Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 video game)

Sonic The Hedgehog
Developer(s)	Sonic Team
Publisher(s)	Sega
Designer(s)	Shun Nakamura Masahiro Kumono
Engine	RenderWare Havok Physics Engine
Platform(s)	Xbox 360 PlayStation 3
Release	November 7, 2006 (Xbox 360) January 30, 2007 (PS3) November 24, 2006 (Xbox 360) March 23, 2007 (PS3)   December 21, 2006
Genre(s)	Platformer, Adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player Multiplayer

Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 that was made to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. It was developed by Sonic Team, published by Sega and directed by Shun Nakamura and was the first Sonic title to appear on a seventh generation game console.

The game shares its name with two earlier video games, a manga, a television series, a comic book series and, of course, Sonic the Hedgehog himself. To disambiguate, the game has been called by a number of different aliases, including "Sonic 2006", "Sonic PS3", "Sonic 360", "Sonic '06", "SONIC THE HEDGEHOG" and "Sonic Next-Gen".

Plot

Princess Elise presides over the peaceful city of Soleanna. During a parade, the city is attacked by Doctor Eggman, who seeks the key to a dangerous weapon that would help him conquer the world. Sonic must rescue Elise from Eggman, attempt to stop a new hedgehog from the future, Silver, and travel through time to discover how Eggman, the weapon he seeks, and Silver the Hedgehog are connected.

Sonic the Hedgehog

In the city of Soleanna, Princess Elise is starting the Festival of the Sun. Dr. Eggman invades the festival, but his capturing of the Princess was failed by Sonic, and he takes off with Elise. Upon destroying a couple of robots in the process, Elise is captured, but she throws a Chaos Emerald to Sonic, and then Eggman flies away. Upon meeting Tails at Castle Town, he and Sonic head into the ocean. They were too late, but Sonic grabs Elise's feather and runs off with Tails. They soon meet Elise in the desert, but Eggman butts in and lets the Egg Cerberus attack them. A defeated Eggman lets Sonic, Elise, and Tails escape.

After running through the plains for a while, Sonic is attacked by Silver the Hedgehog. Sonic defeats Silver, but he throws Sonic to a wall and is about to kill him when Amy comes to free Sonic and Elise is captured again. Sonic races off and finds Knuckles in the warehouse district. The trio race to Eggman's base in White Acropolis. After finding him, Eggman forces Sonic to place the Chaos Emerald in the slot, putting them in a trap to send them into the future where they meet Shadow and Rouge.

The trio come to a destroyed base where they find Silver, Blaze, and Mephiles (in the form of Shadow). After they disappear, Tails reads on a computer that the princess died on Eggman's battleship by an explosion. The trio find Shadow and Rouge in an area near a volcano. They race through there and find a Chaos Emerald, but the emerald disappears into a monstrous figure named Iblis. Sonic defeats it and the trio return back to Soleanna.

Sonic, with an urge to find Elise, comes to the train station to find her. After saving Elise from an exploding train, Silver attacks once again. Elise is captured, but Sonic is saved from Silver again, this time by Shadow. Silver, mistaking Shadow for Mephiles, starts to fight Shadow instead. Sonic finds Elise, who was about to die by falling off of Eggman's ship, but Eggman attacks once again. Sonic defeats Eggman and Sonic and Elise go into the jungle.

Eggman threatens to destroy Soleanna unless she comes back into Eggman's custody, leading Elise to go to Eggman's location. Eggman sets off to find a Chaos Emerald. Sonic is running through Kingdom Valley to save Elise, when mechs come in his way. Silver comes and helps Sonic to defeat mechs to get to Elise. Upon arriving at the location, Eggman's battleship explodes, with Elise on board. But Silver and Sonic use Chaos Control to make a portal to the day before the launch. The trio reunite, and, defeating Eggman one last time, Elise is saved.

Shadow the Hedgehog

Shadow's story begins with his invasion of Eggman's base to try to find Rouge the Bat, sent to retrieve the Scepter of Darkness; finding her, they escape and battle Dr. Eggman, during which the Scepter is shattered, releasing Mephiles who has the shape and abilities of Shadow because he was released in his "shade" or in otherwords Shadow's shadow.

