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Shadow The Hedgehog VS Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 - Which Is The Worst Bad Sonic Game?

I wonder how the series would be percieved today if instead of Sonic 06 being released, it was Sonic Generations. Hell, even Unleashed.
 
Shadow the Hedgehog, actually.

Finishing that game is ACTUALLY soul crushing. Sonic 06 is fun to laugh at. It makes for a good "haha, can you believe this shit?" stream or Let's Play.

Shadow the Hedgehog will actually kill you. Imagine spending upwards of an hour in a single level. You HAVE to finish the "Evil" mission, because that's the only way to get one of the 10 endings you need to get the full, final "true" ending. Said mission requires you to kill 60 soldiers, and you've been stuck on 59/60 for the last 45 minutes.

There's no radar. No hints. And once defeated, enemies don't even respawn. You just have to comb the entire (by now, completely empty) stage, back and forth, up an down, and hope you find the one secret corner they stashed this guy. Maybe he's across this bottomless pit it doesn't look like you should be able to cross? There could be a hidden wall that you punch open leading to a secret room. So you walk ten feet, stop, and take a good hard look around the level. You aimlessly try stupid ideas, hoping to discern the logic. Whoops, you reached the end again, time to use the fast travel to go back to the beginning and start your search all over again! This time, maybe there's an outcropping you can spindash under that you missed? Might as well spin in to every wall you see...

Now imagine that this is 75% of the game. Once you finish this one level, the next one has you destroy 15 mechs, and once again, you get to 14/15 and you can't find it because some piece of shit thought it would be hilarious to make the last one SUPER HIDDEN.

There are 22 levels and I'd argue that at least 18 of those are "find X number of Y." where you're going on a wild goose chase.

The few fits and starts of laughter you get from the story sequences and boss battle quotes are quickly dulled by spending a minimum of one hour in the next stage looking for Cream the Rabbit's Chao, Cheese.

It drains all of your love and joy for life.
 
Shadow the Hedgehog had that faction/loyalty thing going on. I mean, it was shit like the rest of the game, but that's an idea at least. Sonic 2006 is just the worst parts of the Adventure games made even worse
 
I won't discuss technical aspects since I think both games have deeper flaws than that.

I think Shadow is the more tasteless of the two. Adding guns, minor curse words, and trying so hard to be edgy. If all other aspects of the game were done as best as they could have been it would still be a 0/10.

It felt like a big "F you" to people who grew up playing sonic games in the early 90's.
 
I've not played Shadow yet, but if it hits Steam at all I might consider
getting it at a discount.

As for 06, I expected a broken, so bad its good experience from the start and I got that. If I'd pay the Day One price for it, I might've been pissed off but over time I'd be more sad than angry for the potential it could've been.

No joke, if 06 ever hits Steam (lmao I know) then I will buy it day one.
 
Shadow The Hedgehog was the best :D

I like shadow as a chracter, he's my favorite.

That game was dissapointing. There was some stuff there, but like most sega outings. All ideas, half assed execution, and sometimes just half assed ideas.

" We have character who can make energy weapons"

" give him real weapons"

" why?..."

"REASONS!!!"
 
I genuinely think had Shadow the Hedgehog came out later, after Gears of War, they probably could have made a fairly competent third person shooter in that style, combined with the idea of branching paths depending on how you approach each level. I am not saying rip off other games, but use them as a starting point to get the gun play down, make use of a cover system, break it up and add in the high speed sections. The game I picture is not wholly dissimilar, but it is definitely one where it uses the current TPS trends.
 
Shadow the Hedgehog has you play the game 10 times to get the canon ending. You have to sit though 10 NON-CANON ENDINGS to get to the REAL ending. It also had the most slippery controls in the series history, even more than Heroes, the level design was bad, the missions were insufferable, and the story speaks for itself. Not even the music was good. Even 06 had good music.

Sonic 06 has "so bad it's good" qualities going for it. Shadow the Hedgehog is just plain bad.

EDIT: The gunplay in Shadow isn't even that bad. It's the mission-based gameplay that makes it awful.
 
