These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
YMMV: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
Your Mileage May Vary on Sonic 2006, but... Uh-oh! Gotta speed up!
8.8: Play magazine initially gave the game a 9.5 out of 10, then dropped down to 8.5 in the next issue; the reviewer said that he had been told flaws in his copy would be removed in the finished product. The PS3 version received a 5.5, with the same reviewer expressing disgust that nothing changed.
Alternate Character Interpretation: The Duke of Soleanna: caring father concerned for his people, or a selfish, vile man who caused the events of the game?
Mephiles (and by extension Solaris): Angry at the whole world for daring to experiment on him, or destructive Mad God who inherently wanted to destroy everything?
Anti-Climax Boss: For a god of light and time, Solaris is fairly easy to defeat. Doubles as a Breather Boss, considering what you have to go through getting to it.
Ass Pull: Mephiles proves at the start of the final episode that he can summon all of the Chaos Emeralds to him whenever he wants. This is rather incredible, considering the trouble people normally have to go through to get them, even if he is half of a Physical God. Unfortunately, like many things, thing dips to his Complexity Addiction on why he didn't do that in Silver's time, with Iblis right out there.
Awesome Music: The one thing that most people genuinely enjoy about this game is the soundtrack, which, in true Sonic tradition, is awesome. Some highlights include Wave Ocean, Aquatic Base, Kingdom Valley, Flame Core, and White Acropolis.
Most of the character themes are pretty great too, but the one that stands out is Silver's theme, Dreams of an Absolution. The original song is great, but the remix on the Several Wills vocal album is something else, especially with Jun Senoue's wonderful guitar work.
Solaris Phase 2, an epic remix of Sonic's theme (His World).
Awesome: Video Game Levels: Those who did play the game tend to agree that Crisis City stands out greatly among the other levels. So much so, that it was the level to represent this game in Sonic Generations.
Any stage in which either Sonic carries Elise or when Blaze is playable, mostly due to their unique and fun gameplay styles being largely emphasized and supported by said stages.
Complete Monster: Not a particularly effective one, but Mephiles counts.
Critical Backlash: A surprisingly large portion of the hate surrounding this game has been met with adamant defenders, with both sides bickering over whether or not it's at least enjoyable.
Damsel Scrappy: Princess Elise, who manages to get kidnapped more times in one game than a good number of video game princesses do over the course of their entire franchises.
Demonic Spiders: The eyeball-like spheres in the final level, which will spawn in the most inconvenient places and have two variations: one that sucks you towards them for an instant death, and one that throws objects at you at extremely high velocities. They are single-handedly responsible for the majority of game overs in the last level.
The red Eggman Walkers for their tendency to fire homing lasers that are both very fast and hard to avoid, which can quickly turn players into sitting ducks even when they're in the middle of attacking. While they otherwise tend to be rather rare, they are infamous for their ability to easily take the lives of players at least once during The Test Of Courage.
Epileptic Trees: A somewhat popular fan theory is that the world Blaze seals herself in is her world from Sonic Rush. A few other fan theories say the Reset Button didn't touch her there.
Game Breaker: Sonic's Red Gem and Purple Gem custom actions. The former slows down enemies (and the timer), while the latter turns him small and allows him to jump forever.
Goddamned Bats: Burrowing worms, especially the stronger purple variety.
The player can glitch through the final door in Silver's version of Dusty Desert by jumping on a box and hovering it towards the door, completely bypassing the infamous Egyptian billiard ball puzzle.
The gauge for Sonic's gem powers never decreases, meaning you can slow time constantly and use constant Metroid-esque Space Jumps to bypass any obstacle.
Some bugs allow you to finish Flame Core as Knuckles, Crisis City as Blaze, and White Acropolis as Tails. The Rank Screen still appears, which is notable with Knuckles, who never gets to finish a level otherwise.
Omega can float upwards if you hit corners just right.
Failing at that you can still rapidly tap the button, turning his gliding power into infinite hovering.
Certain exploits in Silver's and Blaze's movesets allow you to hop through and ignore otherwise lethal water and quicksand areas, provided the player manages to master the timing.
