I meant to post this review last week and I’m now glad I held my tongue, as it would of read a lot differently, specifically it would of been a lot more incensed and dissatisfied. I’ve been waiting for Sonic Unleashed since the day I wrapped Sonic & Knuckles 13 years ago. I’d hoped it would be a complete return to form, but it is not. That is not to say this game is not without it’s merits. In my opinion it is a step in the right direction.

Story: 7/10

The production quality of the CGI cut scenes is second to none. With the opening sequence dropping your jaw as you watch Sonic speed along Eggmans spaceship taking out Badniks, then transforming into Super Sonic, chasing Eggman as he tries to escape only to be caught in a trap and infused with the energy that Eggman is trying to harness from deep in the planet Mobius, called Dark Gaia, which turns Sonic into his night time alter ego, Werehog. This extraction of the Gaia energy breaks the planet apart and it’s now Sonics job, along with a friend he meets by coincidence named Chip, to restore the planet by returning all the Chaos emeralds to their temples. As Sonic stories go this one is actually fairly layered and deals with your usual struggle between light and darkness, good and bad, day and night. With Sonic transforming into his sluggish, stronger Werewolf-esque form as the sun sets (although why this gives him stretchy arms and spikes on the bottom of his shoes I’ll never know). So you fight the battle on 2 fronts, fighting Eggman and his Badniks as well as the minions that spawned over the Earth when Dark Gaia was released.

Design: 8/10

The game quickly introduces you to how you are going to progress through it. You choose your destination from a world view perspective where you can see which parts are still broken apart and which parts you have completed. From there you enter the City Area and from there you then enter the Entrance area and from there you can get to your next level. This is the games biggest flaw, and I mean, huge, this flaw will be a deal breaker for some people who will just get sick of looking at the mundane and drab loading screen that has some pointless scrolling programming code. No exaggeration, you will probably spend 25% of your time on loading screens or just commuting on foot to your next level. There are no options to skip right to the next level unless you’ve already completed the level. For the first few levels you will confused where and when you have to go next. Some levels require you to find special shoes to reach them and you are never prompted as to when they have been unlocked. To unlock levels you need to collect hidden coins, Sun coins representing the runner levels you play as Sonic and Moon coins representing the levels you play as the Werehog. For the most part the moon coins are in the Sonic levels, which are a real pain as it breaks from the speed and flow of the levels when you have to stop and traipse back and forth looking for the hidden coins. Within the first hour or so I almost quit out of frustration. I only wanted to be running Sonic through loops, instead I was aimlessly looking around for some special shoes, which when I found I realized that the level I was trying to play needed to be unlocked by collecting a load of hidden coins.

A lot of the time you will find yourself just loading and reloading different stages to see if you’ve unlocked any new levels, you then have to reload the stage in day and night to check if either Sonic or the Werehog has a new level available. It becomes tedious and boring fast and if you aren’t willing to suffer it for the decent enough Werehog levels and excellent running levels then you’ll probably quit.

Gameplay: 7/10

Overall, in retrospect, the game is a success in my opinion. The Werehog stages, whilst much longer, and less enjoyable to the Sonic levels, where still pretty good. The combo system allows for upgrades of your various abilities, which is not automatic, allowing you to choose which aspects you favour more. For me I rarely used the Werehog Shield or Unleash ability (where he goes berserk for a short period and can do a lot of damage) so I mainly upgraded his combos, life and strength. As a brawler it does fairly well, but falls short as a platformer. Some of the obstacles were such that the camera was locked and you where unaware of where you would  be dropping to or falling off of. I also felt that the game developers knew a lot of the puzzles where trial and error so they have provided an extra near every checkpoint so that you can try the area, inevitably die, then go back to the checkpoint and collect the life again. Of particular frustration where the balancing beam areas, as the camera would choose when and how it would move without your consent, you had to always be wary that at any moment the camera would swing, thus changing your direction and making you walk off the balancing beam. Again it was trial and error, once you had tried it a few times you could remember the cameras scripted movements and counter accordingly, but still its a flaw to not leave camera control solely with the player. On top of this, the game more than uses the much abhorred quicktime button mashing events, which almost seem like an industry standard at this point. To the point were there are entire levels that are just quicktime events. Still, your average veteraned gamer will make mince meat of them if they know their controller buttons off by heart without having to look at them, although on more than one occassion I had to grit my teeth in frustration as I missed the last button prompt forcing me to redo it all over again.