Sonic 2006. There's just no contest for me. Sure Shadow was bad, but it wasn't 2006 bad.

It's a shame though. They both had so much potential, 2006 especially had potential to bring Sonic into the 21st century, tell a good, serious story akin to something like SatAM but instead we got....that.
 
I dunno, Sonic 06 is so bad that it's hilarious where Shadow is just not memorable at all. Thus I'd almost say Sonic 06 is better. :P
 
I think 2006 is worse because it had more potential.
All the game really needed was another 6 months in development, more testing, and a script re-write. It could have been a great game. All of the other elements were there, and when things actually clicked, the game was really entertaining. Instead it's a disgrace, and has some of the worst load-times in history to boot.

With Shadow, there's only so much you can do with the concept. High speed + guns could be really interesting from a game-play standpoint, but it doesn't fit the Sonic universe (hell, it doesn't even fit Shadow). Even if you approached it as a straight-platformer, you still had to deal with "kill x or collect x to unlock x". The worst part is if this system was properly implemented (with a radar or less stringent requirements), it still wouldn't be fun. Not sure what I can say about the controls/platforming in Shadow. I died less times in that game than in SA1, SA2, and ESPECIALLY 2006.

I never did unlock the ultimate final stage in Shadow however (I got 8/10 playthroughs iirc), if it was worse than 2k6's finale I'll eat a hat.
 
Like taking candy from a baby.

Of course shadow was crigey, controls bad, was a recycled sonic heroes, but it was entertaining enough. Hell I actually beat it unlike sonic 06

I dunno, Sonic 06 is so bad that it's hilarious where Shadow is just not memorable at all. Thus I'd almost say Sonic 06 is better. :P

Bad reasoning, this is about gameplay.. not about which game got more bad press or how funny you might have thought a bad sonic game could be. Shadow beats sonic 06 and sonic boom with ease. It was at least a descent game outside of story.
 
Shadow was a mess of a game that I couldn't even finish but at least it did not contain any kind of Interspecies Erotica material.
 
I never played them, but:

SONIC 2006 at least has some godly music, decent concept art and its sooo bad its funny melodramatic scenes are at least a fountain of memes.
Sonic_the_Hedgehog_Next-Gen_Box_Art.JPG


What does Shadow the Hedgehog have? the villain? the concept/plot? maybe, but the rest is just awful.

Edit: But i guess you could say SONIC 2006 was the biggest dissapointment? and when you factor Sonic Heroes, Black Knight, and Boom this gets tricky.

And I guess the boxart is not bad lookin'!
 
Neither of these are the worst, Black Knight is the true criminal. That game is practically unplayable...just putrid shit.

I haven't played Boom yet though, so I can't say if it can take the crown of shit.
 
Shadow at least lets you play the game. I can't play 06 even in an "I know this is bad but I'll try and get unintentional fun out of it" way with the glitches because the load times are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BAD.
 
Shadow is the worse game as the bulk of the entire game is pointless as the final ending is the true story and it's laughably bad.

Sonic 06 on the other hand wiped itself out from canon.

Shadow has some smarter gameplay choices (you can switch rails a lot easier compared to 06 and you have a separate button for your light dash instead of one action button in 06)

That's probably Shadow only redeeming quality as Sonic Team carried that over with Unleashed.

I honestly still have no idea why they decided to map everything to one button in 06.

Shadow the Hedgehog, actually.

Finishing that game is ACTUALLY soul crushing. Sonic 06 is fun to laugh at. It makes for a good "haha, can you believe this shit?" stream or Let's Play.

Shadow the Hedgehog will actually kill you. Imagine spending upwards of an hour in a single level. You HAVE to finish the "Evil" mission, because that's the only way to get one of the 10 endings you need to get the full, final "true" ending. Said mission requires you to kill 60 soldiers, and you've been stuck on 59/60 for the last 45 minutes.