Transforming into Shadow's image, Mephiles flings Shadow and Rouge to a devastated future where they meet up with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, who were sent to the future by Eggman. They return to the past, whilst Shadow remains to confront Mephiles. Rouge finds Omega and orders him to wait in time to deliver a Chaos Emerald to Shadow in the future. Back in the future, Shadow is told that humans will betray him, but refuses to join Mephiles, who transforms into his second form and a battle ensues. Omega joins him and defeats Mephiles, who flees to the past. The two return to the present and meet up with Rouge. Shadow goes looking for Eggman to ask who Mephiles really is, and asks Rouge to keep track of Mephiles.

Shadow finds Sonic under attack from Silver, and rescues him, engaging Silver in combat. Shadow overpowers him with Chaos Control. Silver also uses Chaos Control, which creates a rip in time/space. In order to understand more about Mephiles and Iblis, they decide to witness the accident themselves by traveling in time to the failure of the Solaris project. It is revealed that Mephiles and Iblis must be sealed to be defeated. Back in the present, Omega pursues Mephiles and defeats him. It is revealed that Omega defeated and sealed Shadow in the future.

Shadow, Rouge, and Omega chase Mephiles to a desert temple with a new Scepter, but fail to seal him in the new Scepter because of Mephiles' new form. Mephiles uses his powers, along with two chaos emeralds, to summon a clone army of himself. Before anyone attacks, Mephiles reminds Shadow of the human's betrayal against Shadow in the future. Without hesitation, Shadow decides that if the world chooses to become his enemy, he will fight as he always has. Shadow then removes his bracelets and, in a huge burst of energy, defeats the Mephiles clones and Mephiles.

Silver the Hedgehog

Silver lives in a devastated future, where telekinetic powers are normal. In this future, Silver's world is completely destroyed by what is known as the "Flames of Disaster". He and his friend, Blaze the Cat, battle an immortal being known as "Iblis". Frustrated that Iblis always revives himself, a mysterious figure named Mephiles appears and informs Silver that he can stop the Flames of Disaster by defeating Sonic, the so-called "Iblis Trigger", the main cause of the "Flames of Disaster". Mephiles, Silver and Blaze travel back in time to prevent Sonic from destroying the future. Silver, separated from Blaze, sets out to kill Sonic.

After meeting Amy Rose and locating Sonic in the city, Sonic and Silver battle, with Amy saving Sonic at the last moment. Finding Blaze, Silver redetermines that he must destroy Sonic, and in battling Sonic again, Shadow appears, with Silver mistaking him for Mephiles. The two fight, with Shadow overpowering Silver with Chaos Control. Afterwards deciding to induce a Chaos Control using the two Chaos Emeralds they both had, the two hedgehogs travel to the past to the Solaris Project. Arriving during the explosion that releases Mephiles and Iblis, they discover that Iblis was sealed in 7 year old Elise by her father, The Duke of Soleanna, with Mephiles being sealed in the Scepter of Darkness by Shadow. The two realize the monsters must be sealed to be defeated.

Silver and Blaze, realizing Mephiles' betrayal, assist Sonic in saving Elise but arrive too late as the Egg Carrier explodes. Using Chaos Control with Silver, Sonic travels back to save Elise, giving Silver a Chaos Emerald for him to return to the future. Traveling forward in time, Silver and Blaze fight Iblis and successfully defeat him. Silver attempts to be the vessel for Iblis, but wasn't accepted, however, Blaze was, and seals both herself and Iblis into another dimension to save both Silver and her world.

Last Story

Mephiles rises from the ground and launches a beam that impales and kills Sonic. As she realizes that Sonic's gone, Elise cries, releasing Iblis. Mephiles then used the Chaos Emeralds to merge with Iblis, forming Solaris, the sun god worshipped by the residents of Soleanna, who creates his own world to destroy time itself. Shadow, Silver, Eggman and all of the others are transported to the space-time rift by the Chaos Emeralds.

There everyone meets each other and grieve over Sonic's death. Eggman reveals that Solaris can't be defeated in the present, since it exists in all timelines. Silver suggests that they destroy Solaris all at once, but Shadow mentions it is not possible without Sonic. Elise feels Sonic's presence in the wind. Silver realizes that they can use the Chaos Emeralds to revive him. After a lengthy search, they find the Chaos Emeralds and revive Sonic with Elise's kiss, transforming him into Super Sonic who then expands his power to allow Shadow and Silver to transform into their super forms, and together the three hedgehogs defeat Solaris.

