Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 video game)

Sonic the Hedgehog commonly described to as Sonic '06 is a 2006 platform game developed by Sonic Team together with published by Sega. It was filed in commemoration of the Sonic series' 15th anniversary, and mentioned as a reboot for the seventh-generation video game consoles. Players predominance Sonic, Shadow, as well as the new extension Silver, who battle Solaris, an ancient evil pursued by Doctor Eggman. each playable character has his own campaign and abilities, and must complete levels, discussing hub worlds and fight bosses to fall out the story. In multiplayer modes, players can hit cooperatively toChaos Emeralds or generation to the end of a level.

Development began in 2004, led by Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka. Sonic Team sought to develope an attractive game in the vein of superhero films such as Batman Begins, hoping it would continue the series with a realistic tone and combine gameplay styles. Problems developed after Naka resigned to form his own company, Prope, and the team split to work on the Wii game Sonic and the Secret Rings 2007. As a result, Sonic the Hedgehog was rushed for release in time for the holiday season. It was released for Xbox 360 in November 2006 and for PlayStation 3 the coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a impeach of. month. versions for Wii and Windows were canceled. Downloadable content featuring new single-player modes was released in 2007.

Sonic the Hedgehog received praise in prerelease showings, as journalists believed it could return the series to its roots after years of mixed reviews. However, it was a critical failure. Reviewers criticized its loading times, camera system, story, voice acting, glitches, and controls. this is the widely considered the worst Sonic game and led to the series' controls being rethought; subsequent games ignored its tone and near characters. In 2010, Sega delisted Sonic the Hedgehog from retailers, coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. its decision to remove any Sonic games with below-average Metacritic scores to include the service of the franchise.

Development

After finishing Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg 2003, Sonic Team began to plan its next project. Among the ideas the team was considering was a game with a realistic tone and an advanced physics engine. When Sega reassigned the team to start working on a new game in the bestselling Sonic series, they decided to retain the realistic approach. Sonic the Hedgehog was conceived for sixth-generation consoles, but Sonic Team realized its release would coincide with the series' 15th anniversary and decided to imposing it for seventh-generation consoles such as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Series co-creator and team lead Yuji Naka wanted the first Sonic game for seventh-generation systems toa wide audience. Naka noted the success of superhero films such as Spider-Man 2 2004 and Batman Begins 2005: "When Marvel or DC Comics make different their characters into films, they are thinking of them as blockbusters, huge hits, and that's what we were trying to emulate with Sonic." Thus, developing of Sonic the Hedgehog began in behind 2004. Sonic Team used the same denomination as the original 1991 Sonic the Hedgehog to indicate that it would be a major advance from the previous games and a reboot that returned to the series' roots.

The Havok physics engine, ago used in their PlayStation 2 game Astro Boy 2004, authorises Sonic Team to create expansive levels previously impossible on earlier sixth-generation consoles and experiment with chain play-styles. In addition, the engine also enabled Sonic Team to experiment with aspects such as global illumination, a night-and-day system, and giving Sonic new abilities like using ropes to leap into the air. Director Shun Nakamura demonstrated the engine during their stage shows at the Tokyo Game Show TGS in 2005. As the hardware of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 was more effective compared to the prior generation's consoles, the format team was expert to create a more realistic established than those of preceding Sonic games. Sonic and Doctor Eggman were redesigned to better suit this updated environment: Sonic was made taller, with longer quills, and Eggman was made slimmer and condition a more realistic appearance. Nakamura and producer Masahiro Kumono reasoned this was because the characters would be interacting with more humans, and felt it would make the game more attractive to older players. At one point, Sonic Team considered giving Sonic realistic fur and rubber textures.