There's no radar. No hints. And once defeated, enemies don't even respawn. You just have to comb the entire (by now, completely empty) stage, back and forth, up an down, and hope you find the one secret corner they stashed this guy. Maybe he's across this bottomless pit it doesn't look like you should be able to cross? There could be a hidden wall that you punch open leading to a secret room. So you walk ten feet, stop, and take a good hard look around the level. You aimlessly try stupid ideas, hoping to discern the logic. Whoops, you reached the end again, time to use the fast travel to go back to the beginning and start your search all over again! This time, maybe there's an outcropping you can spindash under that you missed? Might as well spin in to every wall you see...

Now imagine that this is 75% of the game. Once you finish this one level, the next one has you destroy 15 mechs, and once again, you get to 14/15 and you can't find it because some piece of shit thought it would be hilarious to make the last one SUPER HIDDEN.

There are 22 levels and I'd argue that at least 18 of those are "find X number of Y." where you're going on a wild goose chase.

The few fits and starts of laughter you get from the story sequences and boss battle quotes are quickly dulled by spending a minimum of one hour in the next stage looking for Cream the Rabbit's Chao, Cheese.

It drains all of your love and joy for life.

Agreed, Shadow is just a depressing game all round and having to go through all ending just to unlock the final ending isn't fun.
 
Shadow the Hedgehog, actually.

Finishing that game is ACTUALLY soul crushing. Sonic 06 is fun to laugh at. It makes for a good "haha, can you believe this shit?" stream or Let's Play.

Shadow the Hedgehog will actually kill you. Imagine spending upwards of an hour in a single level. You HAVE to finish the "Evil" mission, because that's the only way to get one of the 10 endings you need to get the full, final "true" ending. Said mission requires you to kill 60 soldiers, and you've been stuck on 59/60 for the last 45 minutes.

There's no radar. No hints. And once defeated, enemies don't even respawn. You just have to comb the entire (by now, completely empty) stage, back and forth, up an down, and hope you find the one secret corner they stashed this guy. Maybe he's across this bottomless pit it doesn't look like you should be able to cross? There could be a hidden wall that you punch open leading to a secret room. So you walk ten feet, stop, and take a good hard look around the level. You aimlessly try stupid ideas, hoping to discern the logic. Whoops, you reached the end again, time to use the fast travel to go back to the beginning and start your search all over again! This time, maybe there's an outcropping you can spindash under that you missed? Might as well spin in to every wall you see...

Now imagine that this is 75% of the game. Once you finish this one level, the next one has you destroy 15 mechs, and once again, you get to 14/15 and you can't find it because some piece of shit thought it would be hilarious to make the last one SUPER HIDDEN.

There are 22 levels and I'd argue that at least 18 of those are "find X number of Y." where you're going on a wild goose chase.

The few fits and starts of laughter you get from the story sequences and boss battle quotes are quickly dulled by spending a minimum of one hour in the next stage looking for Cream the Rabbit's Chao, Cheese.

It drains all of your love and joy for life.

THIS! I've never agreed with you so much as I do right now. Sonic '06 is bad and broken, but some joy and be found in laughing about how bad it is, Shadow just made me LOATHE the character and made me realize the bastard should have just stayed dead in SA2.

That said, these two are at the very bottom of the barrel in terms of Sonic games. As Broken as Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is, it's even a better game than these two since it can actually be finished with relative ease.

At least Sonic 06 has brought us much hilarity, which is more than could be said about Shadow the Hedgehog (I like the "Ow the Edge" pic though).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrWgDOipLJ8

"WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK, FUCK FUCKITY FUCK?!!" God, I hate reviewers like this.
 
The Wii delegation would like to nominate Sonic and the Black Knight for consideration.

Don't you "Wii delegation" me. I've played both Secret Rings and Black Knight. I felt like I had to force myself to beat Secret Rings but Black Knight was actually pretty decent.

The storybook games are closer to "mediocre" than "bad". Had Secret Rings had better motion controls (And a better sense of speed at the start instead of having to make the player upgrade Sonic's speed to a tolerable state more than halfway into the game), it might have even been considered "average" or "good". Black Knight will always be known for having one of the better stories in the series (Not a hard title to claim I understand), and gameplay-wise is better than Secret Rings simply based on the fact it came out 2 years after Secret Rings, so the dev team had time to iron out the physics before the sequel. Though I feel like Black Knight could have been ironed out a little more.

