One factor that I believe Sonic Unleashed does not nearly get enough c

Indeed, I loved Sonic Unleashed for the most part. The werehog wasn't nearly the nightmare the media made it out to be. I liken it somewhat to the emerald collecting in the Adventure games. The problem with those, and with the night stages, was that they weren't nearly as fun as the speed/day stages. But all the hyperbole and hate this game got was completely unfounded.

I'd say Unleashed day stages easily trump anything in Sonic Colors, to be honest. They're the reason I still haven't beaten the freakin' game. I've unlocked them all, so whenever I boot it up I can't bring myself to collect medals or play night stages.

 

I actually didn't mind the Adventure fields in Unleashed, I quite liked them the most in the 3 games they had them. And I really liked the art style the humans had; for once, I felt the hedgehog really fit in the world full of humans.

My favourite stage by far is definitely Cool Edge. But as a whole, I prefer Sonic Colour's stages to Unleashed's. Unleashed still makes me rage every time I play it while Cololurs really felt like a true sequel to the Classic games.

Oh yeah, and I really didn't mind the Werehog. Even if it was a cheaply done, I enjoy button-mashers. The only stage I didn't enjoy it in was Eggmanland. With the enemies, it took way too long to destroy any of them. As a whole, the entire stage felt unfair and most of my deaths came cheaply.

But yes, when I played it Unleashed seemed like a step in the right direction for me.

 

I just remember being enamored by the setting of Adabat Night. The music for the night stages was beautiful, to the point I'd play the MP3 for it using the PS3's custom soundtrack just because I hated that the battle music overrode it.

I really wish I could shut off that battle music.

 

I absolutely agree. Unleashed was ridiculously immersive. Loved the hub areas as well- the visual and music variations between night/day were completely spot on, and this applies to the stages as well.

Would probably write more if it weren't so late.

 

Yeah, I have to agree with you. Sonic Unleashed was simply beautiful, and the Pixar-styled Humans is the style that the Sonic series was begging for. Holoska's Day-time adventure fields are a sight to behold, as is the town in Adabat, especially at night.

I think if Sega could find a good balance between the beautiful realistic locations and fantasy locations (like a mish-mash of Unleashed and Colors), it'd be a surefire winner.

I can also agree on the media overblowing the Werehog thing - he's sluggish, but its no where near as bad as people made it out to be. I could still do without them, but I don't particularly mind them too much.

I feel like the Werehog could have been easily replaced with Knuckles, given a mild speed boost.

 

I couldn't agree more. The atmosphere, graphically and musically, was beautiful in not just the adventure fields, but also both the night and day stages. If the battle music didnt keep on playing I would have enjoyed the night stages more, as the night stage music was underused, sounded great and was an important part of the atmosphere of the level!

 

For me was always the big positive about unleashed.
A thing that I actually missed about in Colours.
(Hell, since Adventure that this department was always sluggish)

Like everything nowadays about the franchise?
No matter how imperfect and "bad" the games are, they manage almost always exaggerate.

 

Unleashed (HD version) gave all the NPCs their own individual little storeys, and more often than not you even became a part of them. And then, in the stages themselves, there were people and you had a real sense of progreession as you moved through each of them. The game has a fantastic atmosphere, far superior to the dead and empty theme park in Colours.

 

I blame the "Just Sonic" phase, well in fact the whole "Just ..." phase.
Then the usual "What about Tails (or insert actually not-so-bad character, actually fun)?", mirroring "What about ..." as a general case

If something looks out-of-place, remove...
Make it better and/or make it work with the present concept? Nah just remove.
(Yes some things this is the best option, but my point it's about EVERYTHING in general)
And of course, for the guys with the money "removing" it's the cheap option...
Guess it's the best way to "solve" problems today...

 

I prefer the crazy style of Colors' stages (which I think struck the right balance of surreality without being overcolorful and silly like Heroes), but Unleashed's had better lighting and atmosphere.

 

Unleashed is in my opinion the most beautiful Sonic game in existence. It just did everything right in that category. I mean I love the surrealism of Colors, but the environments don't look nearly as vivid as those of Unleashed, perhaps because the colors are more dull and the lighting isn't as nice.

