Sonic 06 References/Easter Eggs

Despite being planned as a soft-reboot and wanting to bring Sonic back to his "roots," Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) was a complete failure among fans and new players a like. Though it may not be the horrendous monster everyone seems to call it, it was not the promised "Sonic-Next Gen." 

As a constellation prize, the 15th anniversary game still holds many hints at other games, even though it was supposed to be a "reboot." 

Notable Reoccurring Elements

• Invincibility
• 0 being a life
• Super Sonic
• Super Shadow
• Spindash
• Chaos Spear (modified)
• Flying
• Gliding
• Grinding
• Amy's Hammer

Sonic 1

• The platforms in Spring Yard Zone's boss fight are taken out by Robotnik, and the floor is also targeted in the Egg Wyvern boss fight. 
• The idea of Sonic having a having a human girlfriend originates here; in early plans Sonic had a girlfriend named Madonna. 

Sonic CD

• Time Travel is once again an important element.
• Crisis City revives the idea of a "bad future." 
• With the purple gem, Sonic can shrink and jump high. This idea is directly from Sonic CD's Metallic Madness, where Sonic is scaled down by a laser. 

Sonic 2

• The main theme "Sweet Dreams" is remixed and put at the credits in Sonic's story. 
• Aside from the game's new characters (such as Elise and Silver), Tails appears 3rd (after Sonic and Eggman), as he did in real life.  

Sonic 3

• Sonic snow boards in White Acropolis, as he originally did in Ice Cap. 

Sonic and Knuckles

• Lava Reef's fiery outside and darker inside may have inspired Flame Core. 

Sonic X-treme

• At one point Sonic's love interest--Tiara--was to be a princess, but that was later changed and the game was scrapped. This may have impacted the ideas for Sonic's new love interest, though.  

Sonic Adventure

• Both games are divided into "stories" revolving around different characters. 
• Wave Ocean closely resembles Emerald Coast. 
• The Orca reappears in Wave Ocean. 
• Once again there are chatty humans in hub worlds. 
• After meeting up with Sonic, Tails says "Long time no see, huh?" while after finding Tails in 06 Sonic says "Long time no see!"
• Iblis may have been inspired by Chaos, being an element-powered monster that transforms.
• Knuckles' treasure hunting skills are mentioned.
• Crisis City includes worn Chao in Space 3 signs; Sonic Adventure started the "Chao in Space" gag.   
• Adventure also had the first Chao Gardens, and there are signs in Crisis City mentioning a Chao garden.
• Eggman's "battleship" is another version of the Egg Carrier.  

Like in Station Square, New City was supposed to have cars. These can be found with the "Shadow New Town" glitch, but they crash into everything.  

Sonic Shuffle

• The theme of Light and Dark originated in this game. 

Sonic Adventure 2

• The "Solairs Project" was mostly likely intended as 06's "Project: Shadow."
• Flashbacks are used again. 
• Amy mistakes Silver for Sonic, just like she mistook Shadow for him. 
• GUN is present. 
• The president is mentioned.
• Rouge's treasure hunting skills are mentioned as well as used (in Kingdom Valley). 
• Rouge finds keys to move on; she hunted keys before in Egg Quarters. 
• Sonic rides a metal board in Crisis City, like in City Escape. 
• Sonic can preform a wind move with a gem. Sonic's first wind attack was from this game. 
• Eggman tricks Sonic into giving him the (fake) emerald with Amy as a hostage but traps him. He does the same with Elise except the emerald was real. 
• Canon's Core uses all playable characters except Shadow. End of the World uses all playable characters except Sonic and Blaze.

Sonic Heroes

• Eggman leaves Sonic a recording, similar to the beginning of Team Hero's story. 
• Amy turns invisible, something previously exclusive to Espio.
• Sonic "shares" his super state in both games.
• The version of the wind move for Sonic came from this game.
• Tails says "My head's spinning!" while going through loops in both games.  

