06 April 2012

BEWARE! The Hate of Sonic 06's Soundtrack Is Over 9,000!!

Sonic 06, wake the **** up. You are NOT Final Fantasy.
Very well. I may not have played Sonic 06 since I currently don't own a XBox or a PS3, but I can still take this thing on. I watched at least four walkthroughs of this game and I listened to this soundtrack for months. I think I have enough room to toss my few cents into the opinion cup.

So here it goes.

This soundtrack is considered to be one of the best of this franchise.

... ... ... ... ...

BULLSHIT

Believe me, it gets much worse from here.

I apologize if any Sonic fan is reading this and loves this soundtrack. I am shooting bullets at this cocky piece of junk, not you. Please don't take this as a personal insult.

As for the rest of you... I'm sorry if my rage overwhelms anyone.

1:43 - What is THIS?! Is someone getting MARRIED?! *flashback to game*
OH GOD NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! TT-TT

I'm serious... what the fudge was Sonic Team AND Sega on in 2006?! Why did they release a half-assed game with sloppy gameplay, inconsistent graphics, and a generally insultingly overrated and unexciting soundtrack?! Most of all, why has no one apologized for this train wreck?!

*storms away from computer, sits on bed, and meditates for seven years*

Okay, I'm cool... ish.

Pointless 28 second song is pointless!

I know making claims of what defines a "Sonic soundtrack" is shallow and stupid, but hear me out. Music in pretty much every Sonic game released was energetic, upbeat, or catchy. Even in the SEGA Genesis days, restricted by electronic bleeps, the music was still memorable! So what happened here? Electronic and rock still exist, except watered-down and lifeless. Other than an orchestra, keyboards, the occasional guitar, and woodwinds, no other instrument exists. They replaced actual drums with machines repeating the same damn noise over and over again. This is not fun, musical perfection, this is repetitive laziness. "Wave Ocean" is the prime example of such sloth!

*sigh* This ain't the Gerudo desert of the Zelda series... wake me up when it...
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

This soundtrack is just as long as Shadow the Hedgehog's with over 90 songs, and YET Shadow's music was far more dynamic and energizing. Sure, not everyone can tolerate the sound that appeals more to rock and metal fans, but barely anything sounds exactly the same! Sonic 06, however, decides to have five songs sound 95% identical. This is mostly cutscene music too.

Yep an official Shadow recolor. Didn't see that one coming...
No seriously. That's the villain.

I kid you not, the tunes that play whenever Mephiles appears sound no different from each other, except that one during the cutscene with the pseudo-Jesus imagery. (That's a rage for another day...) There's "Resurrection of Mephiles", "The Black Shadow", "Mephiles' Whisper", "Mephiles' Temptation", and "Showdown with Mephiles". There was a cool theme that was duplicated and raped for no reason.

Silver, why did you debut in one of the worst games ever?!
WAAAAHHHH!!! 

And for character themes? "Dreams of an Absolution" - as I repeated for months - is the only track that deserves your serious attention. The in-game version of "His World" - not to be confused with the superior "Theme of Sonic the Hedgehog ~ E3 Version" - is hilariously awful. I'm sorry, Mr. Ali Tabatabaee, but in this song you are a lazy rapper. Just listen to the Crush 40 version, which the gods have blessed in their infinite wisdom... ...only to curse them. Crush 40's remake of "All Hail Shadow" is absolutely unnecessary. Magna-Fi made it glorious before, so why elongate and weaken what was concise and full of life?


Look, I have no issue with orchestral music. Symphonic metal is plagued with it. Nightwish dives head-first into the orchestration so much that it can be nauseating. But for them, it works because that was their style, their technique from day one. The fact that they continue it may prove that they are satisfied or that people want them to continue it until they die. Here, in a Sonic game it seems to work in small doses, otherwise it will look like everyone is trying too hard.

"The Past", "Chaos Control", "Revival", "Theme of Sonic Colors", "Theme of Sonic Unleashed", "To the World of the Memory", and "Metal Madness" are some examples of orchestration done well. They fit the tone and mood of the games they appear in while retaining a reasonable bit of memorability. Part of this is because we will hear these songs several times throughout the course of the game's story at the most appropriate moments. AND the games and their soundtracks don't drown themselves in such music.

Oh no! The tears that will release the Nine Tailed Fox from its' host!
It's the apocalypse! Cue the organ!

