_- Yeah, can smell the bias.
Anyway, I’m loving your work, I’ll probably make another comment when I find the time to finish this video as Sonic 06, despite its flaws, is one of my favorite Sonic games ever, and I hated the ‘safe’ route that the franchise took after the game’s release.
At first I was iffy about listening to this, but really enjoyed it. I especially like how you liked Eggman in this since i've heard so many people complain about and consider him to be a "unrealistic" version of him in the game.
fantastic review, i may not agree with a few things you said, like I think Sonic Kingdom Valley is a fantastic stage, and i think you said you didn't like Sonic death, which is a highlight for me, but other then that a truly amazing review, a reviewer that judges a game for what it is, not what they want it to be, someone that actually tries to get better at the game, tries to learn the game, instead of complaining about the slightest inconvenience, those are the reviews i take to heart, and value the most, you can hate the game, but just be reasonable about it, i wish we had more reviewers like you, that the end of this video you said something i really relate to, from the 90s to 2010 i was a gamer i loved all kinds of games, Sonic being my favorite, it was a happy time i wasn't really expose to the internet, but in 2010 my family move and i had to put most of my gaming collection in storage, so i got into the internet, and that when i saw that the the 2000s Sonic games, the best games i've ever played in my life, we're terrible games, and 06 was the biggest offender of this, i saw so many videos, review, playthough of people doing noting but tear the game down, and show everything wrong with the game, the overwhelming hate towards the game made me i felt like such an idiot for like the game, like i was so naive to the issues of the game, i believe everything people said, i was a follower, from 2010 to 2015 i took a break from gaming, that in my mom lost the key to storage, losing %90 of my gaming collection, in 2015 I got Sonic Colors and Generations, and i wasn't love them, before 2010 i loved every Sonic game i've played, so it was so weird that i didn't love these Sonic games, and people said these we're to good ones, i was scare, i thought maybe Sonic doesn't appeal to me anymore, that i grew out of him, or worse the internet and the overwhelming hate towards sonic games, open my eyes to that Sonic was never good. so i when back to play 06, now knowing what i was in for, i was going to experience the true horrors of 06, i play through all of Sonic Story, doing all the missions and had a blast, the look on my face was priceless, i literally thought to myself what the heck are people complaining about, i truly thought i was going to have a terrible experience, but no, it was funnier then i remember. I also when back to play the other 2000s Sonic games, and i still love them all, even though most of them we're label as bad game. it was at this point that a game be label as a good game and bad game doesn't matter anymore, a game can be call good and you have no fun playing it, and a game can be label bad and you can have so much fun playing it. sorry about the rant, just wanted to get that off my chest.
I'm glad you enjoyed! I've noticed a lot of people coming out to defend 06 in recent years and I'm all for it. I was dumbfounded while playing this game because while it is definitely not polished, rushed, and unfinished, there's so much enjoyment to be had. It's not unplayable and not the worst game of all time.
I honestly do wonder what Sonic 06 would’ve been like if it had time and the team wasn’t split. Probably have more of Sonic friends get expanded and maybe a Silver spinoff. Great video!
It's sad that pretty much every Sonic game has these "what if?" questions lol
No matter how many videos I've watched that have people crapping on 06, none of what those people said have effected my opinion on this game, and the Sonic and Elise romance stuff doesn't bother me. I became interested in it, heard stuff about P-06 and after watching a video that showed all the cutscenes I just got more convinced to give this game a try. I'll be going for that fanmade remake because:
1. I'm not going to try to get an expensive old console just to play 1 game on it.
2. My mother and I already came up with a plan to share money so that I can get my own laptop PC as my only Christmas gift this year, and an adult friend can help me pick the right one.
3. The person who is making that remake (Chaos X) will likely have the final release available by the time that I can start using that PC, I heard that he might release it later this year or early next year. Though the hub-worlds and Story Mode won't be in it, the CZcamsr that I heard this from said that it's possible that some other people might try to make mods of those missing parts so that it can be completed. If they do get made I will try to download them for sure.
What a review. After years of seeing reviews on the lines of ‘This had potential, but is objectively bad’, I was waiting for something like this! I thought it has all been said at this point, so I was really curious by the length of the review what is would be like. Thank you. Have you played the DLC? Those levels are more polished than in the original, and the characters play faster there. Would highly recommend them.