Sonic Rush

• Inclusion of "new" character, Blaze the Cat.
• Blaze calling Silver naive is similar to her initial opinion on Cream.
• At the end of Blaze's story, she asks Cream, "We-We're friends, right?" Meanwhile in 06 Silver asks Blaze, "You're my friend, right?"
• The background for Princess Elise may be a nod to Blaze's fire/princess backstory. 
• One gem includes the "boost," though it does not work the same way as in Rush. 

Although there was not explanation for her presence, some unused voice clips suggest Blaze would have mentioned Sonic and talked to Amy.

Shadow the Hedgehog

• While fighting Mephiles, Shadow says, "I know who I am," directly referring to his repeated line, "this is who I am."  
• He also repeats the phrase "Who are you?! And how do you know my name...?"
• Shadow chases Eggman's train in Radical Train like with the Black Arms' tank in Lethal Highway's hero mission. 
• The Shadow/Sonic banter before Flame Core is not unlike the scene after Lethal Highway. 
• The punch/kick move preformed when without a gun is an early version of the move Shadow primarily uses in 06; he uses a version of Chaos Blast. 
• Shadow can/has to drive vehicles in some of the stages.
• Shadow drives through/destroys falling walls in both the GUN Fortress and later in Aquatic Base.
• Westopolis being a distressed city as the first level was echoed with Silver (Crisis City).    
• There is a fire tornado in Crisis City and a dusty one in Glyphic Canyon. 
• The tornado section of Crisis City for Sonic plays a lot like Cosmic Fall, including floating/moving/spinning platforms.  
• Shadow can get past a secret door after collecting 5 keys in each level. These keys resemble the ones Rouge has to find in Kingdom Valley. 
• Rouge comments on Death Ruins, expressing the desire to treasure hunt there some other time. In a similar way, she calls Tropical Jungle "Charming." 
• Shadow's theme is "All Hail Shadow." The original version was his hero-ending theme. 

Expert Mode implies that the Commander wanted to make amends with Shadow; Shadow works for GUN in 06. 

Sonic Riders

• While boarding the player must hold X before lifting off. This is how the jumps were handled in Sonic Riders (though control over tricks are not possible in 06). 

("Early") Sonic Cartoons/comics/etc

•  Sonic would often carry his love interest in a similar way to Elise (also present in Sonic CD).
• When Sara from the OVA wears her "wedding" dress, she and Elise visually look alike (pun intended). 
• Sally Acorn and Sonia the Hedgehog are both princesses, which may have inspired the title for Elise. 
• Despite the Mobian/tomboyish appearance, Sonic's (long-time) Western love interest, Sally, had reddish/brown hair and blue eyes, which may have influenced Elise to have those traits. 
• In the US, Amy was originally named Princess Sally, which again may have some influence on title. 
• Sonic introduces himself as "Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog." He often did the same in Sonic X. 
• Shadow takes off his rings, something originating from Sonic X.
• There is a girl in the hub world who wears a shirt similar to Chris.
• The scene where Eggman sends Sonic & co to the future is similar to the 1st episode of Sonic X were he send them to another dimension (though it was not intentional in that case). 

Similarities to Sonic and the Secret Rings

The game was originally going to be a Wii version of 06 and was made at the same time.

• Sand Oasis is a level in Sonic and the Secret Rings. Two "secret" oasis-es can be found in Dusty Desert.  
• Sonic goes on an adventure with a human-like girl character, though just as a friend. 
• He tells both girls to smile. 
• Sonic is called a rat several times; Eggman calls him a rat in 06. 
• The Erazor mentions "Iblis."
• A character is killed and brought back to life. 
• The events of 06 are un-done by time travel and are forgotten or only partially remembered--as if it never happened. Since only he journeyed to the world, the events of Secret Rings are only remembered by Sonic, almost as if they never happened. 
• Both have a generally "darker" tone.

HARDEST Sonic Bosses

This is going to be a hard one...lol. Sonic bosses are typically either extremely easy (like fighting Sonic as Silver in 06), are easy once you figure out the weakspot (literally all the classic bosses), or are so frickn' hard it makes one want to throw their controller, have a tantrum and yell that they "aren't weak."

