Petition to get Sega to hire ChaosX and his team to remake Sonic 06, or to give Adventure Sonic the Mania treatment.

[OtakuHedgehog]

 

Petition Link https://chng.it/w4hhMpmY95

 

 

Why this petition matters:

 

 

Released on November 14, 2006, Sega released ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’ for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Being the Blue Blur’s introduction to the 7th generation of console gaming, and celebrating his 15th anniversary; Sonic The Hedgehog took the world by storm as he did when he debuted on the Sega Genesis in 1991, and brought the gaming world into a new age, the Sonic Age. With high review scores, critic appraisal, and fan acclaim, the Sonic franchise was able to dismiss the failure of 2005’s Shadow The Hedgehog as a fluke. Sega’s iconic mascot, who at a point in time was able to trump the industry king, Mario, and break Nintendo’s monopoly on the console market, re-established his impact on the gaming industry and proved that this is one of, if not, the greatest video game franchise of all time!

 

At least that’s what could have happened if this game wasn’t rushed for a 2006 holiday release, if the Sonic Team head, Yuji Naka, didn’t leave during development, if half of the dev team wasn’t forced to work on Sonic & The Secret Rings for the Wii, and if Sega didn’t release NINE SONIC GAMES IN THE SPAN OF 2 YEARS IN ADDITION TO NIGHTS JOURNEY INTO DREAMS! It’s no secret that ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’, commonly referred to as ‘Sonic 06’, is one of the most infamous video games of all time. Plagued by glitches galore, frequent and long loading times, horrible physics, downright unfunctional side-characters, the list goes on. This title led to what many fans considered to be ‘The Dark Age of Sonic The Hedgehog’. But the thing is, this ‘Dark Age’ almost didn’t happen. It’s no exaggeration that the state of this franchise, and the direction that it took after 2006, would be drastically different if Sonic 06 was given the proper development time that it needed. 

 

The failure of Sonic 06 didn’t just hurt this brand, to many Sonic fans, it was the end of an era. In response to all the backlash from Sonic 06, Sega felt that they needed to distance themselves from Sonic 06 as much as possible; future Sonic games stripped away features that Sonic 06 had such as multiple playable characters, free-roaming gameplay, cinematic pieces, serious story, character arcs, a threatening Eggman, final episodes, multiplayer, and more. Unfortunately, games like Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Lost World, and Sonic Forces still got panned by critics despite avoiding features and ideas presented in Sonic 06. This petition exists to hopefully catch the attention of Sega that looking back, there are things about Sonic 06 that many fans appreciate for what the game tried to accomplish.

 

Again, Sonic 06 was not a bad game because it had bad ideas, the game was bad simply because Sega didn’t give Sonic Team enough time and resources to develop the game to completion. Even the highest rated game of all time, Zelda Ocarina of Time, could have turned out like 06 did if it was given the same development conditions. What people need to realize is that the retail release of Sonic 06 is not a game, it’s a prototype alpha-build of a game that was put on shelves because the developers weren’t even given enough time to get the beta-build up and running. Sonic 06 dealt with a variety of interesting themes such as the apocalypse, time-travel, a confident Shadow that has put the past behind him and is now a government agent, exploration of Sonic’s romantic side, a new hedgehog representing the Sonic of the future, Sonic’s new rival going through a character arc and becoming Sonic’s ally, Sonic being killed while all of Sonic’s friends come together to revive him. All of these are great ideas, and are far more interesting than the cookie-cutter stories that we have been receiving in recent years, they were just poorly executed due to the rushed development.

 

Since the disastrous release of Sonic 06, Sega has been trying to play it safe and avoid future projects having any similarities to Sonic 06. We can’t have serious plots anymore because 06 had one, we can’t have multiplayer anymore because 06 had it, we can’t play as Sonic’s friends anymore and give them a character arc because 06 did that, we can’t have pure 3D gameplay because 06 had that, we can’t have humans living amongst Sonic and his friends because 06 had that, we can’t have Adventure fields because 06 had that, the list goes on. Now Sega is trying to make Sonic more like Mario, just look at Sonic Lost World, that game is basically Mario Galaxy with a Sonic skin over it. The large cast of playable colorful characters, serious tone provided from the Adventure games, world building where humans and anthropomorphic animals coexist with one another, epic super sonic boss fights with awesome music that makes you want to dance, vocal songs representing characters personalities and goals are all what made Sonic games stand out from other mascot platforming games and feel special. But in recent years, all these themes have been thrown aside and are severely missed by fans of the Adventure era. Despite Sega running away from 06, people still bring 06 up in basically every Sonic game review, so what’s even the point of abandoning features that 06 had? The gaming industry is not going to forget about 06 anytime soon.

