For over 30 years, the Sonic the Hedgehog games left an impression on gamers around the world. In that time span, the series has seen several classic titles. Unfortunately, not all the blue speedster's games have been so cherished. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find a gaming franchise with such extreme highs and lows as Sonic's.
Throughout the years, many Sonic games have been poorly received by fans and critics alike for a multitude of reasons. Whether due to intrusive storytelling, lackluster gameplay, or game-breaking glitches, these games were all rough spots in Sonic's otherwise successful career in the video game world and influential presence on pop culture.
Updated September 11, 2023 by Angelo Delos Trinos: Sonic the Hedgehog may be one of the most popular video game mascots in history, but he's also the star of some very questionable games. This list was updated to include more games that critics, gamers, and longtime fans agree are some of the worst Sonic games ever made.
20 Sonic Frontiers
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
In its defense, Sonic Frontiers is one of the more recent Sonic games that could be charitably deemed functional and passable. It was also the franchise's ambitious attempt at expand to an open world, and sport a jarringly more serious tone that split longtime fans. That being said, Sonic Frontiers still left a lot to be desired.
Sonic Frontiers' open world was too barren, making its central gimmick feel pointless. Some of the challenges were too repetitive and unbalanced to be truly enjoyable. Sonic Frontiers was better than its immediate predecessors, but it was yet another formulaic and empty open world game where exploration was more tedious than breathtaking.
19 Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episodes I & II
Platforms: Mobile, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
For years, fans clamored for a Sonic title that would evoke the feeling of Sonic's beloved 2D Genesis outings. In 2010, Dimps and Sonic Team attempted to satiate their demand with a downloadable episodic entry known as Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Unfortunately, the two installments demonstrated that players can't run home again.
Episode 1's physics felt floaty and imprecise, while the team-based gameplay of Episode 2 put the brakes on the franchises' trademark speed. Following the game's mixed reviews, Episode 3 was canceled. Sonic Mania succeed at tugging those nostalgic heartstrings, while Sonic the Hedgehog 4 went down as one of the worst Sonic games ever.
18 Sonic Blast
Platform: Game Gear
Sonic Blast was developed by Aspect as a hand-held companion title to 3D Blast. Rather than attempt to recreate 3D Blast's isometric gameplay, it opted to mix the series' tried and true 2D formula with pre-rendered sprites. While its visuals were impressive on the meager 8-bit Game Gear, they proved to be a massive liability as the resolution resulted in a loss of screen real estate.
This was a bit of a problem in a speed-based game, because it prevented players from seeing what was ahead of them. Rather than a swan song, Sonic Blast provided the dying Game Gear with a mere whimper. Despite its attempts to innovate using the then-new Game Gear, Sonic Blast ended up as one of the worst Sonic games around.
17 Sonic 3D Blast
Platforms: PC, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn
One of Sonic's first tentative steps into the third dimension, Sonic 3D Blast was a major stumble into uncharted territory. Developed by Traveler's Tales, the game switched to an isometric perspective with pre-rendered visuals akin to Rare's Donkey Kong Country. It proved to be a technical marvel on the aging Genesis, but less impressive on the considerably more powerful 32-bit Saturn.
Released in 1996, Sonic 3D Blast fell short when compared to the likes of Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario 64. Over the years, time has been particularly unkind to this platformer, making it easily the worst Genesis title to bear the Sonic name. Additionally, the game's difficult levels didn't do it any favors.
16 Sonic R
Platforms: GameCube, PC, PS2, Sega Saturn
A Sonic racer that incorporated Mario Kart's winning formula sounds like a winning combination on paper. Unfortunately, Sonic R's abysmal controls and frustrating track design left it at the starting line. With only five courses, the main campaign could be beaten in less than an hour. The game also offered a split-screen mode for players wishing to share the pain.
Sonic R attempted to extend its runtime with several hidden coins and unlockable characters, but players were unlikely to even finish one track without tossing the controller in disgust. The game's saving grace was its laughable soundtrack, which incorporated sappy vocals and cringe-worthy lyrics that provided great ironic fun.
15 Sonic Forces
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox One
After the sublime Sonic Mania, Forces proved to be a massive and crushing disappointment. In a major deviation from the series' tired formula, Dr. Eggman finally triumphed over his old nemesis and take over the world. Controlling a custom character in order to rescue the Blue Blur and thwart the villain was a novel concept, but the game never realized its potential.
Even the time-tested 2D sections underwhelmed with awkward physics and poor level design. With a wildly conflicting tone and an emaciated campaign, Sonic Forces was the epitome of everything that was holding the franchise back, and one of the worst Sonic games in the franchise's long history.
