Sonic Unleashed (Playstation 3) Game Review

Sonic Unleashed was one of the first games I picked out when I first bought my Playstation 3 and wanted to get some games alongside Little Big Planet to play on it. Having seen gorgeous artwork and screenshots for the game online, I figured it would be  a fun and exciting title to play - especially with Sonic being a character I've been fond of ever since I was a wee lass. Unfortunately, it instead left me with buyer's remorse and a mental note to be extremely wary of purchasing any 3D Sonic games in the future.

Still, seeing as so many people online just use Sonic as a launching pad for snarky and mean-spirited jokes, I want to start with what I liked about the game before I get into its flaws. As previously mentioned, it is a very beautiful game. The levels are bright and colorful with huge vistas of scenery to enjoy. The per-rendered cut scenes look great as well and are very nicely animated. Sonic moves with a lot of energy and personality. The only downside in this category is that the game might be a little *too* packed with visual grandeur for the PS3 hardware to handle - I noticed parts of the game where scenery would have a delay in its "load in" time , as well as moments of noticeable slowdown. I've never tried the Xbox 360 version but hopefully it runs more smoothly on that console.

The music and sound effects are fantastic. Lots of great tunes in the levels, and since each zone has a hub world as well as both day and night stages, you get a mix of relaxing, exciting and even some funky swing/jazz music to enjoy. The sound effects has plenty of punch to them, which enhances the feel of the game-play when its actually going well.

Gameplay-wise, the Werehog stages were my favorite in the game. Given the problems Sonic has had in multiple 3d titles, I really appreciate that these stages let you slow down and explore your environment. The combat is pretty fun, and it even has a leveling system which is something new for a Sonic game that I enjoyed. One of the things you can level up  is your move set, which unlocks new attacks. I found some of these moves handy, but I do think it would be nice if the menu for them showed a preview of what they look like because I wasn't always sure if I was doing them right or not. Another game-play element I enjoyed (in the Werehog levels, at-least) was how you had to collect medals to unlock new stages, kind of like how in Spyro games you need to collect enough gems or dragon eggs to reach new areas. I like mechanics like this because they give me extra incentive to explore and look for every last hidden goodie. Lastly, the "hub area" of each zone was something I enjoyed, too. You could do many hings in these areas - talk with folks, exorcise dark gaia monsters from people (which consisted of little fight scenes where you have to defeat a set number of enemies within a time limit), try out challenge modes for already completed levels, and even buy items and food! I found out late game that if you stock up a lot of rings you can then buy certain items such as steaks which will give you  a big xp boost that help you in some of the tougher werehog combat areas.

All sounds nice so far, right? Unfortunately, the running stages for this game really shot down my enjoyment of it, even with some of the werehog stages being really cool. I quickly began to dread  every single one I had to play. Sonic's movement felt really floaty/slippery to me, it's very different from the tight and consistent physics engine of the old 2D Genesis titles. The stages expect you to want to move as fast as possible, and in may places even take control away from you with invisible  speed boosts and sequences where Sonic just starts moving on his own. Even when this isn't happening, Sonic accelerates from standstill far too quickly for me to feel like I can control him very well.   The camera perspective moves around a lot and caused me to go flying off cliffs many times, an issue I also recalled having in Sonic Heroes. The running stages also include those medals I mentioned earlier, but here they're just no fun here. The high-speed on-rails game-play actively discourages exploration, and often by the time you've spotted one of the medals in a running stage you've already been forced on to the next part of the level and the camera won't let you see the way to safely get back to it. To continue the problems, some running stages even had parts where I would just fall through solid chunks of terrain and die.  Other times, the stages would have Sonic running along a wall suddenly, and it was often unclear as to if the game wanted me to hold my analog stick in the same direction or move it to it the new camera perspective. Moments like this are why I prefer the "tank controls" some 3d games have, because at-least in those you could be confident your character would continue moving forward no matter what the camera decided to do. There was at-least one auto scrolling boss fight stage where Sonic was going so fast and the visuals were so cluttered that I hah a hard time even seeing what I was supposed to do.