Hey I'm glad you enjoyed it! And no I haven't tried the DLC (yet). Definitely going to give it a shot soon though
The blue emerald only exist on a time loop?
That's what it seems like, yes
(Replying to the last comment) Is this video (and all prior videos) still fully your legitimate honest thoughts on the game? Just asking cause of the 'take seriously' mention.
Yes of course! My concern is people will think I'm being a contrarian. But these are my genuine thoughts on these games. I don't think Shadow is amazing or anything, but I think there's a lot to like. You'll see what I mean next week
(Limited time for now)
"What a game...what a *damn* shame."
Yeah, THAT game indeed seems to be next up.
If I still have any people take me seriously after today's video, next week's video is going to definitely turn people against me 🤣
This is one of my favorite games, and I do think that people overblown everything, which is frustrating today having people enjoying or defending things in other games that they criticize about the franchise.
I really appreciate your review! However I gotta disagree on 3 things:
1.- it definitely needs more polish, it IS a broken game (not as broken as today's triple AAAs ironically, lol) so, yeah, just a faster movement speed isn't enough.
2.- Kingdom Valley is amazing
3.- I do think you were a bit soft with the game, I mean, yeah, if you just look for something to play and enjoy, the issues aren't a big deal (when I first played it I just assumed the game was difficult), but if you're going to review or criticize something, yeah, the loading screens and some physics were really questionable (people are stupid when criticising the glitches as they're actively looking for them tho, like the box that goes to the sky)
Also, I love this Shadow too, but to me it's a longer timeline:
>Sonic Adventure 2: Shadow misguided understands what his promise was
>Sonic Heroes: Shadow starts a new life
>Shadow the Hedgehog: Shadow tries to investigate who and what he is
>Sonic Battle: Shadow fixes pending issues related to his past
>Sonic 06: Shadow knows who he is, no one can manipulate him in any way
I'm glad you enjoyed!
Just some quick clarifications, 1- I think I specified the faster movement is enough for me and stressed it was an incomplete game throughout (although it's a long review and I was definitely shedding a positive light on the experience).
2 - Kingdom Valley was the hardest part of the whole game for me 😅 . But I did enjoy its setting and music.
3 - on one hand, I understand your point. And I think I've been having discussions about this for a few weeks and have had a few different conclusions on my end. first, I'm not a professional reviewer. I'm someone that reviews his own perspective of these titles and shares those with people, as a passion project. Second, the criticisms I didn't go hard against have been shoved down everyone's throats since 2006, and I generally try to add new talking points to a game rather than check off everything others have already discussed and just be another voice in the crowd. I personally felt I addressed all of the negatives about the game, both the ones that didn't bother me as much as they would others, as well as the ones I felt others blew way out of proportion. But again, it's a 2.5 hour review that was positive about a broken game so I can see how me not spending time on those negatives aspects gets lost in the video lol.
Either way, thanks for the feedback. These comments are more useful than most ppl think when I'm writing my scripts.
OH and regarding shadow. Your timeline is correct, at the time of this video I had only played SA2 many years ago, and 06 for this vid. I'm going in reverse so I get more in depth on shadow in the following videos on the Playlist. (P.s. SA2 vid drops tomorrow)
@@NintenDeen Oh, I don't have a very good memory then hahahahaha
I understand! Your analysis was pretty good honestly! It's just that sometimes it felt that you said "but it's fine by me" (which is great) but other times it felt that you said "no biggie" (which sometimes was correct and sometimes it felt that you were too soft).
But yeah, maybe after the 2.5 hours your words started to vanish from my mind as I was writing this comment hahahaha
but, in general, I agree with your point of view, I just would've been a bit harsher if I put review in the title, not dogpiling on the game as everyone does for the memes tho.
Also, I REALLY appreciate how you mentioned the classic games to make a comparison. I always find it ridiculous how people defend one game and attack the other when they share similar designs like the bottleneck thingy.
Everything that you said was great and you gave a fair chance to a game that, even if it's broken, has a lot of heart in it.
I really appreciate your analysis, what you're adding to the conversation, and that you read my comment!
Also, also, I didn't mind the kiss btw (people overreacted too much considering how they reacted towards Lola Bunny's Space Jam 2 design, and they seem fine with the Vaporeon, Gardevoir and Palworld "memes"). However, I DID find it unnecessary, I think a typical Disney tear drop would've been better than a kiss (but in general I don't really like the idea of reviving someone)
solid review👌👌
Ye
Was that playground in the picture the one on the way to Salt Lake City ?
