Unpopular Opinions On Gaming

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Honestly, I'd say that Shadow the Hedgehog is actually worse than '06. But I've never beaten either of them, so maybe that would change if I had.

OK, then I'm convinced that you haven't actually played '06 for anymore than just a few minutes. Shadow is a godawful game, no doubt, but its at least playable. Its just not the least bit of fun to actually play and is filled with frustrating level design. Sonic '06 has ALL of that AND on top of that its one of the glitchiest, buggiest messes that has ever been released into the world of gaming. Just try any level of the game and if you aren't dying because of a terrible camera and/or cheap enemy placement, you will die because you glitch through the floor, a glitch causes you to get stuck in a wall or ceiling, a glitch causes an obstacle to appear right in front of you and send you veering off to your death, or you so much as touch anything (and I mean ANYTHING) during one of the Mach Speed segments. Compared to that, Shadow seems merciful.

I once watched a multi-part video of a Sonic fan tearing the game to shreds and carefully pointing out every single thing that went terribly wrong in that game. Perhaps I'll post a link to it later for all to see and be educated.

[Nel_Annette]

There is so much to agree and disagree with... but I just got out of work and I'm freaking tired. 

/massive Sonic fan

I will say that Spark is dead-on about Heroes though. A return to the old Genesis-aesthetic levels and the Act 1/Act 2 set-up was a great idea, but

-the controls took a nose-dive,
-the simpler, lighter plot (while I can appreciate those nowadays i.e. Colors and Generations), was given to us after we had been spoiled by SA 1 & 2's deeper, darker plots (as stupid and full-of-holes as they are in hindsight),
-they brought back a character from those plot-heavy games in this light-hearted one, offering only a vague explanation for his return,
-the team mechanic was a bit boring, the characters were wasted, barely having conversations/interactivity during gameplay and instead opting on stating the obvious
-the team mechanic introduced us to enemies with hp. Fucking hell. In this game it has an excuse. It encourages you to use the power character. In Shadow's game, it encourages you to use the guns. In Sonic 2006... why? Whhhyyyy did the enemies have hp? Terrible mechanic.
-Metal Sonic was completely wasted.

Shadow's game and Sonic 2006 are a whole other post.  But I need a rest.

Listen to the Ensatsu. If you're referring to Clement's review then link to it. It's the greatest takedown of that game, right next to Pokecapn and his friends going mad playing it.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Thinking on it, the laser power up in Colors is fairly similar to what Chaos Control gameplay might be like. That would have lead to more interesting gameplay other than....... terrible third person shooting and vehicles.

A lot of people have speculated that the wisps were Sega's way of testing the waters on how the other characters would play from now on. If this means that they'll play like Sonic but able to do (inset ability here), then I'm all for it.

That would be cool.

Laser = Shadow
Drill = Knuckles
Hover = Tails
Burst = Blaze
Spikes = Sonic's rolling and spindash

Rocket, Cube, and Frenzy could be used for other characters, but adapting those to original characters would be cool.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Listen to the Ensatsu. If you're referring to Clement's review then link to it. It's the greatest takedown of that game, right next to Pokecapn and his friends going mad playing it.

That is in fact the one that I was referring to. I normally wouldn't watch multi-part reviews like this but I did in this case since I was already somewhat of a fan of his let's plays. While I had only played little more than an hour of '06 and already concluded that it was the worst Sonic game ever, it wasn't until I saw his review that I realized that it actually did the impossible and got even worse the more you played it.

Here is the review in question that I'm referring to (its long as hell, but its a good watch, IMO).

[Nel_Annette]

It really is a good watch, people. Clement can get a bit annoying with the shouting and the skit-bits, but it's kind of like RedLetterMedia's Plinkett reviews where despite how you feel about the reviewer, he nails every fucking thing wrong with Sonic 2006.

Shadow was bland in every regard, terrible, gritty brown level design, unmemorable music, a bullshit plot, and terrible attempts to be "edgy", but it was at the very least playable. The only thing worth owning from Sonic 2006 is its soundtrack. I think the furthest I ever made it with Sonic and Shadow was Flame Cora and I never even made it past the billiard ball puzzle as Silver. To this date its the only 3D Sonic game I don't own in any capacity.

(I like his LPs too.) 

[Spark Of Spirit]

There is so much to agree and disagree with... but I just got out of work and I'm freaking tired. 

