SEGA’s Sonic Unleashed was a very important game in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, it was the birth of a brand new ‘boost Sonic’ formula that would extend to Sonic Colors, Generations and even the latest Forces video game. At the same time it was also the start of focusing on Sonic and abandoning the friends that became mainstay since the release of Sonic Adventure.
To celebrate, I asked on Twitter what our audience thought about Sonic Unleashed, all these 11 years later. First we had a 3 hour long poll that got 459 votes and hot takes from fans:
Sonic Unleashed turns 11 years old today, it came out on the Xbox 360 in North America! What is your hot take on the game? (3 hour poll, will be doing a article on the results later):
— SEGAbits (@SEGAbits) November 20, 2019
It seems that most people think fondly of Sonic Unleashed, which upon release got mixed reviews from websites mostly due to its Werewolf aspect. But maybe all these years later, gamers have become more forgiving? It seems over half of our audience considers the game to be good to great, with only 11% expressing that Sonic Unleashed was bad.
SEGAbits contributor Dakota weighs in on Sonic Unleashed‘s legacy:
As for the game, the level design in the daytime was mostly well done. And there Werehog was fine, just didnt need the gameplay to be 5x longer than the day stages. Also, since the Hedgehog Engine was new, lot of bugs and physics issues kept the game from being great.
— Dakota 😊 (@NoNeckKota) November 21, 2019
One thing that a lot of people forget was how long Werewolf stages in Sonic Unleashed got. It could take up to half an hour to complete some of those stages!
SEGAbits’ resident Spicy Boy FlareHabanero says:
Suffers from too much filler and frustrating game design, but at least the ambition can be appreciated on principle.
— SPICY BOY (@FlareHabanero) November 20, 2019
Mr. Linkabel shows his respect for the passion behind Sonic Unleashed:
I like to see it as a game with a lot of passion and ambition. Though, that passion and ambition can’t overcome its flaws.
— Linkabel (@AbelMunizJr) November 20, 2019
Here are other hot takes from other Twitter users on Sonic Unleashed legacy, over a decade later:
Great looking levels, controls needed tweaking which Generations improved on! The Sun and Moon levels where unnecessary and time wasters! The story was great and great music! I actually like the werehog!
— David Charpentier (@DavidCharpen55) November 21, 2019
Coming off of Sonic 2006 (I didn’t get a wii till a few years later, so I didn’t play those Sonic games till afterwards) was a mixed bag. The daytime stages were fantastic. But the night time stages were too long. That and they ruined the music everytime you got in a fight.
— SEGA MAN (@SEGA_FAN1989) November 21, 2019
It’s a ok game, The day stages are fun to blast through and werehog stages are fine however collecting sun and moon metals are a pain and it makes the werehog levels slow and boring to play through over and over again
— GreatwhiteStudios Hollywood🇺🇸🎁 🎄 (@Greatwstudios) November 20, 2019
its a great game
but only on the xbox one x, cause it can run at an actually playable framerate— nt148 (@nt_148) November 20, 2019
It’s honestly the best we had in the last 15 years
— Zero Edge 🐝🐺 (@Yoh_Spades) November 20, 2019
Enjoyed it but the level system wasn’t great for me and it has possibly my least favourite final boss.
— robmaster64 (@robmaster_64) November 20, 2019
I got to a point where I just couldn’t play anymore. It was awful, the concept and premise was fucking bizarre and the combat and platforming was just weird and offputting.