 

People may fear that revisiting 06 will bring Sonic back into another ‘Dark Age’ but just take a step back and think for a moment, within the past 17 years, has avoiding ideas that 06 presented and ignoring the game’s existence helped this franchise in any way? Sonic’s friends weren’t playable in Secret Rings and that game still got panned. Lost World had a simple story with a comedic tone, and that game still got panned. Boom Rise of Lyric took place in a universe with no humans (except Eggman ofcourse) and that game still got panned. Forces had no multiplayer mode or Adventure fields, and chose to use boost gameplay instead of full 3D exploration like 06 and that game still got panned. Even the newly released Sonic Frontiers (which I still believe is an amazing game, but I still thought the P06 Silver Release was more fun) which was another Sonic solo game, and described as “Open Zone”, was plagued by numerous 2D segments interrupting the 3D gameplay, and multiple rehashed uninspiring boosting stages again held back by 2D elements. After 17 years of avoiding 06 like it’s some cursed object, revisiting this title can’t possibly hurt this franchise anymore than running away from it has. Besides, the Sonic franchise is probably going to outlive everyone reading this petition. Haters can hate all they want but it doesn’t change the fact that more people are reading the Sonic comics more than ever, the Sonic movies were a huge success grossing over $700 million despite the first film being released during a pandemic, Sonic Origins and Frontiers have been nominated for Japan Game Awards 2023, and the newly released Sonic Frontiers is the highest selling 3D Sonic game to date! The Sonic franchise isn’t dying anytime soon and Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric was just as broken as 06 and was released nearly a decade ago, despite that, the Sonic franchise is still going strong. By going back to fix one of their most broken and infamous games that the world refuses to let go of, Sega literally has nothing to lose and everything to gain. 

 

We can’t change the past, but running away and pretending the past didn’t happen won’t solve anything. Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis for the GBA bombed on the same day, but people don’t bring up that game up in reviews whenever a new Sonic game is released. This is because it’s just a bad version of Sonic 1, there are plenty of good versions of Sonic 1 which is why no one talks about that horrendous GBA port. If there was a good version of 06 people probably wouldn’t hate the original game as much. And if people do continue to hate the 2006 retail release of 06 after fixing the game, who cares? These people would have continued to compare new Sonic games to 06 anyway. People will never forget about the mess that 06 produced no matter how much Sega tries to pretend that it doesn’t exist, so you might as well make a good version of the product then people wouldn’t bring up the relic that 06 is, in every Sonic game review.

 

Now people may be asking, what’s the point of Sonic Team spending time and resources fixing a broken game that most of the gaming community despises and that ruined Sonic’s reputation when they’re better off just making a new Sonic game? Well to answer that, I’d suggest Sega to outsource the team to a passionate group of indie developers that saw the potential this game had that Sega didn’t. Enter Indie developer ChaosX, who on April 19 2017 released the first demo of Sonic P06, a fan-game project with the goal of recreating Sonic 06 from the ground up in the Unity Engine. Within the span of 6 years, he was able to take one of the most reviled titles in gaming and create what I believe to be the most fun 3D Sonic experience I’ve ever played. As of the 2023 Silver release, the game is nearly glitch-free, loading times have been drastically decreased, unused dialogue has been restored and complemented with new animations, cut features were added such as the shield power-up and Super Sonic transformation, the game allows customization of character appearance and attacks, the game can run at 4K 60FPS, and so much more. P06 has delivered a far more enjoyable and fun gaming experience than I’ve had with any “3D” Sonic game released in the past 17 years!

