Sonic Unleashed (Xbox 360) vs. Legend of Spyro Dawn of the dragon (Xbox 360)

[Blueknight V2.0]

Now I know these 2 games are not related whatsoever, but they were both released in 2008 and both took advantage of the next-gen graphics to take the characters and worlds into more realistic series. Both of these games also featured previous gen versions with downgraded graphics, like the PS2 version, but that's not the gen this discussion is about.

I'll start off with the basics like character design, Sonic's design is pretty much unchanged from the adventure games, as well as later games. But Sega and Sonic Team wanted a different feel to Sonic, which is one of the reasons this Sonic game and everyone after has Sonic's mouth switch from side-to-side depending on camera angle. This was added to have Modern Sonic feel more like Classic Sonic. In Legend of Spyro Dotd, Spyro, Cynder, Sparx and Hunter all went under redesigns from the previous Legend games and the classic games before them. This was due to change in development company (Krome Studios handed development over to Etranges Libulles, I might've spelled that name wrong), thus also adding into the story takes place 3 years after Eternal Night, which explains why Spyro and Cynder appear older. Plus the game incorporated free-flight, so bigger wing-span's were necessary.Now Spyro and Cynder's designs also take advantage of the next-gen tech, having more detailed scale animation and textures.

Story: Sonic Unleashed's story was the strongest at the start and end, especially because of the enthysis the CGI cutscenes adds to the game. But the gaia temple cutscenes are kind of repetitive, so Sonic Forces story I like more because the story moves right along without any attention of getting somewhere to restore the emeralds.

Legend of Spyro Dotd's story is not it's own story because you kind of have to play the previous 2 games to understand it. It takes place 3 years after Eternal Night, and has a more Lord of the Rings type of feel to it. The ending was also pretty good, now I don;t know if the story will ever continue or not. But there is a guy on Youtube who has evidence that all of Spyro is canon, that includes Classic, Legend and the Skylanders games, now I could go along with that because in the Skylanders Spyro Adventure guide book, it mentions Spyro's previous adventures before being transported to Skylands as well as Cynder joining Spyro on a perilous quest (Legend of Spyro trilogy). Now Activision claims Skylanders has nothing to do with Legend of Spyro, outside of Spyro and Cynder.

Music: Now this is one of the harder areas to evaluate as both games have their own sets of music. Sonic Unleashed contains faster paced music for day stages, and slower paced for night stages. Now depending on the location you have different music styles, like African for Mazuri, Greek for Apotos, etc. Now the boss battles music is actually the same for every day and night boss, at least the Eggmanland bosses contained different music for every boss. While Legend of Spyro Dotd's soundtrack contains more fantasy/epic/choir tracks, which again fits into the Lord of the Rings type. Now between these 2 games themes (Endless Possibilities and Guide You Home ( I Would Die for You) ), Sonic Unleashed's theme is the definite winner, as it matches the game and franchise, also actually probably better than Forces' Fist Bump. While Spyro's I feel matches more the end of the game, rather than the whole game like Sonic Unleashed's theme.

Voice Acting: Now I think voice acting in both games are really good, everyone matches their characters. In Sonic Unleashed, the characters sound the best in the CG movies,than in-game. Legend of Spyro Dotd has an all-star voice cast, which is different than Sonic, now Cynder's voice seems a little off a times and Sparx's voice was unnecessarily changed for every game in the trilogy, but other than that the voices were spot on.

Gameplay and Graphics: Sonic Unleashed's gameplay was built using an the Hedgehog Engine by Sonic Team, which utilizes blur effects while creating high quality environments, graphics and real-time shadows. The day stages, boss battles and the CG movies are my highlights of the game. Now it controls very good during the day stages, the night stages lose speed and take longer to do and are in a similar vein of Legend of Spyro, but their still playable and enjoyable. Legend of Spyro Dotd also plays very good, the free-flight and the abilitiy to play as Cynder were much needed improvements to the trilogy, the huge free-roam environments, epic boss battles and the elemental effects flying around on screen make this a masterpiece compared to the other Legend games, I wish they continued with this formula instead of downgrading to Skylanders where Spyro and Cynder were barely relevent. At least more attention was brought in for Spyro and Cynder in Skylanders Academy.

Now these 2 are great games, even some newer games have a hard time rivaling these 2 games. But my favorite of the 2 is easily Sonic Unleashed. Now this is just all my opinion, as I own both games in addition to Sonic Generations and '06, A Heroes Tail and the other 2 installments in the Legend of Spyro series. Anyways, be sure to post your opinions on what you guys think about these 2 games or if there was anything I missed

[Legendary Emerald]

Really not sure what good comes out of comparing these two games directly, especially since Legend of Spyro 3 isn't exactly a popular or well known game. Heck, and I regret that I did play it; what a horrid followup to a flawed but interesting franchise. It was almost unrecognizable thanks to the change in developer and focus, and by the time I got to the open world-ish section, I got so bored I turned the game off every time. The first two Legends games were a bit interesting because of their camera angle, which was focused on Spyro's backside like a Zelda or other adventure game. Legend 3 zooms out the camera and looks and plays like every other children's beat-em-up game; it just doesn't feel good to hit enemies anymore.

Edit: Having said that, I do have to admit that I haven't played the game since the year it released. I'd beaten Legend of Spyro 2 recently at the time though, so I had at least a direct point of comparison. Maybe the game is better than I remember it being, but all I can remember is being disappointed in how different it was and getting lost in the open-ish world section. I had already beaten Unleashed by the time I played LoS3, and while I wasn't impressed with Unleashed either, it at least didn't feel like such a departure that it completely alienated me.

[Blueknight V2.0]

1 hour ago, Legendary Emerald said:

Really not sure what good comes out of comparing these two games directly, especially since Legend of Spyro 3 isn't exactly a popular or well known game. Heck, and I regret that I did play it; what a horrid followup to a flawed but interesting franchise. It was almost unrecognizable thanks to the change in developer and focus, and by the time I got to the open world-ish section, I got so bored I turned the game off every time. The first two Legends games were a bit interesting because of their camera angle, which was focused on Spyro's backside like a Zelda or other adventure game. Legend 3 zooms out the camera and looks and plays like every other children's beat-em-up game; it just doesn't feel good to hit enemies anymore.

Edit: Having said that, I do have to admit that I haven't played the game since the year it released. I'd beaten Legend of Spyro 2 recently at the time though, so I had at least a direct point of comparison. Maybe the game is better than I remember it being, but all I can remember is being disappointed in how different it was and getting lost in the open-ish world section. I had already beaten Unleashed by the time I played LoS3, and while I wasn't impressed with Unleashed either, it at least didn't feel like such a departure that it completely alienated me.

Well, yes it was kind of departure from other Spyro games, but I felt it was a necessary one. If it wasn't changed then we probably would've had a repeat of the previous 2 games. At first I played the PS2 version and the bloom levels was enough to blind you, now I think it was to cover up the unpolished graphics, that's what I like about the 360 version you can adjust the gamma levels so it's easier to play without being blinded.

Now Unleashed was also a definite improvement over the direction of Sonic 2006 and Secret Rings. At least the human characters, didn't look realistic in Unleashed like in '06 where Sonic looking out of place, where in Unleashed the Sonic characters fit right in.

Also, I was comparing these 2 because I was bored and wanted to see what everyone else thought.