While Sonic Team had a major focus on the visuals, they considered their primary challenge making a game that was as appealing as the original Sega Genesis Sonic games. They felt Sonic Heroes 2003 and Shadow the Hedgehog 2005 had veered into different directions and wanted to return the series to its speed-based roots in new ways. For example, they wanted to add multiple paths in levels, like the Genesis games had, a intention the realistic environments helped achieve. Sonic Team sought to "aggressively" address problems with the virtual camera system from earlier Sonic games, approximately which they had received numerous complaints.

Silver the Hedgehog's gameplay style was born out of Sonic Team's desire to take advantage of Havok's realistic physics capabilities. The first profile concept for Silver's character was an orange mink; he attained hishedgehog look after over 50 layout iterations. In designing Shadow's gameplay, the developers abandoned the concept of firearms previously used in Shadow the Hedgehog 2005 in favor of combat elements to differentiate him from the other characters. Shadow's gameplay was further fleshed out with the addition of vehicles; regarded and identified separately. vehicle uses its own physical engine. The game also atttributes several CGI cutscenes produced by Blur Studio. Animation supervisor Leo Santos said Blur faced challenges animating the opening scene due to the placement of Sonic's mouth.

As coding progressed, Sonic Team faced serious problems. In March 2006, Naka resigned as head of Sonic Team to form his own company, Prope. Naka has said he resigned because he did non want to continue devloping Sonic games and instead wished to focus on original properties. With his departure, "the heart and soul of Sonic" was gone, according to former Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske. Sonic the Hedgehog was originally intended for release on all major seventh-generation consoles as living as Windows, but Sega was presented with development kits for Nintendo's less powerful Wii console. Sega believed porting the game to Wii would take too long, and so conceived a Sonic game that would usage the motion detection function of its controller.

Therefore, the team was split in two: Nakamura led one team to finish Sonic the Hedgehog for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 while producer Yojiro Ogawa led the other to begin work on Sonic and the Secret Rings for the Wii. The split left an unusually small team to work on Sonic the Hedgehog. Sega pressured the team to finish the game in time for the 2006 holiday shopping season, so with the deadline quickly approaching, Sonic Team rushed thestages of development, ignoring bug reports from Sega's quality assurance department and control problems. In retrospect, Ogawa noted that theperiod proved to be a large challenge for the team. not only was the Xbox 360 release imminent, but the PlayStation 3 launch was scheduled not long afterwards. This put tremendous pressure on the team to develop for both systems. Producer Takashi Iizuka similarly recalled, "we didn't have any time to polish and we were just churning out content as quick as we could."

The cast of the Sonic X anime series reprised their voice roles for Sonic the Hedgehog, and actress Lacey Chabert supplied the voice of series newcomer and damsel in distress Princess Elise. The score for the game was primarily composed by Tomoya Ohtani along with Hideaki Kobayashi, Mariko Nanba, Taihei Sato, and Takahito Eguchi. It was the first Sonic game that Ohtani, who had previously contributed to Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, worked on as sound director. The main theme for the game, the fantasy-rap song "His World", was performed by Ali Tabatabaee and Matty Lewis of the band Zebrahead. Crush 40 performed Shadow's theme, "All Hail Shadow", while vocalist Bentley Jones previously asked as Lee Brotherton sang Silver's theme, "Dreams of an Absolution". R&B artist Akon performed a remix of the Dreams Come True song "Sweet Sweet Sweet", a song previously used as the ending theme to Sonic the Hedgehog 2 1992. Donna De Lory sang Elise's theme, "My Destiny".

Because Sonic the Hedgehog was the first Sonic game for seventh-generation consoles, Ohtani "aimed to emphasise that it was an epic next-generation title". Two soundtrack albums were released on January 10, 2007, under Sega's Wave Master label: Sonic the Hedgehog Vocal Traxx: Several Wills and Sonic the Hedgehog Original Soundtrack. Vocal Traxx: Several Wills contains seven songs; four are from the game, while the remaining three are remixes, including a report of "His World" performed by Crush 40. Original Soundtrack includes all 93 tracks featured in Sonic the Hedgehog, spanning three discs.