Sonic travels with Elise to the birth of the "Flames of Disaster". Realizing that if she puts out the Flames, Solaris will never exist and the two will never meet, though she doesn't want their friendship, and heavily implied romance, to end, Sonic convinces her to abandon their meeting. With tears in her eyes and a small smile, Elise gently blows Solaris from existence, thus erasing the whole game's events and happenings. Afterwards, the timeline changes so she is never kidnapped, and never meets Sonic. All the events of the game never happened, and the game ends with Sonic watching the parade in peace. He runs past Elise, who seems to recognize the gust of wind, saying that it feels like someone is calling her. One of her royal feathers flies off and Sonic watches it intently as it floats up to the moon. This could be seen as a hint that perhaps some vague memories still remain within both of them. Since the events were erased, it is likely that this story has no continuity in the ongoing canon, unless the characters remember it, and all events and elements in the future are a "What-if" venture.

Characters

Playable

File:SonicNext-GenPromotional.jpg

Promotional art depicting the game's playable characters. From left to right: Silver, Sonic, and Shadow.

There are three fully playable characters, which are progressively unlocked by playing each character's story in the game. The player begins with Sonic; other playable characters become available when they are encountered. In addition, the player may control partners for some sections of a level, aiding him with their unique abilities.

• Sonic the Hedgehog: The hero of the game, Sonic goes to Soleanna to rescue Princess Elise and prevent Doctor Eggman from unleashing the power of the Flames of Disaster. Sonic's story has high-speed, Sonic Adventure-style gameplay. Sonic's friends are Tails, who can use his two tails to fly to higher areas, and Knuckles, to climb to areas and glide through the air.

• Shadow the Hedgehog: A black hedgehog who is a friendly rival to Sonic. Shadow has since after his own game Shadow the Hedgehog joined G.U.N. as an agent and is assigned to rescue another G.U.N. agent, Rouge the Bat and retrieve the mysterious Scepter of Darkness. Shadow uses vehicles to progress through the game. Shadow's allies are Rouge the Bat, a jewel thief and government spy who, like Knuckles, can glide through the air and climb; and E-123 Omega, who can hover and shoot rapid-fire.

• Silver the Hedgehog: A mysterious hedgehog from the future, Silver traveled to the present to save his homeworld and stop the mysterious Iblis Trigger. Silver's gameplay involves the use of telekinetic powers to pick up objects and throw them at enemies as well as levitate in the air for differing amounts of time, depending on the energy bar. Silver's friends are Blaze the Cat, a princess from another world, with the power to control fire; and Amy Rose, who can double-jump, use her Piko Piko Hammer, and turn invisible.

Amigo

Amigo characters are playable in parts of the main character's levels. Three of them have their own levels.

• Miles "Tails" Prower: An 8 year old fox who has two tails. He meets up with Sonic, asking to help. The two of them rescue the princess from the desert, Tails splits up from Sonic to distract Eggman's mechs. Tails returns later in the game to chase down the Egg Carier when Elise is kidnapped again.

• Knuckles the Echidna: A powerful echidna. He meets Eggman on the outskirts of New City, and is asked by him to give Sonic a message. He meets up with Sonic to give him the message, and is then transported into the future by Eggman. After getting back from the present, he helps Sonic to rescue the Elise in Aquatic Base.

• Amy Rose: A young hedgehog who is in love with Sonic. She comes to Soleanna to find Sonic. She sees Silver and thinks she has found Sonic, she soon finds out otherwise. She learns he is looking for someone too, so the two team up to find the people they are looking for, unaware they are both looking for the same person. Amy later saves Sonic's life when Silver tries to kill him.

• Rouge the Bat: A seductive bat who often helps Shadow. She is sent to steal the Scepter of Darkness from Eggman but is captured, resulting in Shadow going into Eggman's base to rescue her which he does. She works with Shadow for the rest of the game. The two are teleported into the future by Mephiles. Rouge is able to get back to the present, and tracks down Omega for help. After Shadow returns to the present she helps Shadow and Omega track down Mephilis, and later helps Shadow defeat him.

• E-123 Omega: A powerful robot built by Eggman. Rouge tracks him down to help her save Shadow which he does. He later admits to Shadow it is him who traps Shadow in the future. He helps Shadow defeat Mephiles.

