Top 5 Worst Sonic Games

Gotta Go Fast…To Get Away From These Games

While fans might be freaking out over Sonic’s new jacked up build for his upcoming live-action movie, it’s still worth considering there is very little chance that the flick in question can be any worse than the likes of these horrendous games!  

#5: “Shadow the Hedgehog” (2005)

If you look up “forced darkness” in a dictionary, chances are you’ll see this games’ box art in place of an actual definition. We’re not against darker Sonic games, but this installment starring Sonic’s morally ambiguous counterpart Shadow is a lazy and wrong way to do it, substituting legitimate darkness for firearm based gameplay and swearing. And it’d be one thing if tone was the games only problem, but players are also forced to deal with awful controls and camera, and a long, convoluted story with ten, yes, ten possible endings. The even bigger kicker: The game has a “Last Chapter” once you get all those endings, making them all entirely pointless. 

#4: “Sonic Free Riders” (2010)

In 2006, Sega released Sonic Riders, a hoverboard based racing game. It was okay. Two years later, they released Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity. It was also okay. And two years after that, they released Sonic Free Riders. It was unplayable. Releasing as a launch title for the Xbox 360’s Kinect peripheral, being able to control your racer with your body sounds awesome in concept, but works horribly in execution. Seeing how a racing game depends ENTIRELY on being able to move, this is a pretty big hinderance, and a good reason of why this game had been forgotten shortly after its release. 

#3: “Sonic R” (1997)

Speaking of Sonic racing games, here’s the worst one of all. At its core, this one should’ve worked better than any other; Put gaming’s fastest character and his friends in a foot racing competition. It’s just too bad that Sega also decided to take away the characters ability to move more than an inch to the left or right, and also decided to release the game essentially unfinished, lacking completed textures and added detail on its paltry selection of five stages. Worst of all: you can 100% this game in less than an hour. 

#2: “Sonic The Hedgehog” (2006)

For Sonic’s 15th Anniversary and his first outing on the 360 and PS3, Sega decided to go big. And by big, we mean transfer half their development team to Sonic and The Secret Rings for the Wii and rush the game for a Holiday 2006 release. Because of this, Sega put out one of the most legendarily despised games ever released. Sonic ’06 introduced reviled new characters like Silver and Princess Elise, controlled abysmally, had intolerably long load times, and was backed by a wretched plot, that ended with Sonic sharing a kiss with the aforementioned Princess. And yet, this wasn’t Sonic’s biggest fail…  

#1: “Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric” (2014)

As terrible as Sonic ’06 is, it still has a minority of defenders. But Rise of Lyric, alongside its abysmal 3DS counterpart Shattered Crystal, is so awful that not even the most dedicated fans of the once proud Hedgehog can defend it. Set in a new continuity connected to the cartoon of the same name and featuring laughable redesigns of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy, the game combines every problem that Sonic has had since he jumped to 3D and multiplied it exponentially. Framerate issues, loads of bugs and glitches and unbearably bad dialogue are all present here, adding up to the worst selling Sonic game ever released. Sonic Boom? More like Sonic Bust.  

Be sure to check out the video below to see our picks for the Top 5 Ways To Make Sonic Great Again!