All I can hope for is that if Colors ever sees a port to the 360 or PS3, is that the graphics can be on par or surpass those of Unleashed. If that's the case then I may have just died and gone to heaven, because it would be perfect. Planet Wisp looking as beautiful as Abadat would be a dream come true.

 

Too bad Colors didn't have any hubs like Unleashed. For fuck sake it was an interstellar planetary amusement park, I wish I could've walked around to see some cool stuff. Sure there would be no one to talk to, but just get a feel for the environment, also find a few hidden goodies like finding a hidden spring and taking a zip line and getting a bird's eye view of that hub or something.

 

I thought this was very cool as well, and it even made the NPC's a memorable part of the game. I especially love Boss and Ippolita's story and helping the lost Shamarian woman. Unleashed probably has the biggest sense of atmosphere of any Sonic game to date. It goes far beyond the beautiful realistic graphics and big levels, bringing Sonic's world to the player through his eyes. The NPC's all have their own distinct designs and personalities, and so does each respective continent. The hub worlds were the perfect size, allowing for countless extra missions, exploration, and other fun activities like buying stuff. It's upsetting that reviewers only looked at the day levels and passed everything else off as fluff or garbage, when the game is so much deeper than the levels themselves.

Being able to view things from such an in-depth perspective is truly an engaging experience that no previous Sonic game has ever really touched upon. Exploring every town during the day and night and building relationships with every character was such an unexpected and innovative move for a Sonic game. Unleashed brought so many fresh new ideas to the table, it was a shame to see it all seemingly tossed to the wind when Colors came along.

 

I was also thinking of that the other day too. Although the surreal style of the stages in Colors was everything I was ever asking for, I felt that Unleashed had this amazing atmosphere that Colors didn't have. Maybe it was because Colors had shitty FPS rates and Unleashed had way smoother graphics? Maybe it was because in Unleashed you felt like you were really progressing through several environments and Colors' landscapes felt too artificial and "video game"-ish with all the platforms and all? I don't know. Even though Unleashed has its faults, you can clearly see it is a game that had some special care to it that is really rare coming from Sonic Team lately. I didn't play the 360/PS3 version of Unleashed yet but I really really want to.

 

All of you guys are making me want a PS3 ;_;

I can confirm that Unleashed Wii has none of this magical atmosphere you guys speak of. The Wii version is absolute shit.

 

That's because the Wii version looks like it was made by some 12 year old fucking around with the BlitzSonic engine

case in point

 

Actually, I think the Wii version has some nice atmosphere to it as well, particularly in the night stages:

Some of the environments are still detailed and beautiful, with more room to explore and more time to enjoy your surroundings than during the daytime. I especially love that they came up with different environments like the ice cave/temple in Holoska and the Great Wall at night in Chun-Nan. Hearing the music play more during the platforming sections is a definite plus, too. A lot of this is overlooked because of how the game holds up to its HD counterpart, but it's still a step above Sonic's previous outings in terms of the atmosphere in my opinion.

EDIT: Better examples.

 

Eh. I felt the atmosphere was communicated poorly, partly due to the camera handling and placement (why always so zoomed out?) and partly due to the levels only being barely fun to play. It doesn't feel like any good 3D game I've ever played, and when you put on top of that some genuinely repetitive, barely challenging, and barely varying enemies, it all kinda makes Unleashed SD a bland experience. That being said, I would much rather play it than any previous Sonic game barring perhaps one of the Adventure games, but then I'd much rather play a better 3D game from a previous generation, or something like Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper, and Jak & Daxter. Those have the benefit of making me feel like exploring the 3D space while beating away baddies without cordoning off zones to make sure I beat all the baddies on the screen. It's much less restrictive and at least less repetitive, where Unleashed feels even more constricted and usually more repetitive. Plus, you're pretty damn slow as the Werehog, so it all takes longer for it to end. After that, you go fast, but then even those experiences are so short-lived, stretched out, and mostly based on memorization. It's over before you felt like you played a good stage. The only reason I continued playing was because it was relatively more fun than Sonic Heroes and because I actually really enjoyed the story, mostly because of Chip and the nice cutscene graphics.

EDIT: Oh, and the graphics and colors for the Werehog levels were uniformly dark and lacking immersive detail. Yeah, I know it's supposed to be night-time, but it's still fairly bland.