How would you re-done Sonic '06

[Emilybee]

Okay, none of us like the game. But with all consideration, how would YOU have handled '06?

Note; as much as everyone says they dislike Silver, he does have *some* fans, so rather then saying "I'd not included him", it would be nice to hear "I'd used him like this...". Honestly, there was a lot of potential for Silver and a lot of waste, leding to the fandoms "meh" opinion of him.

Also, try to think about including all other characters...

Basically, I felt it was an ambitious project and one that could have enhanced the Sonic universe 3x. But due to the entire handling of the game, the potential went the wrong direction and left fans feeling cheated out of £££ and/or $$$s. BUT it needed another year of development, some stupid mistakes were made.

The Princess, I'm not sure how I'd have handled her. Honestly, its not Silver that causes me problem, its her. I think Elise should have been the vessel holding Iblis, but nothing more then that because honestly, it went too far.

I think the two big villians were done pretty well, but both were overall wasted. Iblis and Mephiles were perfectly good villians, both suffered from being excuted poorly but the plot. Iblis SHOULD have been the big bad villian introduced about the same time Silver revealed he was good, Mephiles by now should have let on to Silver he was a villian after all. The last 1/5 of the game would be a run up Solaris being killed.

Sonic's death was a nice idea, and I think should remain, but its the handling. Honestly, Chaos Emeralds alone would have been enough I felt, which is why I've never been great at thinking about how Elise.

The only characters needed were Robotnik, who I'd have had unwittly being tricked by Mephiles into helping his cause. Shadow should have asumed the shade of another character rather then Shadow as Shadow's pressence in the game was questionable. Shadow's form was cool, but it wasn't useful to the plot other then getting him in the picture.

I'd have had Silver as a big "villian" throughout the first 3/4 game, but not playable. IT would then, in a the last 1/4 of the game be revealed he WAS a hero but got his history facts wrong and was chasing Sonic when it was Mephiles he was after. I'd still kept Mes as the one who sent him to the past though, that bit was worth keeping for the big realisation moment. Oh and a different voice actor, one who had a soft (due to being young), but a more serious voice rather then a hard dorkie voice.

Amy and Knuckles and Tail... They should have all had supporting roles for Sonic but not be playable in any way. I'd not even have them out on the adventure behold a few minor things. Amy would be just as she was in Unleashed I guess. Honestly, though its important their around, they don't always have to be playable. Their the basic Sonic supporting case.

I'm not talking about the handling though and actual gameplay except the levels should have been 1/3 the size. They don't go fast enough at a decent pace to warrent them being that big. And its nice they are that big, honestly the landscape is just a copy+ paste. I also would have STARTED the game at Soleanna but left that after one "stage" or level whatever they called it.

There you go. My thoughts on the game.

[L. T. Dangerous]

I'd have tweaked the story so that it was about Robotnik stealing the seven Chaos Emeralds and hiding them in the Special Stage, accessible through giant golden rings. Sonic must stop him or everything he holds dear will be destroyed. Because that's the only story that is ever necessary in a Sonic game.

I wouldn't have used Shadow or Silver at all because the original intent was that it was a Sonic-only game.

There would be no humans at all.

There would be no adventure fields.

The levels would be well designed and there would be no stupid gameplay mechanics like the ridiculous jump pads or the triangle jump that has never, ever worked reliably in a Sonic game or the speed pads.

The bosses would be fun.

The game would probably have been side-on and not third-person 3D.

I'd have ensured bugs and loading times were reduced to as little as absolutely possible.

What I'm essentially saying here is I wouldn't have made the game at all. The music's fine, though.

[ShayMay]

I'll tell you the way in which I did handle it:
I turned the XBox off and went to play Sonic 3 and Knuckles instead. Oh Sonic 3 and Knuckles, you're so good to your uncle Shay.

Sonic '06 was a flop in design, production, execution, everything. I can think of literally NO redeeming qualities the game has, even without the glitches.
The gameplay for all three characters was mundane, there was no glimpse of the old Sonic platforming style, just "here's a racecourse, hope you don't die", no... nothing.
Oh, the music was alright.

So the only thing I'd disagree with is your Robotnik point. He's been tricked so many times it's unreal, and, ironically, it's more of a twist nowadays if he DOESN'T get [censored]ed over by his supposed ally.