 

ChaosX is making history and is showing the world, the masterpiece that Sonic 06 could have and should have been! Despite his talents, there’s only so much that ChaosX can do. There’s probably so many scrapped assets and ideas locked away in Sega of Japan’s HQ that we may never even know about. As a free fan-game, we can only get an idea of what a patched up retail 06 would play like. If ChaosX was hired by Sega, we can experience this game for the blockbuster AAA game changer that the Sonic Team of 2006 wanted this product to be. For example, did you know that Metal Sonic was originally planned to be playable? Did you know that Silver’s future was supposed to have an explorable Adventure Field? Did you know that Eggman Nega was supposed to be involved in the plot? Did you know that there was unused dialogue suggesting that Amy and Blaze were supposed to meet at some point in the story? Did you know that there was supposed to be a 4-player multiplayer mode? Did you know that the side-characters were planned to have their own mini campaigns? Did you know that there was supposed to be a 2-player story mode segment where Sonic and Shadow were supposed to team up and fight Eggman in their super forms? Did you know the game was also supposed to have a day and night cycle? Did you know that the Adventure Fields were originally going to have grind rails allowing for faster travel? Did you know there was a planned ‘Super Hard Mode’ giving players even more replay value than the ‘Very Hard Mode’ DLC provided? There was so much that was planned for this game but was sadly scrapped. If ChaosX were to get hired by Sega to officially remake this game, we may get to see some of those ideas that Sonic Team was forced to abandon. I know people may suggest that it would be better to keep P06 as a free fan-game, but if that remained, then only people with high-end gaming PCs would be able to have access to this project. If Sonic P06 was officially made and brought to consoles, then more people would be able to experience this remake, ChaosX would have access to more scrapped assets and ideas to bring to light, and word would spread of the high-quality that 06 has under years of non-stop bashing at a faster rate.

 

Despite all of the achievements that ChaosX has made with this project, a common complaint that nay-sayers have said is: “Well what about the story, you can’t fix that!” Well first of all, this is ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’, not ‘Final Fantasy’ or ‘MetalGear Solid’. Sonic doesn’t even need a story, the classic games had no story, people don’t complain about that. When it comes to Sonic games, story is just icing on the cake. Sure, I appreciate the stories that the Adventure games had to tell, but there are still plenty of great storyless Sonic games as well. For nay-sayers against the project who think the story is so bad, why can’t you just skip the cutscenes when the project is finished? This is a video game, the gameplay is what matters most, and ChaosX has done a fantastic job making 06’s gameplay fun. Again, Sonic doesn’t need a story, sure I appreciate a good story from Sonic as it makes him stand out from other cartoony platformers like Mario or Kirby, but it’s not a necessity, so why are people so critical of 06’s plot? And now, most modern Sonic games have decided to opt-out on stories and you people still aren’t happy. Besides I’ll gladly take lines like “It’s no use!” from 06 over lines like “Baldy McNosehair” from the likes of Lost World and Colors anyday. 

 

I know a ridiculous and common complaint that I see all the time is that 06 promotes bestiality with Sonic and Elise’s relationship. That is an absurd farce and a disgusting one may I add. The Sonic universe is a world where human characters and animal characters aren’t so different. Sonic is an anthropomorphic animal character with human characteristics, he’s not a real hedgehog for Pete’s sake. There’s even a scene from the Sonic X Archie comics where Sonic is dumbfounded when he sees a real hedgehog, and we see they literally have nothing in common. And if 06 promotes bestiality, then I guess Disney does too with their inappropriate films like ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, and ‘The Princess and The Frog’. I guess Fox promotes bestiality too, as seen by that disgusting flick ‘The Shape of Water’. And I guess Nintendo promotes bestiality too, with that horrific film ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ where they suggest that Bowser, an oversized turtle, should marry Peach, a human princess, how disgusting! All of these properties suggest romance between a human character and an animal character, so why can’t Sonic? Oh I know why, it’s because 06 was a trainwreck, if 06 turned out good, people would not be hating on Sonic and Elise as much. And I hope you nay-sayers realize that the idea of Sonic having a human girlfriend was a cut concept from Sonic 1, which was probably inspired by ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ anyway. Again, if Disney can do that, then why can’t Sonic? And I know people are going to rant about the kiss scene between Sonic and Elise, I just have to say, that was more like a breath of life thing, it’s not like Sonic and Elise were full on making-out, or french-kissing in a love hotel or something. We have scenes involving CPR with an adult male and a boy in family friendly movies like Jurassic Park, so how is the kiss scene in 06 offensive? Besides, I thought that was one of the most epic Super Sonic transformations ever, complemented by the gorgeous rendition of ‘His World’. 

