Author's Note: I think this thing speaks for itself. Inspired by the likes of Kingdom Hearts 3 by Ry Senkari while browsing TV Tropes and my own boundless need to punish myself, I wanted to take a crack at one of the worst games in all of existence… and, admittedly, my guilty pleasure. Enjoy.
Sonic 06
A comprehensive walkthrough by Pax the Dreamer
Contents
Introduction
Characters and Gameplay
Story
Levels (Spoiler free)
Missions
Achievements
Bugs and Exploits
Special Thanks
Introduction
Coming out in 2006, Sonic the Hedgehog (dubbed Sonic 06 by its dedicated fanbase) was released in an incredibly buggy state. Many Let's Plays of the old version can be found on YouTube, poking fun at just how dreadful the product was. If left at that, this would have likely marked a dark age for the Blue Blur that would have taken a miracle to escape from.
The complete rebuilding of the game released in 2008 was said miracle. Featuring a completely redone story, game design and general overhaul of many things in general, this version of the game trumped the prior in every way imaginable. Released for free to those who already owned a copy of the bugged version (which will from this point forward be called Sonic 06 Alpha), this game has a small but steadily growing fanbase.
That's in part why I'm writing this walkthrough. Sure, it's a Sonic game, and it really doesn't take a genius to figure out how to play a Sonic game (except for Team Chaotix's gauntlet levels in Sonic Heroes speaking from the perspective of a 10 year old kid), but this walkthrough is more to raise awareness to those that have yet to buy a copy. Some have their experiences soiled by Sonic 06 Alpha, but take my word for it: Sonic 06 Alpha is NOT an indicator of this game's quality. Give it a try!
With that said, let's dig into the meat of this game.
Characters and Gameplay
Sonic the Hedgehog: The Blue Blur, the cool dude with attitude. You know him, you love him, and he's taking the forefront of this game. The fastest character in the game, a good player can make a level pass by in the blink of an eye while in control of Sonic. During normal stages, he can jump with the A/X button and, if near an enemy, utilize the homing attack by pressing the A/X button again. This will cause Sonic to home in on the nearest enemy and smash it to pieces.
While moving, Sonic can curl into a ball by pressing the B/O button. While rolled into a ball Sonic can destroy any enemy or item box he comes into contact with, and if rolling down a slope he'll reach speeds faster than he would if running. Granted, while rolled into a ball and NOT on a slope, he'll slow to a stop. Fortunately, another quick press of the B/O button will have Sonic back on his feet and running again.
While standing still, pressing and holding the B/O button will make Sonic roll into a ball and perform a Spin Dash. The longer you hold the button, the longer Sonic will rev in place, and the more speed he'll have when you let go of the button. You can reach INSANE speeds with this feature, and if you know where to jump while spin dashing, you can take incredible shortcuts across the level.
While grinding on rails, Sonic can increase his speed by pressing the B/O button repeatedly. If next to another rail, Sonic can jump between rails by pressing the shoulder buttons.
The Y/Δ button only has a single function – Light speed dash. Taking a leaf out of Shadow the Hedgehog's book, the Light Speed Dash is assigned its own button so as not to cause confusion/frustration in the player. When Sonic approaches a trail of rings, pushing Y/Δ will have Sonic blaze across the trail of rings at the blink of an eye.
The X/□ button allows Sonic to use his team mate's ability. Listed below are each of his Amigos and their respective ability:
Elise the Phoenix – Create a sphere of fire around Sonic, destroying anything in his path.
Tails – Grab onto Tails and have him fly you around for short periods of time, a callback to his ability in the Genesis days.
Knuckles – Tag out and let Knuckles take over with his own moves and abilities. Useful for finding secrets or taking a shortcut.
Personally, I always stick with Elise unless I feel experimental with how I want to approach my path. I generally have a route planned out, and Elise just makes it easier to blaze through the level at high speeds without fear of getting hurt.
To swap out your assigned partner at any time, simply press the left trigger button. The currently assigned partner will appear in the upper-left hand corner of the screen as their face on an emblem directly next to your Ring count. The Amigos will cycle through as Elise Tails Knuckles Elise, when all three characters are available in a level. This can get frustrating if you need to jump to another ability quickly, but from personal experience this doesn't happen often. Obviously, if for story reasons one or more of the characters are missing you can't choose to use them during the level.
Sporadically throughout the game, Sonic will engage in something called a Mach Speed section, in which his base speed doubles as he follows a straight path forward and dies in one hit from anything. During these sections, Sonic can strafe to the left or right by pressing the left or right shoulder buttons. A quick tap will have him dashing in that direction in the blink of an eye, allowing a player with quick reflexes to dodge an obstacle at the last minute. Being able to defy the laws of physics themselves, Sonic can also utilize this dodging ability while in the middle of a jump to re-position where he's going to land.
