History YMMV / SonicTheHedgehog2006

* AmericansHateTingle: A pretty complicated example. While the gameplay is generally agreed upon to be broken and dismal by every region, the ''story'' on the other hand was received far better in Japan than it was in Western regions. This might be because the game leans very heavily on Japanese tropes very commonly found in [=JRPGs=] and other anime, of which neither genre had hit their popularity period just yet in other regions aside from the likes of ''Franchise/DragonBall''. Of particular note is the reception of Silver; he is one of the most popular characters in Japan and generally behind Sonic and Shadow in popularity polls and fanart. In America, however, he was way more controversial and it would take quite a few years before reception of him would soften, and even then his popularity pales in comparison to the other fan favorite characters (including the aforementioned Shadow, who himself is a very controversial character in the West).

* SignatureScene:

* FashionVictimVillain: Debates about if it was a good idea to redesign Dr. Eggman to look like a realistic human aside, the change of his jacket's buttons from flat squares to protruding circles has been often mocked as their placement makes it look like he has giant golden nipples.

* BetterAsALetsPlay: Watching others play the game in rage and break the game to oblivion is considered to be far more entertaining than to actually play it. For this reason, the game is a popular one amongst let's players.
* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Sonic's test of love; Does Sonic love Amy Rose or Princess Elise? You pass the trial, no matter who you choose, and the answer has no bearing on the rest of the game.
* BileFascination: It's easily considered one of, if not, the most infamous Sonic game ever for a reason, being the one entry that caused massive, long-lasting damage to the franchise that it has yet to fully recover from. People who play this game today play it to see if it really is that bad, usually by focusing on the myriad of glitches and highly questionable plot decisions.

** Sonic versus Silver is ThatOneBoss, capped off with an annoying HeadsIWinTailsYouLose ending. Silver versus Sonic, on the other hand... well, ''you'' get to act out that CurbStompBattle yourself.

** Sonic and Elise's kiss. The future of the series has been plagued with people jokingly wondering if Sonic will kiss any humans again. As for Elise, she's pretty much only remembered for this moment and her overall romance with a hedgehog. As [[Creator/BenCroshaw Yahtzee Croshaw]] put it in one ''Extra Punctuation'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Epr6tjvsivk&t=316s episode]]:

** Do the guards and priests just not ''care'' about Elise's well-being? The fact that their infamous KnightsAndKnaves puzzle and multi-staged test happens during a RaceAgainstTheClock and takes up so much time that the heroes [[spoiler:[[YouAreTooLate arrive just in time to see Elise crash and burn aboard the Egg Carrier]]]] seems to say so.

** Many articles talking about Blaze the cat believe ''06'' is her actual debut in the series, and that she and Silver come from the same dimension. While the confusion is understandable, Blaze debuted a year before in ''VideoGame/SonicRush'', and ''06'' is her debut in a main console game; and ignoring this specific game, she and Silver always come from different planes of existence.

** Sonic's Super Speed sections, which are essentially [[VideoGame/{{Battletoads}} Turbo Tunnel]]: Sonic Edition. Because you're constantly moving forward, you have very little time to react to enemies and even the landscape, which can result in some unavoidable collisions. If you jump at the wrong angle, you may just end up jumping off the map. Sometimes the camera suddenly switches to focus on what Sonic's running from, denying you the ability to see where to steer him to. Also, the controls are ridiculously stiff, and you have absolutely no air control, so you're going to jump to places where you don't want to go a ''lot''.
** For many players, Silver's entire play style. Unlike Sonic's Homing Attack and spin kick or extra Gems for various attacks, and Shadow's combat-centric gameplay, Silver is ''meant'' to be overpowered by catching and lifting just about anything with his telekinesis, even enemy projectiles - but lacks any worthwhile means of direct attacks. His psychic wave at point blank is basically useless unless you're pixels away from damage, and his ground slam that stuns enemies for grabbing sometimes ''does not work''. This is only made worse by the fact that, short of tapping his hover to [[GoodBadBugs abuse it much like Omega's]], he's one of the slowest characters in the entire game and his dash that is meant to compensate for this goes only five feet and is near-totally useless as well. And even with all of this in mind, that telekinesis is still a glitchy crapshoot since it relies on [[WreakingHavok the physics engine cooperating]].
** Even those who enjoyed the alternate play styles often admitted it got tedious switching between them ''mid-level'', especially since so many got their own levels to begin with (Tails not only has his own variation of Wave Ocean, but [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment invades Sonic's]]).

