Board 8 > Rate the VG Story Day 52: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Okay now we are at a fun one, Sonic 2006. How would you rate the story on a scale from 1-10?

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Previous Results:
Omori - 9.67 (6 votes)
Outer Wilds - 9.63 (20 votes)
Nier Automata - 9.25 (31 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations - 9.18 (33 votes)
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - 9.1 (14 votes)
Umineko When They Cry - 8.82 (11 votes)
Return of the Obra Dinn - 8.72 (9 votes)
Xenogears - 8.71 (23 votes)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 8.67 (31 votes)
Metal Gear Solid - 8.67 (27 votes)
Final Fantasy Tactics - 8.65 (23 votes)
Disco Elysium - 8.58 (12 votes)
Undertale - 8.53 (40 votes)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon - 8.4 (5 votes)
Final Fantasy X - 8.38 (54 votes)
Mass Effect 2 - 8.36 (27 votes)
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective 8.35 (18 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - 8.13 (39 votes)
The Last of Us - 8.1 (34 votes)
Bloodborne - 7.92 (19 votes)
Doki Doki Literature Club - 7.9 (23 votes)
Life is Strange - 7.85 (30 votes)
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - 7.67 (27 votes)
Bioshock - 7.64 (23 votes)
Celeste - 7.52 (24 votes)
Mass Effect - 7.35 (28 votes)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - 7.26 (29 votes)
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 - 7.25 (12 votes)
Tales of the Abyss - 7.24 (28 votes)
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 7.17 (23 votes)
Mass Effect 3 - 7.16 (21 votes)
Super Paper Mario - 7 (20 votes)
Hollow Knight - 6.98 (20 votes)
INSIDE - 6.93 (15 votes)
Death Stranding - 6.73 (13 votes)
Chrono Cross - 6.69 (16 votes)
Dark Souls - 6.62 (20 votes)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All - 6.66 (30 votes)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - 6.6 (27 votes)
Valkyria Chronicles - 6.5 (16 votes)
DOOM (2016) - 6.25 (12 votes)
Professor Layton and the Curious Village - 6.1 (13 votes)
Star Fox 64 - 5.74 (23 votes)
Final Fantasy IV - 5.72 (29 votes)
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune - 5.26 (28 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright - 4.91 (11 votes)
Final Fantasy XIII - 4.91 (27 votes)
Fallout 3 - 4.76 (17 votes)
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty - 4.72 (9 votes)
Fallout 4 - 4.39 (14 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - 3.64 (14 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates (overall) - 3.45 (10 votes)
Starcraft II (overall) - 3.4 (5 votes)
Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void - 2.83 (6 votes)
Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm - 2.57 (7 votes)
Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation - 2.38 (8 votes)
Tales of Zestiria - 2.14 (7 votes)

You can still rate previous days games if you missed them, just write <game name><rating>. If you want to change your rating you can just specify that you are changing your rating. Nominations for future days are also welcome, nominate as many games as you like and I will get to all of them.

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2/10

I give it an extra point for having the decency to erase itself out of existence at the end.

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Hahaha! Haven't played, but it should be fun watching this get ugly.

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1.5

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5/10. I know, I'm being ultra-generous, but the story was honestly the least terrible part of the game.

1

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Haven't played it fully so I won't rate, but by what I've seen this would deserve a 1

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1/10

Sonic stories (at least, the 3D Sonics) have always gotten by on their sheer outlandishness; these anthropomorphic characters battling against end of the world stakes with a sense of tryhard edgy coolness competing for airtime with cheesy Saturday morning cartoon voice acting and surface level character development. Occasionally, the series could even stumble accidentally into brief moments of genuine emotion or intriguing plot beats at least as far as Sonic storytelling goes. However, the series continued to learn all the wrong lessons from its many iterations, totally jumping the shark with Shadow the Hedgehog into pure depressing, misery as edginess became Sonic's total modus operandi; if Shadow jumped the shark, Sonic '06 stuck the landing straight in to the pits of hell. You have the literal devil as the antagonist of the game, and yet that's not even as misguided as the supporting character of Elise, an awkward romantic insertion that's as icky and gross as it just a total misfire emotionally, providing nothing for any player to latch on to in any meaningful way, if they even wanted to in the first place. Yes there is still cheesiness in the story, obviously, but the plot is so far outside Sonic's depth and scope that it can not service any element properly or hope to contain any cohesiveness one would or could conceivably want to follow. Sonic '06 is the perfect example of what people think video game stories are and represents a low point for the entire industry.