• Blaze the Cat: A shy cat, who protects the Sol Emeralds. Blaze is revealed to be Silver's best friend. She travels to the present with him to stop the Iblis Trigger, the two travel to Eggman's base hoping to find answers about the Iblis Trigger. Blaze later travels with Silver through Kingdom Valley and witnesses the Death of Elise. Blaze travels back to the future with Silver when Silver finds a way of sealing Iblis. Blaze later sacrifices herself to seal Iblis.

Non-playable

• Princess Elise: The 17-year-old Princess of Soleanna who harbors a dangerous secret. Ten years before the game took place, the demon force, Iblis, was sealed away in her body by her father at the age of 7. Her father, in order to protect her, urged her, shortly before his death to remain strong and never let herself cry.

• Doctor Eggman: The main villain of the Sonic series, a scientist equipped with legions of robotic minions. Eggman is the main villain in Sonic's story. His primary goal is to conquer the world. He seeks knowledge of the "Flames of Disaster" from Princess Elise, hoping to use them to rule the world and control time in the past, present, and, future.

• Solaris: The Sun God of Soleanna, Solaris is the primary antagonist and the final boss of the game. Solaris initially existed as a tiny flame known as the Flames of Disaster. The Duke of Soleanna conducted experiments in Solaris, in hopes of controlling his time powers to allow humanity to travel through time and correct its past sins. However, during the experiments, Solaris became unstable and separated in two entities, Iblis and Mephiles the Dark. When Mephiles and Iblis join again to form Solaris, it creates its own world to devour time itself.
  • Iblis: The main villain in Silver's story, Iblis is a gigantic creature made of lava that represents the raw power and strength of Solaris. Iblis has the power to continually resurrect itself after being defeated. Originally sealed inside Elise, Iblis was freed a few years later and caused a catastrophe that devastated the world. Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat continually fought Iblis, until Mephiles the Dark told Silver that Sonic is the Iblis Trigger, the legendary being who freed Iblis.
  • Mephiles the Dark: The main villain of Shadow's story and the evil mastermind behind all the events of the game, Mephiles is the other half of Solaris. Mephiles is a being of pure darkness who represents the conscious mind and will of Solaris. In order to join together with Iblis and return to his true form, Solaris, his goal is to break Elise's seal. He gained his physical forms from absorbing Shadow's shadow after Eggman accidentally released him from the Scepter of Darkness. In Silver's story, he is the one who informs Silver that Sonic is the "Iblis Trigger", and that he has to destroy him in order to rectify his future and save his home world.

• Duke of Soleanna: Elise's father, the late ruler of Soleanna. When the Solaris Project failed, the world-destroying power of Iblis and Mephiles was released. Despite being gravely wounded, he was able to bind Iblis by using his daughter, Elise, as a "vessel" body. By doing so, he was able to save the world from imminent destruction. Before he died, he begged Elise never to cry, as the key to unlocking Iblis is in Elise's tears and despair. Ultimately, thanks to Elise's actions, the Solaris Project never occurred, which could suggest that the Duke of Soleanna may never have died, or may have died from another cause.

Cast

This game features the cast of 4Kids Entertainment from Sonic X in the English version. Likewise, the Japanese version has mostly the same voice actors from Sonic X and the previous game series.

Japanese Voice Actor	English Voice Actor	Role
Junichi Kanemaru	Jason Anthony Griffith	Sonic the Hedgehog
Kōji Yusa	Jason Anthony Griffith	Shadow the Hedgehog
Daisuke Ono	Pete Capella	Silver the Hedgehog
Maaya Sakamoto	Lacey Chabert	Princess Elise
Chikao Ōtsuka	Mike Pollock	Doctor Eggman
	Mike Pollock	Narrator
Ryo Hirohashi	Amy Palant	Miles "Tails" Prower
	Amy Palant, Lisa Ortiz	Maids
Nao Takamori	Bella Hudson	Blaze the Cat
Nobutoshi Canna	Dan Green	Knuckles the Echidna
Takayuki Sakazume	Dan Green	Mephiles the Dark
	Dan Green	Solaris Project Scientist
Rumi Ochiai	Caren Manuel	Rouge the Bat
Taeko Kawata	Lisa Ortiz	Amy Rose
Taiten Kusunoki	Maddie Blaustein	E-123 Omega
Kenji Utsumi	David Willis	Duke of Soleanna
	David Willis	G.U.N Communicator

Gameplay

Single-player

Although each character plays the same levels, each character's unique abilities allow him or her to get to different areas of each stage, and deny them from accessing certain items.

