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What they say is true – you can’t go home again. Sega for the past couple of years have been trying to find that mix of speed and platforming that made the original Sonic the Hedgehog games so addictive. With the switch from 2D to 3D environments, some just got lost in the translation. Add in a host of new characters and what you get is a game far flung from the simple days of Green Hill. Sonic Unleashed hits just about all the right notes when it comes to Sonic, but falls completely flat when it comes to the rest of the game.

The Quick and The Read

Somewhere orbiting the Earth’s atmosphere, Dr. Eggman launches a laser powered by Sonic’s chaos emeralds and part of Sonic himself. The slightly singed hedgehog transforms into the somewhat stretchy werehog before plummeting to Earth and landing on a  cotton-tailed flying thing that seemingly has forgotten everything in the impact. The furry powered laser split the Earth open into a number of different sections, releasing strange creature Dark Gaia bosses, and one heck of a long cutscene. If you are playing for the in-depth story, then you’re missing the whole point of the game. You run, collect rings, beat up giant bosses, and then run some more. Everything else is just a distraction.

But it’s a pretty distraction at that. The cutscenes in Unleashed definitely have a great shine to them as well as good production value. In small doses, these little movies work well to blend the areas together and give you a little meaning to the running and collecting. There are even some extra movies hidden in areas that show off some of Sonic’s more comedic elements. Unfortunately, the first twelve minutes of the game is filled with more watching than running. Sometimes there is not enough polish in the world to replace a good skip button.

Sonic’s Back…

Squint and you almost believe that you’re back in your mom’s house playing the newest Sonic the Hedgehog game. Some of you never left. But it’s all there – the visceral feel of speed as you dash through the long stretches of enemies, the excitement of hitting those ramps just right, and of course, taking those giant loops at full speed. A new ingredient that seemed to be lacking from the previous incarnations seemed to be the smooth transitions from 3D to 2D environments and back again. Some of the problems that plagued the series in recent times such as control issues and camera control tend to melt away when all you have to worry about is moving to the right.

In addition to that, the 3D stages got a much needed boost with the controls by adding the ability to move quickly from side to side by pressing the bumpers. While the controls are not always as responsive as they needed to be, the idea behind the mechanics will make tackling that extra dimension a breeze. The bumpers not only move you but actually set Sonic on a track. Obstacles can be better tackled by observing which of the three or more tracks they happen to appear and avoiding them. Before, you would have to make a rough guess where a ramp or spike may appear on a course where you perspective is always changing. While still not perfect, players now only have to worry about moving forward.

The main courses let the most novice of players get to the end, but allow for exploration for those players looking to shave off a few seconds or collect on a higher score. To add to these tracks, the game displays some great scenery from around the world. Not all of the courses are little nuggets of speedy gold, however, as some of the more challenging courses are just brutal, requiring more of that perfect split-second jumping with fewer save points to help you through. It’s when these courses become more punishing than pleasure that the game resembles it’s more modern brethren.

… With His !@#& Werehog…

If the title kept to solely the Sonic sections, Unleashed would be, although shorter, a delight and a rare treat for fans of the blue rodent. But alas, it seems as though no Sonic title would be complete without a new bevy of estranged characters to wear on your senses and quickly muddle the process. As it turns out, the one character you will be fighting against might just be Sonic himself. After the incident in Eggman’s satellite, Sonic becomes the werehog at night – becoming bigger, stronger, slower, and all-around everything that made the daytime model so much fun to play with. 

Instead of running, the werehog plods along its stages tackling the same couple of enemies or specially designed ledges for his stretchy fingers to wrap themselves around. Compared to the daytime Sonic stages, the werehog feels like a small eternity moving from one local to the next. Defeated enemies turn into experience that can be later be put into learning new combos, increasing you life, or any number of attributes that seem to do very little to help move your hairy butt from one section to the next. The combat is simply tedious, relying on simple combos and repetitive button mashing.

It’s not the enemies that kill you but missing that next ledge will quickly take you out. The werehog levels rely too much on hitting the right jump or imprecise timing. To get to the next ledge/pole/safe area, you often have to depend of the last second catch that only appears if you’re in the right distance and right orientation to some imaginary point that will take you three or four lives just to figure out. The static camera doesn’t particularly help in these portions as well when you need move your view just and inch to the left in order to see where your jump actually lands.

… And a Bunch of Townspeople.

Between the running and frustration, Sonic navigates through sparsely crowded destinations where you often have to talk to these bots in order to find out where to go next – which is mostly frustrating in itself. Occasionally one of the townsfolk sends you on a quest to fight some bad guys or navigate a maze. Once you’re finished, Sonic gets a hearty pat on the back. That’s it. There’s no sense of accomplishment in helping these NPC’s when it’s hard to see the final payoff. While the streets and shops have their own charm to them, there’s little reason to make the player walk through this limbo just to get to the next stage of the game – if it was only that easy.

Sections open up as you collect sun and moon coins, but new locations only appear after you beat the first section of each local. While you might be able to move to the next section, you are not always guaranteed to be able to play in the next stage. Usually, passing the stage alone gives you enough coinage to pass, but there are times where you will have to repeat a stage just to find that one or two extra coins it will take to send you over the top. To add to the amount of frustration, most of the coins are found in the werehog stages where you’ll have to slog through the same enemies as before to find that one corner that you forgot to hit because you were too busy screaming at the camera controls.

Race of the Blue Queen

Oh Sonic, you’ve raced so far to only find yourself where you started. While Sega inches ever closer to finding that magical combination to create their Sonic empire once again, the rest of the game drags down whatever hope gamers had for reliving the better parts of their childhood instead of the parts where they were sorely disappointed. Maybe in three more titles and twenty-seven new characters, Sonic will finally get back on track.

Article by: James Youngblood