Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game that consists of 7 releases
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Not much has changed since 1999; the game is broken up in to three separate stories - one for Sonic the Hedgehog, another for telekinetic newcomer Silver the Hedgehog, and one for gruff-voiced Shadow the Hedgehog. Though each character has their own plot threads and motivations, their pathways frequently cross. Like Sonic Adventure 2, each story in fact represents a team of characters - for example, while you select "Sonic's Story", you end up playing as both Tails and Knuckles at key points in the plot. Players who choose Silver will also have to contend with Blaze the Cat and Amy Rose, and Shadow teams up with Rouge the Bat and E-123 Omega from Sonic Heroes.
Like the original Sonic Adventure, the game is broken up between free-roaming "Town Stages" and more goal-oriented "Action Stages". In Town Stages, players are tasked with roaming around the city of Soleanna while trying to find a gateway that leads to the next Action Stage. This usually involves talking to citizens of Soleanna and completing sub-missions around town. Rather than finding new abilities in levels as in the Sonic Adventure games, they can be purchased from the in-game shop and are often required to access the next Action Stage.
New to the game is the "Action Gauge", a bar of energy in the bottom right corner of the screen that measures how often a character can do a "Custom Action". While Silver can glide through the air and pick up physics objects, this will, for example, drain his Action Gauge. When Shadow's Action Gauge fills to a certain point, he can use "Chaos Blast". When Sonic is carrying the Princess, his Action Gauge drains when using the Princess' shield ability. The Action Gauge can be replenished by grabbing Chaos Drives and Light Cores from defeated enemies.
Plot
In Soleanna, the City of Water, its people are holding a celebration marked by the lighting of a giant torch called the "Sun of Soleanna". Right at the ceremony's peak, Doctor Eggman swoops down and attempts to kidnap the only surviving member of royalty - Princess Elise. Contained inside of Princess Elise is a dark secret, known as "The Flames of Disaster", and Eggman wants to use her power combined with the energy of the Chaos Emeralds to fuel his time machine, named "Solaris" after the Soleanna God of Time. With time travel firmly in his grasp, nothing will stop Eggman.
Right on cue, Sonic the Hedgehog shows up to rescue the Princess. Unfortunately, an ambush catches Sonic off guard, and he loses the Princess to Doctor Eggman.
Watching from the shadows is Silver the Hedgehog, who was sent from the future to kill Sonic, believing him to be "The Iblis Trigger". In the future, nothing is left in the world but ruins caused by an eternal, sentient flame called "Iblis". Silver was brought to the past by a mysterious being called "Mephiles", who informed Silver it was Sonic who unleashed Iblis and destroyed the world. If Sonic is killed in the past, Iblis will never be unleashed, and the future will be saved.
Unknown to Silver, Mephiles is actually an evil entity who was sealed inside the Scepter of Darkness years ago. Mephiles was accidentally released by Shadow the Hedgehog when he and Rouge the Bat attempted to steal it from Doctor Eggman. Much to Shadow's confusion, Mephiles seemed to know who Shadow was, as if they had a previous encounter - though this was Shadow's first meeting with Mephiles. After being freed, Mephiles banishes both Shadow and Rouge to the dystopian future.
Sonic must save Elise, Silver must kill Sonic, and Shadow has to figure out a way back to his own time!
Soundtrack
Sonic the Hedgehog's soundtrack was composed by Mariko Nanba, Tomoya Ohtani, Hideaki Kobayashi, Tai-Hey, and Jun Senoue, and was overseen by Masato Nakamura, the original composer for the Sega Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The game contains five vocal songs:
Development History
The first time the game was shown as behind closed doors at E3 in May 2005. Shown along side a number of other real-time tech demos Sega created for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, the Sonic tech demo featured a real-time animated scene of Sonic racing through miles of forest as robots closed in around him. Sonic found himself at the ruins of an old castle, where the demonstrator took control to showcase a real-time physics engine, featuring golden rings bouncing around the environment. The animation resumed, with Sonic being chased out of the ruins by the robots who had been following him. Now outside, an airship loomed overhead, dropping hundreds of robots in to the scene, who surrounded Sonic completely and promptly gunned him down - presumably killing him. However, from the smoke arose Super Sonic, who flies forward at high speed to meet the robot army head on - the tech demo ending right before we see the final result.
