Sonic Unleashed?

[MiraiTails]

Stop giving them ideas!

[Baba O'Riley]

Sonic grows fins, and becomes a Merhog.

I thought of that as I was going to sleep, and then I thought, there could be different sections in each level where Sonic changes.

Like Mario 64, but shit.

[Arcade]

The game could have been a lot better just having Sonic , Tails and Knuckles as playable chracters. Sonic does a level in the normal "fast" way. Knuckles is slower than Sonic at running, but faster than Tails, and since he can dig, swim and is the strongest character, he can play diferent areas than Sonic. Tails can fly an reach normaly unacessible hight places... thats not Sonic adventure again, because in Sonic Adventure, Tails had the "Beat the hog in speed levels" and Knuckles had the "Glide and climb like a maniac to find those damn emerald pieces" levels.

Didnt i post this before for another Sonic game?

[Rob-Bert]

You and several thousand other people all across the internet.

[K2J]

I'd be somewhat satisfied if they made the next Sonic Rush have Knuckles playable. Heck, SRA's titlecards had five letters for the character name, so you know both "Tails" and "K * T * E" would work.

[G.Silver]

"Katie." *snicker*

[Ngangbius]

What the fuck is with this final battle?

At first I thought it was going to be cool as Locit said, the first part is reminiscant of S3&K Doomsday zone and then it turns out to be NiGHTS-like battle gone horribly, horribly wrong. I have to hit all of these damn snakes for a certain amount of times each before Sonic or Chip dies among a shitty framerate and the kicker is I can't see those damn bolders because of the lousy camera. WHAT THE HELL?!

[Locit]

Wait, I said the final Super Sonic battle was cool? I thought I basically saidthe first part was awesome and then everything goes to hell. Because that's pretty much what happens.

[Owen Axel]

I said the Super Sonic battle was cool and fun to play, but I've never had Chip die on me or had any trouble hitting the snakes or dodging the boulders. Which is admittedly weird, since I died dozens of times during the earlier part of the final boss battle, and deemed it all utter shit.

Try pressing up and down on the barrel.

[Ngangbius]

Wait, I said the final Super Sonic battle was cool? I thought I basically saidthe first part was awesome and then everything goes to hell. Because that's pretty much what happens.

My bad, I meant to place a period after "cool" and capitalized "as". I was pretty tired at this point because the last two battles were pretty awful. I mean you are able to earn free 1-ups in in fights, and you know how easy to obtain 1-ups act as indicators that you may fail this upcoming obstacle over and over again.

At least the music was great.

There are so many things that Sonic Team did right and wrong and some of those wrong things would be enough to possibly turn me off from ever revisiting this series ever again.

[Baba O'Riley]

There are so many things that Sonic Team did right and wrong and some of those wrong things would be enough to possibly turn me off from ever revisiting this series ever again.

I agree with this sentiment for the most part, but that nostalgic part of me won't ever give up on the Sonic series completely. However, I'm not going to buy another Sonic title for a very, very long time.

[Locit]

It's bizarre to see the variety of opinions on this game just within the GHZ. Here's my review, for what it's worth.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Given that the designer of Unleashed apparently is listening to the fans more than any of the prior producers for the past failures has, we could ask him to make Sonic run a bit slower, and maybe a bit more momentum-based? That'd handle the whole "inhuman distance" issue that's actually CAUSING all the gimmicks, because they'd no longer have to worry about making insanely lengthy levels to pad the game's length out. Sonic's speed being roughly what it was in the Genesis games, he'd probably take twenty minutes to clear some of the stages presented in Unleashed (maybe half that if the player knows what he's doing). Given that that's probably too long for any sane human being to ever play (although given the sheer length of Eggmanland, I'm under the impression that their definition of "sane" is in question), they could break that up into a few shorter levels. Shorter levels are infinitely easier to design, I'd imagine, and the lack of pressure to keep Sonic running forward at all times would allow for some more interesting level design and so on. Not to mention, given that shorter levels are easier to make, it'd be easier to make MORE of them, and pad it out to several hours of gameplay, as opposed to the few hours you'd get if you blew through them at Rush speeds. Plus, if the game was several hours long with just the core gameplay, why would there be any need for gimmicks?

Of course, all this is lost if the game lacks polish... Unleashed sure has a lot more of that than games prior, but Sonic's control needs to be tightened so much, it's not even funny. Also, they really need to stop abusing bottomless pits so goddamn much, and maybe have water NOT instantly drown Sonic anymore - the former, Unleashed is getting much better about (though hardly perfect), while it plays Sonic's super-drowning abilities straight (regrettably), and never looks back.

It's asking a bit much, honestly, but given that they're finally making their first step forward in a long time, maybe not completely impossible to hope for.

I don't think I want Sonic to be more momentum based. Platforming is already tricky enough. Though not impossible, I have missed one particular jump in Dragon Road numerous times because of Sonic's current acceleration rate on the ground vs. his rapid deceleration rate in mid-air.

