Sonic Unleashed

[Faseeh]

Hello, just decided to make a topic for this game so yes. This is my 4th/5th topic so yeah, I am not as exprienced as Felix or anything. I'll just go on topic now. I am talking 'bout the PS360 version but you may by all means talk about the other one.

Sonic Unleashed. A game which redefined Sonic, that brought him back on the market. Others regard it as a hit and miss. Another group regard it as almost as bad as 06. To me, it is the game that redefined it.

Now, look, you don't need to agree with me but there are so many things that this game did very well in and that's what I am first going to discuss about.

Firstly, the graphics.

With the new extraordinary Hedgehog Engine and the 5 years of effort put into it, the game looks amazing. Its' art style is the direction that I believe all Sonic games should imitate and I am glad they are doing that. Just looking at all the levels, cutscenes and art, you immediately know the amount of time and effort Sonic Team took for this product. The intro is also the best intro of all time for any Sonic game, in my opinion. Black Knight and Colors come close.

Next, the characterisation.

I loved the way they characterised Sonic. Besides Sonic & the Black Knight, this game did it very well. Showing Sonic cocky, arrogant, impatient, focused yet being caring, friendly was almost never done any better than this. They also made an amazing Chip, as of that time, nobody ever called him a 'shitty' friend. The hub worlds had a lot of people and they all added so much life to the product. Eggman was just plain gold like in SA2 and Generations. Orbot made his debut and he was an amazing character too.

Then, the music and other things.

The music was very fitting to the game and it definetely fit with the art design. The game also introduced the new moveset which I actually like. It was the first game to have the amazing sense of speed like no other before it. (Fun fact: Gens Sonic is actually faster by a tad bitter. Refer to Dario FF's Chun-nan Unleashed Gens project video) It also had some good voice acting. (I actually prefer Roger but to me, Jason just seems to be my Sonic voice. :\ )

Then there were things that it didn't do right. The Werehog was a intresting concept but wasn't executed well. The level design was too linear at the start. The gameplay engine wasn't polished as much as Gens'.

Overall, Unleashed holds a huge place in my heart, especially bcos' it has Dear My Friend, it was my first console game, it was the introduction of the Modern Sonic formula.

So, I'd like to know your thoughts/opinions about this game. Feel free to question mine to. I'll try my best to answer.

EDIT: Yeah, I forgot to say I love that this game seems to give the player that this is a such a large-scale adventure.

EDIT 2: I love the energetic Sonic.

EDIT 3: I forgot to talk about the development process so here it is (in TL;DR form (really, there isn't much to say about its development... at least to me):

Sonic Team had been working on the Hedgehog Engine for some time and it was done in 2005. They began the development of this game in 2006. After THAT game, Sonic Team needed to give a massive comeback to even get back 3/4 of its fans. The game was fully done in Japan and was intended to be SA3. The game was first brought to attention when Sega trademarked it on March 12, 2008 and there were a few leaks 10 days later. It is possible that online mode was considered at first for this game around the time of E3 2008.

After the games released, DLC packs were released. Unfortunately, before the DLC packs go to every region, the game director (Yoshihisa Hashimoto) left Sonic Team so some people can't enjoy the DLC. ( like me )

Fun Fact: Iizuka-san has special thanks for level design. So that should explains some things to some people. (Those same people should take into note that he worked on Adventure's level designs too)

Edited July 31, 2012 by Faseeh

[...]

Dangit, you beat me to it. Oh well.

Unleashed to this day, is my favorite 3D Sonic game, and for many reasons. The masterpiece of a soundtrack, amazing visuals, (it may as well be the best looking Sonic games to date), having a good story, characters acting like themselves, and I loved Chip. And it's the plain fact you are on a grand world adventure, it just feels like a breathtaking and epic game. Though it does have it's share of problems for me, such as the forced medal collecting (which becomes a big problem when you don't have enough for Jungle Joyride daytime) & some of the QTEs (especially in Eggmanland) piss me off.

Other than that, I think it's a good game.

(Strictly talking about the 360/PS3 version. My opinions on UnWiished? Complete and utter garbage.)

Edited July 31, 2012 by Felix

[Jin.]

The Werehog needs to die in a fire.

I didn't like God Of War.

I didn't like Castlvania: Lords of Shadow.

I don't want the Werehog.

Oh and the PS2 and Wii versions were shit.