 

And what about the Sonic OVA? Sonic and Sarah obviously had something going on judging by Sarah’s line “Please Sonic, do this for the two of us”, towards the end of the OVA, she even kisses Knuckles on the cheek, so why didn’t you nay-sayers grab your torches and pitchforks back in 1996? Oh I know why, because the OVA was a good product. Again, if 06 had been completed and was considered a good product, people wouldn’t blindly hate on all of the interesting ideas that the game had. And it can be argued that Shadow and Maria probably had romantic feelings for eachother too, again, this is a world where human characters and animal characters aren’t so different. Besides, how can people even see Sonic as an animal? Sonic has a bigger heart and has more humanity than any human-being that I’ve ever seen. And the reason why Sonic Team had Sonic fall in love with a human is because Sonic having romantic feelings towards someone is out-of-character for him (in the games anyway). Game Sonic would never want to settle down with a women. Sega knows that in a world before memes became a thing, the audience wouldn’t take this relationship seriously, the fact that the game erases itself at the end further suggests that. Sure, they could have just made Elise an anthropomorphic animal character like Sonic, but then they would risk upsetting the SonAmy fans. With that in mind, a human princess in a story that erases itself would be the perfect way to explore romance with Game Sonic. Not to mention that captured princesses and potential romances with the hero are common gaming tropes. 

 

And the drama with the kiss scene is just another reason why ChaosX should be hired by Sega to officially remake this game. As an official remake, the story can be rewritten like Ratchet and Clank 2016 to fix some plotholes and poor dialogue. Remove Eggman from the Last Episode and have Elise turn into an anthropomorphic animal like Sonic due to the space-time distortion or something. Have there be a reason that Mephiles is not able to touch Sonic (like how Voldemort couldn’t touch Harry in ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone’), so he needs Silver to kill him. In Last Episode, make Mephiles try to attack Elise instead (as it’s stated that her death would also cause the summoning of Iblis), but have Sonic be a hero and push her out of the way and take the hit for her. Have some dialogue from Elise's father explaining that the sealing of Iblis will weaken with age (like Naruto’s seal of the Nine Tails weakening over time) and if she experiences intense emotion then that will result in the resurrection of Iblis, so she has to learn to live as an emotionless robot (this would eliminate potential plotholes and questions such as “Why can’t Mephiles just go back in time and make Elise cry by breaking her leg?” or “What if Eggman just chops up some onions in front of Elise?”). Have dialogue of Mephiles monologuing to himself that he can only join with Ibliss when the flames of disaster are fresh and just recently summoned. Fix the ‘blue hedgehog’ translation error line to the intended “naive hedgehog” line to suggest that Blaze was referring to Silver, not Sonic, and to help cement that 06 was meant to be a prequel to Sonic Rush. Change Amy’s “If I had to decide between the world and Sonic, I would choose Sonic” line to a suggestion that things aren’t always what they seem and they should go talk to Sonic instead, and have her remain with Silver and not storm off, then she can meet Blaze which would be nice since Silver’s campaign contains the only group that doesn’t all come together in the story.

 

And on the topic of 06’s story, the good parts of the plot are unfortunately severely overshadowed by the game’s bad reputation. For example, I feel that Shadow’s character was redeemed after the cringe 2005 game. Say what you will about 06 but you cannot deny that Shadow was written incredibly well. In this game, Shadow sees Rouge and Omega not only as his closest friends, but as his family. He goes out of his way to rescue Rouge from Eggman’s assault, ignoring the scepter of darkness which was the purpose of their mission. When he and Rouge are transported into the future, he sees that his friend Omega is all dusty and is in standby mode. Shadow tries to tinker with Omega’s circuitry but has to be pulled aside by Rouge informing him that “there’s nothing we can do for him now”. This goes to showcase Shadow’s goodwill and intelligence. When Silver tries to kill Sonic, Shadow comes to the rescue to give Sonic an opportunity to chase after Eggman. There’s no snarky line or insult to Sonic’s incompetence here, Shadow simply saw a friend in need and took action. When Shadow and Silver dive into the past, we see Shadow act as a bit of a mentor figure towards Silver, leaving behind the scepter of darkness, implying that trying to change the past will not solve anything, which is what Silver has been trying to do by attempting to assassinate Sonic. We also see Shadow become heartbroken when he finds out that his best friend Omega will be forced to fight him, despite that, Shadow doesn’t run off as a lone wolf and continues to see Rouge and Omega as his family and to worry about that potential conflict when or if that time comes. Finally at the end of Shadow’s campaign, Shadow shows that he is a true hero. Despite all the crap given to him, whether in the past, present, and future, he's still going to do the right thing, even to protect those who would turn on him. And the most impactful part is, the world will never know. Even he will never know, given the 06’s ending. That's what makes Shadow’s character so amazing in this game. This is how I want my favorite Sonic character, Shadow, to be represented, not as a gun-slinging potty-mouth like in the embarrassing 2005 game, or this egotistical edgelord who thinks that Sonic is weak as seen in modern titles. I relate so much to Shadow as a character who has been shown to struggle with mental illness like me, and 06’s story has done so much justice for this character that the recent games have ruined unfortunately.

