Sonic Unleashed

Game Info

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Sonic Team

Genre(s): Action

Players: 1

ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older)

Release Date: November 20, 2008

Summary

Having been broken apart by the evil Dr. Eggman, it's up to Sonic to put the pieces of the world back together again by retrieving the power of the chaos emeralds! In doing so, Sonic finds himself in a race against time and faced with an unusual situation that challenge hims in ways never before seen. Both day and night play different, yet important, roles in Sonic's newest quest... as the sun sets, a new adventure awakens. By completing a wide variety of action-packed stages, spanning the seven broken continents of the world, gamers unleash Sonic’s amazing abilities to save the world, and himself! In addition to running at high speeds, which is highlighted in four new speed mechanics, combat fighting now becomes possible. New combat, movement, functional abilities and platforming are introduced to offer increased depth and variety. Sonic Unleashed offers a re-defined experience for fans and newcomers of the franchise alike by combing picturesque & detailed scenery, an expansive world with multiple paths to choose from and dynamic viewpoints for an immersive and renewed gaming atmosphere. Along with seamless 3D to classic 2D camera transitions, the game is built on a powerful, new proprietary "Hedgehog Engine," which introduces impressive lighting abilities and new technology tailor made for Sonic’s new speed capabilities. [Sega]

Also On The Web: Official Website

What The Critics Said

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What Our Users Said

Vote Now! The average user rating for this game is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 59 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

rbee gave it an8:
First my take, then my 10 year old son's take. We bought an Xbox 360 very, very recently and loaded up on a few essential dad-kid games before leaving the store, unconcerned about reviews or seeing gameplay in action. For me, a few red flags were raised during the opening sequence and later in the game was a bit bored by the nighttime werehog elements but so far have not been troubled by them beyond fact they are different. It is certainly true that I would have passed on the game had I see those elements in action at the gamestore or online, and especially if they were not plastered with the Sonic brand. My son, on the other hand, is still thrilled. In fact, he preferred the slower and what he called "Kingdom Hearty" gameplay as werehog Sonic, and felt more like he was progressing in a game with a character he could build. Speeding through levels hje gets flustered and disinterested, gains and loses coins at random, and has no reason to feel nostalgic. His first exposure to Sonic in game form, beyond images of older Sega titles in magazines, was actually Super Smash Bros (Wii). (His first exposure to Mario was Galaxy, as well.) I feel that this Sonic game is a fantastic balance. The developers have gotten their slaps on the wrist in sales and are making up for things bit by bit to classic gamers by releasing DLC, but I don't think they've put a foot wrong here. Another thing to consider about my review: we live in Japan, and the Japanese release of the game is in both Japanese and English. Perhaps so are other versions. This makes the game particularly exotic to one or both of us, as having the ability to log in under two gamertags with save games in two languages and spice up the experience. It's rather like watching a classic Disney film get remade in a foreign language -- interesting and bizarre and much easier to accept.