Despite being shown behind closed doors, cell phone video footage of the demonstration was leaked on to the internet within hours of being shown. The game was officially announced on September 9th, 2005 by President of SonicTeam Yuji Naka, who stated that they, the developers, would be treating Sonic the Hedgehog on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 as if it were the original Sonic on the Sega Genesis; the game was to be a new beginning for Sonic. When announced, the same animated scene from the behind-closed-doors demonstration was shown (minus physics demo), as well as a brief demonstration of the actual game itself, showing a very early version of Kingdom Valley. The highlight of the gameplay demonstration was the game's lighting engine, which self-shadowed everything in the environment. This was to be combined with the game's real-time day/night cycle, a first for a Sonic game.
Not long afterwards, Yuji Naka left Sega to start his own company, PROPE. Yojiro Ogawa, once in charge with a Wii port of Sonic the Hedgehog, took half of the game's staff to start Sonic & The Secret Rings instead. Under-staffed and without Yuji Naka's guidance, Producer Shun Nakamura (known for Billy Hatcher & The Giant Egg) and the remnants of SonicTeam limped towards their November 2006 release date, where reports from supposed anonymous QA Testers at Sega claim the game was so rushed for time that all bug reports had to be ignored in order to make the deadline.
This 2006 release attempts to reset the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise with predictably terrifying results.
Overview
Sonic's first game for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 was intended to be a new beginning for the franchise. Originally billed as a reboot for the series, Sonic the Hedgehog eventually ended up as nothing more than yet another entry in the Sonic Adventure series started on the Sega Dreamcast in 1999.Not much has changed since 1999; the game is broken up in to three separate stories - one for Sonic the Hedgehog, another for telekinetic newcomer Silver the Hedgehog, and one for gruff-voiced Shadow the Hedgehog. Though each character has their own plot threads and motivations, their pathways frequently cross. Like Sonic Adventure 2, each story in fact represents a team of characters - for example, while you select "Sonic's Story", you end up playing as both Tails and Knuckles at key points in the plot. Players who choose Silver will also have to contend with Blaze the Cat and Amy Rose, and Shadow teams up with Rouge the Bat and E-123 Omega from Sonic Heroes.
Town Stage
New to the game is the "Action Gauge", a bar of energy in the bottom right corner of the screen that measures how often a character can do a "Custom Action". While Silver can glide through the air and pick up physics objects, this will, for example, drain his Action Gauge. When Shadow's Action Gauge fills to a certain point, he can use "Chaos Blast". When Sonic is carrying the Princess, his Action Gauge drains when using the Princess' shield ability. The Action Gauge can be replenished by grabbing Chaos Drives and Light Cores from defeated enemies.
Plot
Smile and wave.
Right on cue, Sonic the Hedgehog shows up to rescue the Princess. Unfortunately, an ambush catches Sonic off guard, and he loses the Princess to Doctor Eggman.
Watching from the shadows is Silver the Hedgehog, who was sent from the future to kill Sonic, believing him to be "The Iblis Trigger". In the future, nothing is left in the world but ruins caused by an eternal, sentient flame called "Iblis". Silver was brought to the past by a mysterious being called "Mephiles", who informed Silver it was Sonic who unleashed Iblis and destroyed the world. If Sonic is killed in the past, Iblis will never be unleashed, and the future will be saved.
In the future, everybody takes fashion cues from David Bowie
Sonic must save Elise, Silver must kill Sonic, and Shadow has to figure out a way back to his own time!
Levels
- Wave Ocean
- Dusty Desert
- White Acropolis
- Crisis City
- Flame Core
- Radical Train
- Tropical Jungle
- Kingdom Valley
- Aquatic Base
Soundtrack
Sonic the Hedgehog's soundtrack was composed by Mariko Nanba, Tomoya Ohtani, Hideaki Kobayashi, Tai-Hey, and Jun Senoue, and was overseen by Masato Nakamura, the original composer for the Sega Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The game contains five vocal songs:- "His World - Theme of Sonic the Hedgehog" by Tomoya Ohtani, Ali Tabatabaee, and Johnny Gioeli of the band Crush 40
- "Dreams of Absolution - Theme of Silver the Hedgehog" by Mariko Nanba, Lee Brotherton and The Remix Factory
- "All Hail Shadow - Theme of Shadow the Hedgehog" by Jun Senoue, Mike Szuter and Johnny Gioeli of the band Crush 40
- "My Destiny - Theme of Princess Elise" by Mariko Nanba, Candie Y, and Donna De Lory
- "Sweet Dream - AKON '06 Mix" by Dreams Come True and AKON
Development History
Woosh
This may sting a little.
