(2019) Sonic Unleashed (PlayStation 3/Xbox 360, 2008) | Sonic’s Flawed World Adventure

   NOTE: This review was originally posted to Tumblr on May 19, 2019, and has been reposted here for archival purposes. It may not reflect recent events or my current opinions.

For a more recent review of Sonic Unleashed (PS3/360), click here.

While I’m far from one of those people who makes the argument that Sonic was never good in 3D, I still can’t deny that there’s never really been a 3D Sonic game I can consider perfect. I mean, that’s the case with any game really, but there’s always been issues I’ve had with one game or another. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 I don’t really feel like aren’t very polished and some of the alternate playstyles within the games can definitely lower my enjoyment of the games at some points. And while Colors and Generations are both in my Top 3 for the entire series and are more polished and have good level design, they still are a bit too short. Granted, I’d much take a shorter game that I enjoy all the way through over a longer game that sometimes drags for me, but I would love a modern Sonic game of that sort that’ll keep me occupied for at least over 10 hours worth of gameplay on my first run.

And for that reason, Sonic Unleashed always interested me. While being released initially to polarizing and mixed reactions, Unleashed over the years has gained a bit of a cult following within the fandom, with many (largely those who grew up with it) considering it one of if not the best game in the franchise. And of course, as someone who grew up with Colors and Generations and has always enjoyed the “Boost” style of Sonic gameplay, Unleashed was definitely a game I wanted to try out. That said… I didn’t really have any way of doing so. For the longest time, I was basically one of those who stuck with Nintendo consoles, at least having them in addition to my PC. The only non-Nintendo consoles I had for a while were the Sega Genesis and PS1, and since Unleashed still to this day hasn’t gotten a PC port of any kind, this left a game that I just wasn’t able to try out for my own. I did have my brother’s Xbox 360, but by the time I held any sort of interest in this game it ended up just crapping out completely after being on life support for a few years. I did eventually get the Wii version in late 2018 after somewhat hesitating since it was considered the inferior version, but I did end up getting enjoyment out of playing that all the way through. But recently, I got a PlayStation 3, and figured it would be about time to get into this game. So, here is how I feel about Sonic Unleashed.

The story to Sonic Unleashed starts off with Sonic battling Dr. Eggman, a typical showdown, when Eggman traps Sonic, and uses the emeralds to unleash Dark Gaia and transforms Sonic into a werewolf (kinky), before sending him back down to Earth where Sonic finds a creature that he nicknames “Chip.” Sonic eventually meets up with Tails and Amy, leading to the quest of restoring the Chaos Emeralds across the 7 continents.

Admittedly, I don’t care too much about story in Sonic games, but as far as those go this probably has my favorite in terms of presentation and depth. Sure, it’s basically a rehash of the core elements of Adventure 1, but I think since they were finally able to do proper presentation, it’s definitely among the most interesting stories in the series to follow.

But of course, gameplay is the most important part of any Sonic game for me, and with Sonic Unleashed came the introduction of the “Boost” formula as seen in Colors, Generations and Forces. I will say that every time I revisit or play a boost game for the first time, it does remind me of why I’ve come to enjoy this formula more than the others, and why I consider myself a “modernist” when it comes to the Sonic franchise. While many may call it shallow compared to the Adventure formula, I’ve always found that the Boost formula represents the franchise overall for me, having more of a sense of speed and also just being well polished in terms of gameplay and design. And when it’s at it’s best, levels can be designed in ways that make replaying the game all the more fun, having separate paths and whatnot that make it so I can still find new things about the levels even after playing them multiple times. For what it is, Sonic Unleashed’s day stages do a good job of having a lot of the elements I like best about the Boost formula. There are some issues I have with them which I’ll get to in a second, but being the first attempt at this formula, I’d say they did an overall great job. The fast pace is definitely there, and the game is still pretty much designed around reacting to level environments as well as having extra areas to explore, which mostly comes into play when doing side quests such as looking for Sun and Moon medals and the like. For better rankings, upgrades are scattered throughout the game and offer replayability with previous levels with how they can be used to interact with the environments. So, overall, I’d say the day stages are pretty good. Again, there are some issues I have with them, but… I’ll get to those in a second.