Joseph C. gave it a7:
Late 2008, Sega released a game called Sonic Unleashed and I expected a lot of great things from the reviews. However, the results were anything but: X-play, Zero Punctuation, IGN, Gamespot, you name it; no one had any good things to say about it. Now X-play gave it a 2/5 which, according to their “X-play ratings 101” indicates “rental at best”, so I did. I rented the game—twice in fact—to see what all this negativity was about. Now I don’t know much about the Sonic franchise, nor have I played most of the latest games, and I’m certainly not a hardcore fan of the franchise (:P), but I really haven’t appreciated what Sega is doing to their mascot. However, being somewhere between a realist and an optimist, I really wanted to give this game a chance. I really like the idea of travelling the world and seeing all the different parts therein…at the speed of heat, and after all, a wise man once said, “You can’t spell ‘ignorant’ without IGN” (you know who you are). Besides, I had a gift card to use (Ivan, consider this review my thanks to you ;) your gift has not gone to waste). Now I know it’s a little late to review this December 2008 release, but since I had time to write a five-page review on my east coast college run, I thought I’d share what I have to say…and believe me, I have a lot to say. Now the first cutscene starts out with Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik taking over the world (OF COURSE!), using his fleet of robots, engineered by Frank Lloyd Wright, from space…again. As always, Sonic is somehow there to stop him. Exactly how he got there and how he can breathe in space are beyond me; maybe blue hedgehogs respire anaerobically. However, he is quick to be captured by Eggman’s robot spacesuit thing and uses the power of the emeralds to turn into Super Sonic. Now is it too much to ask to add the classic “Now I’ll show you” like they did in his Smash Bros. appearance? SS chases Eggman down to somewhere in the ship and he gets caught in an electromagnetic field…somehow, and the EMF turns him into a mutant monster (?) called the Werehog—PAUSE! Apparently, Sega learned from Wallace and Grommit’s the Curse of the Were-Rabbit that the prefix “were” is associated with “mutant”, but if SOMEONE did a little research, like Zero Punctuation was first to point out, it actually derives from old English to mean “man”, and we all know that the only human trait of Sonic is his opposable thumbs…and he can talk…and he walks on two feet…and wears sneakers… MOVING ON! The misnomer-ed monster falls back to the planet that we can assume is the earth—PAUSE! How does he fall from space? I’m pretty sure that Eggman positioned his fleet just out of range of the planet’s gravity. Even if he were in orbit and Sonic fell, why doesn’t he burn up? And for that matter, how does he make a print not even a foot deep in the ground from falling forty or so miles above? Is this game even worth overly examining the physics? Then Eggman lasers the earth and it cracks into pieces. Now the pieces look like wedges, so clearly, someone at Sega flunked Earth Science. I didn’t even take it, but I know cognitively that the earth’s crust is only a few miles thick, not several thousand and the rest is molten metal, not solid rock. Clearly Sega has proven that game designers need not know a thing about science in general. I’d like to point out right now that you can’t skip these cutscenes, and they’re pretty long cutscenes at that, which I guess was what Sega was planning so that they could tack on plus or minus a few hours. So while you’re watching them, you’ll probably find yourself mashing the A Button (or X on PS2/3) even though you know full well that it won’t help. Later in the game, you can change from night to day and you have to watch Sonic change forms over and over and over and over—kind of like Castlevania 2 with the “What a horrible night to have a curse” crap. Enough of that. We meet whom Sonic comes to call Chip, a weird pixie thing that is kind of like Navi or Tatl from Legend of Zelda…only he’s annoying for the both of them ten times over…and then some. He can’t remember his name. It seems like a lot of subplots revolve around characters who suffer from partial or full amnesia, but that’s just me. About ten hours later (slight exaggeration) we actually get to push some buttons and Sonic is now himself again and we are quickly reminded of what made the Sonic franchise awesome…raw speed, and lots of it. Two epically awesome levels later, the sun goes down and Sonic turns back into the weird, wolf-hedgehog thing. We now see where the &%!# hits the fan in the game and the blatant rip-off meter reads “to be continued”. Sega has used the Light/Dark concept that Nintendo has subsided off since the dawn of time—Castlevania 2, Twilight Princess, Link to the Past, Metroid Prime 2 to name a few. Now, instead of running through the stage, you fight through it…with stretchy arms…sort of like God of War. Honestly, if I want to go really fast, I play a Sonic game. If I wanted to play a game like God of War, I would play God of War, not a mere Sonic-ized ripoff. So there are various combos you can pull off, but 99.99% of the time you’ll be mashing either the punch or the melee button. Now, if the Werehog is supposed to be stronger than the Hedgehog, why do the enemies, particularly the robots, need multiple hits to destroy? Look at the Day acts where one homing attack is enough to blast the robots to smithereens. But whatever you do, do NOT press the grab button when there is a flashing arrow over an enemy’s head. You’ll be forced into this critical hit thing that is basically a light-speed game of Simon: push all the buttons and the enemy dies and lots of points for you (not that the point system really matters unless you’re one of those freaks who is hell-bent on getting an S-rank in everything). Worse yet, if you’re in a brawl and another enemy lashes out at you, your chance goes away, and if at any time you mess up, regardless of you pushing a wrong button or another enemy hitting you, the enemy regains all of its health. So let me just reiterate that your best “strategy” is to mash the punch button until all the enemies are vaporized…but wait! The night boss battles almost always require you to use the critical hit, so my advice is to just take your time because if you hit a wrong button, the boss hits you. Oh yes, need I mention the level grinding? Sonic in both forms has parameters that you need to level up. Some of them I find useless and the only exceptions are Health and Power. Combat gives you a new combo that you’ll most likely never use, Unleash elongates that gauge but you’ll hardly use that ability except only so many times, Shield…as they say in Brooklyn, fugettahboutit, so just level up those two