But yeah, onto the meat - Sonic was a lovesick prick, give him an attitude again.
Shadow's a moody [censored], kill him off, he has no friends, Maria, etc. Seriously, he's just a horrible character now. He's not even cool.
Silver shouldn't have been such a massive Trunks rip-off, although he had quite a nice gameplay mechanic, if only the levels weren't so dull and poorly-executed (and conceived). If he weren't so whiny, I might have actually liked him - if you live in a world in which THE GROUND IS LITERALLY COVERED IN FIRE, how the Hell do you manage to whinge so much? Don't care for the characterisation, thus don't care for the character. Archie did him much better (don't make me say that again or I'll barf up a lung).
I can see what they were trying to do with Elise, like, a fairytale story. Ruined by the fact that it's a [censored]ing cartoon hedgehog. So sickeningly Square Enix it was unreal. "If you have time to worry, then run!" Oh, [censored], my tax returns are due.
...
RUN AWAY.
Iblis and Mephiles were horrendous characters. Mephiles was trying to be all diabolical, like Finitevus (Archie did him better too, brb, off to the hospital), but failed in every aspect. Oh, he was a [censored]ing hedgehog too. Iblis was... a fire dragon. Wow. Never seen that one.
Sonic's death was so tear-jerkingly stupid that it's rendered me sterile.
Amy, Tails and Knuckles should either take a lesson in being good, productive characters or just never appear again, does anyone even like them? Especially Tails, the useless [censored].
Blaze though. Oh God, Blaze. Whole game should have been about her. Actually relatively cool, just pings about like a ninja on crack between robots, and to be honest, I've just found one relatively redeeming factor. And even then, glitches ruined her.

How would I have handled '06?
I would have scrapped it in '05.
THE END.

[madhair60]

Sonic '06 is about equal to Adventure in my mind. Lots of ideas and potential, squandered when the game was rushed out, released unfinished and is as a result unplayable. For that reason I find it less offensive than the later games like Secret Rings, Black Knight and Unleashed which have no such excuse for being the terrible [censored] that they are.

[Devo DrakeFox]

I actually sort of like '06, but I agree it is a broken game. I would have fixed the obvious glitches here and there (the areas where you can't use Homing Attack, the messed-up camera, the ridged jumps and mid-air manoeuvrability), and I would fix Sonic's gem abilities since YOU CAN'T BLOODY USE ANY OF THEM!

[Juliett. Bravo. Alfa.]

Can it and start again.

Its been the game that hurt me more than Heroes. I mean it didn't assume a physical form and rape me but at times it was close. I mean of all the horrible experiences in my life this game is about number 5.

[ShayMay]

I'd be remiss if I didn't ask this... what's number one?

[Juliett. Bravo. Alfa.]

Finger up my bottom. Touching something inside me.

The only things I can defend about the game is the music and the level design. And even then the level design weren't as good as it should have been.

[The Shad]

We get it, its a bad game.

Stop digging it up.

Jul 10, 2010 12:18:42 GMT Juliett. Bravo. Alfa. said:

Finger up my bottom. Touching something inside me.

[Juliett. Bravo. Alfa.]

It was a doctors appointment.

[Beeth]

- Keep it in development considerably longer, to iron out the countless glitches and increase the various areas of potential the game showed throughout.
- Get them to remove unneccessary loading screens, i.e. to display a SINGLE LINE OF TEXT.
- Shorten the levels dramatically, they were way too long.
- Drop the unneccesary side missions.
- Overhaul the story. Completely. Just diabolical.
- Get rid of that hallway section in Silver's game. You know which one.
- Give Knuckles and Blaze more gameplay.
- Sort out the camera priorities, as in looking where you're going rather than at the scenery. I refer specifically to the tornado section in Sonic's Crisis City.
- Give Silver a slightly more imaginitive name.
- Get rid of Amy altogether. She serves absolutely no purpose in this, or most games for that matter.
- Sack Lacey Chabert. This is money that could be put to better use developing the game than hiring some wannabe A-lister.
- Make absolutely sure that they don't release a press statement saying that they're "taking Sonic back to his roots", as they do with every Sonic game that's come out since two thousand and [censored]ing two.

I hope this is sufficient, for now.

[ShayMay]

Jul 10, 2010 14:23:33 GMT Beeth said:

I hope this is sufficient, for now.