14 Sonic The Fighters
Platforms: Arcade, GameCube, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360
Developed by the same division of Sega responsible for arcade quarter munchers such as Virtua Fighter and Fighting Vipers, Sonic the Fighters fell short of the championship belt. While the polygonal character models were suitably expressive and well-animated, the game disappointed on the gameplay front.
Sonic the Fighters' main campaign can be easily beaten by just continuously spamming the punch button. If the mechanics had been polished and the difficulty wasn't so insultingly easy, it could have been a contender. Instead, fans itching for an adorable 3D fighter were better off playing Virtua Fighter Kids instead of one of the worst Sonic games.
13 Sonic & The Secret Rings
Platform: Nintendo Wii
While Sonic and the Secret Ring's incorporation of the Wii's motion controls was novel at the time, the Wiimote was too imprecise for the franchises' high-octane platforming. If progressing normally wasn't bad enough, players sometimes had to fight against the camera during segments where Sonic ran backward at a breakneck pace.
The familiar spin dash and jumps also felt clunky as players traversed through some of the most linear and boring levels the Sonic series has ever seen. To accommodate this, the game was padded with frustrating sub-missions that players were arbitrarily forced to complete.
12 Sonic Shuffle
Platform: Sega Dreamcast
Sonic Shuffle was essentially Mario Party, but worse in every way possible. It would be unthinkable to imagine a party title where players could actually skip the mini-games, but that's exactly what happened in Shuffle. If the game's un-intuitive hybrid of board game and card game didn't put players to sleep, the excruciatingly long loading times did.
With tedious mini-games that became even more unbearable when playing solo, Sega and Hudson Soft's foray into the Sonic franchise was the ultimate party pooper. Fans of the particular format were better off seeking the various other franchises who've delivered great party games instead of even giving one of the worst Sonic games a chance.
11 Shadow The Hedgehog
Platforms: GameCube, PS2, Xbox
With the industry leaning harder toward mature titles such as Grand Theft Auto and Halo in the late 2000s, Sonic Team decided to go where the wind was blowing and took a gamble with their long-running series. Since the jovial blue blur would be ill-suited to lead a game featuring firearms, his moody frienemy Shadow was pushed to the forefront.
Shadow the Hedgehog was a mediocre shooter, and the most embarrassing moment in Sonic's history. While the laughably edgy game tried to explore something new, its gunplay was atrocious. It lacked any crucial strafing or targeting mechanics. The moral grid-based level structure was a nice idea, but didn't mesh with the series' trademark speed.
10 Sonic: Lost World
Platforms: Nintendo 3DS, PC, Wii U
Sonic: Lost World was clearly the Sonic franchise's attempt to replicate Mario Galaxy's success. There was nothing inherently wrong with following in the footsteps of one of Mario's most groundbreaking and fun games. However, Sonic: Lost World did this by inexplicably slowing Sonic down so that he could be shoehorned into Mario Galaxy's framework.
Sonic was basically dumped into Mario Galaxy rather than a game world made specifically for his speed. This was best seen in Sonic's difficult and unresponsive controls. The levels and puzzles also didn't make much sense, and constantly ground the momentum to a halt. Sonic: Lost World's only saving grace was its cheery soundtrack.
9 Sonic Labyrinth
Platform: Game Gear
This obscure Sonic entry was released in 1995, and there's a good reason why it has faded into the mists of time. Sonic Labyrinth's paper-thin premise saw Dr. Robotnik swapping Sonic's favorite shoes out with "Slow Down Boots" while the latter was sleeping. When Sonic woke up, he relized that he lost the ability to run fast.
For some unexplainable reason, Sega decided to release a game where Sonic was slow instead of fast. With a woefully lethargic pace and a base premise so antithetical to everything that made Sonic cool and fun in the first place, players explored several boring labyrinths to unlock keys that were generally unchallenging to find.
8 Sonic Free Riders
Platform: Xbox 360
There's a reason why Sonic Free Riders remains the final entry to the Riders subseries. It might sport the worst controls ever in a racing game, because it relied on movement inputs through the Xbox Kinect. Whether players were jumping, moving, or even navigating the menu, Free Riders was almost impossible to play due to the unresponsive nature of the hardware.
If that wasn't bad enough, the amount of physical exertion Free Riders demanded left players in lingering pain. With imprecise controls, repetitive courses, and hardware gimmicks that were literally harmful to the player, racing fans would do themselves a massive favor by sticking to the grandstand and skipping one of the worst Sonic games ever seen.
