You're right; Sonic 2006 could have been a great sequel to Sonic Adventure 2.
But nooo, SEGA forced Sonic team to rush it for the PS3's release. That was a horrible idea. SEGA sacrificed Sonic's reputation for a greedy attempt at releasing a half-assed launch title. Not only did it sell horribly (both versions only sold 30,000 copies in Japan), it bombed critically (It has a metacritic average of 46 the last time I checked). Most prominently, it paved the way for all the shitty "anti-Sonic" hate (like Mega64's "sonic sucks"). I can't find an internet article featuring Sonic without seeing an anti-sonic comment (the common "dear sega make sonic blah again" type comments are really fucking annoying) nowadays. I think that Sonic Team is trying to make us forget about that disaster (There were no references to egg guardians, silver, shadow and princesses in unleashed), which could have been a whole lot better than the trainwreck that it is now.
But nooo, SEGA forced Sonic team to rush it for the PS3's release. That was a horrible idea. SEGA sacrificed Sonic's reputation for a greedy attempt at releasing a half-assed launch title. Not only did it sell horribly (both versions only sold 30,000 copies in Japan), it bombed critically (It has a metacritic average of 46 the last time I checked). Most prominently, it paved the way for all the shitty "anti-Sonic" hate (like Mega64's "sonic sucks"). I can't find an internet article featuring Sonic without seeing an anti-sonic comment (the common "dear sega make sonic blah again" type comments are really fucking annoying) nowadays. I think that Sonic Team is trying to make us forget about that disaster (There were no references to egg guardians, silver, shadow and princesses in unleashed), which could have been a whole lot better than the trainwreck that it is now.