EDIT: Oh, and the random encounters as Werehog were an ass too, especially the music butting in.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Zero Vi Britannia

[Soniman]

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOST BOOST BOOST BOOOST BOOOOOOOOOOOOST BOOOOOOST! WOHOOO! FEELING GOOD!

It's alright.

[-Big The Cat-]

The game is worse than 06 in many aspects.

[Xenos]

The game is worse than 06 in many aspects.

Please elaborate.

[...]

The game is worse than 06 in many aspects.

Lemme guess.

boost2win?

Edited July 31, 2012 by Felix

[Komodin]

The game is worse than 06 in many aspects.

Like... what, exactly?

Anyway, I simply love this game. It's my second favorite Sonic game gameplay-wise, and my all-time favorite Sonic game plot-wise. I don't ever regret defending this game back when it was released, not one bit.

[Soniman]

Like... what, exactly?

Anyway, I simply love this game. It's my second favorite Sonic game gameplay-wise, and my all-time favorite Sonic game plot-wise. I don't ever regret defending this game back when it was released, not one bit.

I was defending the game back then to.The Wii version I mean.I was a total fanboy back then, you have to understand.

[Carbo]

As far as the general development goes it's easily a big improvement over the Sonic games before it and it's nice to see that it could eventually serve as some sort of milestone no matter how much it's formula has outworn it's welcome.

When it comes to the actual game though, for me it's easily one of the worst designed Sonic games that makes up for lacking 06's game play flaws by introducing an astounding plethora of others in structure. This game has perhaps the most filler content and padding in any Sonic game, it has an astoundingly bad progression with obnoxious hub worlds, the Werehog levels are such counter-opposites to the Sonic levels and are spread out in such a way that it'd have been a better idea to just cut the game in half and sell each portions as downloadable titles, the medal hunting is a stupid chore, the entire game is held together by duct tape and nothing is structurally sound. As a game, it's the result of creating a bunch of different good shit without having any semblance or idea of how to connect all of it. It's the result of combining a really good ice cream serving with a really good steak serving by slapping it together onto a plate.

The only way I ultimately got enjoyment out of the worn out formula was once I had finished the game and was able to play through all the levels in the act select, but it's an unsatisfying game for anything other than perfectionist runs, and it's one that manages to piss me off more than getting some actual gaming bliss. After playing it too much, going fast becomes the mission statement rather than the reward, and not going fast is unsatisfying and jarring. In some ways it makes me kind of wonder if me loving it back then was only a result of having to overcome the shock of an actually decent Sonic game, but the product is nothing short of mediocre.

Also personally I found the plot forgettable. Everything supposedly heartwarming was mostly undermined for me by having to make Chip being obnoxious and Griffith giving a pretty narmy and ridiculous grovel-filled Werehog voice.

[Jack / Joker]

I preferred the Wii Version. The 360 Version is one of my least favourite Sonic games losing out to Shadow, Sonic 4 and '06. The Werehog stages were tedious and painful but I didn't find the quite hollow Sonic levels much of a reward. The story, music and graphics are fantastic however.

[BlueBlurMe]

I have to say, I have only played the Wii version, and apparently it's horrible. To me, I'd put it above Generations. Well, in my opinion (I have Colours DS, so I can't compare it to that). Even though, yes, you have to boost to win, do that first, and you don't have to later. They aren't forcing you, right?

I think it has a lot of replay value, not because of those stupid medals, but because it's actually more challenging. I had the game a few years before I got all S Ranks on the Day stages. Well, by then I was way better at handling the new controls, BUT, I still don't get S Ranks every time. It's still challenging, and the best challenge I've had in a while.

Now the Werehog. I don't mind him. While I played through his stages I actually developed a fondness for his levels. It all depends on what I'm feeling like playing. Most of the time, Day, but other times, I actually FEEL like playing Night. They didn't do a half bad job, though I definitely think they could have improved upon him.

The only thing that annoys me are those stupid medals. I really hate collecting things, but I want to know the secrets....

Edited July 31, 2012 by BlueBlurMe

[MegaMan_EXE]

After terrible releases like Heroes and 06, Unleashed was a refreshing change of pace.

I love the day time stages, as they felt faster and more playable than other games in the past, mainly the two I mentioned.

The Werehog, was decent. It felt like every other beat em up, and yes, I know it's a glorified God of War mode, but who hear didn't feel satisfied when you took down a giant brute, or did a kick ass combo move?

The story and voice acting is the best from any Sonic game yet. There was a lot of tension, and it didn't feel cringeworthy like 06 did. It was dark, and serious, but didn't go overboard with it.

