From what opinions I've gathered, the Sonic sections are awesome, fastpaced, thrill rides that, alone, would have made the game worth buying. The werehog sections are dull and tedious, full of ridiculous platforming and endless repetitive combat, but, really, if you're been playing Sonic games so far, anyone who sat through Shadow and half of SA2 know what's coming and have the patience to get though it. The graphics are the best the series has had so far and the aesthetic choices (Pixar-esque humans, huge colorful landscapes, etc) are incredible as well. The plot is simplistic yet involved, shying away from the complicated bullcrap of S'06, while actually pulling off what Heroes was trying to do. I'd recommend it for what it got right, but what it messed up is enough to put some people off.

Or: The Sonic sections are stupidly, uncontrollably fast and the Werehog Sections make a decent impression of God of War. And the whole game is made tedious with the forced collecting of Sun and Moon Medals. Overall its a step forward from Sonic 2K6.

If you are going to get a version of Unleashed the PS3/360 versions are the ones to get. (In your face Dimps)

I'll speak as someone played / beat the 360 / PS3 version (I had the PS3 Version) 100%.

Storyline-wise you can skip Sonic Unleashed. I'm pretty sure they didn't introduce any characters or concepts that will be carried over into any other game. What I just said is the biggest spoiler I could offer ever and I apologize. The storyline is very light and easy to understand. That said it's also nothing you haven't seen done better elsewhere.

Quality-wise I'd say go for it. If you played the Sonic Adventure Series you've essentially played with the Werehog. Werehog stages are a mixture between Amy's slower paced Platform Stages from Sonic Adventure and Knuckles' moveset with a lot more options. The learning curve is decent and a few of the button mashing fights are skippable especially in the first few levels. I recommend using the first few levels to grind up levels for the Werehog though. A stronger Werehog earlier in the game makes his side of the game MUCH more tolerable.

I recommend grinding in Apotos Night, first Act. Kill everything in sight and pick up all of the experience-thingys. I also recommend giving all the Time Trial Hot-Dogs (talk to the Hot Dog Vendor) to the Werehog because Sonic can easily max without them before you reach the end of the game. The Werehog takes much longer to Max but it's worth it.

The thing that'll cause you to slowdown the most by far is the collecting of Sun / Moon Medals. The Medals are much easier to find on the Werehog's stages then Sonic's so I recommend farming them from there on your first runthrough. Just search everywhere before moving on in a second and you should be able to find most of them your first run through the stage.

Overall the game was good to play (much better then Shadow) but it could have used a bit more polish like most Sonic games.

I found Sonic Unleashed to be a very average game, not amazingly great or horrendously terrible, just something that hovers around a 6-7 out of 10-kind of game. It's the type of game had this been a Crash Bandicoot title, no one would give a toss about it or proclaim it to be the best entry in a long time.

Most of the problem I had with the game in that it is bloated with pointless half-hearted gimmicks and collectibles to artificially lengthen the game. The Werehog levels are mostly boring and long simplistic beat-em ups with some Ristar-like platforming, and while many people would say the Sonic sections are better, the hedgehog controls too fast and wildly for some decent control in platforming. Also there is the heavy abuse of QTE(the Tails Tornado mini-game is awful) and the medal collect-a-thon is aggravating. The first 60-90 minutes and the last 2 hrs of the game are especially horrid.

That's not to say it is all that bad as, it has one of the best choice of art direction found in the 3D Sonics. As I mentioned, Werehog does have some decent platforming moments, the the bosses, as the Hedgehog, are fun. Though, I wouldn't pay $50 for this game, and it doesn't seem like I would bother even buying to discounted price to replay it. I feel mostly OK that I settled on renting the game for two weeks.

So for you, Sonicfan1991 if you could find it for less than $20US it probably won't be a purchase you would regret too much.

Whoah did you just say level grinding? They actually sank so far as to put level grinding in a Sonic game?

Well that is if you really care about the Werehog. You can make it through the Daytime Stages easily without leveling Sonic. Maybe Adabat Day will give you trouble if you don't have enough Boost. For the Werehog grinding makes a world of difference. His " tedious " parts don't seem as tedious when the Werehog can down all but the biggest of foes in 2-3 hits without using Unleashed (with Unleashed its even easier). Just plow through enemies and keep running. As you raise his combat he gets skills which makes running / attacking much easier. His " drill claw " in particular is very helpful when you anticipate a mandatory fight and are running.

In Time Trial the Werehog's stages are the easiest if you have a fairly strong Werehog. Even the 10-15 minutes they give you on the highest setting is more then enough time to beat those stages with minutes to spare. Survival Mode is harder but doable thanks to the shield ... though it feels like the shield was only given to the Werehog for Survival Mode. You don't really need the shield in the regular game because the Werehog grows strong enough to easily down his opponents.