Timestamp?? I'm pretty sure I just grabbed a picture of a playground off Google though lol
😮the o we
Throughout the retrospective in reverse, I've been super critical of these videos. Before I say anything here, I just want to say, uh, I hope there's no hard feelings here. D: It's might be a little jarring to have the same guy constantly on you throughout the series - especially when he's a fan from before the series started. The videos are fine as videos. I just think that the opinions in the videos are really crazy
This is a super long video (which is fine, this is possibly the most divisive game in a series of divisive games) so I won't be able to get around to all of it at once. But I'm half an hour in and here's what I think so far
I find the rebuttals to common criticisms to be a little odd. There are some things that don't bother you personally, which is fine, but still should not be there to begin with. One example is the Silver boss fight - yes, by playing more cautiously, you can avoid the softlock. But there shouldn't be a softlock in the first place. You individually were able to get around the problem (possibly due to going in already knowing that it exists), but the game sold hundreds of thousands of copies - so there are still probably thousands of people who did get stuck.
- The general counterculture tone of the review in general. Don't get me wrong, there are absolutely die-hard Sonic haters out there. But because this is the game that made Sonic seem like such a laughingstock to the internet at large, this wasn't really a factor when the game was new. There weren't large masses of people going in to 06 with the intent to hate it yet, because that happened *after* the terrible response to this game. (I'm sure a non-zero amount of people did that, but not a huge amount of gamers in general)
Actually, the timing on this is pretty great - there's a video that just went up by the CZcams channel Ninjastar Compass that dives into the world of what Sonic 06 reviews were like when Sonic 06 was new. (Given, at this point, CZcams itself was also new, so a lot of people were still figuring out how to even make good videos) You'd be surprised at the results- he didn't hear a single "Sonic had a rough transition into 3D" or "Sonic was never good" until years after 06's release.
- This isn't a criticism, but-- I don't know if you made all these videos in a production season and are only uploading them once you've finished a few, or you actually make one > upload it > make another > upload it. If it's the latter, MAN you are a video-making machine. And that's something to be proud of!
Hey I'll withhold some of my responses for now until you're done (and also since I'm going to sleep soon) but I did read your comment! Regarding the last paragraph, my scripts have all been written for a while now and the audio recorded too. One downside to that is there are some comments you've made and others have made that I haven't been able to address in the following videos. For example your comment about me shrugging off criticisms, I actually agree with and if I could do it again I wouldn't continue to do that. Or @baylordiamond saying I'm coming off as disrespecting people's opinions, if I could redo it I would find a way to not come off as being disrespectful.
So it's not that I'm ignoring these criticisms/comments you guys are making, it's that the videos are already done and they're long as hell and I just don't have the mental capacity to go back and make the edits lol
Okay, with the mach speed section in Kingdom Valley, that was clearly your fault. You ran head first into the geometry.
You know, I was waiting for this comment. After I uploaded it I realized I didn't put the footage of the times where I just ran into a water "wall". You're the first person to point out what I did show lol.
I actually timed and film the amount of time it took to retry a mission in 06 and it was over a minute and a half of loading. That wouldnt even be acceptable on the ps1. So no it was not "industry standard for the time". While individual loading screens arent very long the issue is the frequency. The game often hits the player with back to back loading screens often loading things that the game shouldnt need to load. For example the game often reloads the entire map to play a cutscene or open a text box. Forcing the player to wait upwards of 30 seconds for less than 30 seconds of gameplay.
The moments where you have back to back loadscreens where they all take up a ton of time (like over a minute) are far and few in between. And Halo 3, Cod 4, Scarface, etc off the top of my head had excessive load times and released 2007ish. I'm not saying 06 wasn't worse for the loading, my argument is that I doubt it was THAT much worse based off my memory.
1:36:14 its not nitpicking to say that a story that takes itself somewhat seriously needs to have some form of internal logic.
I got this game the year it came out for the 360, i think, and i didn't get on the internet until years later so i had already fromed my opinion on it.
I don't like this game. and never encountered any bad glitches, i never got stuck on walls with Knuckles and Rouge or got flung to space.