But then we get to the Night time stages, or the “Werehog,” and this is where a lot of the game’s early criticism stemmed from. While it’s generally not as hated nowadays, a lot of people felt like this was a huge pacebreaker and just overall dealbreaker for the rest of the game. Although to be honest… I didn’t really find it to be that bad. In some ways I actually found the Werehog gameplay to be kind of fun from the perspective of it simply being, say, baby’s first God of War or something. I actually had fun with the stages for the most part, between the puzzle solving, use of abilities, and the combat itself being surprisingly good. The stages themselves were generally pretty well designed and fun to play through, which made revisiting them at certain points to actually be pretty fun. I did have a couple issues with this playstyle, however. For one thing, the stages can go on for a pretty long time especially on a first playthrough. Almost every Werehog stage I played for the first time took me at least half an hour to get through, with Arid Sands Night taking me an hour to complete. And as a result, the Werehog stages can occasionally just feel… frustrating. There were definitely a few times where I kept dying to the same fight sequences over and over again coming right after another fight sequence with no chance to replenish my health, or just having way too many enemies in an area at one time. I think this is probably where a lot of the criticism comes from and I can probably say it makes the Werehog stages feel extremely monotonous. The Wii and PS2 versions of Unleashed I feel handled the structuring of the Werehog stages better by separating them into shorter individual acts, even the levels themselves I don’t find as good as the PS3/360 counterparts. And the Werehog stages themselves I feel bring down the pacing of the game by a long shot, which makes me come to the conclusion that while I consider the Werehog in general to be good and fun gameplay… it’s just not very good Sonic gameplay. Maybe if it was in it’s own, separate game it would be better, just not mixed in with the otherwise fast-paced gameplay of Sonic Unleashed. But again, I don’t really find the Werehog in general to be that bad, and I can at least say it’s pretty fun. I just think it’s kind of a case that Nostalgia Critic described in his Disneycember review of Lilo and Stitch - one part of the game is done pretty darn well, but then you get into the other part that’s just “good” but still kind of brings down the game’s overall enjoyment. I kind of feel like the Werehog probably would have been better in it’s own game and it’s own IP, and it just doesn’t really belong in a Sonic game.

That said, I don’t necessarily think the day stages are perfect either. Like I said, they still do have those core elements of the Boost formula I enjoy, but I still feel like, as ExoParadigmGamer pointed out, this game majorly suffers from “First Game Syndrome” and having the “Sega Learning Curve.” I know I said this game was my new favorite 3D Sonic game in my PS3 retrospective, but part of that was mostly just the honeymoon phase after buying a new system and games, and the more I played through the game I kind of found that my enjoyment started declining. I feel like a lot of the day stages especially towards the middle and end of the game have a lot of Sonic’s worst level design tropes and I can tell some of it was likely rushed considering the somewhat limited development time for all the stuff they had in the game. One of the most prominent issues I had with the game was Sonic’s control. I was perfectly fine with how Sonic controlled in Colors and Generations and hell, even Forces, and I was kind of hoping I could say the same for Unleashed, but the problem I found was that Sonic was a bit too… sensitive. In the hub worlds, he seems to walk at a normal speed, but once you get into the Entrance Zones and levels themselves, Sonic just goes way too fast when simply walking normally. Even just slightly tilting the analog stick seems to make him run too fast, and it really shows when trying to do some of the game’s 3D platforming. One of the main reasons why I could never get into Sonic Heroes was simply due to the controls being too sensitive and slippery, and as someone who’s played the shit out of the later boost titles and knows their controls pretty well… Unleashed made me feel the same way I felt about Heroes when I tried going back to it. Granted, I will say that since Unleashed is far more polished, the controls were at least precise enough to the point where I wasn’t running into weird control-related glitches or issues, but it was still enough to where I couldn’t pull off precise jumps or moves very well with how sensitive and slippery Sonic felt in this game.

And that brings me to another thing, the moveset. This is, again, something I’ve always enjoyed about the Boost games, giving Sonic a great set of moves that make the levels more interesting to speed run and go back to. And I think Sonic Unleashed does a good job of this, but I still have some complaints. For one thing, the drift just… isn’t very good in this game. Again, when compared to Generations, it feels a bit too… loose to me. A lot of the time I used it on tight corners I just ended up going off the track, in some cases falling to my death. It makes the drift feel kind of useless in this game because it’s just such a mixed bag here. The homing attack is also somewhat weird in this game, as unlike in Colors or Generations it’s mapped to a separate button other than the jump button, meaning that when you jump you can’t simply press the button twice to home in on an enemy, something that was done in later boost games and, hell, even the Adventure games. It doesn’t take long to get used to, but it is slightly annoying and even then there were a number of times where I found myself using the typical scheme of pressing the button twice thinking it would work for the homing attack. There’s also upgrades Sonic can get throughout the game, which helps, but at the same time I also kind of wish that Sonic just had all these moves unlocked from the beginning, and with that aside I still feel there’s some problems here. The air boost is one ability, but my problem with it is that it’s mapped to the same button as the homing attack. And there were a number of moments in the levels where I found myself attempting a homing attack but because I was split second too late I would end up doing an air boost and falling to my death, an issue I mostly had with the later levels in the game.