One of the only problems I have with the Sonic series is that in most cases the bosses are strict--it doesn't matter how far Sonic is to defeating the boss--if he dies, he gets to restart. There is one bright side to the final bosses, at least. The intense version of the game's main theme. Yeah...First our line up, and then I'll go over a few that didn't make it on this list.

1-3 

Perfect Dark Gaia/Dark Gaia/Egg Dragoon (Sonic Unleashed) 

(this seems like cheating my list, here, but how can I not think of them as one?) 

60 times, damn it, 60 times.

These three have are separate bosses, but they're all unrelenting torture.

• Sewn together at the end of Sonic Unleashed, right after the longest and most difficult level in the game, these all must be beat in order to win the game. 
• Meaning if one runs out of lives, one must start all over. 
• Done right, they can be easy, but one slip up and the fight will become a long, angering, and tedious process.  
• To top it all off, you have to press the square button (or whatever button it asks for) 60 times in what seems like five seconds. Failing to do so results in automatic death. 

Tip: If you don't know you're controller buttons by now, you better learn.

4

Great Eggman Robo (Sonic and Knuckles)

Ouch.

After escaping the already super-hard bosses of the Death Egg Zone, Sonic gets to challenge this bad boy, in a lovely, ring-less environment. Defeating this boss is necessary to move on to the final boss, another difficult challenge, and to win the game.

• With several parts and a totally evil laser, this ugly fella' almost seems invisible. Perfect timing is required for success.  

Tip: You can manipulate the level select and debug mode "for practice." If you're playing on  a re-release that allows you to save at what ever point you want (Like the Sonic Mega Collection or Classic Collection), you can keep redoing this point without starting over or (potentially) losing lives. Listening to the sound effects is the key to avoiding the attacks. 

5

VS Sonic/VS Blaze Normal Mode (Sonic Rush)

IT'S MY RESPONSIBILITY. 

At first, the rival boss fight is as easy as ever.

• It's a simple fight...then Sonic and Blaze argue some more, and suddenly the two start boosting each other. 
• The result is pure button-smashing for the player as they frantically hit A and B. 
• Well, that's it. It may not seem like much, but once the player's thumb starts to numb, they're reconsidering. 

Tip: The mode can be switched to "easy," which make this boss along with all the others much easier to handle, but in time-attack the boss is reset to the normal mode no matter what. 

6

Eggman (Sonic Battle) 

Red. Original. 

The real monster in this game was beating the Guard Robos within the time limit Rouge assigns Emerl (in her story), but that doesn't really count as a boss. However, I consider Emerl vs Eggman and later Sonic vs Ultimate Emerl bosses, since it's not just training, it's important to the story, and it leads to the ending.

• At first it's not so bad, but as with all bosses, it gets difficult as it progresses. 
• Eggman is able to attack while flying. Hitting him back without Emerl taking damage can be a real challenge.

Tip: Use cheat codes to gain Emerl's combo moves and enable one of them. It will make life a whole lot easier.

7

Egg X (Sonic Advance)

Orange. Original.

All the bosses in Advance are harder than expected, especially for Amy and her specific hammer attacks. I've never gotten all of the Chaos Emeralds for this game, so I can't judge the final boss, but Egg X was pretty menacing.

• It alternates its attacks, only becoming vulnerable at quick moments. 
• It is very easy to lose all rings, largely due to it's arm attack. 
• If the player dies, they have to go through the previous bosses, although they are very short/easy (and throw-backs to the classic games).

Tip: First off, don't try to attack it right away--you can't, so when you land it will harm you and you'll drop your rings. Perfectly avoiding attacks can make this easy, but goof up and it become a real problem.

8

Metal Madness/Overlord (Sonic Heroes)

That's Metal Sonic?

With the final boss in the game, the teams have to come together and defeat the power-hungry "Neo" Metal Sonic.