Hype Backlash: Surprisingly, yes. The game didn't get the the best press upon release, but before the game came out, Sega really hyped up the game. They promised a lot that was never delivered on. The E3 trailers alone shows features that were never implemented, or cut before release. Even if the game did manage to deliver everything it promised, it's safe to say that the game still wouldn't have been able to live up to the hype - partly due to the Broken Base, but also due to Sega hyping it as the best Sonic game ever created.
Idiot Plot: The entire story depends on the characters taking every single bit of information given by known villains at face value, a completely helpless princess getting repeatedly snatched away by the same exact villain within minuscule time intervals, and everybody completely failing to comprehend the potential applications of their ability to time travel at will.
Internet Backdraft: Everything about this game, but especially Sonic and Elise's romance.
Mis-blamed: Several Sonic 2006 defenders insist that the Let's Play is partly to blame for the expansion of this game's bad reputation. First and foremost, Something Awful's forum rules on Let's Plays dictate that anybody who wants to let's play a game must wait six months (at the time, it's three now) before a game can be played on their forums. The reality is that the game had been out for well over a year before pokecapn played it, and in that time it had sold over a million copies and earned a highly negative critical and fan reception. In fact, it was the game's negative reception that motivated pokecapn to play it in the first place.
Also Fan Myopia: even if the total views of multiple video hosting sites are combined, it can be assumed that fewer than 100,000 people have seen this Let's Play, and the game had sold well over a million units before the Let's Play even began.
Never Live It Down: The fanbase's feelings towards Sonic Team in regards to Elise's kiss. To this day, Sonic-related articles, even in professional media, tend to use snarky lines like "hopefully this time Sonic won't be trading saliva with human females!", just to make sure no one forgives and forgets.
The game itself for the entire Sonic franchise, giving the franchise and Sonic Team a black mark for its infamous glitches and faulty designs that simply refuses to fade away for some people.
Porting Disaster: The PS3 version ended up making the (already long) load times even worse, with slowdown issues not present in the Xbox 360 version and a small but noticeable degradation in graphics.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: One of the few good things about this game is Shadow's characterization. With all the Wangst throw out of the window in Shadow the Hedgehog, he's a much more bearable and overall admirable character. While Mephiles attempts to challenge Shadow into questioning his own existence, Shadow becomes a StoicBadass. As Shadow puts it, "I determine my own destiny!" and, "If the world chooses to become my enemy, I will fight like I always have." "THIS is who I am!" indeed.
Some of Shadow's vehicle sections qualify, as do Silver's infamous billiard ball puzzles in the Dusty Desert stage.
So Bad, It's Good: Depending on who you ask, this game could be considered this. It does have awesome music like other Sonic games and did have some awesome moments which make the game something worth trying.
Squick: A certain cutscene from the Last Episode. In order to resurrect Sonic, Elise gives him an Emerald-powered kiss. This scene was made squicky by the fact that she, a human, kissed a hedgehog, who also happened to be dead. This moment still leaves a bad taste in peoples' mouths.
It doesn't help that a quirk in the game's ring-dropping mechanics can result in the fight getting stuck in an infinite loop that's only escapable via restarting* Which means the player either has to forfeit a life anyway or wait through the same exact loading screens prior to the fight.
The "Test of Courage" from Sonic's Episode is also an example of sorts. It wouldn't be bad if losing didn't mean you had to go through four loading screens just to try again. And since you don't get any rings...
That One Puzzle: The billiard ball puzzle in Silver's Dusty Desert. Ironically enough, the Very Hard DLC mission for the stage simply replaces it with a gauntlet of enemies and pits.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Blaze is the new living seal of Iblis! And now she's gone to another dimension! This had potential... then the reset button got pushed...
Uncanny Valley: The rather realistic looking humans looked out of place next to the Felix the Cat-inspired designs of our anthropomorphic heroes. NPCs will wave their limbs and heads around in a pale imitation of natural human movement, and Princess Elise herself looks more like a porcelain doll with the in-game graphics.
Even Eggman was redesigned to look consistent with the humans, although some appreciated that they got rid of the doctor's chicken legs.
Thankfully, Sonic titles that came after this steered clear out of the valley by designing resident humans to look more cartoony (and with this, the return of Eggman's chicken legs).
The Sonic characters themselves look like lifeless dolls with their faces barely animated as they make incredibly stiff motions as if someone was controlling them like a puppet.