And there’s also the Bobsled that appears in a few levels and every time it just felt like a pain to control. It’s kind of hard to describe, but it just felt too loose in general, and there were a number of times I would die in these parts simply because I underestimated how far the bobsled would go in one direction or the other.

One of my biggest issues with Sonic Unleashed’s level design is that it feels like it’s designed way too much around trial and error and reaction-based gameplay. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t really mind this approach to Sonic level design, and when it’s done well it works to the series’ advantage. But as someone who will die on the hill of defending Sonic 2’s level design, I felt Unleashed’s levels were full of cheap deaths to the amount of crap that flies on you with little to no time to react. It feels like most of the stages’ replayability comes from trial and error shit in order to get a better ranking, and I will give the game one point over Generations in that it takes a lot more to S-rank stages than just not dying. But the problem here is that in order to really “perfect” these stages you need to have them memorized like that back of your hand, and know what’s coming, and to someone who’s playing the game for the first time casually… that’s just not going to happen. Quick Time Events are a prominent part of the game’s reaction-based nature, and the more I played of the game… the more I felt they just got annoying. If they all were merely a way of scoring extra points like with Sonic Generations’ rainbow rings or a form of faster movement that sent you into different passageway to get better timing on the levels, then I really wouldn’t have a problem, and to this game’s credit that’s what they do for the most part. But there are still several occasions, especially towards the end of the game where they are straight up required to progress, and not only did I feel it broke the overall pacing of the game and felt like extra padding, but felt somewhat frustrating since I was constantly making mere mistakes that lead to my death. And then there’s also the levels that have sections where you’re running on water, which is just a straight up pain in the ass. If you make even a slight mistake on any of these levels, you instantly die and the game gives you no room in these sections for experimentation, again making the game feel too frustrating. And I think that’s just an issue I have with Unleashed’s day stages in general - there really isn’t as much room for experimentation as there are with other 3D Sonic titles. There are hidden paths and areas here and there, but they aren’t to the same level of Sonic Generations, Adventure 1, 2 or even Colors. And when there are hidden paths, they pretty much require having split second reaction times to gain access to. This isn’t even mention the occasional times where the game has issues of being too linear for my liking, and it overall makes it feel like in order to S rank these stages, you have to play EXACTLY the way the developers intended.

Now, again, I want to make it clear that I don’t dislike the day stages. There are some levels I think achieve among the best of the “boost” titles, namely Rooftop Run Day (which is hands down one of my favorite 3D Sonic stages of all time) and Windmill Isle Day. This game does have it’s share of well designed stages that feature the core elements of the boost games. And while some levels contain some of my annoyances, the game’s levels are generally fun to play and speed through as long as you’re playing them casually.

But then we come to Eggmanland, and that’s where I feel a lot of this game’s biggest problems regarding both playstyles are particularly prominent. Now, I understand that obviously being the last stage and somewhat of the “big finale” of the game’s main levels, the difficulty will obviously be greater than any other level in the game, but I feel with this level the difficulty curve is extremely steep and the game goes overkill with this level. Eggmanland as it is is a fucking long stage. Just my first time playing through the stage without losing all of my lives took me over an hour to complete, and I’m positive that with my other attempts where I lost all my lives it probably took at least 2 hours in order to finish this stage. For what it is, this stage does have a cool mechanic of switching between the Werehog and Speed-based gameplay at certain points throughout the level. But god damn it, this level is easily one of my most hated stages, not only in Unleashed, hell, not even just as far as 3D Sonic games go, but one of my most hated stages in the series period. Pretty much every one of the game’s biggest design flaws accumulate here, creating one of the most long, drawn out and frustrating levels in any video game. It’s hard to explain it myself, but pretty much every person who’s played through the game is aware of Eggmanland and how much of a pain in the ass it really is. In the Werehog sections, there’s constant fights with way too many enemies on the screen at a time with little opportunity to replenish your health, among somewhat annoying “tightrope” platforming where I constantly died for making a small mistake. And the day stages are full of reaction-based, trial and error gameplay with stuff flying at you with little time to react. And what makes it worse is that you’re still tied to the same handling of lives as the rest of the game, so if you lose all of your lives, you have to start the stage all over again no matter where you were at first. I feel like the only reason I was even able to finish this level for the first time was because of a trick where you can constantly get 1-ups towards the beginning of the stage during the first Werehog section. Basically, at one point where there’s a platform with a bunch of Eggman robots before some… things that you latch onto and carry you to the next part of the level, you can obtain an extra life, and when you stay onto the moving things for too long, the game gives you a free life. So you know what, I just ended up spending 10 minutes grinding and waiting for a bunch of lives. It gets boring, but if you don’t have a lot of lives when playing this level, it’s definitely worth it. I can safely say that I much preferred the Wii/PS2 version of this stage, since it’s split into five separate acts, which means not only can you take breaks in between stages but you also don’t have to worry too much about losing all your lives and losing an hour of progress.