It's not. I could probably fill all 60,000 characters of this with complaints about Sonic '06. No matter how much we complain about it, it will never suffice. Ever.

[Beeth]

True. Nonetheless, they seem to be learning their lesson. Albeit slower than the wide majority of us would like. The next game is around the corner, and will no doubt be taking Sonic back to his roots. Again. Only it won't.

[ShayMay]

I have since split Sonic games into two categories - fun and not fun.
Both Colours and 4 are in the "looking fun" category for me until further notice.

[legionfan44]

I would have spent more time on the controls and Camera so it could have turned out as a decent game. And I would have had Amy punch elise after kissing sonic.

[Nam]

Obvious points:
- Fix the controls
- Fix the camera
- Less levels that are tightropes over bottomless pits
- Less bottomless pits
- No pointless side missions
- Fix the loading
- Actually implement the physics engine properly (i.e. wooden boxes don't have the same physical properties as steel ones and bounce in the exact same way)
- Take the time to test it properly

All those are more or less givens. The most obvious problems are crap gameplay, loads of bugs, loads and loads of loading, rubbish camera, bad level design, problems that have plagued Sonic for a while, and could be applied to a fair few games.

Story wise, it needed a lot of work. For one thing, the realistic looking humans looked right out of place. Robotnik looked atrocious with realistic proportions, and Elise looked like she was in the wrong game. If you really had to have a princess, what's wrong with an anthro? Sonic Team are so willing to make dozens of Anthro's to play as, but if there's an important NPC role that can't be done with the regular cast, it seems to always default to a human. Why? That just makes having an anthro cast more and more out of place.

Secondly, Elise was useless, if she wasn't being captured, she was being rescued, and if she wasn't being rescued or captured, chances are she was about to get captured. There's one sequence where she gets caught, you play a level rescue her, only for her to get captured again. There's [censored] all plot advancement in those scenes, it's just a feeble excuse to play through another level. What was the point? Why couldn't we have had another reason to go there? Elise was ultimately just a hostage, and her entire role could've been replaced with a jam donut for what she was worth to the plot.

Other characters are largely redundant too, with many only being there because there expected to be. In SA 1, Knuckles had a role to fill, he wanted Emerald pieces to fix his emerald, in SA 2, more of the same weaker reason. In '06, he had absolutely no reason to be there. He just casually turns up with tails, as another one of Sonic's sidekicks, because people expected it, but his actual use was completely redundant. Same with Tails, he didn't need to be there.

Shadow too was entirely redundant. Any character could've served as a basis for Mephiles to appear like, but it had to be Shadow because he was most popular. But as far as his story went, what did he actually have to with anything? I can't actually see really what Shadow does that is all that important. Admittedly half the story has escaped my mind, so feel free to prove me wrong. I do remember however that Shadow gets betrayed by Omega, a plot thread that I don't honestly remember ever getting resolved...

The actual plot, of a character from the future, mistaking Sonic for the thing that ultimately causes the word to end was fine. But the way it was delivered was so cheesey, and it came across all wrong. At no point does Sonic ever think that maybe he will cause a problem, and should be a bit careful, or find out more, even when he's sent into the future. Silver too didn't think to stop and ask Sonic after finding out that the hedeghog's not that much a threat. Yes it'd still be cliched, but it could've been so much more interesting.

And it's funny, we all breathe a sigh of relief that '06 retconned itself out of happening, but save for the cringe inducing bits, there's nothing in that that should've really got erased. The plot while nothing special, wasn't God awful (save for that scene...) and had a few things that actually would've made for some interesting sequal hooks, such as the afforementioned betrayal, and Blaze's sacrifice, which now will probably never actually get any form of resolution. I know people say Sonic games don't need complicated plots, and whathaveyou, but if you're going to set one up, see it through, or don't bother.

Aside from the general gameplay issues, bad controls, bugs, and loading, there are several key areas of gameplay that stand out as bad. Mach speed sections for one, are just an absolute pain. They're not fun, and just a case of memorising when to press the jump buttons/swerve out of the way.

Similarly, the billiard ball section as silver, and the level where you're floating around on the liquid metal in the underwater lab as silver, both are unnecessary, not fun, and annoying.

