This post was kind of designed with supporting Cube in mind, but honestly Sonic 06 is just too far down for me to give any positive nods to. I do not think it is unfinished, I think almost every single concept in the game is not good, having somewhat polished gameplay could not have saved that game.
I believe none of the new concepts in that stage should have been approved. Some Concepts were nice though such as the blue speed crystal, and the light blue transport crystal, or the purple tiny sonic crystal... hell most of the crystals were good except the green one. Also I think moving the magnetic shield into a yellow crystal was stupid.
I am only talking about Sonic here, every other character is stupid, and broken.
I am curious. Cube, do you like the game because it is of such a strange quality? In that case, I can actually really understand where you are coming from. I enjoy poor quality games in a different way though, I avoid them and watch how shitty they are on YouTube with people excessively freaking out about their low quality. Final Fantasy XIV is a good and very recent example of a game like this. Hours of fun can be had from watching forumgoers spazzing out about their opinions or watching people trying really hard to defend it by uploading gameplay of their high level character being killed by a small rabbit in one hit.
Sorry to disappoint you but I don't like it for it being bad, I like it because it was a return to the Adventure model.
I played Shadow/Riders/Unleashed/S&TSR/S&THBK on the
Wii, and they were all bad for there own reasons but what was worse was that they weren't the Sonic games I grew up with. Take unleashed for example, the game had almost no physics, Sonic didn't even touch the floor, his pacing didn't match the ground, it was pathetic and the overall storyline of Eggman was pretty crap.
So 18 months back after finally buying an Xbox I picked Sonic 06, the opening intro was fantastic and then the game started..................
The load time was phenomenally long, longer than it ever was on Dreamcast or any of the Wii games, then the graphics weren't that good either.
You guys probably can't see things my way cause by the time I played Sonic 06, his image of being crap had settled into my mind, where as all of you played it much earlier and were expecting something better than or equal to Heroes. Where as I was expecting something better then the Wii games.
I struggled with the game, I really struggled playing it. It was painful at times the unbalanced art direction for the first 3 stages, and almost (no infact completely) unplayable snow boarding scene from stage 3. I nearly gave up on the game.
Everything was so pathetic, well below the norms of SA1, this game was supposed to revisit the concepts of SA1 and this time get them right, it just ended up screwing everything.
Deep down under the dysfunctional new ideas, broken gameplay, bugs, and unimaginably long loading was Sonic Adventure 3. For starters the stages and adventure stages both are free roaming there are no invisible walls! The recent Sonic Wii Games have regressed to Crash Bandicoot level on the PS1, and the worst part is that Crash was a Sonic clone by former members of STI.
In Sonic 06 the gameplay and the narrative are taking the next step with larger environments, and for better or worse evolved gameplay. In unleashed you don't even have the spin dash, just press the Y button and the stage will finish it self!
Now about the narrative:
I finished Adventure 2 before Adventure 1, and I am only discussing SONIC here so I don't think the character accomplished much in SA1, but SA2 (MY FAVOURITE SONIC OF ALL TIME!!!)
Sonic got a real taste of life when someone who he fought along with died, he also learned to share responsibility by delegating his responsibility to Tails when Eggman shot him out of space (left for dead), Tails reaction to Sonic's death was definitely courageous and inspirational. Maybe I was stupid back then but I thought he was dead for sure, I mean Robotnik really got the jump on him, figured Sonic's fake emerald plan and... wow. Ultimately all playable characters by the end of Adventure 2 had changed forever.
Sonic 06, returned to the formula and tried to do the same thing (only if it didn't try to do it with everyone, Sonic was finally in a real relationship with somebody, what I loved most about his relationship was how he had mentored Elise, by the end of the game so much of Sonic's personality had rubbed off on Elise and it was amazing to see her quote him.
Sonic gave some of the best advice I've heard in my life 'Smile'.
I could go on and on, but I would only ridicule myself as most of you don't like the Adventure Model and perceive it as how everything got screwed up in this first place.
Now we have senseless Sonic games like Unleashed where he is paired up with an annoying ice cream junkie, and runs at an automated pace and feels more like a racing game.