7 Sonic & The Black Knight
Platform: Nintendo Wii
It's hard to imagine that the format introduced in Secret Rings could get any worse, but Black Knight managed to sink lower than its predecessor by putting a misguided emphasis on melee combat. Apparently, Sonic Team never learned the lesson that it's a bad idea to run with scissors—much less a medieval sword.
Sonic and the Black Knight's story didn't fare any better, featuring a ridiculous take on Arthurian legends that completely fell flat. Even the worst Sonic games sometimes look nice, but a dull color palette and boring soundtrack kept Black Knight from succeeding by even the barest minimum imaginable.
6 Sonic The Hedgehog Genesis
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Sonic's 15th anniversary was blighted with not one, but two entries that shared the same name as his debut title. To get players hyped for the then-upcoming HD reboot, a port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog was announced for the Game Boy Advance. The prospect of taking this classic title on the go with new features such as the spin dash appealed to many fans.
Unfortunately, the final result remains the very worst way to experience this landmark title, and one of the worst Sonic games in history. Zoomed-in visuals, botched audio, and poor performance made it the perfect foreshadowing for what Sonic's Xbox 360 soft reboot and anniversary special would have in store.
5 Sonic Adventure
Platforms: Dreamcast, GameCube, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Since it was the first fully 3D Sonic game, Sonic Adventure often gets a pass even if it's arguably one of the worst Sonic games ever made. Sonic Adventure came out in a time when the biggest 2D games were making their first awkward steps into 3D. But even by these lax standards, Sonic Adventures' camera and controls were unforgivably bad.
Sonic Adventure's control scheme was so frustrating that it ruined Sonic's otherwise visually impressive 3D shift. When players weren't wrestling against the camera for control, they were struggling to control Sonic's speed. Sonic Adventure 2 thankfully addressed some of Sonic Adventure's faults, but it was only a marginal improvement.
4 Sonic Unleashed
Platforms: Mobile, PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360
Sonic Unleashed was yet another desperate attempt by the Sonic series to chase trends and be taken seriously. The end result was a game whose ill-advised selling point was that Sonic could transform into a "Werehog" at night. Even ignoring how laughably edgy the Werehog was and how Sonic Unleashed was a blatant rip-off of the satisfyingly challenging God of War, it was just not fun.
Repetitive combat, unresponsive controls, and enforced ring-hunting made Sonic Unleashed one of the most tedious Sonic games to play, and one of the worst Sonic games ever made. There's a reason why there's almost no mention of the Werehog in succeeding Sonic games, and is barely remembered in Sonic's comics.
3 Sonic The Hedgehog (AKA Sonic '06)
Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360
One of the most poorly designed and commercially broken released games of all time, Sonic '06 certainly earned its dismal reputation. The game sported three separate campaigns tied together by an intrusive, barely functional, and ugly hub world. Once players actually ran fast, they found that it was hard to even get through a single level without phasing through a wall or randomly dying thanks to the terrible game design.
Sonic 06's convoluted narrative was of such poor quality that it managed to prove unintentionally amusing, climaxing in an uncannily realistic human princess making out with a cuddly cartoon animal. It seems safe to presume that Sonic Team won't try that idea again. Sonic '06 wasn't just one of the worst Sonic games, but one of the worst video games ever made.
2 Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystals
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
The worst thing about the Sonic Boom cartoon was that its tie-in games gave it a really bad name. By virtue of association, games like Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystals made the otherwise clever and witty cartoon look unbearable. Shattered Crystals was monotonous and unfunny, two things the underrated cartoon were not.
Shattered Crystal's levels were repetitive in design and objective. Worse, their loading times were obnoxiously long and plentiful. The game's comedy was also surprisingly lazy when contrasted to the cartoon. The best thing about Shattered Crystals was that it was marginally better than its much worse companion release, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric.
1 Sonic Boom: Rise Of Lyric
Platform: Wii U
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric was not only the worst Sonic game, but could arguably be considered to be one of (if not) the worst game of all time. Like Sonic 06, the game was plagued with a multitude of glitches. It's also the only Wii U title to run on the otherwise reliable CryEngine, but the results provoked endless head-scratching and confusion.
It's amazing how a game this hideous could sport such a wildly fluctuating frame rate. The gameplay didn't fare any better with its atrocious combat and auto-running sections. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric provided little to no redeeming qualities, and it will take a lot for the already troubled Sonic series to stoop this low ever again.