This list contains spoilers!
While most people are drawn to the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise for the high-speed gameplay and easily lovable characters, it can be hard to forget about many of the stories, considering how over-the-top and bizarre they often end up being. Sonic Team has a tendency to make the stories in many of their Sonic games a lot more ambitious and unpredictable than they have any need to be, and while this can end up making them a little ridiculous at times, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
In fact, it’s these games in particular that tend to be the most memorable because of the wild story events and character moments that take place throughout their narratives. While this definitely applies to many of the mainline entries, there are even a few spin-offs that have contained some mind-boggling plotlines too. These terms can definitely be used to describe the Sonic games listed below, which all feature crazy and bizarre stories that fans of this series need to know about.
Sonic Unleashed
Sonic’s Only Hope To Save The Planet Is To…Transform Into A Werehog?
Sonic Unleashed could have been a game where players simply blast through a collection of stages at high speed while playing as the Blue Blur himself. However, the reason the story ends up being so weird and memorable is that any time the sun goes down, Sonic will transform into a beastly iteration of himself called the Werehog. This is all thanks to Doctor Eggman, who, after splitting the planet into multiple giant fragments, goes on to rid Sonic of his power while turning him into a ferocious beast only moments after.
As if that wasn’t already strange enough, Sonic then runs into a strange little alien called Chip, who has no memory of his past or even his own name. It’s important to mention that all of this occurs within the first five minutes of the story, and while it does a good job of getting players interested in where on earth the story could be headed next, Sonic Team also make it clear right from the get-go that this is a much more experimental entry than what many were used to with the previous games.
Sonic Forces
With Sonic Out Of Action, His Friends Create A Resistance Army And Partake In An All-Out War
The idea of a Sonic game being based around an all-out war between the heroes and villains of the franchise might sound like little more than a fan fiction, but it actually became a reality with Sonic Forces. The developers made the bold decision to have Sonic be defeated in the first few minutes of the game, with multiple of his former antagonists, including Eggman, Metal Sonic, and Shadow, all teaming up to reign terror across the planet while the Blue Blur is locked behind bars.
Because of this, the game takes on an unusually gritty and mature tone, which sees Sonic’s pals coming together to create an army to face off against Eggman and his dangerous goons. It’s a strange angle to take, considering this franchise is usually known for being very upbeat and jovial, rather than moody or serious, and while it was a little too outlandish for people to appreciate at the time, many fans have warmed up to this unique story as the years have gone on.
Sonic The Hedgehog (2006)
Royal Families, Time Traveling Hedgehogs, And A Shocking Death, All Packed Into One Chaotic Story
It’s no secret that Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) didn’t exactly blow fans away with its clunky gameplay, but one aspect that was surprisingly ambitious was the story. It would be easy to mistake the very first cutscene of the game for a cinematic that had been ripped straight out of Final Fantasy, with the hyper-realistic graphics and focus on human characters marking a stark difference from what Sonic games are usually known for. As the plot goes on, it only manages to become more bizarre, with the game producing a plethora of moments that have now become iconic for how ridiculous they are.
For example, Sonic goes on to establish an intimate relationship with a human princess called Elise throughout the game, to the point where she actually manages to revive him after kissing Sonic near the end of the game. The reason she even has to do this in the first place is because Sonic actually dies after being skewered by the new villain known as Mephiles, whose evil plan is to try and convince Elise to cry so that he can turn into the immensely powerful Solaris. If this all sounds a bit crazy, it’s because Sonic 06 contains one of the most unpredictable stories in the series, and one which no fan will ever be able to forget about after the credits roll.
Shadow The Hedgehog
It Turns Out Shadow’s Backstory Was A Lot Weirder Than Anyone Realized
Shadow may have been first introduced in Sonic Adventure 2, but it’s not until the black hedgehog’s standalone game that fans actually get to explore the truth behind his mysterious backstory in-depth. It was already known that Shadow was an alien who was created by Dr. Gerald Robotnik in a desperate attempt to find the cure to an illness that was affecting his daughter Maria, but in the Shadow the Hedgehog game, it’s revealed that there was also a dangerous alien involved with the whole operation known as Black Doom.
Black Doom even decides to return to Earth and unleashes an entire swarm of ravenous aliens who partake in a massive war with none other than G.U.N., the military corporation that was also shown off in Sonic Adventure 2. In the midst of all this chaos, Shadow allies himself with numerous heroes and villains from previous games in a desperate attempt to try and remember who he even is and why he was created, resulting in a wacky origin story that can go many different ways depending on the player’s actions.
Sonic Lost World
Sonic Battles It Out With A Mysterious Group Of Aliens Who Look Downright Bizarre
When it comes to villains, most Sonic games will simply decide to stick with the iconic Dr. Eggman as the big bad antagonist, or in some rare cases, a new character will be introduced to shake things up. In Sonic Lost World, however, Sonic must face off against an entirely new batch of dangerous aliens who call themselves the Deadly Six, and while this ragtag group initially allies themselves with Eggman, they eventually take center stage after Eggman is believed to have been killed off entirely.
Pair this with the fact that Sonic must run and jump his way through a connection of floating worlds called the Lost Hex, and it results in a game that feels pretty out-there and bizarre, even by Sonic’s standards. The Deadly Six have long been considered the strangest villains in the franchise, primarily because of their cartoonish designs, but also because of their zany personalities, which present them all as larger-than-life characters, helping to make the already peculiar story of Lost World even more unpredictable.
Sonic and the Black Knight
After Being Summoned Into A Medieval Past, Sonic And His Pals Become Knights Of The Round Table
It’s pretty clear that Sonic Team wanted to try something vastly different when coming up with the narrative of Sonic and the Black Knight, as it is one of the most creative and experimental stories seen in the franchise. The adventure begins with Sonic being randomly summoned into a medieval world where he finds himself teaming up with a mysterious young woman called Merlina. His mission from that point onwards is to retrieve the legendary Excalibur sword in order to help Merlina out with her current predicament, but to say that things take a turn for the worse would be putting it mildly, as it’s not long before Sonic learns that he’s actually been played for a fool all along by the Dark Queen Merlina.
Additionally, Sonic’s friends also join in to help him out, all of whom are dressed up in knightly armor and have swords and rapiers by their side to take down anyone who dares to stand in their way. Seeing a bunch of anthropomorphic animals playing out the Knights of the Round Table legend isn’t something that any Sonic fan, or really any gamer in general, probably could have expected to have seen in their lifetime, but it just goes to show how wild these stories can truly get.