Now, remember what I said about Mach Speed sections killing you in one hit from anything? There are two life savers for this. First is Elise's power, in which she can summon a shield of fire to mow down any enemies you run into. Secondly is your lifeline – the Chaos Warp. By using an overcharged Chaos Emerald, Sonic has the ability to pull a Sands of Time and turn back the clock at the cost of some rings with the simple push of the right trigger button. You have about a three second window whenever you hit an obstacle before you officially lose a life, so if you have enough rings, push the button and undo the mistake that cost you that life to begin with. The catch, though, is that rings you've already collected will never come back, even after you rewind time. Be VERY careful on how often you use the Chaos Warp, otherwise you may find yourself screwed in the last ten seconds of a level with no rings on hand.
Shadow the Hedgehog: The dark reflection of Sonic, Shadow has recently put his past behind him and has been talked into working alongside GUN as a special operative by Rouge. As Sonic and Shadow grow alongside one another, they begin to diverge in how they approach things, and in Sonic 06 this is incredibly apparent – while Sonic can reach breakneck speeds, Shadow is a tad slower while making up for it in absolutely BRUTAL Chaos powers.
Not to say Shadow is slow, God no. He can still rush a level like nothing, he's simply not nearly as agile as Sonic is. For example, in sections where Sonic would otherwise wall jump across a room where the floor is lava by hopping from pillar to pillar, Shadow would knock a pillar down to create a bridge and keep on running (yes that's an actual part of a level, see Shadow: Flame Core for details).
Like Sonic, Shadow can press A/X to jump and press it again in midair to homing attack. Unlike Sonic, Shadow can charge his homing attack in mid-air to take down larger enemies. Just jump and hold down the A/X button to charge a more powerful homing attack, which will kill any small enemies that run into you. Release the button to unleash the charged homing attack at the biggest enemy in your area. The bigger enemies can still knock you down if they hit you while you're charging, though, so watch out.
Shadow can roll into a ball, spindash, grind on rails and perform the Light Speed dash just as Sonic can, same button input and everything. However, if the Y/Δ button is held down for a few seconds, Shadow will rev up and, when released, perform the Light Speed Attack from Sonic Adventure 1 and 2… unfortunately, like those games, it's not really all that useful save a few boss fights, in which it deals twice the damage as usual. Still, it's there if you want a change of pace – I found that in certain levels, Shadow's Light Speed Attack can actually get across "homing attack chains" faster than Sonic's own homing attack can.
On the bottom of the screen is a meter that fills with every enemy Shadow kills. This meter is his Chaos Energy, and with it Shadow can perform various Chaos attacks with the press of the X/□ button. At the beginning of the game, Shadow can only perform the first Chaos power. However, if you choose to do various side-missions and unlock more Chaos Drives, more attacks will be made available to you. None of these (save the very first and very last) are required to progress through the game, but there is a charm in blazing through everything with little effort.
Chaos Spear – Eats up barely an eighth of the energy bar. You throw a concentrated beam of Chaos Energy at anything at a distance. Not only can this be used to clear out annoying obstacles or enemies from a distance, but it's also required to bring down bridges or flip switches to continue in the level or take an alternative path.
Chaos Snap – 25% energy bar consumption. You glow with a blue aura for ten seconds, and during that time, your homing attack range is doubled. Perfect for the really tricky areas near the end of the game, or accessing hidden paths.
Chaos Burst – 50% energy bar consumption. A powerful attack that obliterates anything directly in front of Shadow. If the player is skilled, it's useful for blowing through bosses (will 1HKO if caught in the attack, easier said than done) but other than that its main use is to open new paths in a level to unlock bonus content and shortcuts in the level.
Chaos Boost – Full energy bar consumption. Shadow turns red and is completely invincible to all attacks for about twenty seconds, as well as the benefits from Chaos Snap. Using this turns Flame Core into an absolute JOKE, as you can literally run across the lava and ignore most of the platforming… unfortunately, by the time you get this ability you'll have beaten Lava Core, so it's only really useful for getting the S ranking or having mindless fun.
Chaos Control – Full energy bar consumption. Time is completely frozen for twenty seconds. This can be ended at any time by just pressing the X/□ button so you don't end up getting stuck waiting for the ability to end in order to progress through the level. Like in Shadow the Hedgehog, during boss battles, time is instead slowed down to a crawl. You only have this ability when Shadow obtains a Chaos Emerald in the story.
All of these abilities can be swapped at any time by pressing the left trigger button. The icon directly next to the energy bar will tell you which ability Shadow has at the ready.