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4

I love Sonic, so even as bad as this game is I can't really bring myself to hate it. I like how it tries to actually move Shadow's character arc forward instead of just giving him amnesia so he can repeat his SA2 arc like Heroes and Shadow did, and there's even a part of me that thinks Mephiles is cool in a dumb way. I miss when Sonic tried to have these kinds of massive Earth-shaking plotlines even though it was horrible at that because there was just something so funny about concepts like persecution and nihilism being explored by furry woodland creatures.

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It's nearly impossible for me to evaluate this game's story. The plot is bad, but it's not miserably bad, it's mostly just normal bad with a handful of really stupid parts and major plotholes. But also - Sonic 06 is basically the "The Room" of video games, and it is legitimately enjoyable as a bad game experience. But much like The Room, it's not so much the plot doing that as much as the presentation and...the general Sonic 2006 experience.

Let's go with a 4. it's clearly below average with some parts that are bad in a funny way but it doesn't quite cross over into so-bad-it's-good territory as a whole.

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Star Fox 64 - 7

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2.5/10

3/10

Like it's bad, it's a stupid time travel plot, but it could be WAY stupider given it's a shitty time travel plot about anthropomorphic hedgehogs.

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I was too harsh on Death Stranding, changing my rating to a 2/10.

This game is why. 1/10.

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1/10. I don't like the story.

A complete mess from top to bottom: Giving Sonic a human love interest is one of the worst decisions Sega has made with the franchise, the time travel elements introduce a bunch of pointless plot holes since the mechanics behind time travel contradict themselves multiple times, and Sonics story consists entirely of rescuing Elise only for her to get re-kidnapped four different times.

1/10

Also rating the games Ive missed:

Outer Wilds: 9/10
Last of Us: 9/10
Bloodborne: 7/10
Life is Strange: 8/10
Celeste: 10/10
Auper Paper Mario: 7/10
Hollow Knight: 7/10
Doom (2016): 5/10
Fallout 4: 5/10
Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright: 4/10
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest: 1/10
Firw Emblem Fates: Revelations: 2/10
Fire Emblem Fates: Overall: 2/10

7

Normally I'd try to pretend I don't love this game or make an attempt to be objective, but I'm in the mood to be way too honest and not care what rational people think.

First off, Sonic 2006 is just furry Chrono Trigger and I love that.

Mephiles is one of my favorite characters of all time. The entire concept of "Mephiles is the dark version of Shadow who was the dark version of Sonic" is just so... so wonderful. Like, I have a massive bias in favor of the ole 'like main character but darker' archetype & applying that someone who was already that achetype creates something that basically could not appeal to me more than it does. A fragment of a God manifesting as a crystalline hedgehog of darkness? I love this.

Honestly, Shadow's portion of the game is probably one of my favorite sections of any game ever. Unfortunately, Sonic's section drags things down considerably. And Silver... exists, I at least like the concept of what they were going for, even if they kinda botch almost everything about it.

Sonic's Story: 3.5
Shadow's Story: 10
Silver's Story: ...Probably around a 6, if I'm being honest about how I feel towards it.

Which I'm going to say works out to "close enough to a 7". Objectively, I should average the final score to 6.5, but I'm not going to.

...of course the gameplay itself is terrible (especially Sonic's sections), but thankfully I don't have to factor gameplay into any of this.
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4

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mad respect for the 7, I was close to giving a positive score here too but I just can't justify it to myself

Raetsel_Lapin posted...

Mephiles is one of my favorite characters of all time. The entire concept of "Mephiles is the dark version of Shadow who was the dark version of Sonic" is just so... so wonderful. Like, I have a massive bias in favor of the ole 'like main character but darker' archetype & applying that someone who was already that achetype creates something that basically could not appeal to me more than it does. A fragment of a God manifesting as a crystalline hedgehog of darkness? I love this.

This is actually a great point. I honestly do love the Sonic series's commitment to trying to out-edge Shadow the Hedgehog. It's legitimately incredible. They have done this not just once with Mephiles but twice now with Infinite in Sonic Forces (a game whose plot is legitimately MUCH worse than Sonic 2006 btw) and it's so stupid in the best ways every time.

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nominate Sonic Forces

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It's been busy down the bottom of the rankings lately!

Raetsel_Lapin posted...

First off, Sonic 2006 is just furry Chrono Trigger and I love that.

I have never heard this game described like this and honestly this makes me almost want to play it. Almost. A shame it wasn't released years later when post-launch patches were more common.

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andylt posted...

It's been busy down the bottom of the rankings lately!

I have never heard this game described like this and honestly this makes me almost want to play it. Almost. A shame it wasn't released years later when post-launch patches were more common.

Just watch Pokecapn's legendary LP and save yourself the trouble of playing it yourself.

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