Sonic Unleashed box cover

Developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega, “Sonic Unleashed” attempts to bridge the gap between 2-D and 3-D with seamless transitions between the two. Several elements of different genres can be found in this title, but is that its ultimate downfall?

When we start the game, we’re treated to the standard pre-rendered intro-video but to be fair, the quality of the animation is excellent. The backdrops, the character motions, even subtle things like the hairs on Sonic’s body looks lush and plausible. Excellent visuals coupled with a decent score, I’d say the standard is close to the top Hollywood animation studios.

The premise of the game is that Dr. Eggman has almost destroyed an entire planet in order to extract the Dark Gaia energy locked in it. As the planet is broken into disjointed sections, Sonic must explore each part carefully in order to find all the hidden Temples. Once he’s unlocked the secrets inside these Temples, he can finally face Dr. Eggman in the final showdown.

As you can tell from the box cover, there’s an emphasis on Light and Dark and it is in this contrast that much of the game is set. From the beginning, Sonic has a new found ability to transform into a Werehog when it’s dark; and staying in his natural form in daytime.

The format of the game is quite similar to Super Mario 64. Each continent has a number of stages with multiple “missions” within them. Completing the missions within the set parameters will earn you Sun/Moon medals. These parameters are usually – reaching the end within a set time, collecting a certain number of rings or gathering enough force points. There are also bosses to defeat at the end of every Temple.

Force points are accumulated and when you reach a certain amount, Sonic will level up. With the ability to learn new fighting moves and inflicting more damage to enemies, the combat points system is a nice method of progression.

The game draws on many parallels, one of which is the style of game-play. During the day, Sonic is how he’s best known. The levels enable Sonic to manoeuvre in a lightning fast pace. A seamless mixture of third-person “F-Zero” type camera angles and 3-D side scrolling high octane fun.

During the night, Sonic transforms into the Werehog and the tempo slows down a bit. There’s a little more focus on exploration and collecting. Style also switches to a more conventional 3-D platform game. Instead of regular Sonic’s speed, dark Sonic has increased brute strength. Focus is shifted onto fighting which earns you combat points; collect enough of these and you can unlock special moves.

The more Sun medals and Moon medals you collect, the more secret doors you can open in each of the Temples. Inside these rooms, you can achieve power-ups such as increasing the number of lives you have. The more lives you have, the more times you can continue on a level should you fall off the edges or die from combat. The timer pauses as you re-spawn.

The controls aren’t too bad but they’re not great neither. To dash, you have to double tap the direction although this can sometimes be more difficult to get right than it should be. When swinging from pole to pole, you have to physically swing the wii-mote back and forth to gain momentum for the jump. This feels clumsy at times; especially when there’s a double jump involved. Overall, not too bad – most of the issues are in Werehog mode and are few and far between. Enough to annoy though.

Gathering every Sun/Moon medal isn’t easy, but unfortunately some of the levels are. Especially some of the ones set in day-time. When you complete them in under two minutes, you sometimes feel it was a bit of a waste. However, there are some chunkier levels and I suppose you need a few short and sharp ones to balance the pace of the game.

As you progress, you realise that Sonic Unleashed is a good attempt at offering the gamer a variety of experiences. But ultimately, even that couldn’t save the game from feeling repetitive. Even when you unlock a new continent to explore, by the third or fourth one, all thrill has evaporated. It’s a shame the game follows a very strict order of events. Unlock continent – enter arbitrary text-based conversations with locals – locate the Temple – play the levels.

The beauty of Super Mario 64 (which was obviously an influence) was that it offered variety and an array of side missions to do in between the “proper” ones. Earning those stars actually felt good whereas the medals in Sonic Unleashed don’t have the same gravitas.

Maxing out Sonic’s statistics doesn’t require as much play as it ought to. By the time you come to restore the last section of the planet, you pretty much have nothing left to level up on.

The levels don’t hold much replay value neither. Once you’ve completed (got the fastest time, most rings and combat points) each level, there’s nothing to keep you coming back.

Sadly, what Sonic Unleashed achieves more than anything is a glimpse of how great it could have been. If only more detail and care went into the structure of the game. The formulaic path the game follows feels restrictive and becomes predictable. Once something becomes predictable, it’s very easy to lose interest which is what I did.

Some of the levels were fantastic. Especially the levels in the day-time as they fully show off the size of the environment and the speed at which Sonic travels in. The way the camera zooms out as you speed into a giant loop-the-loop and the way you shoot down the tracks really emphasise what a 3-D Sonic game is all about. The buildings and water animations in the Asian continent are nothing short of beautiful.

The audio in the game doesn’t shine as much as the graphics. The usual chirpy and arcade-style tunes accompanies the visually pleasing levels. When Sonic runs over booster pads and gains more speed, a suitably mechanical whizzing noise makes the whole experience even more enjoyable and ups the G-force a notch or two.
Video segments in between finishing/beginning continents contain fairly decent voice acting.

There are quite a lot of collectable items for all you hoarders out there. 96 pieces of art – concept illustrations, level designs etc, 48 music tracks, 36 movies and 36 secret documents which offer tips on finding collectables and recaps on key-points in the game.

The game is fairly short, though. I would estimate most people will probably finish the game in about 12 hours, although getting every Sun/Moon medal and all the other collectables will add a few more hours’ game-play. For the competionist, getting every medal is no doubt a challenge. If you don’t care about that, the lifespan of the game will drop slightly.

+ Fast paced action (Day)
+ Slower, methodical exploration (Night)
+ Some excellent level designs (concept and visuals)

- Game feels short
- The blend of different genres feels half-baked
- Repetitive structure of progression

Score – 6.5 / 10