 

Silver as a character was unfortunately ruined right out of the gate with the infamous boss fight and the “It’s no use!” line which quickly became a meme and what the character is known for. However, like Knuckles in Sonic 3&K, or Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2, and Blaze in Sonic Rush, he goes through a character arc starting as Sonic’s enemy and becoming his ally by the end of the game. I know people criticize Silver for being an idiot for blindly believing Mephiles accusing Sonic as being the Iblis trigger, but what people don’t realize is that Silver has lived his whole life knowing nothing but flames and destruction. Silver and Blaze have fought Iblis countless times only to have Iblis resurrect himself from its ashes. Desperate to find an escape from this cycle of pain and darkness, Silver will accept any possible lead on how to end this despair. Also, Mephiles technically wasn’t lying to Silver when he claimed that Sonic was the Iblis Trigger. Sonic’s death in the Last Episode did trigger the summoning of Iblis. If Silver was able to assassinate Sonic in the opening cutscene before he made contact with Elise, and before the two were able to fall in love, then Silver would have succeeded in preventing Iblis’s seal from being broken. This goes to show that Mephiles isn’t an idiot either, he’s a sadist who took the truth and twisted it into his convenience. Mephiles had the power to travel back in time and assassinate Sonic or Elise at anytime, he was just hoping to see the look of despair on Silver’s face after realizing that he just killed an innocent person and triggered the summoning of Iblis himself as the “naive hedgehog” that he thought Sonic to be. And if you’re going to hate on this game and Silver for trusting Mephiles, then you might as well hate on Knuckles and Sonic 3&K for the same reason. But people don’t because again, unlike Sonic 06, Sonic 3&K was a good product, again, if 06 was a good product, people wouldn’t be hating on Silver as a character so much. And honestly, Silver’s naiveness and insecurity brings charm to his character. It serves as a great contrast to Blaze’s mature and assured personality which also makes her look like a big sister towards Silver. This contrast is similar to what I like about Sonic and Sally in the SATAM cartoon. At the end of Silver’s campaign after he learns that Iblis can be sealed, he tries to sacrifice himself to save the world by sealing Ibliss in his soul. Unfortunately, Iblis rejects Silver who is not of royalty but is compatible with Blaze who is a pyrokinetic princess. Finally with the opportunity to accomplish his lifelong goal of getting rid of Iblis for good, Silver can’t bring himself to sacrifice his only friend. With that said Silver refuses to send Blaze to another dimension thus dooming the world to be consumed by Ibliss’s flames forever. Blaze commenting again on Silver’s naiveness admits that that is what she’s always liked about him as she sends herself to the Sol dimension leading into the events of Sonic Rush after everyone’s memories of the events of 06 are erased. Silver as the hero of the future has finally gotten his wish at the cost of losing the one person that is dearest to him. Now that’s impact, but after 06 bombed, we never see Sonic’s friends having epic playable character arcs like this again.

 

As for Sonic’s story….yeah it’s pretty bad. And unfortunately because Sonic is the main character, when people say that the writing in 06 is garbage, they mostly refer to the Sonic campaign and ignore the Shadow and Silver campaigns which may have had some problems, but are ultimately eons better than the Sonic campaign. Sure Sonic has some epic moments such as the opening CG cutscene where Sonic swarms in on Eggman’s robotic army, dodging bullets and explosions, disabling every robot in his way to the point where he can comedically tap on a robot with his foot, causing it to fall; Followed by carrying the princess wedding style while outrunning rockets shot by a fearsome and enraged Dr. Eggman, with the scene closing in on a new mysterious hedgehog claiming that he’s finally found what he calls to be “The Iblis Trigger”. But once that scene ends, the witty and cocky Sonic that we all know and love is replaced by this stagnant and robotic performance that the writer’s presented us with for Sonic’s campaign. Honestly, Sonic seems just as emotionless as Elise in the majority of this game. Sonic also doesn’t go through much of a character arc in this game unlike Shadow or Silver either, he just has this tunnel vision goal of rescuing Elise who gets kidnapped by Eggman again and again. Even when Silver accuses Sonic of destroying the future, this doesn’t peak Sonic’s interest at all, his only concern is to chase after Elise. And the biggest flaw in Sonic’s story is that Sonic doesn’t interact with Mephiles at all. How can you tell a story where your main character has no line of dialogue or confrontation with the main villain? That is horrible writing and goes to show how much of Sonic Team’s vision for this game was lost after Yuji Naka departed and half of the development team was outsourced to work on Secret Rings. Even though this game is called ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’, Sonic as a character was poorly represented. But again, this is another reason why ChaosX should be hired by Sega to remake this game. As a fan-game project, there’s not much ChaosX and his team can do for the story, but if Sega backs them up, then Sonic’s campaign can be rewritten, and other plot points can be fixed up as well.  