The right trigger button will have Shadow stop in place and charge his Chaos energy, slowly filling the bar as you charge. Personally, unless it's something where I need to throw a Chaos Spear to progress through a level or one of the final battles of Shadow's storyline where he has to use Chaos Control to win, I NEVER use this. It brings the entire level to a grinding halt, and really, you can achieve this just fine by blazing through enemies instead.
Silver the Hedgehog: The newcomer to the series, Silver is the walking definition of badass. Being a sentient personification of raw Chaos energy itself, Silver's entire move set is dependent on taking Shadow's Chaos powers and multiplying them by a thousand-fold.
Like Shadow, Silver has an energy bar that's drained as he performs his abilities. However, unlike Shadow, his energy bar CONSTANTLY regenerates. So long as you're not performing any chaos powers, his bar will refill to maximum capacity in no time flat.
Silver's run speed is absolutely pathetic when on his feet. Really, it's more of a slow jog than anything… however, when the left trigger button is held down, Silver will levitate off the ground and blast off at speeds that would make Sonic jealous. When on the ground, this drains no energy. However, while you're crossing any pits or holes or anything that he would normally fall into, the energy bar steadily drains. You may be fast, but you'll still take damage if you hit anything dangerous, so be careful.
Hold down the X/□ button while you're dashing to boost, like in Sonic Rush. While in this state, your energy meter will drain even when you're over land, but you'll crash through any enemy or non-hazardous obstacle you run into. For example, if you boost into a weak wall, you'll blast right through it. However, if you boost into a spike trap, you're still taking a hit.
Press the A/X button when running around to jump. Press it again to double jump, or press and hold it to levitate directly up. Your energy bar will drain as you levitate upward, so don't think you can use this to clip your way through the entire level (well, technically you CAN, but see bugs and exploits for more details).
Pressing the X/□ when not dashing will have Silver Chaos Snap directly to the nearest enemy. This works exactly like a homing attack, only you can do it from the ground if you so wish. All small enemies will be destroyed from the energy of the Chaos Snap, but bigger enemies are only stunned.
Press and hold the Y/Δ button to stand still and display a target on the ground. By moving this target around, the energy bar will drain depending on how far away from Silver you move it. Once released, Silver will teleport directly to where the target is placed. Personally, I prefer to dash or boost my way around locations, but this ability is absolutely invaluable for if you need to perform a very tricky jump or reaching a shortcut.
Pressing the B/O button will drain a portion of Silver's energy bar and shoot out a sphere of concentrated Chaos energy, stunning any enemy it hits or destroying item boxes from a distance. Pressing and holding the button will have Silver stand still and create a Chaos Bubble, a field that slows anything that enters it (save Silver) to a crawl. (On a side note, fun fact: The Sonic 06 remake and Braid were both released in the same year. Things like Sonic's Chaos Warp and Silver's Chaos Bubble just make me think of that game, so I think that's a really fun coincidence.) Only one Chaos Bubble can be created in the field at a time, so holding down the B/O button will make the previous Chaos Bubble vanish. This ability is useful for "cheating" tricky timing puzzles in levels and EXPECIALLY taking down tricky bosses.
Finally, by pressing and holding the right trigger button, Silver can use his Psychokinesis to capture objects and enemies in a psychic field and manipulate them to his heart's content. Next to the energy bar is an icon that can be swapped around by pressing the left shoulder button. The running icon means that Silver can still run jog around while carrying as much as his energy bar will allow. By pressing the X/□ button, Silver will throw whatever he's holding at the nearest target. Press it to throw the objects one at a time, or hold it down to throw objects rapidly. If there's no target, Silver will just throw whatever he's holding directly in front of him. Simply releasing the right trigger button will have Silver drop whatever he's holding, and any enemy he was holding will be stunned for a few seconds after this.
The standing icon, conversely, has Silver stand completely still and manipulate only a single item at a time. The left analog stick will control the object's X and Y axis, while the right analog stick controls the Z axis and spins the object horizontally. Clicking either of the analog sticks will freeze the object on that plane while still being movable with the other – for example, clicking the left analog stick will allow the object to only be moved up or down. While moving an object around, press the Y/Δ button to change the camera angle. The camera moves from Silver Object (front view) Object (Top view) Silver respectively with each press. By pressing the X/□ button, the object being moved will freeze in place and can be jumped on or affected by Silver even once the right trigger is released. Using this, the player can solve many puzzles during Silver's campaign… and, if the player knows what s/he's doing, use this to COMPLETELY sequence break the game (once again, see Bugs and Exploits for more details).
More characters may be used for various side-missions throughout the game, so I'll explain their controls when necessary. That said, let's dive right into the story and first mission.