Thank god for that.

But either way, Eggmanland on the PS3/360 version of the game is an example of a stage that keeps me from wanting to play through this game again. It kind of sucks, because for the most part I can get enjoyment out of both Unleashed’s Day and Night stages, and I may at times go back to those levels individually, but just knowing there’s Eggmanland to deal with makes me just not want to fully replay this game, at least for a long while.

And that’s… kind of the thing. You know how earlier in this review I mentioned I’d rather have a shorter game that I enjoy consistently (i.e. Generations/Colors) rather than a longer game that ends up dragging for me? Well, unfortunately, the latter is that case with Unleashed, and it’s precisely why I would be lying if I said I would put it over Colors and Generations. And for what it is, the game has a pretty great start and mostly pretty good levels, even towards the end, it’s just that I also feel certain levels can get somewhat annoying and frustrating and I feel like this game in general has an issue with padding. Which gets me to another thing, the Sun and Moon Medals. I… really don’t understand why they felt the need to put this in the game. I wouldn’t necessarily mind it if they were only used as rewards for completion and used to unlock extra content like in the Wii and PS2 versions, but you need them to progress through the game, and if there’s a level you need to get into in order to continue your playthrough of the game and you don’t have enough? Welp, too bad, have fun trying to scavenger hunt in the hub worlds and levels. All this really did for me was just add another layer of padding to the game and I genuinely feel that the game would have been better without them.

Well, last thing I have to talk about is probably the presentation. Sonic Unleashed is often said to be one of if not the best looking Sonic games, and while I don’t necessarily agree with that, this is still visually impressive for a 2008 PS3/360 game. The lighting within the stages tends to look pretty good, and the prerendered cutscenes are really good looking overall. And for once, this game has human beings that don’t clash with the rest of the Sonic characters, so that’s good. I should also talk about the hub worlds since I’m on this, but I think the hub worlds in Sonic Unleashed are definitely pretty interesting and probably the best hub worlds in any Sonic game that I have played. Then there’s the level and hub themes themselves which take after real-world countries and I think they do a pretty good job of reflecting that in the level.

My main issue with the graphics, though, is… well, the optimization. The game has a bad tendency to lag and drop frames a lot, and I found this to be most common with the Werehog playstyle in the hub worlds which just felt laggy in general. And when it happened, which was pretty often, the lag stood out like a sore thumb and as a PC nerd who thinks anything less than 60FPS is bad… I really can’t say I enjoyed those moments of lag.

The music, though, is constantly good, and since everyone seems to agree with that, I might as well not go on too much about it. Although “Endless Possibilities” is one of my favorite Sonic songs and it made me pretty nostalgic when I realized it was by the same band who created the Phineas and Ferb intro.

Now, in the end, it may sound like I was being fairly negative towards Sonic Unleashed in this review, but I just want to stress that I still liked the game overall. I did have fun with it between both the day and night stages and would definitely consider it one of the better 3D Sonic games. And there are a lot of categories I think it does exceptionally in, like storytelling and presentation. But at the same time, there are still issues I have with it’s game design that kind of prevent me from considering it one of my favorite Sonic games in the series. When Sonic Unleashed goes high, it really goes high, but when it goes low, it really goes low, and with some of the stage designs and controls… there were definitely some lows here. Overall, I just can’t say that I consider this to be my favorite 3D Sonic game now that I’ve played through it. As far as 3D Sonic games go I’m not entirely sure whether I’d put this above or below Sonic Adventure 1 and Lost World and I can definitely say for sure that I still find myself putting this game below Generations, Colors and Adventure 2. I definitely feel the boost formula was improved with the former 2 games, and while this game is still good on it’s own I would still grade it as a “B” game rather than an “S” or “A” rank.