The game begins with an impressive cinematic opening where Sonic runs in and takes out Eggman's floating space fortress. It is in this opening cut scene that the great graphics are revealed, as Sonic tears down Eggman's robotic army. Eventually, Sonic turns into Super Sonic and takes down the rotund villain, or so he thinks. Eggman presses a button, somehow turning Sonic into a Werehog and making the Earth's seven continents break apart to unleash Dark Gaia. From here on out, the story pops up after every couple levels and does nothing more but get in the way of the gameplay. Even more bothersome are the towns that you encounter. Consisting of about five different people that you talk to, the hub towns add nothing to the game. I'd rather breeze through these static towns than deal with an unnecessary 3D hub world like the Sonic Adventure games.
As far as the actual gameplay is considered, it is segmented into two different styles: Hedgehog and Werehog. The Hedgehog stages are the best aspect of the game, as they play more like races with branching paths and secrets, and they have solid controls that work well with the various control methods, ranging from Wii Remote and Nunchuk to Classic Controller. These stages feel more like the best parts of the Sonic Adventure games. However, these stages are not the majority of the gameplay; the Werehog levels are.
Under the veil of night, Sonic transforms into a stretchy-armed Werehog. He is supposed to be seen as a violent creature, but considering that he learns about his stretchy arms from a falling ice cream cone, he is never seen as any kind of dangerous animal. The Werehog stages are clumsy, slow-paced, combat-heavy levels with terrible controls. The combat is dreadful, as it boils down to a waggle-fest or button mashing. Whenever I was faced with the abundant hordes of enemies, I merely shook my Remote and Nunchuk while occasionally repositioning Sonic and his stretchy arms. The platforming aspect is a little better, but it is way too linear and restricting to be fun. There is simply nothing redeeming about this shoddy God of War rip-off.
On top of the Werehog disappointment, the stage selection is absurdly segmented. With separate tutorials for almost every move, you spend the opening of the game playing fifteen seconds of a tutorial mission, completing it, and then waiting double that time for the next one to load. While the tutorials aren't terrible, they ruin any momentum the game garners in the opening by not organically introducing moves. It also doesn't help that loading happens way too often. Besides the main game, there are also a few side missions, but none of them really go farther than "Collect 100 Rings" or "Finish This Race in X Amount of Time." Thanks to some levels' alternate paths, there is some depth to these missions, but not enough to make up for the rest of the game.
Sonic Unleashed is a game full of duality. The Hedgehog levels are a lot of fun, and the controls accentuate that. On the flip-side, the Werehog levels are riddled with frustratingly boring combat and gameplay. It never helps that the game can't let go of its ridiculously dumb story.
Pros:
Lastability: 6.0
There are numerous side missions, but very few of them are interesting. Other than that, once the main story ends, all you can do is replay the levels you already played to get better scores.
Final: 4.0
Sonic Unleashed is almost halfway to being a good game. The Hedgehog levels are a lot of fun but they get overshadowed by the terrible Werehog levels that do nothing but slow the game down.
I understand that the final score isn't an average of the individual scores, but how is it possible for the final score to be lower than all the other ones?
They just can't leave well enough alone and ship a game that only has the fun stuff, but feel compelled with every installment to come up with something new that's impossible for any sane human being to enjoy. It's crap like this that makes me wish that the Sonic franchise had been buried 2 generations ago.This.
Nothing against the score except in relation to his other scores. Shouldn't gameplay be a 4 too then? It just seems the 4 makes scoring the other categories irrelevant. Why bother then?
Nothing against the score except in relation to his other scores. Shouldn't gameplay be a 4 too then? It just seems the 4 makes scoring the other categories irrelevant. Why bother then?
The gameplay is an even split of good and bad for me, even though that even split is altered in the final score.
Some gamebreakers are more of a gamebreaker for some than others. For me, gamebreakers always break the game for me and bring me back to gamebreaking reality. That said, I will trust Nron's opinion here and avoid this game-breaker-breaker-1-9.
All I can hope for now is that Sonic and the Black Knight is at the same level of Secret Rings.
Sonic Heroes shows up at the highest there (74%).
Sorry, this data has to be THROWN OUT.
Nothing against the score except in relation to his other scores. Shouldn't gameplay be a 4 too then? It just seems the 4 makes scoring the other categories irrelevant. Why bother then?The gameplay is an even split of good and bad for me, even though that even split is altered in the final score.
Tokyo EAD could make the best Sonic game ever.
Tokyo EAD could make the best Sonic game ever.
You could replace the word Sonic in that sentence with any word or phrase and it would be just as true.
I still stand by my belief that Yuji Naka and Sega of Japan ruined Sonic after that Sonic X-Treme tragedy.
best 3d Sonic game is only mediocre
Quotebest 3d Sonic game is only mediocre
Sonic Adventure was great.
Quotebest 3d Sonic game is only mediocre
Sonic Adventure was great.
Was it great or only good? It did have Big the Cat.
Even given TYP's score formula, which seems reasonable, I don't think the werehog portions were bad enough to warrant something as low as a 2.
Actually that's a well known fact. That incident showed that the higher ups at Sega didn't give a sh!t about Sonic since he was never popular in Japan. Which is why Sega has never allowed Sonic Team to have enough time to properly even finish developement of a 3d Sonic, and that's why every single 3d Sonic game was a rushed, buggy mess.It's always been common knowledge that a vast majority of Sega's more famous Sonic Team icons (Sonic, NiGHTS) have a bigger fanbase in America and Europe, and we are the most vocal of them.
I agree with Jonny. All 3D Sonic games suck and it appears this one is no exception. Maybe if we scream at Sega loud enough, they will eventually get the message that Sonic is meant to be in 2D.
I enjoyed Sonic Adventure 1 & 2. I didn't think they were perfect when they came out, but I spent lots of time with them, only cringing at points. (I never though Big's levels were that annoying, BTW. Knuckles', however....)
I don't think the first one stands the test of time--and certainly the GC port made things worse. I still have fond memories of the second one, but have no pressing desire to relive its love-hate duality in Sonic Unleashed.
Sonic 2 and Sonic & 3 Knuckles are still the most timeless entries. Everything since Sonic Adventure 2, besides the 2D handheld entries, has been bad or worse, though.
Not really.
Wasn't Sonic Heroes a pretty good game? (I never played it)Controls were terrible, camera was awful, some levels took nearly ten minutes to complete, there was no real different between the four teams, they ruined the story line by not making Eggman the main villain, Shadow is alive, too much music by Jun Sunoue.
