I think it’s fair to say that the Sonic the Hedgehog series has not seen a stellar release since December 1998 when Sonic Adventure was released on the SEGA Dreamcast and since then it has been a near constant stream of games that will reboot the nearly two decade old series.

SONIC UNLEASHED – THE REVIEW

Sonic Unleashed
Developer: Sonic Team
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii (reviewed)

The latest Sonic game has always been cast as the savior of Sonic the Hedgehog and without failure; it has always been a disappointing result. Yet, Sonic Unleashed will still sell because there are still those few people who firmly believe that it can revive the Sonic franchise. So can Sonic Unleashed FINALLY breathe life into this long dead franchise?

No. It can’t and it hasn’t. Sonic Unleashed is a game riddled with hideous control, camera problems, boring level design, awful, convoluted hub worlds and disturbingly pointless characters. This is pretty much the same as all other 3D Sonic games since the turn of the millennium.

The Unleashed moniker that Sonic has now been bestowed is in relation to his ability to transform into a Werehog at night. Yes, apparently hedgehogs now have a were form at night. When in this form, Sonic grows furry, gets longer arms and a slightly more grizzly voice. It makes for an interesting change in appearance but it’s baffling that these fairly hideous looking creature to behave in exactly the same way as when he’s in his normal form. It’s increasingly baffling to have NPCs react in the same way as well.

All of this transfers into stages which consist of the player moving Sonic around cookie-cutter levels and running up to hordes of similar looking enemies and mashing away on the attack button until they are all gone. In amongst this incredibly simple gameplay are sprinklings of platforming that are neither fun nor rewarding due to a stubborn camera and janky platforming mechanics that only work from a distance that it decides. As an example of this, you could be 3 feet from a ledge and grapple perfectly for one jump, then for the next jump the option will not be presented until you are barely touching the ledge you are reaching for. It is this kind of mind-meltingly infuriating gameplay that really shows Sonic games to be the cancerous thumb on an otherwise healthy hand that is the modern day platformer.

The other half of Sonic Unleashed’s gameplay take part in the day and are the classic let’s-hold-right-and-jump-every-now-and-again gameplay from Sonic games of old as well as integrating 2D gameplay every so often. Sadly, even this attempt to revisit the glory days of Sonic and his (then) unique platforming experience feels antiquated and unnecessary, especially in 2008. The 3D aspects of the day are kind of fun when watching things speed past and speeding over water, but every so often the game throws some incredibly precise platforming mechanic at you where you need to time the jump or positioning precisely, and with controls primarily built for speed, his can be nigh on impossible especially when going for the fastest time possible.

Even the world that connects these two styles of levels is unnecessarily complicated and big. It is as if the developers decided that having a hub world filled with pointless characters filled with equally pointless information in an attempt to keep the story progressing. Within each world, you control Sonic and guide him towards the level openings. In the towns you will meet various people who will blabber to you about unimportant things. There is no reason for all of the hub worlds and villages because Sonic is a platforming game, not an open-world adventure game, the levels have been designed as such and it seems as though the hub worlds have only been created in order to stretch out the game and make it longer than it would be to just go from level to level.

To stretch out the game further, Sonic must collect Sun and Moon medals in order to unlock new levels. These medals are hidden in unspecified places that will have you searching every nook and cranny for, which wouldn’t be fun even if the game was brilliant. The medals in the Day stages will hinder you from playing them as they were meant to be played as you will have to jog around the level looking for medals when you want to be blasting through the stage as fast as ‘hedgehogly’ possible.

Both types of gameplay are hampered by heinous camera issues and control problems. Some of the best moments in the game come from blazing through the Day stages at incredibly high speeds, and it goes from annoying to downright maddening when you have to stop and correct the camera so you can see where you are actually going. Sonic’s Werehog form is no different, and the camera will put up more of a fight than the enemies themselves. Add to the camera issues some terrible level design and you will be wondering why you are still bothering with the game.

It certainly won’t be for the story. It is a confusing mess of characters that wander in out of the story seemingly at random before Sonic finally goes to fight Dark Gaia (the cause of his lycanthropy.) The fact that Sonic is now a particularly vicious looking creature might seem like an interesting plot development (at the very least), only nothing about Sonic changes apart from his appearance and voice. He is still the same old ‘save the world’ morally inclined hedgehog despite his new malicious figure. The characters he is surrounded by don’t help either. With the exception of Robotnik, they are all the typical children’s favourite do-gooders who wouldn’t even drop litter on the floor, let alone be interesting. The worst offender though, is new character Chip. He is full of ‘scared but determined’ sidekick clichés that ear spewed from the world’s most cheerful vocal chords. His constant want of food is anything but a source of entertainment and will only lead in you partaking in pointless side quests.

Sonic Unleashed is a game that will aggravate you to the point of hurling your controller through the nearest window. At this point you would think I would say something like: ‘It looks like the Sonic franchise has finally met it’s end’ only, the Sonic franchise has been outdated for about a decade now. It has gone past being a dead franchise into being a zombie of a franchise.

The Final Word

Sonic Unleashed’s terrible camera, horrendous controls, hideous story and characters and awful hub world / level design make this game a pointless purchase for anyone, and completely irrelevant in this day and age.

– MonsterVine Rating: 1 out of 5 – Abysmal