— Nova (@oadriax) November 20, 2019
‘b-but Generations’
Sorry. It comes close, but no cigar. A large part of the affection for that game is the fan service, and the good qualities that aren’t fanservice are built off of Unleashed’s already incredibly solid foundation anyway.— Cameron Turner (@Hypo_Thermick) November 20, 2019
The game is good but definitely not the best in the series. Werehog itself was fine but his levels were boring because they were long. Another problem is medals. They force the player to play other side levels and collect them in order to progress. Other than that, game is solid
— Kenes (@27Kenes) November 21, 2019
It’s the last Sonic game with a good original story 🤷♂️ and the gameplay and visuals are still fun to play through, and the amount of content is outstanding 👌
— Dorek Bregonzo (@DorekBregonzo) November 21, 2019
Played the Wii version to completion. Actually enjoyed it more than Colors for some reason. Wouldn’t put it over Generations though
— Steve ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (@SteveSnowmn) November 21, 2019
There’s an unspoken rule that every Sonic game is considered garbage until all the people who played it when they were eight grow up and get really nostalgiac for it.
Mark my words in 2027 people will consider Sonic Forces a masterpiece
— midmad (@themidmad) November 21, 2019
not the best game, but not horrible by any means. the day stages are great fun, and the night stages are, while slow, not nearly as boring and horrible as people seem to believe. pulling off combos with Sonic’s stupidly big arms is pretty great fun tbh
— VanillaPop (@vanilla_p0p) November 21, 2019
Good and Alright are the best ways to describe it.
Gameplay is mixed, but I enjoyed the story bits.— Rezrave (@Rezrave) November 21, 2019
It’s not great.
Colors and Generations are much better games
— Michael Reid (@Spectrumbots42) November 21, 2019
Maybe we will do more articles on here celebrating other games’ Anniversaries and let you guys sound off on our Twitter. So follow us if you haven’t. If you didn’t get a chance to sound off, you can tell us what you think about Sonic Unleashed 11 years later, in the comments below.
Ad:
I have Sonic Unleashed for the PS2. Sonic Unleashed has a very special place in may heart, for it was one of the first games I played as child. It’s still a great game today, and I am still trying to collect all of the items from the Gaia Temples to this day.
Sonic Unleashed, aka Sonic World Adventure; an under appreciated Sonic game! Fantastic
Guess everyone forgot how much of a chore Werehog was.
And the fact that Werehog was like 2/3 of the game.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Unleashed is a quintessential Sonic game. Sonic running throuhg real world locations and interacting with the world as he travels is really fun and somewhat immersive, in my opinion. Also Werehog visual design is really cool, but Werehog gameplay is just… piss. It brings the entire game down. Just like Classic Sonic made Sonic Forces less fun.
Night stage gameplay was ok, but not fitting for sonic (Neither was the werehog.)
Boost gameplay is not my cuppo tea either. What’s the point of going fast if you can’t even enjoy the game? It’s just mindless. It began a stupid trend that continues to the latest installments. It made me quit console Sonic games and never look back. Mania was a godsend, but now we need a new Adventure. A REAL ONE, NOT SOME GAME CALLED ADVENTURE IN JAPAN BUT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SONIC ADVENTURE.
Come on Sega, give us that Steam release.
Truth be told I’d say it’s the best 3D Sonic game, not my favorite… but the best.
I actually liked Sonic Unleashed and would consider it one of the best 3D Sonic titles, though I get what some people were saying about the night stages, it did kind of drag on a bit at times, things do get better and improve though as long as you keep upgrading your werehog stats, which are much more important than Sonic’s regular daytime form.
It initially started out from concept as what Sonic Adventure 3 otherwise would have been had Sega kept the Dreamcast going a year or 2 longer maybe, which would have made it quite different from what it ended up becoming a few years later, that’s why it’s real original true name outside of the US is ‘Sonic World Adventure’.
And all the Dreamcast references and the concept ect also, it sort of having a Dreamcast spirit about it, it’s probably fair to say it would likely could be what a Dreamcast 2 Sonic title would have been like in terms of fidelity – hence its more vibrant deep crisp colour rich texturing that was characteristic of the Dreamcast look, just look at the red on Sonic’s shoes in contrast to the other colours ect.
*Sonic World Adventure (Unleashed) being a spiritual Sega Dreamcast 3D game in the same way that Sonic Mania was designed to be a 2D Sega Saturn game.
Both were initially designed from conceptual stages to be as such.