My complaints with the game include, the annoying Sun and Moon medal collecting, the Werehog can get tiring, and the Tornado mini games weren't that great.

I enjoy this game, and it's in my Top 10 favorite Sonic games.

This is the PS3/360 version

[JemiDove]

Is it okay to list out my thoughts?

Things I like about the game

1) Graphics and visuals (and details). The best I've seen in any Sonic game. I've to say that the Hedgehog Engine really did it for any gamer.

2) Sonic's model. He's neither too short and stout like in Heroes, nor awkwardly tall like in Sonic 06.

3) Introduced a HA reticle on targets. Makes HA-ing easier. (though some players do not like it)

4) The music. The daytime stage tracks really had me pumped to blast through the stage. The nighttime tracks were pretty cool, and each track stayed loyal to the music genre of the country they are played in.

5) Each NPC you talk to has their very own unique personality. I like the effort put into this - at least they weren't like those in Sonic 06.

6) Jason Griffith's voice acting was superb in this game. He brought out Sonic's emotions and personality well.

Things I disliked about the game

1) Quick-time events. I wasn't too bothered by it at first (in fact, I saw it as a challenge for my reflexes), but eventually I dreaded launching off ramps and going "GASP!!" whenever the QTEs appeared. Had to restart/replay the levels too many times because of slow reaction time. This made my palms sweat alot.

2) The night stages tried to add some balance between the faster daytime stages, but ultimately, I was sick of having to spam the same buttons (combos you say? They add little variety) and fighting endless hordes of enemies.

3) The same music that is played whenever you encounter Dark Gaia's minions or Eggman's robots in the night stages. I was already pretty tired of fighting them, and the same music made me even more irritated. I found it quite fun to listen to at first, but as I progressed further in the game, I couldn't stand it anymore.

4) The homing attack mapped to the same button as the boost. It gets irritating when you want to homing-attack an enemy/target, but end up air-boosting and falling into a bottomless pit. I'm glad they fixed this in Generations.

5) The size of the hubworlds. Some of them were pretty small.

6) The daytime stages were a tad too linear - to accomodate the boost?

7) Sometimes, I really find it a pity that there's so much to look at in the stages - but I find that these details whiz past me 90% of the time (day stages, duh.)

8) Sonic feels too slippery at low speeds in 3D.

9) The 2D segments. Just...why?

Overall, I find Unleashed an okay Sonic game. I can live with my dislikes of the game - they aren't big problems in my eyes. I would say that I'm not a fan of speedrunning, and I would prefer wider, open areas for exploration (i.e. not different routes, but really spaces where there's something interesting in every corner.)

EDIT: I'm not a fan of "boost to win" too. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. I prefer more exploration and platforming than just "WOOOO!" and blasting through all the time.

Edited August 1, 2012 by JemiLoke97

[Stritix]

It's alright. Not good, not bad. The Werehog pretty much ruined it. The day time stages were ok, but all you did was run in a straight line for 90% of them. It was pretty fun the first time through, but they weren't that fun to replay. All the neat extras like the hub worlds made me come back to it. I absolutely hate that it introduced the modern boost2win gameplay though.

I'd probably give it a 4.5/10.

[BlueBlurMe]

It's an unsatisfying game for anything other than perfectionist runs, and it's one that manages to piss me off more than getting some actual gaming bliss. After playing it too much, going fast becomes the mission statement rather than the reward, and not going fast is unsatisfying and jarring.

I have to agree with this. I pop in this game whenever I want to try to get a clear, perfect run. But when I don't, it's not my piece of cake. Gotta go faster faster fasterfasterfaster!

Also personally I found the plot forgettable. Everything supposedly heartwarming was mostly undermined for me by having to make Chip being obnoxious and Griffith giving a pretty narmy and ridiculous grovel-filled Werehog voice.

I didn't feel the love at all here! Those heartwarming moments were, yes, wrecked by Chip, and I didn't just feel it. And that Werehog voice was weird. C'mon Jason!

[Kuzu]

Dammit, Carbo beat me to it.

But yeah, when it comes to hype and overall presentation, Unleashed is definitely no slouch. The upcoming months for this game were the most excited I've ever been for a Sonic game in a long time, and I appreciate the amount of effort towards advertising this game because you can tell Sega wanted to apologize for 06........when it comes to the actual game however, hoo boy.