Gameplay is broken up into two gameplay styles, similar to Sonic Adventure. Action Stages are where the bulk of the gameplay takes place, whereas Town Stages are free-roaming locations where the player can talk to non-player characters and explore, as in Sonic Adventure's Adventure Fields. For each of the action stages in the respective stories, gold medals are obtainable by achieving high ranks in these stages.

There are a total of eleven stages. A ranking system exists for each of the levels and town missions, providing ranks calculated from score, rings and time remaining. The highest rank is S Rank, followed by A Rank, down to the lowest, D.

Several downloadable extensions have been released that add features to single-player gameplay. These include 'Very Hard' mode, a more difficult version of the game; 'Boss Attack' modes, which allow a playable character to engage in continuous battles with all of the game's bosses; and 'Team Attack Amigo' mode, which allows players to play through the entirety of the game as amigo characters.[1]

Multiplayer

Sonic the Hedgehog features two styles of multiplayer game play that offer two player action.

The first mode, Tag Mode, is a co-op type of play between Sonic, Silver and Shadow. Two players, each one controlling a character, must work together to clear levels and collect Chaos Emeralds. In this mode, lives are shared. The second game style available is Battle Mode. Battle mode pits two players against each other and has them race to a goal in the selected level.

The previously rumored mini-games that were to allow up to four players to play simultaneously/alternately (Quiz, Race and a few others) seem to be missing in the final release of the game. [2] The back of the game case says that it can go online, but there's no option in the game menu to do so.

Music

The main theme for the game is entitled His World, performed by Ali Tabatabaee (Iranian rapper/vocalist) and Matty Lewis (American guitarist/vocalist) both of the band Zebrahead.

HipHop/R&B Artist Akon has done a remix to Dreams Come True song "Sweet Sweet Sweet", a song from the album 'The Swinging Star'. This track was originally composed by Masato Nakamura, and sung by DCT's Miwa Yoshida. Added as the ending theme for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Genesis, The song is entitled "Sweet Sweet Sweet ('06 Akon Mix)", in Japanese and "Sweet Dreams" in English. It is Sonic's ending theme for the game. [3].

Shadow's theme, "All Hail Shadow", one of the vocal songs from the Shadow the Hedgehog soundtrack, was rearranged by Crush 40; it was originally sung by the band Magna-Fi.

Silver's theme, "Dreams of an Absolution" by Lee Brotherton (Remix Factory), can be heard at their website in the "Solo Projects" section of the "Music" header, as well as an exclusive remix of the song. [4]

Elise's theme, entitled "My Destiny", was performed by singer/songwriter Donna DeLory.

The in-game music is composed by Tomoya Ohtani, Mariko Nanba, and Hideaki Kobayashi, with Namano Mushrio, and the Japanese Geroinic Band & Symphony.

The soundtrack to Sonic the Hedgehog is available to buy from Sega Direct. It was released on January 10, 2007. There are two different albums: the three-disc OST and the single-disc Vocal Traxx.

Reception

Across thirty-nine reviews, Game Rankings recorded the average score as 46%; the second poorest average for an Xbox 360 title at the time of the game's release. The later PS3 release received a similar score of 43%. Sales were also lower than expected for a premier Sonic title, with only 38,000 units being sold in the first two weeks.

In a February 2007 interview for Kikizo magazine, Sonic Team producer Yojiro Ogawa was asked to comment on the game's glitches, control problems and loading times:

The reason why we probably ended up with what we see today, involves a lot of reasons. One is that we did want to launch the title around Christmas, and we had the PS3 launch coming up, but we had to develop for Microsoft's 360 at the same time and the team had an awful lot of pressure on them. It was very hard for the team to try and see how we were going to come out with both versions together with just the one team. It was a big challenge.

— Yojiro Ogawa, Sonic Wii Interview with Yojiro Ogawa

See also: Video games notable for negative reception

External links

• Official American site, accessed from the game page
• Official European site
• Official Japanese site, accessed from the Sonic Channel
• Sonic The Hedgehog reviews at Metacritic
• TGS trailer at Game Videos