I have to say even though people really knock the Werehog I did enjoy his stages more then the Sonic Daytime stage where it felt at times if I didn't preform every step of the way 100% correctly I would plummet to my doom and be sent back to a really inconvenient starting point. I really felt it on Adabat where the boost was needed to get over the water portions and they just barely give you enough power to make it to the other side. On Werehog stages I enjoyed to mix between fighting and platforming though I wish there weren't so many " mandatory " fights. The mandatory fights really are a recent bane of the series. I think the trend started to get really bad during Heroes. Before that I remember a few in SA2 too but not in SA.

"Whoah did you just say level grinding? They actually sank so far as to put level grinding in a Sonic game?"
actually, i was more put off by the whole growing the character strength, administrative was talking about sonic is hard as it is, i'll never be able to finish it this way.

"if you're been playing Sonic games so far, anyone who sat through Shadow and half of SA2 know what's coming and have the patience to get though it."
but sonic adventure 2 and the shadow game were mega fun. i only hated how they linked shadow to aliens.... it's too dark of a story for a fluffy furry cartoon character.

"Overall its a step forward from Sonic 2K6."
sonic2K6 ???? what's that?

i'm still not sure, for those who played it. did it feel like a sonic game? or was it the sort of game you push yourself to keep an open mind about it? like the first time you played Big the Cat.

Sonic 2k6 - Sonic The Hedgehog. The one that was released in 2006. I use the term Sonic 2K6 just in case anyone confuses that game with the good game.

Speaking as someone who has played and beaten the XBox 360 version, I really did enjoy Sonic Unleashed. Most of it, anyway. The daytime stages as Sonic felt very much like a Sonic game, though more like Sonic Rush for DS than anything else, minus performing tricks in midair and such. I liked the Werehog stages at first, but later on the whole thing got really tedious, especially since the controls still had some issues like most 3D Sonic games. Fighting for about five minutes followed by twenty minutes of platforming with more time spent dying than making some progress made me take longer to finish the game. The story is lighthearted and fun, and the graphics are really nice, especially the cartoony, Pixar-esque humans.

Now, just because I said the Werehog parts were tedious towards the end doesn't mean the daytime stages didn't have their own issues, either. Like I said, they most reminded me of Sonic Rush, especially since there's a handy boost button there. However, it must be used with care, as it is possible to go way too fast, so that you don't lose a life or two. There are at least two parts where the boosting is mandatory, which in itself leads to a bit of frustration when you get hit and lose another life because you're running on water.

My biggest gripe, however, involves the quick time events (QTE). This game was filled with QTE. As mentioned, the Tails minigame was horrid because of QTE. Failing a QTE early in the game means you run along a lower path. Later in the game it costs you a life, which I found frustrating.

Overall, I would recommend it. There are many things that have been improved upon, but some things that would have been better not being there (like QTE), but it is something you should at least play through once.

The most "grindy" part of the game was the medal collecting in which you had to replay levels, talk to the Professor and other NPCs for mini-quests, and search every nook and cranny in the hubs and cities around the world. And you will need 120 Day and 80 Night medals to complete the game. And the medal hunt isn't like collecting Stars/Shines in the 3D Mario games where they acted as goal posts for your objectives. They are more akin to the Blue Coin hunt in Super Mario Sunshine. Finding out that you lack the necessary amount of medals the first or second time in order to enter a new level when you don't care to replay the previous levels(especially the Werehog ones)or explore the hub and NPC is a big reason why some people quit this game half-way. It's one of those things you would sort of have to know beforehand playing this game, and it is an awful idea from Sonic Team.

<<i'm still not sure, for those who played it. did it feel like a sonic game? or was it the sort of game you push yourself to keep an open mind about it? like the first time you played Big the Cat.>>

To be honest, I felt like quitting within the first hour of the game as I mentioned in my previous post and that's because you get to play as Sonic for six minutes, tops. The rest is dominated by Werehog, and at this point in the game you are weak and lack a large range of moves so you can't really breeze through these early levels until you level up into a much stronger Werehog. To add insult to injury, there is also a boring Tornado QTE mini-game between these Werehog levels where you would've normally expect to play a Sonic level. After all that, the game starts to pick up a bit starting with a pretty awesome boss fight and finally, a Sonic level then you are mostly free to choose any destination on a map. I have to admit, during my rental period, it wasn't the type of game that that made me giddy through out where I couldn't wait to play for hours like Mario Galaxy. This was a game I didn't feel anything that deep for, and had to force myself to play just I can say that I completed it. There are several instances where a person my feel this way, due to some questionable design choices made by Sonic Team.