** Tails's dummy rings attack. The first attack works perfectly well on its own, but the dummy ring explodes on contact with anything... which includes previously thrown dummy rings. It effectively makes spamming the attack impossible. Like Rouge's bomb attacks, if he throws a dummy ring bomb on the ground, it stops him in place.

** Ironically, Sonic's [[GreenHillZone Wave Ocean]] is infamously difficult for one reason: the Super Speed section at the end, due to the poor controls and tendency for Sonic to get caught on scenery and die instantly. Even though it was intended to be an easy first level, it's very common for first-time players to get a GameOver on the last segment.

** Silver's version of Dusty Desert for the ''[[FanNickname Goddamn Egyptian billiard ball puzzle]]'' [[spoiler:(for those unaware of the [[GoodBadBugs glitch to get past the door]], anyway)]].

** There are many theories as to why Blaze was in the future with Silver, a question which remains unanswered even today. A somewhat popular theory is that Blaze is originally from the future, and the dimension she seals herself into is the world from ''VideoGame/SonicRush'', where she became princess in the [[ResetButton time reset]]. FlipFlopOfGod occurred when writer Creator/ShiroMaekawa confirmed this was true, but Takashi Iizuka (who is currently head of Sonic Team but had no involvement with ''06'') disagreed, stating Blaze's ''06'' backstory is not canon. Fan theories still try to reconcile the two, suggesting the Sol Emeralds transported Blaze from her homeworld to the future to help Silver, just as she has been mysteriously transported in games such as ''Rush'' and ''[[VideoGame/SonicColors Colors DS]]''.

** There are many theories as to why Blaze was in the future with Silver, a question which remains unanswered even today. A somewhat popular theory is that Blaze is originally from the future, and the dimension she seals herself into is the world from ''VideoGame/SonicRush'', where she became princess in the [[ResetButton time reset]]. FlipFlopOfGod occurred when writer Creator/ShiroMaekawa confirmed this was true, but Takashi Iizuka (who is currently head of Sonic Team but had no involvement with ''06'') disagreed, stating Blaze's ''06'' backstory is not canon. Fan theories still try to reconcile the two, suggesting Blaze was transported to the future by the Sol Emeralds to help Silver, just as she has been mysteriously transported in games such as ''Rush'' and ''[[VideoGame/SonicColors Colors DS]]''.

** There are many theories as to why Blaze was in the future with Silver, a question which remains unanswered even today. A somewhat popular theory is that Blaze is originally from the future, and the dimension she seals herself into is the world from ''VideoGame/SonicRush'', where she became princess in the [[ResetButton time reset]]. FlipFlopOfGod occurred when writer Creator/ShiroMaekawa confirmed this was true, but Takashi Iizuka (who is currently head of Sonic Team but had no involvement with ''06'') disagreed, stating Blaze's ''06'' backstory is not canon. Fan theories still try to reconcile the two, suggesting Blaze was transported to the future by the Sol Emeralds to help Silver, just as she has been unintentionally transported in games such as ''Rush'' ''[[VideoGame/SonicColors Colors DS]]''.

** There are many theories as to why Blaze was in the future with Silver, a question which remains unanswered even today. A somewhat popular theory is that the dimension Blaze seals herself into is her world from ''VideoGame/SonicRush'', where she became princess in the [[ResetButton time reset]]. FlipFlopOfGod occurred when writer Creator/ShiroMaekawa confirmed this was true, but Takashi Iizuka (who is currently head of Sonic Team but had no involvement with ''06'') disagreed, stating Blaze's ''06'' backstory is not canon. Fan theories still try to reconcile the two, suggesting Blaze was transported to the future by the Sol Emeralds to help Silver, just as she has been unintentionally transported in games such as ''Rush'' ''[[VideoGame/SonicColors Colors DS]]''.

** The writers managed to have Silver be the only one who ever acknowledges Blaze's existence in any cutscene, leading to a theory that she only exists in his head. It doesn't help that she frequently seemingly [[OffscreenTeleportation disappears and reappears offscreen]], and knows Silver went back to the past with Shadow despite not being around to see him do so.