To break it down:

Story: To start, yes the opening is badass, and does setup the game perfectly, and the climax is definitely a memorable one, it's the middle part that makes this plot somewhat forgettable. After the game just doesn't live up to the hype of it, I mean we're told about Chip's memories, yet that plot device only shows up twice; when it's introduced, and when it's resolved, there's no build up to a resolution it just ends after the Adabat temple. Sonic's Werehog form has very little impact on the plot as well, Sonic says he needs to keep out of sight to not scare anybody, but apparently nobody cares that a three foot feral creature is wandering the streets and treat him with complete apathy, I mean at least with Twilight Princess the townsfolk were afraid of you in wolf form, here nobody gives a shit. This story had the potential to be more, but it really falls flat after you rescue Picke at which the action reaches a screeching halt until you're just about done with the game. I mean most of the middle part could have been spent developing the world, and the whole Chip subplot. I mean, it's definitely better than what came after, but it's still mostly forgettable.

Gameplay: I did not enjoy playing this game, I mean I was excited because of everyone saying good things about it, but playing it is just *ugh*. To start, the Day Stages are horrendous, in addition to the linearity problem, Sonic controls like ass. I died so many times by flying off a stage due to either boosting too early, or too late and trying to turn is a pain in the ass. This game expects you to have master reflexes to even be good, let alone great at it. Just no, it's like 06's Mach Speed zones except they don't completely suck, but are still pretty bad. I probably had more fun with the Night Time stages, and if they weren't so drawn out and repetitive, I would have called them the better part of the game. Medal Collecting sucks ass, and I hate the Quick Time Events. I know this the Unleashed's style first outing, but good god was it bad, especially when compared to Generations.

Presentation: It's a shame such graphics are wasted on such a poorly designed game, because this game looks gorgeous. The environments are beautiful, the animations are wonderful, and each hub has it's own brand of life and flare to add. The best part about the game is definitely in it's looks.

Overall, this game is not good. It's definitely better than 06, but not really by much and I'm pretty sure that's the only reason this game get's as much praise as it does, 06 would make anything look better by comparison. I don't agree with the general public in that it's a piece of shit, but it is somewhat poorly designed. Oh, and this is only covering the HD version, the SD version is too crappy for me to give a damn about.

[Nix]

I fucking hate this game.

The Day Stages were awful. Sonic controls like a bar of soap no matter what speed he goes, and his basic moves have the tendency to not function at all, which makes the majority of his platforming sections a complete pain in the ass to get through. A big problem with the day stages is the boosting. The boost itself is a shallow and overpowered move that really only functions as a cheap thrill. In SU, it gives you absolutely nothing in terms of creativity and destroys the usefulness of other moves. The level design is incredibly shitty, constantly punishing you for playing the game the way the game taught you to. For a game so heavily designed around the boost, it fucking hates you for using it even when the game outright tells you to. The game also has a fondness of automation, stripping most of your control away from you for a dull chase scene or two that last way too damn long for their own good. There are also some QTE's, but they're unforgiving and failure normally results in death.

The Night Stages are actually decent, at least in comparison to the Day Stages. It's a poor knock-off of God of War sure, but then again, God of War was actually a good game so there's some fun to be had. I personally like picking up two of the little baddies and smashing them together like cymbals, but that's about it. The level design is again rather poor, and very linear. There a bits and pieces to explore, but honestly I think the levels should open themselves up more giving you multiple ways to tackle it. The combat is rather dull; you have a large variety of combos, but only a select few are actually good for taking out the painfully generic baddies as quick as possible. A lot of the moves are mostly style over substance; they certainly look nice, but they aren't practical at all. The baddies themselves aren't really interesting and don't require any thought beyond "mash the best combo until they're dead" (including the bigger ones). You can also finish them off via QTE, but just like the day stages, they're unforgiving and the power of your failure somehow allows them to regain most of their health. The platforming isn't much better due to awful camera angles that make it hard to control when walking pipes or some shit, and it also makes it incredibly hard to judge where you're going to land when you jump. I also love how the Night stages stop you in your tracks to point out the stupidest of shit, "hey look a waterfall", "the door behind you closed", etc.

Getting to the levels themselves during the story is annoying as hell. First you go to the town hub, when Sonic loses his ability to run and is forced to trot around. Then you go to the mission hub to find the level you're supposed to play. Once you find it, you're not allowed in because you didn't collect enough medals (the game never tells you that you needed to collect them in the first place), which is a completely asinine game lengthening scheme that forces you to go back to every shitty level you played and some of the even shittier optional ones.