It can be argued that part of why I had so much stress with the running stages was that I'd often attempt to move slowly through them so as to avoid cheap deaths and keep an eye out for medals, but I feel I wouldn't have wanted to slow down if I actually enjoyed moving quickly through them. I certainly wish I could have. There were moments where things went smoothly enough that it did feel like an exciting thrill ride but that feeling would always end up getting derailed by something.  I feel that if they wanted to the stages to play more like a quick-time event roller coaster that would have been fine if they were consistent with it and didn't keep trying to add in plat-former game-play as well. If the stages played more like a beefed-up Bit Trip Runner game that might have worked better.

A warning for spoilers here, because I will be discussing the final battle - which I've actually given up on trying to finish as of writing this review. After completing the last level (Eggmanland), you're pitted up against 3 boss fights in a row. The first fight is pretty fun - because you get to be the Werehog and fight a big robot. But after that, things go downhill. Chip  takes control of a giant temple golem to fight Dark Gaia, which I was initially pumped for - a giant stone golem versus a weird Kaiju monster, fighting in a lake of lava? Sounds awesome! Well...it isn't. You don't get to fight in real time and instead have to awkwardly guide the big slow clunker towards dark gaia, trying to dodge lasers and fireballs that continued to be tough to avoid or punch down despite many, many MANY retries (though admittedly, I was probably self-sabotaging sometimes because I was having so little fun I wanted to get game over). Once you get close enough, there's a quick time event where you punch the big nasty a few times before then taking control of Sonic for what are probably the game's worst running stages of all, because they're on a timer. The game designers here probably assume that by now I've gotten really good at running stages, but the problem was that I always try to resist the railroading in them and take my time exploring them slowly - so I absolutely was not prepared for the incredibly short time limits that are suddenly introduced....anyway,  you have to repeat this cycle 3 times (which I only ever managed to pull off once, in all my attempts), and then you get another cut scene where Sonic becomes Super Sonic. In this last sequence, you have to fly around a big force field and defeat a bunch of weird tentacle things before Dark Gaia can kill Chip. I tried doing this part all sorts of different ways and could never figure out how to defeat the tentacle/heads in time, and eventually gave up on the game because, well I didn't think whatever the ending was would be worth my continued suffering. As far I was concerned, I'd made it all the way to the final boss, and that was already more effort, stress and Time I felt I'd given to a game that I feel didn't really deserve it.

Now that I've shared my painful story of dealing with the running stages and final levels, I should address the story, voice acting and writing as well. Dr. Robotnik has awakened an ancient monster, Dark Gaia, and it has busted up the world pretty badly. Sonic's goal is to put a Chaos Emerald into the temple at each of the game's zones, which will repair that particular landmass. Along the way, he meets Chip, a character that was probably intended to be cute but his american voice acting just comes across as  creepy instead. (which I feel bad saying, for all I know the voice actor is a really nice person, but he sounded....squicky. I really recommend switching this game's audio to Japanese voices from the start, he sounds much better that way). Tails makes an occasional appearance, flying with Sonic during a couple of bi-plane stages and being present in some of the hub world areas. Amy Rose also appears, and unfortunately just like in so many other games, she is written as a "generic female love interest" prop who is just there to creepily stalk and worship Sonic. The game also features a whole lot of human characters in the game's hub worlds, which  I enjoyed interacting with as they make the places I visited feel more lived-in and gave the world more lore. Lastly, while most of the game's cut scene dialogue is pretty generic, I did really enjoy one wholesome Sonic moment towards the end of the game where he tells Chip that he never felt like he needed a reason or reward to help folks with their troubles, it's just what he likes doing. Moments like that are why I like Sonic as a character even if his game's aren't always very well made.

In closing, I do feel like Sonic Unleashed's Werehog stages show a great potential of how Sonic could work well in 3D if the designers slowed things down and emphasized exploration over just making the player run really fast. Unfortunately, the hair-pulling frustration of the game's running stages and finale levels make it something I regret ever buying. If you are looking for a fun Sonic game, I recommend sticking with the 16 bit classics, or giving the newer Sonic Mania a try.