/massive Sonic fan

I will say that Spark is dead-on about Heroes though. A return to the old Genesis-aesthetic levels and the Act 1/Act 2 set-up was a great idea, but

-the controls took a nose-dive,
-the simpler, lighter plot (while I can appreciate those nowadays i.e. Colors and Generations), was given to us after we had been spoiled by SA 1 & 2's deeper, darker plots (as stupid and full-of-holes as they are in hindsight),
-they brought back a character from those plot-heavy games in this light-hearted one, offering only a vague explanation for his return,
-the team mechanic was a bit boring, the characters were wasted, barely having conversations/interactivity during gameplay and instead opting on stating the obvious
-the team mechanic introduced us to enemies with hp. Fucking hell. In this game it has an excuse. It encourages you to use the power character. In Shadow's game, it encourages you to use the guns. In Sonic 2006... why? Whhhyyyy did the enemies have hp? Terrible mechanic.
-Metal Sonic was completely wasted.

Shadow's game and Sonic 2006 are a whole other post.  But I need a rest.

Listen to the Ensatsu. If you're referring to Clement's review then link to it. It's the greatest takedown of that game, right next to Pokecapn and his friends going mad playing it.

My biggest issue with Heroes is that the team mechanic should have been so good. Imagine playing Sonic 3 with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles playing at the same time. Sonic is for speed, Knuckles can bash through walls no one else can, and Tails can carry the team vertically like in S3&K.

Now imagine this means every level has tons of paths for each character leaving anyone to play every level how they wanted.

This is not what Sonic Heroes does.

- Every level is a highway in the sky with one path to follow
- Every level has copy-pasted level design to make them long
- You are constantly forced into every team type whether you want to or not
- Flight is useless and ridiculous looking
- The grinding is horrendous (good luck getting through Rail Canyon!)
- The physics do not work (good luck getting through Casino Park!)
- Most of the music is bland (art like this deserved color in the soundtrack, too)
- You can easily attack of a ledge as power
- The levels are like 10 minutes long

It takes good ideas and wastes every single one of them.

Also, I watched Pokecap'n's LP of Sonic 06. I can only imagine how much worse that must be to play because every idea in that game made me shake my head.

[Nel_Annette]

You pretty much hit everything I forgot to mention, man. 

I know a lot of people like Heroes' soundtrack, but besides a select few tracks, I never liked it much. It did introduce me to Julien-K and to a further extent, Orgy, so I guess there's that.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I really like Ocean Palace, Grand Metropolis, and Bingo Highway's themes, but they were the handful that had color (outside of a few I'm missing)- most were just bland rock like Shadow and Eggman/Tails in SA2.

[Rynnec]

Those, plus the Team Image Songs and What I'm Made Of are pretty much the only noteworthy tracks in Heroes.

[talonmalon333]

I made it through and reached one of the endings of Shadow the Hedgehog. It's definitely a bad game. Terrible, even. But it's easily better than not as bad as Sonic 2006, Foggle.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I would say the Mach Speed sections alone make it the worst Sonic game. Even if the rest of the game was good, those sections would drag it to horrible.

[Foggle]

OK, then I'm convinced that you haven't actually played '06 for anymore than just a few minutes. Shadow is a godawful game, no doubt, but its at least playable. Its just not the least bit of fun to actually play and is filled with frustrating level design. Sonic '06 has ALL of that AND on top of that its one of the glitchiest, buggiest messes that has ever been released into the world of gaming. Just try any level of the game and if you aren't dying because of a terrible camera and/or cheap enemy placement, you will die because you glitch through the floor, a glitch causes you to get stuck in a wall or ceiling, a glitch causes an obstacle to appear right in front of you and send you veering off to your death, or you so much as touch anything (and I mean ANYTHING) during one of the Mach Speed segments. Compared to that, Shadow seems merciful.

I once watched a multi-part video of a Sonic fan tearing the game to shreds and carefully pointing out every single thing that went terribly wrong in that game. Perhaps I'll post a link to it later for all to see and be educated.

I have played both for about 30 minutes each and found Shadow to be worse. Though that is probably not enough time to form an accurate opinion, I admit.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I have played both for about 30 minutes each and found Shadow to be worse. Though that is probably not enough time to form an accurate opinion, I admit.

I have no idea how you managed to somehow run into NO serious game-breaking issues within the first 30 minutes of Sonic '06, as I thought that was literally impossible. Even I ended up running into 2 glitches before even making it 15 minutes into the game, and one of them caused me to restart the game because I got stuck in a random wall and couldn't move anywhere.

I mean, it seems silly to debate about which of these 2 terrible games is shittier, so I won't, but let it be known that it is a cold hard FACT that Sonic '06 is the worst Sonic game by far.

[Foggle]

The camera was the worst I've ever seen and I fell through the floor at least twice, but I still had more fun with it than Shadow for some reason.

[Avaitor]

Honestly, I don't remember Shadow being THAT bad. Well, actually I do, but I could at least make it through one of the endings.

Sonic 06, I couldn't even finish a demo.