aforementioned useful parameters and unless you’re going for an Xbox achievement, just leave the others alone. Now back to the story. Big E has opened the core of the planet to awaken Dark Gaia. So…this thing is an evil version of the Greek Goddess of the earth? Or maybe it’s just the fierce knight and dragon champion from the children’s card games. I don’t know, but this wouldn’t be the first time the Sonic franchise had a plot revolving around a fictional legendary malevolent beast (Solaris, Black Death, Erazer Djinn, the Babylon Guardian). You go to different parts of the planet which we are forced to assume is Earth, each place representing a different part of the world, and I can name almost all of the represented areas. You start in Apotos—representing Santorini, Greece with the town on a cliff overlooking the sea with windmills on rocks. Later, you go to places like such: Spagonia—Avila, Spain with its Roman Aqueduct Mazuri—central Africa and the ancient kingdom of Mali Holoska—Inuit village in northern North America most likely Chun-Nan—village in the valley of northern China Shamar—Cairo, Egypt (…possibly…would somebody like to elaborate?) Empire City—New York City, as is made obvious by the Brooklyn Bridge in the background…ohhhh I get it cause New York is the “Empire State” rotflmaoqxz154 Adabat—island village in the Caribbean, although the flag is reminiscent of Republica Dominicana Anyway, your goal is to run by day and fight by night through these towns to get where you need to go. As a whole, the day acts are fast-paced and exciting, except for the 2nd Acts. Most of them are a pain and the easily frustrated are advised to avoid them. Most of the time, you are forced to push a series of randomized buttons in a classic Zero Punctuation case of “Press X to not die”…except it’s “Press X in the next half-second or you suck at life”. The one I have in mind is the Mazuri Act 2. This requires you to drift turn around a figure-8 circuit, which most likely you’ll never use so you cannot get used to the timing. It’s like driving a car with a manual transmission. Once you get the hang of it, it can be fun. The only difference is that it’s actually possible to get the hang of driving the stick. You have to get the timing just right and it’s unclear just what that timing is. This is the one time where you want the button to pop up in the middle of the screen to cue you to push the button, but it doesn’t happen. Every single time I end up going over the edge. It would be nice to just run slowly around the track but you’re on a time limit and if you don’t finish, you die…somehow. Another pain is the Shamar Act 2. Most of the level is the same old “Press X to not die” but the first time there’s a pattern: look at the platform and press the same colored button. Unfortunately, the next part takes away the colors and you’re jumping on gray “?” ones, leaving your only hint as the half-second cue that comes too late for you to do anything about it. The Adabat night Act 2 is also a pain in the rear end. You have to fight a whole army of enemies that seem to regenerate. Not to mention there are two fire magicians that rejuvenate other enemies and if you touch them, you get set on fire. There are a few barrels of water in the arena, but you’ll probably bust them open in the brawl and by the time you think you’ve got the upper hand, you notice that your health is getting low and there’s nothing you can do about it—and you die. Of course there’s water all around you, so just jump in, right? WRONG! Sonic can’t swim; the water’s just there for Sega to kick you in the gonads and laugh at you for attempting this futile idea. Now I’m gonna get a little nit-picky on this game. First of all, this has always bugged me about the 3D Sonic games: why the &$%# can’t Sonic swim? I know that real hedgehogs can’t swim and for that matter, Sonic couldn’t really swim in the first place, but even still, he didn’t just drown upon putting his face in three feet of water, not to mention that back in the day, the physics actually made some sense in the idea that you fall more slowly. Worse is that this game requires you to run across it like a brown basilisk lizard. There’s a set speed and a very fine line that is the difference between zoom-zoom and glub-glub. Going back to Adabat night Act 2, it would be nice to just be able to jump in the water cause most likely after that brawl, you’re on fire and gradually getting your health bar drained. Not only can even the Werehog not swim, he can’t even get his shoe wet. Since he can double jump, why is it that Sonic can’t barely touch the water to douse the flames and jump back onto the platform? Holoska Act 2 is one where you are running on the water and are required to dodge upcoming spikes. Just touch one and you’re dead. The problem is that this is the part where the camera turns to side-scrolling mode and you can’t see the spikes coming up so you have to use ESP to dodge them. This is also annoying when you’re running along the side of a wall and there are spikes: just touch your big toe to it—you fall. Then there’s that dreaded homing attack. Now it’s all good when you’re jumping enemies, but why is it so difficult to swing on a series of poles. You can only go in four directions and you don’t know which way until Sonic lets go, and then and only then do you see the homing reticle show up on another pole. As X-play says, “It doesn’t always work and when it doesn’t, you die”. Even worse is that once you get the ability to use the boost in the air, it’s on the same button! I’ve had it happen where there is an off-camera object with the reticle and I want to boost, but I end up homing on the object instead. The example that comes to mind is the utterly confusing Shamar level select area. You’re trying to get across by means of the boost? Sorry, but unbeknownst to you Sonic is actually targeting the off-screen hourglass on the ground thirty feet down. Again, you then hit it and have to watch Sonic turn into the Werehog and hit it again to get back to the day map. However, the most annoying thing about this game is the medal system. As you progress through the game, you collect sun and moon medals that are required to access the different worlds during the day and night respectively. Where this gets really annoying is later when the stages get into the higher levels of required medals. Once you get to Shamar, the stages are level 4, which require something like 50 sun medals. