Sonic the Hedgehog, bless his tiny, mutant heart, has had a lot of low points over the years. His eponymous 2006 release for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Sonic The Hedgehog, will forever go down as one of the lowest. It was glitchy as all get out, the camera behaved like a live bat trapped in somebody’s living room, and no amount of brain bleach will ever wipe from our memories the moment when Sonic kissed a human woman. Despite all that, a fan team is putting together a remarkably faithful remake of Sonic 2006 in Unity.
A developer who goes by the handle ChaosX and “a few friends” have been working for years on a PC recreation of the game in the Unity engine. Recently, they released a demo of their “incredibly huge effort,” as well as a video of that demo:
The demo contains multiple levels and three characters: Sonic, Tails, and Silver The Unnecessary Hedgehog. From a graphics and art perspective, it looks just like the original, maybe better. I never finished Sonic 2006 because, seriously, how could you ask someone to do that, but the remake’s demo feels better than the original to me, too.
I would not, however, go so far as to say it feels good, because again, this is Sonic 2006 we’re talking about. And oof, that level design. It just doesn’t flow. But as somebody who grew up on Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2, I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for 3D Sonics—even the not super good ones. And hey, I didn’t fall through the ground and into the uncaring sea below on the first level, so this version of Sonic 2006 is already a marked improvement as far as I’m concerned.