 

With all this said, even if you hate Sonic 06 and the idea of Sega revisiting this game makes your skin crawl, you can at least acknowledge that the Adventure formula didn’t have to die because of 06, leaving a lot of Sonic’s friends irrelevant and giving us cookie-cutter stories with boost gameplay plagued by notorious 2D segments. Even if Sega still doesn’t want to touch 06, we can still have Adventure Sonic get the Mania treatment like Classic Sonic got in 2017. Can you imagine a Mania-Styled Sonic Adventure game revisiting levels from the Adventure Era and even adding a few new levels with true 3D exploration gameplay? Maybe, like Mania, it can start out as a budget digital only title with 3 characters and then later get a physical rerelease in the ‘Plus’ tradition with more characters and levels. Imagine exploring Space Colony Arc as Blaze The Cat, or blasting through the Mystic Ruins as Omega. And if people don’t want forced treasure hunting and mech shooting stages which the Adventure games received some criticism for, perhaps characters like Knuckles and rouge can be placed in Action Stages like Sonic, but be given a stamina meter like in Zelda: Breath of the Wild, when gliding and climbing, that way the don’t break the game. For characters like Tails and Shadow, maybe we can have optional mechs and vehicles lying around like what they tried to do in Shadow’s 06 campaign, that way characters like tails can still be given Action Stages but the player still has the option for shooting gameplay but aren’t forced to have their favorite characters in a mech like in Adventure 2.

 

At the end of the day, the story of this game’s development and final result is a tragedy and the fact that this game is titled ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’ is the ultimate insult. This is the name of the icon that broke Nintendo’s illegal monopoly. Gamers deserve better, Sonic fans deserve better, Sonic The Hedgehog deserves better! Do you really want a game called ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’ to forever be remembered as a buggy, incomplete and unfinished mess? There was a clear passion and hope in this project, it really did not have to end as the joke that it turned out to be. And again, Sega running away from it and pretending that it doesn’t exist will not solve anything, people will always remember 06 for the unstable glitchfest that it is. That doesn’t mean though that we can’t have a fixed, newer, and better version of 06 for people to appreciate and would attend to the wound that 2006 caused for the Sonic brand. In conclusion, with Sega Japan’s COO Yukio Sugino saying that he is interested in exploring “reboots and remakes”, with various Sega properties, including the Sonic franchise, ChaosX finishing the Sonic P06 Silver release, and the fans appreciation for what Sonic 06 could have been being bigger than ever, now is the perfect chance to try and get our voices to be heard! If you see the potential that Sonic 06 had or simply miss the adventure formula, then please sign!

 

TL;DR Sega of Japan’s president has stated that they are interested in developing Sonic remakes. Indie developer, ChaosX, has been working on a Sonic 06 remake that has gotten praise for the past 6 years. Sega should give Adventure Sonic the Mania treatment and hire ChaosX and his team to remake Sonic 06, or at least a Mania-Style game with Adventure gameplay.

 

If this still didn’t convince nay-sayers that believe that 06 had no hope for being good in the first place, then all I can do is provide these links to someone who was able to explain the potential that this game had better than I ever could:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Badnik Mechanic]

So... Gonna sound mean but, you really need to hear this.

1: Imagine for a second you get 1 million signatures on this, what's your plan exactly? What do you intend to do with this petition?

• Do you have a contact at Sega?
• Is it someone who can make decisions?
• Do you have a meeting scheduled?
• Are you attending that meeting?
• Who else is attending that meeting?
• Are the people behind this project attending that meeting?
• How are you attending that meeting? In person or virtually?
• Do you have a pitch/prototype ready? 
• Have you sent them a brief of your intended pitch so they can be prepared on what to ask you in response?

