TGS 2006: Sonic The Hedgehog Impressions

Written By: Tom Lotito

Sonic the Hedgehog and pals are back to, once again, stop the evil Dr. Eggman’s plans on the PlayStation 3 this November. This time, though, it seems like Sonic’s crossed into Mario territory: he’s got a princess to save.

The trailer shown at the 2006 Tokyo Game Show begins with the princess at a ceremony, lighting a torch a la the Olympics. A fleet of Eggman’s airships fly in, releasing a horde of his robots to wreak havoc. The new white hedgehog, Silver, is overlaid on an image of Sonic before he rushes to help. There’s a montage of clips, assumedly from game play, of Sonic running through a level very similar to the beach in Sonic Adventure, jumping off of the tail of a whale to catch one of the airships. Shadow also shows up in a forest, riding a motorcycle, and even a hummer.

The visuals are easily the most stunning aspect of the new Sonic. The graphics are top notch, painstaking details on each girder in the buildings of a burnt-out city, light reflecting through a gorgeous stained glass window, and even air currents Sonic can ride through the sky. The human characters, Eggman included, look much more realistic than ever before, to the extent that they could have stepped out of a Final Fantasy game.

As breathtaking as the environments and humans are, it seems like Sega didn’t quite take Sonic and the other hedgehog’s design into account. Though Sonic and Shadow have certainly have been graphically cleaned up since the last generation of games, their proportions and cartoonish style seems out of place among the photorealistic cathedrals and robot enemies. A scene in the trailer of Sonic carrying the princess (who’s about twice as tall) into the sunset ends up being unintentionally comical as a result.

The playable level itself looked like a flooded temple, and fell apart as you ran through it, similarly to past Sonic games. Just like with the characters, the intricate architecture looked fine until you came across a springboard or other staple from the Sonic series, and then they just seemed so out of place. The colors were so much brighter and cartoony, to the point of being jarring.

The demo at the Tokyo Game Show had Sonic, Shadow, or Silver as playable characters. The control scheme isn’t a departure of what we’ve come to expect from a Sonic game; X is jump, square is attack, and that’s it about it, other than camera controls. The one standout feature is the R1 button, which deals with a character-specific special power. Shadow has “Chaos Burst,” and Silver has “Psychokinesis,” while Sonic is left with nothing at all.

We only had one chance to play through the demo, so I chose Silver, the new addition. His psychokinesis manifests in three different ways, all of which are explained throughout the level. Your psychic power is displayed in a green bar in the lower right corner, and it automatically fills up again with time. Unlike Sonic, he can’t spin dash, so he uses psychokinesis to attack. By holding down R1, you pick up giant crates and other items, and then push square to throw them at an enemy or obstacle. Most of the crates were made of wood that broke after being thrown once, but metal crates and explosive crates were also in the area. Later, you could pick up boulders and spiked balls also, but if you walked into the spiked balls you’d get hurt. The different crates or boulders didn’t seem to have different affect on the enemies, other than a nifty fire animation from the explosive crate. Additionally, you can hold R1 while jumping to float through midair, which was helpful to get over some patches of water. The last ability was the most lackluster, simply kneeling on a special circle on the ground to open a nearby door.

Of course, there’s a major drawback to Silver’s psychic powers: he’s slow. Not quite as slow as Big the Cat, but the control felt like he was weighed down enough to be annoying. And what’s worse, the floating ability, which was necessary to complete the level, makes him move even slower. There’s constantly a need to pick up objects to throw, and it further breaks the flow of the game. The crates themselves are picked up two or three at a time, so they almost always completely obscure your view of the level. Not that it matters a whole lot; you pick up the items literally a few feet before you’re supposed to throw them. The psychokinesis just felt very tacked on, since there’s really no reason to slow down the game to pick up things to only to throw them a moment later. The enemies were so scarce that his powers were mostly a niftier way to open doors.

Watching people play as Sonic, the game seemed much more fast paced, so perhaps this is just a drawback of Silver specifically. It also seemed like Sonic was still having a bit of trouble locking onto platforms that he homes in to, just like in the Adventure series.

Although the graphics in Sonic the Hedgehog for the PlayStation 3 are mind-blowing, the game itself seemed to be hindered by tedious and uninspired level design and controls. It just wasn’t fun, and with so much potential it seems like Sega really dropped the ball. Hopefully the final product in November will have been cleaned up, but if there isn’t a lot of change in the next month and a half, I couldn’t suggest anything more than renting this game. And even then, it’s just for the FMVs and backgrounds. Look for more details on AMN PS3 as the game progresses.