Not to mention the "Wii delegation' has Sonic Colors, which is so good that it basically evaporates the storybook games into ether anyway.

Also, apparently, some people like the Wii version of Unleashed more than the HD version. Something about it being less of a pain to progress due to lower sun and moon medal requirements I think?

As Broken as Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is, it's even a better game than these two since it can actually be finished with relative ease.

Even without the double jump glitch?

Speaking of glitches, this freak accident happened while I was recording a playthrough of Shadow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ-S-BRColk

I had to replay Sky Troops a few more times after that to get all the footage I needed, yet that glitch never happened again. Has this happened to anyone else?
 
Shadow is worse because it's actually a finished game. It wasn't rushed out like Sonic 06, Sonic Team made that and thought "yep, we're proud of this!" And released it.

Sonic 06, you can have a laugh at the story, or glitchy gameplay at the very least. With Shadow you can't even do that because the gameplay is ass, very slippery controls, extremely repetitive mission structures, I don't even need to talk about the guns and cursing, not to mention you have to beat the game virtually TEN times in order to get the final ending/boss.

Along with the worst voice acting in the series, no memorable music (a rarity for Sonic games) and everyone acting so damn retarded, more so than they were in 06. Also Aliens.

I can give 06 some credit for its gorgeous music and somewhat decent level design in some cases. But there's not a single good or redeemable thing about Shadow. The absolute low point of the series, with 06 only getting more flak because it was hyped up more.
 
Easily 2006. Shadow, although below average, at least uses the Heroes engine which was never abominable and at the very least, playable. 2006 is broken on every base level.


This! And Shadow got his own game! What isn't great about that!?

I desperately wish Shadow was great. Sonic-speed + gunplay still sounds fantastic to me, *especially* as a direct sequel to SA2.

Sonic 06 was just smelly. And Shadow didn't have guns or motorcycles! Instant failure, there.
 
In terms of playability/polish, shadow wins, 06 loses.
Overall hilarity, 06 wins but shadow the hedgehog has many moments too.
 
Yeah, I'd argue that Labyrinth and Spinball GG are worse than Shadow/'06 and Blast GG is only slightly better.

Overall, the Game Gear doesn't have a single Sonic game that is better than mediocre.
8bit Sonic 1 was excellent. I'd argue it was just as good as the 16bit version but in different ways.
 
After Tails Sky Patrol and Tails Adventure? I know better. :p

I enjoyed Tails as a partner during Air Fleet though. It's like, you barely even start the level and BAM he's in your face.

I thought Tails Adventure was kinda cool actually

I like Tails in Air Fleet because they partner you up with the least edgy Sonic character on the level where you kill the president (and he's back again in the very next cutscene)

Man, I really wish Shadow would just straight up kill people in his game. If you're gonna make it edgy then wuss out when it comes to killing people it just feels like a waste of time. Can't even kill the common soldiers

Sonic Heroes definitely had better stage music. It also felt more like the music from the 2D Sonic games as well.

Honestly Heroes probably has my favourite soundtrack in the series, which is saying quite a bit. Can't get enough of stuff like Ocean Palace, Frog Forest and Mystic Mansion. I'd say the music being more akin to the 2D games is because the stage tropes themselves are a lot more reminiscent of Classic Sonic than the kind of areas you see in Shadow or SA2.
 
Man, I really wish Shadow would just straight up kill people in his game. If you're gonna make it edgy then wuss out when it comes to killing people it just feels like a waste of time. Can't even kill the common soldiers

\.

You should read the comic, the end of one of his arcs is him burning someone to death, and blowing up their home.

Nah man the guns and outragous explosions is half the game. Just keep it away from Sonic team and it'd be great.

Shadow the hedgehog 2, developed by platinum.

Its just revengence, but he can actually stop time.

I'd buy it.
 
That's because it was handled by Yuzo Koshiro's company, Ancient.
Does Ancient still exists? I still want Story of Thor 3.

Shadow is worse because it's actually a finished game. It wasn't rushed out like Sonic 06, Sonic Team made that and thought "yep, we're proud of this!" And released it.