Because I had to get ALL of that and MORE when I approached Sega and got a meeting with them over something as small as [Retracted]. 

 

2: Let's just focus on Sonic 06 Remake for a second... Do the people behind this fangame actually... Want to do this? Do they have the time? Do they have a development studio? How long has it been up and running? Is it capable of handling a big team to produce a fully realised 3D game in a relatively short period of time?

3: Now let's focus on your SA remake side to this...

Everything I said in 2. Only now you add onto to it the fact virtually every SA1 asset has to be remade from scratch. Do they have the people employed to handle that? If not, is it outsourced? To who?

What's the salary for all these people? 

What's your proposed budget for this project?

What's the timeframe for development? 

Proposed deadline for Alpha & Beta?

I going to spare the really specific details like Playtesting, QA and multi-language support, let alone regional voice acting.

 

4: Your own petition contains information which ranges from debatably to outright wrong and almost insulting to the client you're trying to pitch to. Here's one example line that I noticed and did a bit of a double take at.

Sonic doesn’t even need a story, the classic games had no story, people don’t complain about that.

My guy... they just re-released a classic compilation not even a month ago, which... Yeah if you seriously subscribe to the classic titles having no story, that's the hill you're going to die on.

 

5: Even the most well meaning 'videogame' related petitions very rarely work because...

• They're not a business plan.
• They're not a pitch. 
• There's no detail to convince the company to actually make the investment into the idea.

Have you done any research into directional trends? Because they'll ask you that.

Big 3D videogame projects, even when there's a solid pitch behind them, take 2-3 years just to get to a release state! Do you have the metrics to show the market wants what you're pitching? And I don't just mean the few die hard Sonic fans who like it, I mean 'the videogame market'.

 

I could probably go on for several additional pages, but I'm probably sounding like an arse as it is with just this, but there's reasons why petitions regardless as to how well meaning they are fail even if they have a million signatures. And I've not even covered every reason with this one.

 

 

[joe_schmoe99]

This post is unbelievable, lmao. It pretty much boils down to "SEGA, YOU STUPID! BUY THIS!!! HIRE MEEEEE!!! LET MEEEEE MAKE YOUR DECISIONS!!!"

Dude, I'm telling you right now, even if (and it's a huge "if") your petition were to get all the signatures it needs, it's not gonna happen.

Not to mention... I'm assuming you have zero personal connection with ChaosX themself, and I'm willing to bet my life savings they would hate both this idea and being put up on the "SEGA HIRE THIS MAN" pedestal.

I'm saying all of this as both a fan of 06 and a believer in its potential. A remaster/remake of that game will never, EVER happen in any official capacity, period.

With all due respect, grow up. Be happy P-06 exists at all instead of throwing a hissy fit at SEGA over a nearly 20 year old mistake that they have zero interest in revisiting.

[joe_schmoe99]

I wanted to add to my previous comment but I waited too long and can no longer edit it, so here's a quick aside, lol:

Considering the whole Adventure/Mania thing, I don't see exactly that happening, either. I do think they want to go back and re-release at least SA1 on modern consoles, so I'm personally holding out for a port of the original Dreamcast version rather than DX. A full on new remake would be really cool, and a guy can hold out hope, but I don't think it's in the cards. We shall see.

Also, I want to say I'm sorry I sound like a total jerk above, I promise it's not from a place of malice. In the words of the goodest boy Silver, "I may be an optimist, but I'm also a realist."

[OtakuHedgehog]

Thank you for the feedback everyone. So I reached out to ChoasX on Twitter and he said that he’s not interested in working for Sega on an official Sonic 06 remake. I asked him if he’d like me to delete the petition but I haven’t heard back from him yet. I figured since Sega hired Christian Whitehead and a few other passionate Sonic fan game devs to make Mania, that they could do the same with ChaosX and his team. And with the Sega COO stating that they’re interested in remaking old Sonic games, this would be the perfect opportunity. Oh well, a guy can dream I guess. Sonic 06 had pretty much everything I want in a 3D Sonic game, aside the fact that it was a train wreck.