Aside from this, the Sonic levels are a breath of fresh air. I’ve heard it said that this game would of been better if they had left out the Werehog altogether, left out the horrible loading and commuting system and just released a linear game with all the Sonic levels for download off PSN or Xbox live. I would heartily agree with this. Every other aspect of the game is mere seasoning to the Sonic levels which have been executed really well. For the speed that Sonic is moving at it is amazing that there is no choppiness in framerates. The control system is such that Sonic really only feels at home when he is at ful pelt running, jumping, grinding and boosting in a straight line. These levels are really nothing more than glorified timetrials but bring Sonic back to the his past glory as a speed purist. There are quite a few moments where Sonic hits a jump, and everything slows down (of particular note is the first time you launch into the air thinking you are jumping out into open water only for a Whale to emerge and for you to slide along its back to safety) to let you take in the scenery and you realize how good it feels to effortlessly be moving at Sonic speeds and twitch maneuvering him around obstacles that are gone as soon you’ve seen them on the horizon.

Presentations: 8/10

The game looks simply stunning. Especially the day stages as Sonic. The opening Zone, Apotos, is brightly coloured and gleaming with white washed walls and a blue, sun soaked sky, what you will have come to expect from a Sonic game. The rest of the levels don’t disappoint either. They have all the stereotypes and architecture you’d expect from the locations these zones are supposed to represent (i.e. Apotos is Greece, Spagonia is Italy… etc) I also found the characters quite interesting, to the point where I didn’t mind talking to them, their mannerisms and expressions where well done as you would be reading their text bubbles.  The game does suffer in the Werehog levels though, the framerates drop and become choppy when there are more than a handful of badniks or Dark Gaia baddies to fight. The levels are also quite drab in comparison to the gleaming day stages. They have attempted to offset this by making the Dark Gaia baddies neon but this is merely a band aid in my opinion. Overall, the day stages and the excellently designed City areas save it though. They are a  pleasure to look at and explore.

Conclusion:

Sonic Unleashed is not without its flaws but what really saved the game for me was the grueling finale, which will last for well over an hour, or two, if you play through it from start to finish without break. It has a number of false endings which really push you and make it feel like a struggle at times. But its arduous and ends on a crescendo of epic proportions which equals if not betters the impact of the opening. Any die-hard Sonic fan will not be disappointed at the end. All in all it leaves you with a feeling of achievement, which all games should, and ends up being a game I’m placing in my mind next to Sonic & Knuckles, as a stepping stone to greater things to, hopefully, come.

Score: 7.5/10

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Pro-tip (possible spoilers):

I played this on the PS3, so I cannot guarantee this will be the same for the Wii/PS2/360. For the last Zone, when you have to hitch a ride with Tails before going to Eggman Land, make sure you have a stockpile of over 20 lives. You will lose a lot just testing out parts of the levels which will be completely different to anything else you will have faced in the rest of the game. To get a stockpile easily, here’s how I did it.

1: By this point you should have all the shoes unlocked, if not then get them.

2. Go to Apotos and load the entrance stage. Head to the bridge on your right that has 3 badniks standing on it. Mid way along you will see some flying badniks, jump out and do some homing attacks until you get to the last one, let yourself drop after hitting the last one and beneath you will be an extra life, jump and do a homing attack on the spring which will return you back to the bridge. Next, move along the bridge where you will see more flying badniks on the left leading to another higher area, again, use your homing attack to get there. From there you will see a line of rings leading to another area, use the ability you got from the Shoes made out of rings and fly to the next platform, destroy the badnik and collect your extra life. You can then use the spring to get back to the starting area.

3. Go to Act 2: Windmill Isle. Which is right at the entrance to the Apotos entrance stage, and complete this level (you should be well able to complete it after a few tries in less than 2:30 minutes which will also net you the achievements “Blue Meteor” and “Getting the Hang of things” if you don’t lose any rings and get an S Ranking. In the first 20 seconds you’ll come to an area where you jump up and there are 3 standing badniks below you (watch the video of this level below) when you pass them and have to use homing attack to cross the gorge, look to the elevated platform on your left, if you land there, you will find an extra life

4. After this, boost for as long as possible, after you pass through the cafe you are sure to pick up at least 100 rings, giving you another extra life (you can see the person in the video below getting one). Once you’ve completed the stage you are put back in the entrance stage. What you’ll find is that the 2 lives you collected here earlier have respawned so you can collect them again.

Repeat these steps as much as you like. This will also give you a large stockpile of coins as you’ll collect at least 450 each time through Windmill Isles, which you can use to buy food to pump up Sonics stats.