Sonic 06, you can have a laugh at the story, or glitchy gameplay at the very least. With Shadow you can't even do that because the gameplay is ass, very slippery controls, extremely repetitive mission structures, I don't even need to talk about the guns and cursing, not to mention you have to beat the game virtually TEN times in order to get the final ending/boss.

Along with the worst voice acting in the series, no memorable music (a rarity for Sonic games) and everyone acting so damn retarded, more so than they were in 06. Also Aliens.

I can give 06 some credit for its gorgeous music and somewhat decent level design in some cases. But there's not a single good or redeemable thing about Shadow. The absolute low point of the series, with 06 only getting more flak because it was hyped up more.

Shadow the Hedgehog has you play the game 10 times to get the canon ending. You have to sit though 10 NON-CANON ENDINGS to get to the REAL ending. It also had the most slippery controls in the series history, even more than Heroes, the level design was bad, the missions were insufferable, and the story speaks for itself. Not even the music was good. Even 06 had good music.

Sonic 06 has "so bad it's good" qualities going for it. Shadow the Hedgehog is just plain bad.

EDIT: The gunplay in Shadow isn't even that bad. It's the mission-based gameplay that makes it awful.

Shadow the Hedgehog, actually.

Finishing that game is ACTUALLY soul crushing. Sonic 06 is fun to laugh at. It makes for a good "haha, can you believe this shit?" stream or Let's Play.

Shadow the Hedgehog will actually kill you. Imagine spending upwards of an hour in a single level. You HAVE to finish the "Evil" mission, because that's the only way to get one of the 10 endings you need to get the full, final "true" ending. Said mission requires you to kill 60 soldiers, and you've been stuck on 59/60 for the last 45 minutes.

There's no radar. No hints. And once defeated, enemies don't even respawn. You just have to comb the entire (by now, completely empty) stage, back and forth, up an down, and hope you find the one secret corner they stashed this guy. Maybe he's across this bottomless pit it doesn't look like you should be able to cross? There could be a hidden wall that you punch open leading to a secret room. So you walk ten feet, stop, and take a good hard look around the level. You aimlessly try stupid ideas, hoping to discern the logic. Whoops, you reached the end again, time to use the fast travel to go back to the beginning and start your search all over again! This time, maybe there's an outcropping you can spindash under that you missed? Might as well spin in to every wall you see...

Now imagine that this is 75% of the game. Once you finish this one level, the next one has you destroy 15 mechs, and once again, you get to 14/15 and you can't find it because some piece of shit thought it would be hilarious to make the last one SUPER HIDDEN.

There are 22 levels and I'd argue that at least 18 of those are "find X number of Y." where you're going on a wild goose chase.

The few fits and starts of laughter you get from the story sequences and boss battle quotes are quickly dulled by spending a minimum of one hour in the next stage looking for Cream the Rabbit's Chao, Cheese.

It drains all of your love and joy for life.
All of combined with a shoddy homing attack. Simply put it felt like a punishment to play Shadow the Hedgehog. And while I know 06 is trash I can say I never felt tortured.
 
"Dr. Gerald...I mean...Dr Robotnik...I mean Black Doom. You're my father."

"I'm an android, no a copy of an android that was a copy of a science experiment."

"Black Doom, Black Bull, Black Creatures, Black Comet, Black Hedgehog, Black Ops, Black Aliens...BLACK"


Shadow the Hedgehog made no sense.
 
06 easily. That one, at least for me, had waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more bugs on top of just being bad. Shadow had some cool bits like the branching paths and different endings. And if you compare the stories then both are bad, just Shadows is filled with agnst and darkness and ow the edge and 06 is full of time travel bullshittery and bestiality.
 
Shadow is a technically sound game, and 06 is well, 06.

I have only ever completed Shadow once. It's way too boring and overstays its welcome. I have somehow bought 06 on 3 different occasions (1x PS3, 2x 360) and have beat it too many times to count. It's so bad it's good.

Sonic 06 is a technical mess with a plot on the same tier as bad fanfics, but somehow I can play the game a pretty decent ways through before raging.

Shadow is boring.

So worst bad Sonic game is:
Labyrinth
 
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