It says a lot that just a model and animation change set makes this game look more fluid than it really honestly is. Sonic was stiff as a board in the original game, so the better animations just fake a feel of flow '06 never had.
It's the uncanny valley. Like those Japanese robots that in a still picture look like a human, but when you see them actually moving it's a creepy robot.
What makes a huge difference is that Sonic is leaning so far forward, but when he changes directions he doesn't have a leaning animation built in at all, so he just sorta spins unrealistically.
I think this is the final revelation I need that I love Sonic's design no matter what it is in any medium. The Archie Sonic free comic book day issue cover was probably the first revelation. I find it so strange that people who claim to be Sonic fans also seem to have a vitriolic hatred to a majority of the games and find nothing positive to say about them. Sure a lot of them sucked to play but Sonic always looks cool and has amazing soundtracks. Sammy was always right!
Sonic's design is honestly pretty hard to mess up completely. Outside of a fer /certain/ mistakes they've made, all of his official designs are honestly really appealing. I think its why he has such a lasting appeal.
I've never been a fan of the fingers-splayed-out running animations Sonic seems to have kept from this game into the boost games (at least while not boosting), but tbh, with the generations take on it and its model it actually looks really good at the lower speed of 06 levels
As great as the model looks in giving us a much better looking version of Sonic in 06 (and one closer to how he looks in CGI scenes), it's hard to say the same about the animations. They're faithful to Generations and because of that they look incredibly awkward in 06. You're not moving nearly as fast, nor do you have the tank-like controls both of which the animations were designed around. If anything, a version of this that keeps all of 06's regular animations would look much better.
I agree, but the problem is that both models have different rigs. The Gens model would have to be reanimated with 06 animations by someone manually for it to work.
If you want one that keeps the original '06 animations, then check out GPF's Unleashed Sonic, this is more released for the preservation of '06 modding history, as this was made YEARS ago.