What i did get a lot of were slowdowns, scripted events killing me, especially the mach speed sections, Kingdom valley's hovercarft section crashing the towers ontop for no reason, a wall running section of Flame core always killed me with Shadow. Silver fight with Sonic where i homing attack him and he whould jump back up an catch me before Sonic fell back to the ground and throw me up into the ceiling catch me again on the way down and kill me.
I feel simular to this as i do Heroes where game play feels joyless and when i start to warm up to it the game kills me for something out of my control.
As for the story, well Eggman feels to monotone and Sonic is too serious, yes Eggman can be threatening and Sonic can be serious but both of them are missing their spark.
I also feel Mephiles is overrated and the music in this game annoys the heck out of me.
There are a few small things i like, Shadow's whole story and team Dark's reletionship, like what is this garbage of "team dark are not friends" that we hear now a days. and when you go into the train station, both Sonic and Silver has to sneak in and Shadow just flashes his badge, thats gold.
It is great when people find the enjoyment in this under baked and poorly mixed together cake of a game. I am just not one of them, and I 100% Shadow 05.
Hey that's a totally fair perspective. Thanks for sharing it. Which Sonic games (if any) do you actually enjoy?
@@NintenDeen Oh Adventure 2 Battle is my favorite and I am a Shadow 05 defender and i also love Unleashed. i don't know what my relation is with Adevnture1 as i played 2 first so 1 felt like a downgrade and i never beat the game.
And whilest i do have a more negative history with 06 i don't think it is the worst game in the franchise and i think it would be super fun to play with friends, if only to see how much you can break it.
I love 06
It’s a nice video and all but the AI images are not good.
2:18:13 Can you just respect other peoples opinions. Acting like your review is one of the only "fair" ones just because it's positive is kind of rude and dismissive. I dont personally like multiple playstyles in sonic games and i was trying to play the game as intended but the glitches were very intrusive. If you had a different experience thats fine but dont act like other peoples experience arent valid or grow annimocity twards people who genuenly dislike the game.
One of the best reviews of this game i have ever seen was done by the great clament and despite ripping the game to shreds he was still very thorough and constructive in his cruitiqe.
Again im glad you enjoyed this game that i dont but can you please at least try to be more considerate of other peoples opinions?
My animosity is not towards people that dislike the game. It's for the ones that held a position from a place of power and used their influence to affect the general discourse and image of Sonic games. I watched the Great Clements 06 review, out of all of the reviews, it was my least favorite. It felt as though he was beating up on the game before he even started playing it. Someone like The Geek Critique, I'd argue have a much better review of the game. He was fair. I held this opinion on their reviews prior to even playing this game and learning that I enjoyed it. I don't like when reviewers blow a few aspects of a game so far out of proportion that it lends to everything else about the game being ignored. Clement, Johnny and Antdude do that a ton in their Sonic Reviews. Mind you I love their content and their personas, but I don't agree with how they address these games.
Regardless, I don't disrespect people's opinions of these games. But I do find it problematic when the echo chambers sprouting from these content creators and reviewers take over. I understand you don't like multiple play styles, I can respect that and respect what you enjoy, but other folks don't even play these Sonic games and add to the discussion. I can't respect those people's opinions of the games
@@NintenDeen I wouldn't say Claments review was in bad faith. (He is a diehard fan of the franchise afterall). Him coming in with a negative bias derived from him having previously played the game and having heavily disliked it. I too came from a similar place where I wanted to like sonic 06 since I played and enjoyed SA1 but came out of it thinking it was one of the worst AAA titles I had ever played.
While yes the anti-2000s "Sonic Adventure ruined everything circlejerk" was rather toxic. But many classic fans where not and are not like that and just didn't like that direction for the franchise. Hell Shiro Maekawa even flat out said he didn't like Sonic. I could point to Jebtube and his toxic circlejerk and say the same thing about 2000s fans.
All of the CZcams critics in the 2000s were rude and dismissive of any positive opinion of Sonic 06. Did you go to the comment sections of all of their videos and tell them that they need to be respectful of other people's opinions? Or do you just tell that to people who disagree with you?
@Pirate_Knight27 Well, they didn't insult the people who disagreed with them. If they did insult and dismiss people who liked the game I would say the same thing.
They just said this game sucks, heres why i think it sucked. And many including myself agreed. If you disagree thats fine
Wait I didn't insult anyone