Not long afterwards, Yuji Naka left Sega to start his own company, PROPE. Yojiro Ogawa, once in charge with a Wii port of Sonic the Hedgehog, took half of the game's staff to start Sonic & The Secret Rings instead. Under-staffed and without Yuji Naka's guidance, Producer Shun Nakamura (known for Billy Hatcher & The Giant Egg) and the remnants of SonicTeam limped towards their November 2006 release date, where reports from supposed anonymous QA Testers at Sega claim the game was so rushed for time that all bug reports had to be ignored in order to make the deadline.
Trivia
- Despite being a focal point of the original gameplay demonstration, the game's real-time day/night cycle was removed shortly after the game was unveiled.
- A number of online multiplayer modes were at one point planned; Time Trial, Ring Race, and most cryptically, "Quiz". The final game has no online multiplayer.
- Peeking inside the game's main executable with a hex editor reveals a bevvy of cut features, including planned (but never released) Downloadable Content like "Super Hard Mode", Xbox 360 icon sets, themes, a real-time version of the tech demo animation, and music packs for every game spanning Sonic's 15 year history.
- Also cut were items to buy from the shop: A "Speed Booster" item for Silver that increased his top speed, and for Sonic, a special equip that possibly allowed him to transform in to Super Sonic at will, like he could in the old Sega Genesis Sonic games. At one point, 1ups could also be purchased from shops.
- Perhaps the biggest content cut came in the form of extra missions for each playable character in the game - Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Silver, Amy, Blaze, Shadow, Omega, and Rouge. However, in addition to these was a secret tenth playable character: Metal Sonic, Sonic's long-time robotic doppleganger unveiled in Sonic CD. Metal Sonic is not referenced anywhere else in the game.
- In addition, the game was slated to feature extended level objectives, similar to Sonic Adventure 2. Mission description text exists tasking you to get to the goal ring within a specific time limit, finding a new re-located goal ring, collecting a specific amount of rings, defeating all the enemies, and clearing the minigame. None of this is present in the game.
- More Level Objective text exists, possibly relating to the game's cut multiplayer modes: "Get to the goal ring before the ghost" and "Get to the goal ring before your rival" - Ghost possibly a reference to time trial ghosts, a feature often seen in racing games.
- The Tokyo Game Show 2006 trailer for the game showcases a number of differences compared to the final game, the most noticable appears to be Sonic's greater variety of animation; Sonic is seen doing a number of animations he cannot execute in the final game. For example, there is a scene shown in the trailer where Sonic is jumping from wall-to-wall in Kingdom Valley; in the trailer, he jumps off the wall, spins around, and lands on the next section of wall feet-first. In the final game, Sonic just sort of fires off head-first at the wall and magically appears on his feet when he touches it.
- Though customizing Sonic' abilities was a major selling point (being a bullet point on the back of the box), the abilities in the game cannot be unequipped once they are equipped on Sonic, and the majority of them are required in order to progress in the game. When the player opens Sonic's final level, only then do a number of colored "Gems" become available that give Sonic optional extra abilities that can be selected using the d-pad.
- The game's instruction manual contains a number of innaccuracies regarding the final game; it describes the possibility of leveling up the Action Gauge to three levels of "Maturity", and that as the Gauge levels up, the move equipped to it will get more powerful. In the final game, neither Shadow or Silver can equip moves to their Action Gauge. Furthermore, unless carrying the Princess, Sonic's Action Gauge never depletes, allowing him to use any equipped abilities infinitely. Never does any of the equipped abilities level up.
- The manual also makes reference to a Shield power-up (similar to one seen in past Sonic games). No Shield power-up is ever seen in the game.
- The manual mentions Tails and Omega can only fly until their "Flight Gauge" depletes. No flight gauge is ever visible, and Omega cannot fly - only hover, something he can do indefinitely.
- Early design documents state that Silver's original name was to be Venice and Princess Elise's name was to be Oliga.
- Princess Elise is most likely based off of a scrapped concept for the original Sonic the Hedgehog on Sega Genesis, where Sonic was tasked with rescuing a woman named Madonna.
- During Shadow's story, the Scepter of Darkness is mistakenly referred to as the "Book of Darkness" at one point.
| Game Name | Sonic the Hedgehog |
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| Original US Release |
Nov. 7, 2006
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| Original US Release |
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| Aliases | Sonic 2006 |
