If you are even mildly a Sonic fan, then this deserves at the least a rental. It's one of the best since Sonic Heroes and is much better than the past two Sonic games on consoles.
| Game Details | | | Loading Reality Scoring | |
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| Format | Xbox 360 (all 360 reviews) | Score Meaning: Above average and even teetering on "good." Ambitious ideas along with redeeming qualities outweigh the handfuls of negative, making it worth a look. | ||
| Publisher | SEGA | |||
| Developer | Sonic Team | |||
| Category | Platformer | Presentation |  | |
| ESRB | E 10+ | Gameplay |  | |
| Online Players | 0 | Graphics | | |
| Offline Players | 1 | Sound |  | |
| Price | 49.99 | Value Factor | | |
| Release Date | November 18, 2008 | Final Score | | |
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Sonic Unleashed
Oh Sonic....you are like a crippled horse that needs either a beating to death or a cure. Well, Sonic Unleashed is both. Featuring night and day modes (literally), it's like food that tastes great at first, but has a slightly sour aftertaste. It's like Sega wants to be unique in every game, but can't get away from their roots out of grumblings from the fans.
This time around, they upped the awesome with the day mode, which features the original running stylings from past Sonic Gems like Sonic Adventure and pumps it up a bit. Unfortunately, they couldn't leave well enough alone and added a mediocre platforming/action night mode which has you stretching and howling at robots while jumping from ledge to ledge in a frustrating, yet not absolutely horrible night mode.
The day mode is very, very good. It features a mix of horizontal running and forward facing gamplay. It's almost impossible to complete a level on the first playthrough without falling out at least once, since there are many occasions where you are faced with a split-second decision like pressing a specific button displayed on screen or choosing the right path. Luckily, there is a nice checkpoint system and, at some hard points in the game, there are free lives right after a checkpoint so that you can try the challenge over and over.
Since the game is based on the separation of the earth into seven pieces, the seven areas are all based on a specific continents, which allow the levels to be varied in their presentation and feel. It is especially fun to run through some of the set pieces the designers have setup throughout the world.
In contrast to the aforementioned day mode, the night mode is a bit of a let down. You are transformed into a werehog at night and evil creatures called, "Dark Gaia" come out to play. You use a surprisingly fun combo system which allows you to either punch or kick and grab your gaia grub in a variety of ways. Sonic is also able to complete different finishing moves, customized for each enemy, after damaging an enemy to a certain point, which is a challenge and fun all in one. If you press the correct button in a certain amount of time, you score extra points and kill the enemy; if you miss, then you are hurt and the enemy regains all of its life, a very nice risk/reward system that needs to be used more.
The problem is that some parts are just a bit too frustrating. I spent many hours trying some night levels over and over again, since the tough parts in-between checkpoints sometimes come at the end of a section. It's also extremely frustrating to win a long battle and then fall off and start from the beginning because the camera moves suddenly and you fall into the abyss.
Sun Medals and Moon Medals are scattered throughout the levels in various place and are sometimes hard to attain with one or two plays of a level. You find out later that you were supposed to be collecting as many of these as possible and you must then go back and collect a certain amount to continue with the main story line. This happened twice and each time I was annoyed. They were trying to use the medals as some sort of power for your partner, Chip, but never really explained it enough to warrant making the user go back to search these levels for random medals.
You also collect rings in this game, which you save up to buy random souvenirs from each country, music, and videos that you can play after you buy a video player and radio. Seems sorta tacky when you're doing it, but the professor who you are following will eventually start handing out medals for it, so it's worth it.
To extend Unleashed, there are time trials for each level included which allow you to eat hotdogs if you win. Achievements for the win. The game is about 9 hours long, and the last levels are about 2 hours long in themselves.
3.5 / 5