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the medals weren’t so few and far in between, not to mention in secret out of the way areas, and when you need to get more, you have to go back to the earlier stages to collect them! This is more proof that Sega was deliberately trying to make this game longer by making you go BACK through the worlds you already explored to get A FEW MORE MEDALS! Overall, this game expects too much of you. The question on the table is: are there any redeeming features in this game? The answer is yes, quite a few actually. This game is a mixed bag. The Werehog may have been something of a bad idea, but Unleashed does a lot of things right. First of all, Sega left us with the bare basics in terms of the plot…for the most part. They did away with Sonic’s array of multicolored Happy Tree Friends. Tails has a minor place in the story, but he was there since Sonic the Hedgehog 2, so he’s clean. Amy just stands around nagging about her love for Sonic despite him being a hideous, misnomered beast at night, but you don’t see her too often, so I’ll let that slide. Then some guy named Professor Pickle who just stands around waiting for you to cough up souvenirs from around the world and telling you stuff that you already know don’t need to know, or just plain don’t give a rat’s @$$ about. Other than that there’s no Rouge flying around flaunting her bat-cleavage and causing the lifeless to touch themselves all day (or maybe that was just me…that’s a lie). No Knuckles bragging about his spiky fists. No BIG to talk like Barney the Dinosaur (seriously, that’s what he sounds like). No Espio, Cream, Blaze, Silver, Vector, or Charmy or the rest of the weird-colored woodland creatures to do…whatever it is they actually do. No Shadow to angst all the time about how he can’t remember his past (now that’s the job of that pixie thing only he’s much more in your FACE about it). By the way, pixie thing’s real name is Light Gaia. Okay, this is where I draw the line about the story. Sega expects us to believe that this pixie thing is supposed to be the savior of the world? Maybe next you’ll tell me that there’s such a thing as the underpants gnomes, or the toilet fairy, or the Jonas Brothers’ talent.Anyway, my point is that it’s mostly just Sonic and Eggman…and the stupid pixie thing that almost does something. Second, the day part of the game is epically fast and the levels contain both 2D and 3D sub-areas with smooth transitions between them. The Xbox 360 version that I played is extra epic. This is definitely the fastest Sonic game thus far. I think the greatest effect of the speed is when you level up enough, the music gets softer, which some people might think is a graphic flaw, but it actually means that Sonic lives up to his name and is running at the speed of sound. Third (speaking of which), and I care about this one a lot, the music in the game is top-notch. Each Day stage music is as fast as the hedgehog running to it, and every track in the game accurately represents the respective culture or just region it’s trying to. They are also quite well arranged such that each one is unique and exciting. Not to mention, the night battle theme is a great jazz combo Bebop tune. I would’ve wanted to hear Maynard Ferguson cover this song—that is, if he weren’t deceased…I guess we can settle with Wayne Bergeron. Also, kudos to Sega from pulling Bowling for Soup (1985) out from the deepest pit in the earth to do the vocal theme song, “Endless Possibility”. The result is amazing. I certainly wouldn’t mind having this music on my iPod. On a completely unrelated note, there’s a guy in every world wanting you to complete missions for--I’m not joking--CHILI DOGS! Anyone get the reference? It’s from the depressingly bad mind#%$& of a TV show, “The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog”, in which Sonic is voiced by the guy with the most annoying voice in TV history. I’ll give you a hint: “Did I do that?” The bottom line is that Sonic Unleashed is not completely horrible and it had the potential to be a great game. Don’t let my nit-picking at this game fool you. I DO enjoy it at its core. Is it something that I would spend fifty bucks on? Not really. Is it something I would recommend checking out? Definitely. If someone gives it to you, don't be hasty to trade it out; give it a shot. If you have a Blockbuster gift card or Gamefly membership, rent it a few times; just be warned that it is wrought with issues that hold it back from complete greatness. If Sega had left out the night scenes and the broken “press X to not die” scenarios, I would own this game. Sadly, I feel that Sega thinks that people want Sonic in a variety of games. It is like a group of babysitters that don’t understand baby language and are trying to guess just what the baby wants. First, they try grouping the characters into teams of three (Sonic Heroes), then having them use weapons and saying “damn” a lot (Shadow the Hedgehog), then riding hoverboards (Sonic Riders), Sonic saving an underage princess and most likely trying to meet Chris Hansen (2006), retelling 1001 Arabian Nights (Secret Rings), hoverboards again (Zero Gravity), the day/night God of War ripoff (Unleashed), and most recently retelling King Arthur (Black Knight). I’m sure that there are some people that like some of the things that Sonic has done, although a good number of people who are nostalgic for those Sonic classics think that Sonic should not exist anymore…period. However, I am certainly NOT one of those people. Believe you me, Unleashed is a giant step in the right direction, and has come the closest to being as entertaining as its older 2D brethren, but Sega still hasn’t gotten the formula back completely straight. Their next move should be to let the fans dictate what kind of game to produce. Then, maybe, the next game will be as kick-@$$ as Sonic the Hedgehog back in the day. Maybe even do a throwback to some of the old levels like the rendition of Green Hill in SA2. Here’s an idea and feel free to leave comments about it: a game that parallels the first two (or possibly three) Sonic the Hedgehogs. Update the graphics and gameplay to make it flow more like the day scenes of Sonic Unleashed, but make the worlds the same and have hard- or funk-rock arrangements of the old tunes with more or less the same tempo as the day stage music from Unleashed. As for the musicians themselves, I would vote for Crush 40 featuring Les Claypool. On top of that, there should be a bonus “retro” mode in which the stage graphics are recycled from the original games with faster 16-bit arrangements to create the feeling that one is back in that time. Personally, I would pay top dollar for such a game. Here’s another: Eggman is trying to take over the Solar System instead of the world and Sonic has to travel to different planets, each with a separate gravity field to add to the variation of the levels. I have faith that this third-party company can make a Sonic classic like the first few. It’s all a matter of getting straight what we really want. And one last thing: make sonic swim or don't even put him near the water!