** The writers managed to have Silver be the only one who ever acknowledges Blaze's existence in any cutscene, leading to a theory that she only exists in his head. It doesn't help that she frequently and inexplicably [[OffscreenTeleportation disappears and reappears offscreen]], and knows Silver went back to the past with Shadow despite not being around to see him do so.

* EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame: Something of a mixed example. While the game's story is criticized the same way the gameplay is, Shadow and Silver's story modes have a cult following.

** A somewhat popular fan theory is that [[spoiler:the world Blaze seals herself in is her world from ''VideoGame/{{Sonic Rush|Series}}''. A few other fan theories say the ResetButton didn't touch her there]]. This was confirmed by Creator/ShiroMaekawa to be the case, while Takashi Iizuka (who wrote the ''Videogame/SonicRivals'' games but had no involvement with ''06'') denies this, stating Blaze was always from the Sol Dimension.

** The game is believed to [[CanonDiscontinuity have been taken out of the continuity]] at the end of the story. In reality, the game suffered a CosmicRetcon that deleted the events of the story to have happened, including Silver getting a new origin story in the ''VideoGame/SonicRivals'' series. ''2006'' is still referenced in future games.
** Many articles talking about Blaze the cat believe ''06'' is her actual debut in the series, and that she and Silver come from the same dimension. While the confusion is understandable, Blaze debuted a year before in ''VideoGame/SonicRush'', and ''06'' is her debut in a main console game; and ignoring this specific game, she and Silver come from different planes of existence.

** Eggman's redesign decided to give him four ''very'' prominent buttons on his clothes. As WebVideo/RealTimeFandub put it, they resemble some nipples.
---> '''Eggman:''' Why hello there, young princess. You like my outfit? My four nipples?

* AmericansHateTingle: A pretty complicated example. While the gameplay is generally agreed upon to be broken and dismal by every region, the ''story'' on the other hand was received far better in Japan than it was in Western regions. This might be because the game leans very heavily on Japanese tropes very commonly found in [=JRPGs=] and other amime, of which neither genre had hit their popularity period just yet in other regions aside from the likes of ''Franchise/DragonBall''. Of particular note is the reception of Silver; he is one of the most popular characters in Japan and generally behind Sonic and Shadow in popularity polls and fanart. In America, however, he was way more controversial and it would take quite a few years before reception of him would soften, and even then his popularity pales in comparison to the other fan favorite characters (including the aforementioned Shadow, who himself is a very controversial character in the West).

** Sonic's Super Speed sections, which are essentially [[VideoGame/{{Battletoads}} Turbo Tunnel:]] Sonic Edition. Because you're constantly moving forward, you have very little time to react to enemies and even the landscape, which can result in some unavoidable collisions. If you jump at the wrong angle, you may just end up jumping off the map. Sometimes the camera suddenly switches to focus on what Sonic's running from, denying you the ability to see where to steer him to. Also, the controls are ridiculously stiff, and you have absolutely no air control, so you're going to jump to places where you don't want to go a ''lot''.

* WTHCastingAgency: The credits song for Sonic's story is a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t36agO2H-ZU new version of "Sweet Sweet Sweet"]] by Dreams Come True[[note]]a band co-founded by Masato Nakamura, who composed the soundtracks of the first two Sonic games[[/note]] (which had earlier in the series been used as the ending music for ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2''). The person recruited to produce this new version of the song was the controversial Senegalese-American R&B star [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akon Akon]].

** Silver's head quills resembling a marijuana leaf. [[WebVideo/BrainscratchCommentaries One LP group]] took note of it.

** Silver's head quills resembling a marijuana leaf. [[WebVideo/BrainScratchCommentaries One LP group]] took note of it.
-->'''Lewis:''' I am Pothead the Porcupine!\\

* TheScrappy: Princess Elise is generally disliked, mainly due to her [[DamselScrappy overt]] NeutralFemale tendencies and [[InterspeciesRomance her feelings for Sonic]], to the point that she claims at the end that she doesn't care what happens to the world if she has to forget about him. Because of the latter, she's frequently compared to Chris Thorndyke from ''Anime/SonicX'', who is hated for similar reasons. She was written out of the series completely due to the botched effort on her character outside of occasional cameos. She wouldn't make a proper reappearance until nearly ''17'' years later in 2023, in which she would [[https://sonic.sega.jp/SonicChannel/special/ohgiri/20230324_008251/ reappear as a figure skater on Sonic Channel's April 2023 calendar art]], albeit with a [[ArtEvolution far more stylized redesign]].