I do have to say that I enjoyed it more than Sonic Chronicles, at least.

thanks for your posts everyone, espacially you Ashide Bunni, i feel we both got the same taste. i'm not gonna buy it, and if i do i won't till i let it get cheaper on the market for a few years and buy it when it does get to 20 dollars

they seem to have made this game too hard and long.

oh and about the QTE idea kaze, i always knew it would be a bad idea, too bad sonic team didn't.

QTE is great if you are a cheap developer who doesn't want to bother making a real game. It's acceptable in minor doses to simulate a character doing some sort of high skill maneuver, but that should be it. Other than its lack of strategy, it also ruins control immersion. In a good game you should control as if buttons are an extension of yourself, but QTE forces you to translate button names into movements.

I wonder why some like Shen Mue since it was the game that coined the term. Was it another like Sonic Adventure, considered great at the time because the DC was more powerful than any other console before?

shunmue was good cause it was made like a movie, a QTE in a movie is everyone's fantasy. i think that's what i liked about it... although i never found part 2

hold on i played a full anime QTE game and it was fun.... a sonic anime QTE game might not be bad. it just won't work if it's not a cartoon.

Sonic Team ruined the concept of QTE. It's not supposed to be the deciding factor between making it to the next part of a level and losing a life.

Which also reminds me that I remember boosting so fast in one level Sonic actually ended up falling through the floor. This happened to me twice. Oh, and that other time I lost another life in a Werehog level, felled by a red hornet baddie that was stuck in a wall. |:[

Veckums wrote:
I wonder why some like Shen Mue since it was the game that coined the term. Was it another like Sonic Adventure, considered great at the time because the DC was more powerful than any other console before?

I can't speak for everyone but I really loved Shenmue for the story and characters. You play as a guy who watches his father's murder and drops out of school to find the killer; you can really sympethize for the guy. I really got attached to some of the NPCs too. I felt like some of those people where good friends and you where out to help each other; like Mark, Tom, and Nazomi. I've honestly never felt like that for any other game. Usually I could care less if about any video game character. Well there is the part in Shenmue 2 where you get chased by a cross dresser with a chain saw, that was pretty cool.

Sonicfan: Unleashed would really be worth the $20, just search around and find a good deal. You should enjoy most of the game.

It's only 20 dollars.

I'd pay that for half of a good game, so...

Yes, worth it.

......... something weird is going on, i could've sworn there's missing posts.....

um anyway, i don't get how you're saying it's worth 20 dollars. that's impossible, i see it sold for way higher, 70 dollars infact. that's why i'm not gonna buy it right now.

It depends where you live maybe. In the US I have seen it in stores for $20, same for internet stores. I bought the game when it first came out and it was only $50, you shouldn't be seeing it for more then that anywhere, especially since the it came out a year ago.

Well, a look online yields a few results with the 20 to 30 US dollar range. Amazon is selling for around the same price.

So it's sold pretty cheap now. That place that's selling it for 70 is obviously scamming people.

i feel so cheated, i can't stop crying ...

I've only got the Wii version of Unleashed, but I'm sure the Xbox version of Unleashed is okay.

Having played a demo of the 360/PS3 version and also having bought and played the Wii version, I have to say I prefer the latter. The reason for that is that the daytime sections as normal Sonic are less uncontrollable - unlike in the 360 version whereby you can just hold down the boost button almost indefinitely and thus happily send yourself careening into a pit, in the Wii version you press it and get a set length of boost. It plays a little more like Rush than its counter-part. Also from what I can see, it's less littered with QTE than the 360 version.

The only downside to it, and a point that really confuses me, is why they cut so much out of the Wii version. Considering the storage medium is essentially the same as what's used on the 360, it mystifies me that they couldn't fit in all the content (though perhaps the 360 version using a different engine meant they could squeeze more in? Who knows).

Anyway yeah. Wii version was quite a lot of fun, provided you don't use the Wiimote and Nunchuk setup thanks to them feeling obliged to put in waggle controls for some really stupid things. With a GC controller it's a joy to play the Sonic levels.

"The only downside to it, and a point that really confuses me, is why they cut so much out of the Wii version. Considering the storage medium is essentially the same as what's used on the 360, it mystifies me that they couldn't fit in all the content (though perhaps the 360 version using a different engine meant they could squeeze more in? Who knows)."

because microsoft is evil and likes to take the fun out of everything

as for unleached, oddly enough i only found the PAL version... even if i find the right region one, i won't buy it now or here.
it's funny when i was younger there was no way i'd leave anything sonic, and we were financially worse than now..... but  there's too much of sonic now to keep up with or something not too sonicy feeling about the new games...i just dont have the same sonic fan loyalty... i feel like a dinosaure.