Sonic Unleashed Review (PS3)

It has its moments but it’s really a disappointing game

For over 15 years now, Sonic the Hedgehog has been a big gaming icon in the gaming industry and has even become an icon all over the world through Anime/Cartoon shows and comic books. Now, ‘Sonic Unleashed’ makes its way onto our consoles.

The main story of ‘Sonic Unleashed’ is straight forward for anyone who has played through any Sonic game before. Once again, Dr. Eggman is causing more trouble and trying to take over the world, but during a fight in space, Sonic has harnessed the power of the Chaos Emeralds and transformed into Super Sonic, dealing destructive blows to Dr Eggman’s precious machinery.

However, unbeknownst to Sonic, he’s run into Dr .Eggman’s devious trap. Suddenly, he finds himself surrounded by a high energy shield, stripping him of his Super Sonic powers, while simultaneously robbing him of the Chaos Emeralds. Because of this, the Chaos Emeralds have released a dark energy from within, turning Sonic into a Werehog.

After Dr. Eggman is finished with his plan, Sonic crash lands back to Earth where he meets Chip, a cute little creature who suffers from amnesia thanks to Sonic’s heavy crash. When the sun rises, Sonic had transformed back into his normal self again, and both set out to stop Dr. Eggman and get the Chaos Emeralds back before the world is completely destroyed by Dark Gaia.

Gameplay: A lot of people were expecting Sonic Unleashed to be as good as the old Sega Mega Drive series or the Sonic Adventure series on the Sega Dreamcast. But for most fans of the series, Sonic Unleashed is a disappointment similar to the last 3D Sonic the Hedgehog game.

Playing in either 3D or 2D, the levels still look disappointing

If you play as Sonic, level objectives simply consist of reaching the end of the level. However, it does have a few 2D elements through most levels to keep it retro, but is still essentially 3D.

Sonic has some new abilities but they look just as similar as abilities in the last Sonic game. One of them is Light Speed dash is where your press Triangle just to collect rings. Or wall jumping which you’ve probably seen in other games like Prince of Persia.

You can also play as the Werehog, where Sonic becomes a werewolf type character and borrows a lot of gameplay elements from games like God of War and Heavenly Sword. These levels are basically button mashing levels against enemies, but the controls for Sonic the Werehog are kind of fiddly. There are also a lot of basic Quick Time Events where you have to quickly press a button to either dodge or attack enemies.

In order to progress, ‘Sonic Unleashed’ has a few tasks which you’ll need to do in order to get to another level or initiate a boss battle. These levels can be unlocked by collecting medals in the game, sun medals for the day time levels with Sonic and moon medals for the night time levels with Sonic the Werehog. But to do this you will be going up and down a lot which can be annoying where you’ll need a lot of medals and along with the mini-tasks are only there for anyone who really wants the PS3 Trophies.

Graphics and Sound: In all fairness, the graphics look great for a Sonic game, both during gameplay and during cut-scenes making it look more like an animated film. The downside is, however, that most of the levels are badly laid out and look like they have been rushed. Playing in either 3D or 2D, the levels still look disappointing and the annoying camera control returns which means you’ll be complaining throughout the whole game about cheap deaths.

Voicing is quite well done but some characters voices are a bit annoying and most music is repetitive, especially when playing through the Werehog levels where the same battle music plays over and over which is annoying.

Overall: Most fans were looking forward to Sonic Unleashed because it was going to merge 2D style gameplay into 3D gameplay, but it hasn’t worked. It turns out that ‘Sonic Unleashed’ is nothing more than another disappointment with broken gameplay, shoddy controls and cheap deaths making you feel like a fool.

If Sega make another 3D Sonic game in the next few years, they should keep the graphics the way they are but put a lot of work into everything else and should not be forced to rush it.