[joe_schmoe99]

8 minutes ago, OtakuHedgehog said:

Thank you for the feedback everyone. So I reached out to ChoasX on Twitter and he said that he’s not interested in working for Sega on an official Sonic 06 remake. I asked him if he’d like me to delete the petition but I haven’t heard back from him yet. I figured since Sega hired Christian Whitehead and a few other passionate Sonic fan game makers to make Mania, that they could do the same with ChaosX and his team. And with the Sega COO stating that they’re interested in remaking old Sonic games, this would be the perfect opportunity. Oh well, a guy can dream I guess. Sonic 06 had pretty much everything I want in a 3D Sonic game, aside the fact that it was a train wreck.

Hey, no hard feelings, man. We all want the blue rat to succeed, but it's also important to separate dreams from reality. You can still play P-06 and think about what could have been. Lord knows I'm a bit of an 06 apologist myself. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was my very first exposure to Sonic as a whole.

In general though, I'd say Sonic Team has shown that they're really on the right track lately. What with Frontiers being a smash hit, and now Superstars shaping up to be potentially even better than Mania, I wouldn't worry too much about the current state of the franchise. Just relax and enjoy the ride.

[Rabbitearsblog]

Quote

We can’t have serious plots anymore because 06 had one

I thought that Sonic Frontiers had a pretty serious plot and Sonic Forces, regardless of its quality, had a serious plot too.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Also, Secret Rings, Unleashed and Black Knight were the next three games after 06 and everyone counts them as having the best stories. 06's plot wasn't a problem because it was "serious" it was that it completely sucked.

[batson]

I'm sorry my dude, but if there is one single Sonic game that SEGA will never re-release it's Sonic 06. Patched version or not.

Well that and Rise of Lyric.

Of course when I say "never" I guess I really mean within the coming, say, 20 years or so. If we peek really far into the future, let's say 40 years from now, when the Sonic franchise has had so many new ups and downs that 06 feel like ancient history, and when the overwhelming majority of the existing fanbse wasn't around to be burned by the game a lifetime ago, then I could see SEGA re-releasing 06 as just a curious and laughable part of Sonic's past. They could market it as "the game that almost destroyed Sonic" or "the most hated Sonic product of a generation" and make an offical  documentary about the game and it's impact. Arin Hanson can guest star and talk about his legendary let's play of it.

Seriously, I'm not joking here. A lot of companies eventually start embracing their most infamous products in this way once enough time passes. Disney would most definitely have done this with the Star Wars christmas special if George Lucas hadn't forbidden them to. But with Sonic, I think the time that have to pass between when 06 came out and when SEGA embraces it in a "our worst mistake" sort of way is especially long due to the fact that during the nearly two decades that have passed since 2006 SEGA has continued to release poorly recieved Sonic games. SEGA is STILL in the process of fixing the Sonic brands reputation, so to remind people of 06's existance is too soon, while for many other brands 20 years would be enough time passed to do start with the whole embracing-it-as-part-of-our-history thing. If Sonic ONLY starts releasing grade A producs from now on then maybe in another 20 years SEGA can feel compelled to openly laugh at and accept 06 since it can no longer actually hurt them.

[screwball]

On 7/24/2023 at 6:12 PM, Rabbitearsblog said:

Sonic Forces, regardless of its quality, had a serious plot too.

eh. i dunno. i always viewed forces as having a serious plot like, in theory. but then within the game itself it doesn't take it seriously.

but i do agree that frontiers is definitely a more serious plot. i guess to me i just define whether a plot is serious or not based on how seriously it takes itself, not really the contents. but i can see how forces would be seen as a serious plot, its just not what i walked away with.

[Rabbitearsblog]

3 hours ago, screwball said:

eh. i dunno. i always viewed forces as having a serious plot like, in theory. but then within the game itself it doesn't take it seriously.

but i do agree that frontiers is definitely a more serious plot. i guess to me i just define whether a plot is serious or not based on how seriously it takes itself, not really the contents. but i can see how forces would be seen as a serious plot, its just not what i walked away with.

I will admit that Sonic Forces executed their plot a bit too poorly.  Like, it is hard to take that story seriously, especially since they are still joking around in that story.

[screwball]

26 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

I will admit that Sonic Forces executed their plot a bit too poorly.  Like, it is hard to take that story seriously, especially since they are still joking around in that story.

yeah. i think it couldve been a really great story, the plot is really interesting, but they just joke around a little too much yknow? like im not saying it shouldnt have jokes, but the more serious moments should take themselves seriously.

[Starnik]

Sega is too cheap for this to work