Yet Sonic 06 flips the bird at conservatively using what could be beautiful music and decides to fling new "impressive" and "elegant" crap at you to the point you forget what the fudge you're listening to! There are 48 event songs out of 94 tracks. 48 EVENT SONGS!!! That compares to 10 in Sonic Adventure 2, 17 in Sonic Colors, 10 in Sonic Generations, 11 in Sonic Heroes, and 6 in Sonic Adventure! 48 songs make up MORE THAN HALF OF THIS SOUNDTRACK! And most of the songs ARE REPEATS!!!!!

Fine, Shadow the Hedgehog has 49 event tracks. HOWEVER! Most of them STAND APART VERY CLEARLY!!! And many were re-used throughout the game WITHOUT DUPLICATE EDITS on the soundtrack! For crying out loud, Sonic Team!!!! Did you make Sonic 06 suck on purpose?! This is overkill!!!!

*walks away from computer and screams off the foulest curses ever conceived by mankind*


I have a headache. Seriously, I don't know if this or A Thousand Suns is the worst excuse of "great" albums I have ever heard. It's hard... man, is it hard... I could not finish listening to both in their entirety.

Yes, I gave up once we got to the Town Mission tunes. ...And I skipped the "Accordion Song". I wish that was a joke.

The only good action stage song that stuck the first time I listened.

Before I get a load of grief for my immaturity, I will admit that not every song was a colossal failure. Other than "Dreams of an Absolution", I found comfort in "Kingdom Valley", "Aquatic Base ~ Level 1", "Boss Fight Vs. Character", and "Theme of Dr. Eggman." These are five gems that I have found in a sea of oil and sludge.

And I refuse to comment in detail on "Sweet Dreams" and "My Destiny". They made me sick. Thankfully the developers didn't want me to puke excessively as the former never appeared on the soundtrack.

This could easily fit with the ARK stages in Shadow the Hedgehog...

Here's the greatest problem. Sonic 06 tried to impress everyone with its "realism" in graphics, story, and soundtrack. It's like Sonic would be deemed childish with the presence of epic, in-your-face music borrowing elements of rock, rap, jazz, techno, electronic, and orchestral. And what was released was a horrible disaster. They tried too damn hard and this ends up looking like a wanna-be Final Fantasy epic tale with snobbishly pretentious and "I'm superior to you all" music that should NEVER be in a Sonic game!

So what if I got into the games via the GameCube? I still have a tiny idea of what makes the blue blur awesome in the eyes of his fans. If you could stomach this more than me, fine. Enjoy it because I can't change your mind. But as you continue to praise it, I will continue to condemn it for failing to be the best damn thing it thinks it is.

Oh, Crush 40... we miss you dearly, even if you fumbled "All Hail Shadow"...

The good news about this? Sonic Team never attempted to overkill us with this pretentious, pseudo-elegent bullshit ever again! ... at least after Sonic Unleashed. *weeps*

0.5 out of 5

Because even this is the Mona Lisa next to the Twilight "saga".

I need to go brainwash myself with far better thoughts... A part of me has died...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd take this soundtrack over those generic rock songs that plagued the Adventure series, Heroes and Shadow any day, Sonic 06 may not have the most Sonic-ish soundtrack of all time, but it's memorable in it's own way and has a much more diverse sound than any Sonic game that came before it.

And besides, the first 3D Sonic game to have Sonic-like music was Sonic Colors, if you think Sonic 06's soundtrack is bad for not sounding like Sonic, than the Adventure games, Heroes and Shadow deserve twice as much criticism.

Melanie~Light said...

Well, yes, my strong preference for rock music is very apparent. The Adventure games and Shadow did appeal much to my bias. I won't deny that. Though I did point out in my SA2 soundtrack review that the album does sound very bland, particularly with Tales' and Sonic's tracks both sounding the same 80% of the time. Just the same riffs, style, and tone every single time.

Heroes, however, has a soundtrack I care the less about the more I listen. But that's my opinion of the whole game anyway. The tracks do have some hooks that get lodged into my head, but they don't last long. Only the menu themes and Hang Castle stick around for me.

This review is not my greatest, I can agree that this soundtrack is somewhat memorable. At least they were going for something mature and atmospheric in a respectable way. It falls flat because it's a Sonic game taking itself way too seriously, and I heard far better composed orchestral music with sharp hooks. The electro-rock stuff here feels like the energy and tempo is sucked out of them, while other Sonic games with generic rock had "originality" sucked out. You might prefer something bland over generic. I prefer something unoriginal over boring. We're in two different minds, I guess. Nothing wrong with that.

Though I don't know who you are (and you aren't obligated to share your identity), I appreciate the comment.

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