Physical Momentum Sonic is dead. The new momentum is the rhythm you get from completing actions like defeating enemies and interacting with level objects (swings, rockets, etc.). Sonic could probably stand to slow down, but SonicTeam is trapped in a never-ending cycle of making Sonic faster and faster. It's just going to sound weird when the eventual phrase is "We actually made Sonic slower!" - that's not the sort of thing that makes good PR.

[Shadow Hog]

It's not something you'd advertise, certainly. You could instead pitch it as "made Sonic what he was 18 years ago again".

Of course, that'd sound a lot like the "going back to his roots" BS, but in this case, it'd actually be true!

[P.P.A.]

Okay, so I downloaded the Unleashed demo on Live and ugh. I sincerely hope that single stage (Atropos Act 2 I think) is not a good example for the rest of the game. Because what I played was awful; the level was incredibly restrictive , in the 3D parts you'd only run in narrow paths about 2 Sonics wide without anything to do but going forward. The one or two times there was enough space to move around relatively freely that was hardly possible because Sonic accelerates FAR too quickly and is extremely nervous to control (which can be fixed by only tilting the control stick slightly though). The 2D parts are even more restrictive and allow for even less freedom than any of the Rivals or Rush games!
However when playing the game as the game dictates you to (with the stupidly fast acceleration and the speed pads EVERYWHERE) it's at least just as bad with you having nothing to do but pressing forward/right and holding down X, jumping once in half a minute. It's fast I'll admit, but at the expense of any interaction whatsoever. And who took away the "center the camera behind Sonic" button that was finally included in Sonic 06?! :( :( :(

The only redeeming value I've found was the charming details. There were pelicans in the 3D areas that reacted if you touched them, the large place with the tables and houses was really charming and there was a single staircase that led up to a small terrace from which you could view onto the plaza, completely apart from the main route and void of any relevant gameplay elements. Too bad that seems to have been the only such thing there.

[Shadow Hog]

That stage is actually one of the better ones, IIRC. Sure, it's restricting, but BECAUSE it's restricting you're much less likely to kill yourself on a bottomless pit.

[Radrappy]

Okay, so I downloaded the Unleashed demo on Live and ugh. I sincerely hope that single stage (Atropos Act 2 I think) is not a good example for the rest of the game. Because what I played was awful; the level was incredibly restrictive , in the 3D parts you'd only run in narrow paths about 2 Sonics wide without anything to do but going forward. The one or two times there was enough space to move around relatively freely that was hardly possible because Sonic accelerates FAR too quickly and is extremely nervous to control (which can be fixed by only tilting the control stick slightly though). The 2D parts are even more restrictive and allow for even less freedom than any of the Rivals or Rush games!
However when playing the game as the game dictates you to (with the stupidly fast acceleration and the speed pads EVERYWHERE) it's at least just as bad with you having nothing to do but pressing forward/right and holding down X, jumping once in half a minute. It's fast I'll admit, but at the expense of any interaction whatsoever. And who took away the "center the camera behind Sonic" button that was finally included in Sonic 06?! :( :( :(

The only redeeming value I've found was the charming details. There were pelicans in the 3D areas that reacted if you touched them, the large place with the tables and houses was really charming and there was a single staircase that led up to a small terrace from which you could view onto the plaza, completely apart from the main route and void of any relevant gameplay elements. Too bad that seems to have been the only such thing there.

-allusions to hating on rails gameplay, check

-reference to something positive about sonic 06, check

goddamn stop being so predictable

And yeah, this game's day levels are certainly not about freedom. Sorry about that.

[Frieza2000]

You can get your exploration fix in the hub worlds. It's hard to tell how big they really are through the videos I've been watching, but this has a tantalizing look at one of them in the later half.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Hubs in Sonic Unleashed are generally very small. A good comparison I've come up with is to imagine that first area in Station Square in front of the train station, where you enter Speed Highway and Twinkle Park.

Most towns in Sonic Unleashed are that size, save for Shamar and Spagonia. Both are places where Professor Pickle takes up residence which probably justifies their size in some mysterious, here-to-for unseen way. Entrance stages, where you actually enter the levels themselves, are usually about as big as the jungle area of Mystic Ruins, if maybe a little bit smaller.

Incidentally, if any of you would like to read my review on the game, it's here. When I write reviews I usually try to be as indepth as possible (without trying to be verbose), so it's sort of long because I do stuff like describe how controls work and how that compares to past Sonic games.

[Dasher]

All work and no play makes Dasher something, something.

[K2J]

Go crazy?

[DackAttac]

Rape babies. He's definitely raping babies.

Dasher, back me up on this.

[Dasher]

Don't mind if I do!

Wait...what!?

[Neo]

That was the worse execution of a Simpsons reference ever.

[Locit]

I thought it was pretty good.