Starting off in the land of Soleanna, we are treated to a beautiful cutscene wherein Princess Elise is leading a national ceremony. The peaceful celebration is quickly interrupted by Dr. Eggman who only wants to steal the chaos emerald in Princess Elise’s possession. Sonic then makes his flashy entrance in an attempt to save the day, only to have Dr. Eggman get away with the princess. While this story starts simple enough, it eventually ties in with two other hedgehogs, Shadow and Silver. Most players will already be familiar with Shadow, but Silver is the more important player in this story. Silver has returned from the future in an attempt to stop a dangerous prophecy revolving around the chaos emeralds from coming true. Many of the characters introduced in the Sonic Adventure series make cameos such as Rouge the bat and Knuckles the echidna. The story does little to separate itself from the same formula seen in the Sonic Adventure titles other than forcing players to watch the awkward romance between Elise and Sonic bloom.

With so many playable characters, Sonic the Hedgehog switches gears on players constantly, turning the game into a poorly paced mess. Even though Sonic is the main character, the game frequently switches characters during stages. While Sonic himself is fast and has his classic homing attack, taking control of the slow-paced Tails and his annoying ring bombs becomes a tedious experience. While not as fast as Sonic, his hedgehog colleagues fair better than the other characters due to their weapons and abilities. Silver uses his psychic energy to pick up objects and hurl them at enemies while Shadow takes a more direct approach using his assault vehicles to defeat his foes. In between levels, the game almost comes to a complete halt in town as it requires quests to be completed before players can tackle the next stage. In the town, Sonic must perform mundane tasks like finding a lost dog or saving citizens from rampaging mechs. These tasks would not be so bad if it were not for the ridiculous amount of load time needed for each quest; there are load times before and after each conversation you have during a quest.

Pacing aside, the lack of innovative gameplay and poor camerawork, serve to truly doom this title. Sonic Adventure fans will feel all too familiar with this titles mix of 3-D platforming and mostly on-rail running sequences. The running sections remain unchanged from past titles, allowing players to simply sit back and watch Sonic and friends run, fly, or grind their way through brightly colored landscapes. It’s in the platforming sections of Sonic that gamers must suffer through the clunky controls and spastic camera. With most of the jumping taking place over bottomless pits, the cameras random angle changes usually end in a lost life. The slowly responsive controls and floaty physics only hamper the game further as it becomes increasingly difficult to safely land your character.

Visually, Sonic the Hedgehog looks like a slightly more polished version of his Dreamcast outings. The draw distance has significantly improved along with the poly-count of objects found in the scenery. However, the overall look is far from impressive as locales such as the town are populated with buildings that resemble poorly textured cinder blocks.

The sound does not fair any better than the graphics in terms of quality. Mindless guitar licks make up most of the background tunes accompanied by the same sound effects players will recognize from the days of the SEGA Genesis. Voice acting in the game is varied as some character voices fit better than others. In the end, most of the voice performances end up sounding stilted or wooden.

As a whole, Sonic the Hedgehog fails to feel like a finished product. SEGA's decision to rush one of its most beloved franchises to the next-gen market has ended in a broken product that does not even deserve a rental.