Sonic Unleashed

By Brent Oxford

May 3, 2009

The Sonic series has had its share of ups and downs...well, a lot of downs. While games like Sonic Rush and the Sonic Advance series brought some life back into the franchise, games like Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 show just how bad it can get for our spiky hero. Sonic Unleashed looked promising to bring Sonic back to solid ground with 2D/3D hybrid running stages. It's a great game...until you realize that only makes about a quarter of the whole game. The other 75%? Not so much.

You're not going to find any complex story here. Dr. Eggman is back and up to no good as always. The doctor blasts Earth apart into several pieces with a space cannon which is powered by the seven Chaos Emeralds so he can awaken a monster sleeping deep inside the planet called Dark Gaia, a monster which Eggman wishes to be able to control. How does Eggman get all seven emeralds to pull this off? You can blame Sonic for that. After going Super Sonic and laying waste to some of Eggman's ships, Sonic gets tricked and is rendered trapped and helpless as Eggman releases Dark Gaia. However Sonic, being in such close proximity to the Chaos Emeralds as they are being used by Eggman, goes under a much different transformation than he ever has before, and Sonic the Werehog is born.

Sonic's gameplay is a massive breath of fresh air for the franchise. Sonic runs through stages at blistering speeds, collecting rings and attacking anything that gets in his way. Fans on the Sonic Adventure games will be pleased to see Sonic still has all his trademark powers like the light dash and the homing attack. Sonic has new moves however. His sonic drift allows him to make tight turns without losing speed, and the sonic boost, similar to the one found in Sonic Rush, allows for sonic to run even faster and plow through enemies by using up a boost meter which is refilled by collecting rings. Finally, his new sidestep ability lets Sonic quickly adjust his position to avoid any obstacles or enemy attacks.

You would think from just reading that that Sonic Unleashed was a great Sonic game and would please any long-time fans who have been awaiting his glorious return. Well, remember that other 75% of the game? That's where Unleashed starts its downward spiral.

Sonic in the daylight is a super fast hedgehog. Sonic at night is a stretchy-armed slow werehog, whose gameplay could best be summarized as God of War combined with Prince of Persia. . . but not as good as either of them. You can upgrade the werehog's attacks and health with obligatory red orbs, but all you ever need to get through any fight in the game are the attacks Sonic has at the beginning. None of the new attacks are fun to use or interesting. The werehog is also the game's main source of platforming, although most of it is pretty basic and sometimes a bit touchy. Don't be surprised to find yourself running into a pit when all you did was nudge the analog stick to try and have him walk. Climbing and swinging off poles and catching levitating hooks to reach far away ledges has all been done before in other games and Unleashed does nothing to make these segments unique or exciting. Thankfully, Sega included Gamecube and Classic Controller support as well as the Wii remote + nunchuck combo. However, using the Wii remote requires you to shake the remote and the nunchuck to attack with each of Sonic's fists, which can be annoying and tiring to some.

Unleashed's presentation is actually very good. The game starts off with a beautiful CG cutscene, and the Wii's other cutscenes are the ingame cutscenes from the 360/PS3 version of the game. The Wii's ingame graphics are also well done. The game features clean graphics and nice effects, although you won't really notice the graphics much anyway when you are blazing through levels as Sonic in hedgehog form. The audio is pretty amazing, with some genuinely memorable music tracks. The voice acting is improved over Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. That may not be saying much, but the voice acting is about as good as you can ask from the 4kids cast.

Sonic Unleashed had huge potential to reinvigorate the Sonic franchise, but fans of the adventure games will be put off completely by the werehog's gameplay. The game features many unlockables such as artwork and the game's soundtrack, but all these unlockables require you S-rank every stage in the game, including the werehog stages, meaning that most players will never gather the patience necessary to unlock everything. Overall, your enjoyment of the game depends entirely on how much werehog you can tolerate. Not many gamers will have that level of tolerance.

About the Author: Brent Oxford has been gaming for over 18 years and started like many of us playing Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. This is his second article for Elder-Geek.com