* AmericansHateTingle: A pretty complicated example. While the gameplay is generally agreed upon to be broken and dismal by every region, the ''story'' on the other hand was received far better in Japan than it was in Western regions. This might be because the game leans very heavily on Japanese tropes very commonly found in [=JRPGs=] and other Anime where neither genre had hit their popularity period yet in other regions aside from the likes of ''Franchise/DragonBall''. Of particular note is the reception of Silver; he is one of the most popular characters in Japan and generally behind Sonic and Shadow in popularity polls and fanart. In America, however, he was way more controversial and it would take quite a few years before reception of him would soften, and even then his popularity pales in comparison to the other fan favorite characters (including the aforementioned Shadow, who himself is a very controversial character in the West).

* AmericansHateTingle: A pretty complicated example. While the gameplay is generally agreed upon to be broken and dismal by every region, the ''story'' on the other hand was received far better in Japan than it was in Western regions. This might be because the game leans very heavily on Japanese tropes very commonly found in [=JRPGs=] and other Anime where neither genre had hit their popularity period yet in other regions aside from the likes of ''Franchise/DragonBall''. Of particular note is the reception of Silver; he is one of the most popular characters in Japan and generally behind Sonic and Shadow in popularity polls and fanart. In America, however, he was way more controversial and it would take quite a few years before reception of him would soften, and even then his popularity pales in comparison to the other fan favorite characters. (including the aforementioned Shadow, who himself is a very controversial character in the West.)

* AmericansHateTingle: A pretty complicated example. While the gameplay is generally agreed upon to be broken and dismal by every region, the ''story'' on the other hand was received far better in Japan than it was in Western regions. This might be because the game leans very heavily on Japanese tropes very commonly found in [=JRPGs=] and other Anime where neither genre had hit their popularity period yet in other regions aside from the likes of Dragon Ball. Of particular note is the reception of Silver; he is one of the most popular characters in Japan and generally behind Sonic and Shadow in popularity polls and fanart. In America however, he was way more controversial and it would take quite a few years before reception of him would soften, and even then his popularity pales in comparison to the other fan favorite characters. (including the aforementioned Shadow, who himself is a very controversial character in the West.)

** Mephiles seems to be a deliberate case, with his ragdoll-esque movements and lack of mouth.

* CriticalBacklash: 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 decent or enjoyable. This is because over the years it’s gained more appreciation for what it did right (such as the stories that aren’t Sonic) and recognition that its biggest problems are more [[TroubledProduction development]] [[ChristmasRushed related]] than inherent design flaws [[note]]Best exemplified by the praised FanRemake ''[[VideoGame/SonicP06 Sonic P06]]'' which shows what a properly finished version of the game could have looked like.[[/note]]. A big factor fueling this backlash being that the overcorrections following its infamy would [[FranchiseOriginalSin proceed to haunt the franchise in the following decade]].

** Shadow's vehicles. They only seem to exist to get him from point A to point B, but one can't even say it's in style because they handle ''atrociously'', take CollisionDamage from virtually everything they brush against to the point of being able to [[MadeOfExplodium detonate from buggy physics collisions that you can't even see]], and in most cases move slower than Shadow does ''on foot''. They make the vehicles in [[VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog his own game]] look functional by comparison.

** Tails's dummy rings attack. The first attack works perfectly well on its own, but the dummy ring explodes on contact with anything... which includes previously thrown dummy rings. It effectively makes spamming the attack impossible.

* AmericansHateTingle: A pretty complicated example. While the gameplay is generally agreed upon to be broken and dismal by every region, the ''story'' on the other hand was received far better in Japan than it was in Western regions. This might be because the game leans very heavily on Japanese tropes very commonly found in JRPG's and other Anime where neither genre had hit their popularity period yet in other regions aside from the likes of Dragon Ball. Of particular note is the reception of Silver; he is one of the most popular characters in Japan and generally behind Sonic and Shadow in popularity polls and fanart. In America however, he was way more controversial and it would take quite a few years before reception of him would soften, and even then his popularity pales in comparison to the other fan favorite characters. (including the aforementioned Shadow, who himself is a very controversial character in the West.)