But none are as annoying as the concept of action stages. There completely redundant, with nothing worthwhile in them. The missions are a pain, paticularly the forced stealth ones. This is about as far removed from "bringing Sonic back to form" as having weapon armed vehicles to drive around in...

Really to sum up, there's next to nothing in this game done right. From the start everything was gone wrong, with it being horrendously rushed, and with gameplay decisions that were less "would this be fun" than "I need something to make this less of a 'hold right to win' scenario". The game is a product of bad decisions atop bad decisions, and the only thing that really needed changing to improve this game, was the entire development process. If they'd had more time, a better testing policy, and some good ideas, it could've been a good, if not necessarily great game, but certainly better than what Sonic '06 is.

[Emilybee]

The kiss should never have happened, thats the one thing just about every fan can agree on.

Amy wasn't useless, she was useful in letting us know just how useless she can get.

[Baxter]

I could go into detail, but it essentially amounts to "rework the entire thing from scratch".

Not really convinced by the "If they'd just given it another six months..." argument, either. Sonic Heroes spent - what - three years in development, remember? Delay after delay won't amount to much if a project is doomed to failure from the start; at least this way S06 turned out laughably crap, rather than just bland, boring and forgettable.

[Mark]

I wouldn't.
/thread

[Emilybee]

No its not because saying something shouldn't be made is too easy. Unless you make something at all, you can't progress in any direction, not even forwards.

Besides, thats not what the topics about.

[Mark]

Jul 12, 2010 15:58:37 GMT Emilybee said:

No its not because saying something shouldn't be made is too easy. Unless you make something at all, you can't progress in any direction, not even forwards.

Besides, thats not what the topics about.

Shouldn't be made? You're about 4 years too late with that remark. I said I wouldn't touch the game, notice the word Wouldn't.

And personally, I couldn't give a [censored] about the kiss. It's like when you see Roger Rabbit and Jessica Rabbit, it's a cartoon, a fairy tale. Get over it.
I'm not saying it probably wouldn't have hurt if it never happened, but there's no need to be all O MAI IS ENCOURAGING BESTIALITY as some folks are.

"Besides, that's not what the topic's about" well, if you're going to cling to that like a baby hanging from a washing line then:

• Less loading times
  
• New, more fluent game engine. Similar to SA2.
  
• Add in extra scenes to bridge story better
  
• Make Soleanna smaller, therefore less of a ghost town.
  
• Decrease the number of town missions and increase the number of actual stages
  
• Make Silver's Psychic power much more workable.
  
• Improve 2-Player mode, for the love of god.
  

[Emilybee]

Thank you.

The idea was, everyone keeps dissing it right? But they never saying how they could have mprove it. Even now, people are more then happy to say "it should never have happened". Right... You diss the game and never say much else about it. So I put the topic out to get the throats cleared and I was tired of it coming up in other threads.

Yeah its bad, we're always saying that... But honestly, there has to be something more then always doing that.

[ShayMay]

While normally I would agree - constructive criticism is always better than "it should never have happened", Sonic '06 is one of the cases in which it should never have happened.
I mean, how that got past play-testing is beyond me. Apparently they had to fire testers to get it out. It has very very few redeeming qualities, and the development team should have realised that before it got anywhere NEAR release.

Oh, and this really is poking a dead horse. Like Mark says, it was four years ago.
Any and all constructive criticism is lost.

[Moo]

I'd release Sonic Xtreme instead.

[Mark]

Jul 12, 2010 22:26:09 GMT Emilybee said:

Thank you.

The idea was, everyone keeps dissing it right? But they never saying how they could have mprove it. Even now, people are more then happy to say "it should never have happened". Right... You diss the game and never say much else about it. So I put the topic out to get the throats cleared and I was tired of it coming up in other threads.

Yeah its bad, we're always saying that... But honestly, there has to be something more then always doing that.

Well, feel free to train up in games programming, apply for a job at Sega and offer to spend hours fixing the bugs. Nah, I'm kidding, we don't need to be that literal.

The game's been made, I bought it on launch day and such, and the game had real potential, I can always pick out things I ENJOY in Sonic games, even '06. I completed it, so therefore I must've been really stupid or the game was at somewhat playable.
"It should've never happened" IS a fairly useless statement since it was 4 years ago and he's released better games since.

I personally would leave the game alone, but if it was fixed up, it could've worked a bit better.