Sonic Unleashed (PS3) Review

An epic world adventure.

 At this point, we all know that Sonic the Hedgehog's 3D outings in the 2000s weren't all that smooth, with the disastrous Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 being the franchise low-point. A few years later, Sega and Sonic Team would release another ambitious Sonic game that aims to change up the formula, 2008's Sonic Unleashed. Sonic's back for another world-saving adventure, this time with a twist, he's a werewolf! It's a game that been controversial among fans over the years and I remember briefly playing it when I was young. Now having revisited it, did Sonic Unleashed age all that well?

 Our adventure begins when Sonic and Dr. Eggman fighting as usual until this time, Eggman beats Sonic and shoots a laser onto the world, splitting it to pieces and awakening an evil force that lays dormant inside, Dark Gaia. All that so can Eggman build his own fortress, "Eggman Land" (talk about extreme). In the aftermath, Sonic is turned into a "Werehog", a werewolf-like creature after the powers of the chaos emeralds have been drained. Now along with his new friend "Chip", Sonic must go on a journey to restore the emeralds' power in order to beat Eggman and repair the planet.  The story was an entertaining with Sonic and Chip are travelling around the world meeting people and places based off of real-world inspirations. It had lots of great moments and the characters were enjoyable, especially Eggman's comedic bits. The ending was also a bittersweet, but memorable one.

 Sonic Unleashed is a 3D platformer where levels are split into day and night stages. Daytime stages has Sonic speeding through levels in classic 3D fashion, but now incorporating the "Boost" mechanic from Sonic Rush, where you press on the square button to gain a brief surge of speed. The homing attack is also here where you jump and lock onto enemies to attack them. The game introduces quick-time-events in certain parts of the game, which felt unnecessary and interrupted the flow of the gameplay. The daytime stages were fast and fun, taking around 4-5 minutes to clear. 

 At night, Sonic turns into the Werehog and gameplay takes the form of a beat 'em up where you beat up waves of enemies, solve puzzles, and tricky platforming sections using the Werehog abilities like his stretchy arms. These levels are way more slow-paced than the daytime ones, as you'll need to memorize combos and slowly take your time with platforming. As such, the levels are longer to beat taking around 20-25 minutes.

 The stages were neat, especially the daytime ones where you're speeding around with Sonic as the sense of speed was amazing. The Werehog stages were alright even if they were drawn-out, with Cool Edge and Jungle Joyride  being my favorites. However, you'll need to collect Sun and Moon medals hidden across levels to unlock more stages and proceed. Unleashed is harder than the average Sonic game with levels packing lots of traps and enemy placements that easily kill you if you're not careful. Eggman Land, the most notorious level in the game has a reputation of really hard, with it taking me over an hour to beat. With that said, enemies tend to drop experience points that can be used to level up Sonic's normal and Werehog abilities. These include more health, strength, speed, and combos, which can make some of the levels much more easier.

 You'll be exploring the game's hub-world between levels, often interacting with NPCs and receive side-quest from them. Some will even have mini-stories to follow that were oddly engaging and gave the world a bit of life to it. It took around 15 hours to beat and that included me doing most of the side-quests and some bonus levels, so it'll last you a good while. With all the good said, Unleashed does have a few issues of its own. Firstly being the annoying camera that obscures your view in the Werehog sections, making jumps a matter of life or death. Secondly, the lack of a drop shadow also made some platforming segments tedious with you occasionally falling off to your death. And lastly, the aforementioned QTEs were annoying, interrupting the flow of the game and the gameplay would've been a lot more fluid without it.

 Sega went all-out with the production values as they made a new game engine called the "Hedgehog Engine" for Unleashed. As such, the game still looks great today with the cartoony visuals and stage designs holding up well. The cut-scenes were also impressive, especially the opening cinematic. Despite all that, the game runs terribly on PS3 with many instances of frame-rate drops and stuttering, both of which impact the experience. The voicework was packed with solid performances, mainly Jason Griffith's final role as Sonic. As for the soundtrack, it's fantastic with many upbeat and ambient tracks that compliment the Hedgehog and Werehog stages, respectively. My favorites tracks were Savannah Citadel Day, Cool Edge Night, Windmill Isle Day and Night, and Rooftop Run Day. 

 Overall, Sonic Unleashed was a pleasantly fun experience. Despite its shortcomings, it does manage to hold up well today thanks to its daytime stages and neat production values. I grew to like the Werehog levels by the end-- even if they overstayed their welcome at times. Unleashed may still have a controversial reputation, but I enjoyed my time with the game and its world that I'm looking forward to replaying it again the future. Fans should definitely check it out since it's now available on the Xbox Series consoles with frame-rate enhancements.