As for everything else... I didn't like the story at all, Chip was annoying as hell, the graphics are nice, but the framerate can get rather terrible, and I found the music to be rather bland and boring.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Pinkamina

[Semi-colon e]

To me Unleashed is an example of where great presentation rarely if ever trumps poor gameplay.

The presentation, music, and graphics are just fantastic (aside from framerate problems, which is one of the reasons I think Generations looks better myself). The story is entertaining without being overly silly or dramatic, and it has it's funny moments. The voice acting as well was much improved over 06, and overall it's presented so well.

But the gameplay itself is just so flawed. The Day stages are just hard in the most unfair way possible. The boost is overused here, even compared to Generations - this doesn't bother me that much though, but Generations and Colours had slightly better balance. There are very few alternate paths until the end of the game, the QTEs are insane and bullshit, the bottomless pits just come out of nowhere to spite you, and the controls are horrendous. I think Generations improved this gameplay by fucking miles, yes there's a lot of boosting, and yes there's a lot of bottomless pits, but at least it rarely throws pits at you really suddenly and there is at least platforming and variety, despite how subjective the quality is. The chase scenes also go on far too long, and these were also toned down in Generations aside from Rooftop Run (which is much better designed there than here, btw). I love Generations Modern and dislike Unleashed Day, because of the cheapness, if that makes any sense. All the Sonic bosses are essentially the same though, dunno why Colours gets scolded for this and this game doesn't - both should.

The Werehog is more like Silver really - most of the frustrations are with the Sonic gameplay, but the new gameplay is just repetitive, overly drawn out, and has a feeling that much more could have been done with it. I don't mind the Werehog, but I prefer the Day stages despite their problems. It's definitely one of the better genre roulettes, but it shouldn't be here in the first place, especially not playing even remotely close to a Sonic game. The bosses are nothing special aside from Egg Dragoon, which is mostly QTEs.

Despite this my favourite stage is Eggmanland as I like the fusion of the two gameplays in one level and it has the best platforming and variety which should have been in the rest of the game, which is good enough to overcome the cheapness, which is so overdone it makes me laugh.

But Dark Gaia is nigh unplayable and is the worst Super Sonic boss ever. It controls like ass, makes no sense, is overly tedious and drawn out, and the best parts are QTEs - they really got QTE happy by the end of this game, sacrificing gameplay for cinematics.

I don't mind this game as a whole, it's presentation helps a lot, but to me the great presentation doesn't mean a whole lot when the gameplay is so bad. And I'm not even going into the medals, needing 120 for Adabat Day (the stage with the most framerate issues and cheap deaths aside from Eggmanland, no less!) was beyond ridiculous. It's pacing is horrible, but at least significantly improved over 06 and they did address a lot of it's issues.

Give me Generations Modern ANY DAY of the week, because as piss easy as the stages are, they at least have more variety, more routes, more interesting level design, and play fair. The levels in Unleashed were beautiful, it's just a shame they didn't have better level design.

tl;dr essentially what Pinkamena above me said, but I don't actually hate the game, only think it's mediocre.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Semi-colon e

[-Big The Cat-]

Lemme guess.

boost2win?

Yes.

boost2win.

[Semi-colon e]

Considering how negative I was just now, I don't hate Unleashed, I'm just not fond of it as it pisses me off so much (which is kind of odd as I love Colours and Generations). So I'm gonna say something else positive aside from the presentation:

THANK GOD FOR THE HOMING ATTACK RETICULE

Took them far too long to introduce this.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Semi-colon e

[Soniman]

Unleashed seems like a Sonic game I should like, especially in it's music and art design department. But it just has so many stupid design choices that I just can't get into it. It just reeks of trial and error, fake difficulty, and obvious padding. The latter being the exact reason to why I don't like SA2 all that much either.

Edited July 31, 2012 by The Noodle

[Komodin]

So... I take it that Sonic Unleashed is a Love It or Hate It sort of game?

[MegaMan_EXE]

Well, I'll admit. The game does have some bad design choices in the PS3/360 version.

The first is the medal collecting. You know, where you have to backtrack to previous stages to get medals, which eat up a good bit of your time. Some Werehog stages are brutal, and the boss battles are a bit iffy for my taste, I never really liked them that much.

The final boss was irritating, and Eggman Land goes too far for me. 2 weeks...

>_<

[Law]

Sonic's gameplay= good

Werehog's gameplay= bad

I don't want to be force to play as the werehog, it shouldn't even be in a Sonic game. SEGA always finds a way to fuck up a Sonic game.