Cole gave it an8:
You know, this game really took way too much flak. I'll admit, when saw the first trailer of werehog gameplay, I thought it was by far the dumbest Sonic gimmick SEGA had come up with yet. But I checked the game out, and I was actually pleasantly surprised. I daresay the daytime stages of this game are Sonic at his absolute best, and even the werehog stages are decently fun. It's by no means perfect, but given Sonic's recent fiascos, this is definitely a return to his roots and a huge step in the right direction.

litb007 gave it a6:
Sonic Unleashed is half n' half. The daytime stages are very fast and completely redone to make a great Sonic game experience. Enemies only hurt you when they attack you, rail-switching locks onto available rails even when they curve off and the homing attack comes with a lock-on graphic to help players land attacks without flying off into the distance by mistake. Sonic's 'Sonic Boost' lends him the ability of high-speed when you want it and the ease and satisfaction of smashing enemies at the speed of sound, Quick-step helps greatly in avoiding incoming objects but I feel the Sonic-Drift is annoyingly too slippery in turns. Despite the controversy with the Night-time Werehog levels, it offers a new fighting experience that tends to run on for a long time and tedious when you don't level-grind stats well. The second werehog level is downright difficult for first-time players and my god, the checkpointing they did for the Werehog levels was unbearable! The town hubs used in the game work out pretty good! Obviously based something like Sonic 06' but less crappy, the NPC townspeople look and emote like characters you would see in Pixar movies, very emotional at times to fit the text dialogue. The voice-acting for Sonic Unleashed has said to be 'improved' though I honestly couldn't tell the difference, it's okay to me, though Chip has a voice that's very different I must say. One big drawback is the medals system they put in place, requiring to collect Sun medals to unlock Daytime stages and Moon medals for night-time stages, for those trying to get to the end quickly will end up getting stuck because they didn't slow down to find them hidden throughout the stage, and towards the end of the game, the requirement gets irritatingly high. It would've been more suitable to just make it optional for extra powers or unlockables instead. Despite the crap reviews this game gets, I feel it's only because the Werehog wasn't just a strange gimmick but was poorly executed, much like a downgraded version of 'God of War'. What Sonic Team did with the Town hubs and especially the daytime gameplay was truely spectacular, it could've toned down the Quick-time events bit but a whole game involving the daytime gameplay would be a true revival of the Sonic series. In short: Daytime levels rocks, please do more. Werehog levels are occasionally fun when you max stats but so very tedious. It has some gems of awesome Sonic gaming but just has a whole load of boring crap strewn around it.