• Team Rose? A breeze, as usual. Chaotix is where I started having trouble. 
• Risking the Homing Attack is rewarding...but not when Espio jumps right off the platform! 
• That's the main problem throughout Madness--falling off. 
• Repeating the same proccess of rotating attacks gets frustrating fast, and the attack that traps the player's allies is terrible, mostly as a flight character because it's hard to free them and avoid becoming caught. 
• Do Super Sonic and his bubble-buddy pals have it any easier? No, not really, because they have to keep their ring count up, counter the beast's attacks, and charge their Team Blast to hurt it. 

Tip: In Metal Madness, there seems to be an order to attack in (such as flight, power, speed). Figuring this out can reduce the time spent on this portion of the boss. No wasting time on the easy ones--your seconds spent in Madness are used in Overlord, too. Use the Team Blast as much as possible, and move quickly. 
   

9

Mecha Sonic/Death Egg Robot (Sonic the Hedgehog 2)

Double Trouble. 

Back in the day, this would be at the top of my list. Thanks to the amazing powers of the internet, though, it's here at number nine.

• No rings, so one false move means an automatic death and a return to the start of the level. 
• A creepy robot copy is there to eat up Sonic's lives, and after managing to move on, fat old Ro-buttnik runs ahead and jumps into a huge, dangerous robot that take 16 hits instead of the standard 8. 
• His arms are fast, sharp spikes, and stomping on Sonic isn't any less lethal. Generation's version is cake compared to this.

Tip: You look it up, genius. Learn the attacks, avoid them, and be careful.

10

Sonic and Diablon (Shadow the Hedgehog)

You Devil!

Now that I think about it, this wasn't that hard, just long. Getting an A rank--that was why I had trouble with this one. Eh, oh well.

• Sonic is invincible, just a nuisance that's ready to knock the rings out of you, so he's not the real boss, here. 
• It's Diablon, the experimental robot...thing, that the revenge-seeking Commander is controlling. 
• Fought three times, the main conflicts are attacking it without being hit. Sometimes its laser, or Sonic, will cause Shadow to fall out of the area and die. 

Tip: Use the weapons to your advantage and feed the Dark Gauge. Save up the ammo for Chaos Blast, then fire on it and use the invincibility to get close. Only use the blast before it's about to run out. This will do more damage than only using the blast.    

Why, why, why: the almost-s. 

Egg-Wyvern (Sonic 06)--I have a great memory of getting an S-rank after a few tries, completing Sonic's story, and watching Sonic and Elise laugh in a semi-creepy way. Replaying it, I found it to be more of a challenge, and it is probably the hardest in the game (Solaris is cake, and the others aren't too bad once the player figures out how to win). Still, that S-rank reminds me that it couldn't have been that hard. 

Egg Viper (Sonic Adventure)--I haven't played this game in a while, but I remember having trouble with this one. Still, that might have been because Eggman was repeating himself, and that can get annoying fast.

Egg Dragoon (Sonic Generations)--When replaying Sonic Generations, Egg Dragoon and the Time Eater were the only bosses I had trouble with. Toughest of them all, and fought in a different style than it's Unleashed counterpart, it was defiantly considered for this list. Eggman, say that phrase again and I'll...

Ifrit Golem (Sonic and the Secret Rings)--I just remember having a tough time. Lava, unreliable platforms. Giant enemy. Not cool, Sega.

Lancelot Returns (Sonic and The Black Knight)--The first time I fought him, it took like, 5 seconds and immediately gave me 5 stars. Lucky I did that then, because replaying it I could barley hit him.

Hot Mobile/Lava Reef Boss (Sonic and Knuckles)--I used to think this was hard. Before I discovered the shields, BOOYAH.

And anything from the 8-bit games...those things are murderous, alright. But I'm not as familiar with them, and they aren't very memorable.

Bosses are more or less required in a Sonic game. I think I could do without them, since it just slows everything down and make the game irritating. But I do like some of them, considering a half are fun or easy. The rival battles are great. Sonic CD and Forces have really easy bosses, and I think that's the way I like it. A little challenge is fine. But those hour-eating ones? No thanks.
   

ITSNOUSETAKETHISITSNOUSETAKETHISTAKE--Urgh, NO!