Marcus L. gave it a10:
Sonic Unleashed is an awesome game. No, that's not going to be the ENTIRE review. But let me explain why. Firstly, the day stages. Every review I've seen praises these stages greatly, since they are reminicent of the good old 90's Sonic games. Addtionaly, Griffith's voice has improved. Massively. As does Amy Palant's Tails voice. Now, he sounds like a boy. FINALLY. Now, the night stages, the biggest downside. According to most. The night stages are great. Yes, they are repetitve and yes, can be annoying. But there is a ton of ways you can complete the stage. Trying out new combos, finding stuff, and all that jazz. Also, Chip. Another downer. But, actually, on the 360 version, you rarely hear him. Not that it's a good thing. Chip is a great addition. All in all, Sonic Unleashed shows one thing. Sonic is back and better than ever, after a 7 year 'break'. Fingers crossed for Black Knight, eh?

Hbran456 gave it a9:
Sonic Unleashed is SEGA's latest attempt at making a fun and interesting Sonic game, and the good thing is...they have succeeded. The game is split into two main parts, night and day, which most people already know. The day sections feature our favorite super sonic hedgehog, in one of his most enjoyable outings yet. The countdown starts at the beginning of the stage, Sonic yells "GO!" and you are sent screaming through the level. The controls are flawless, the framerate rarely dips, and for the first time in years the camera is amazing. The drift mechanic and the speed boost are welcomed additions. Drift lets you skid around corners at high speeds and speed boost (my personal favorite) makes you go crazy fast and is terrific fun. The second these stages started I got a huge smile on my face and I began to remember what a good Sonic game was all about. When the night stages started, however, my smile slowly faded. In night stages you play as a slow werehog, which isnt nearly as fun as Sonic, but...it's not that bad. Compared to the day stages, yes, they are slow, clunky, and sort of repetitive. But after a while, you get used to it and it is quite fun. Overall, Sonic Unleashed is a a must-buy for any Sonic fan, and I reccomend it to anyone who wants to play a fun and exhilarating game. Lets face it, there is just something amazing about running really, really freaking fast.

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