Unofficial Sonic Unleashed Port

By the way, if you want to play the recomp and not worry about grinding sun/moon medals and experience, I totally recommend the improved progression mod:
https://gamebanana.com/mods/578912
I've done most of my xenia playthroughs with this mod and it improves the pacing a lot, and it's great it's on the recomp now. I highly recommend it if you're looking to have a more streamlined Unleashed experience while still maintaining the spirit of the original design. HMM has built in Unleashed Recomp support so you can use that, and there's also an indev linux version that just came out for all my linux and deck bros.

 

Got up to...I think Cool Edge Night comes next? Then I screwed around in some bonus/DLC stages for a while? I dunno, can't be bothered to remember Unleashed.

Yeah, the technical achievement they've made here is staggering. This isn't just gonna be important for Sonic, but for a lot of games, since the tools they built are all open-source and presumably will see use for a bunch of 360 games. It is basically as perfect a PC version as Unleashed was ever gonna get. Frankly, I hope SEGA wasn't working on one because this will probably show up whatever meager efforts they had in the works. Hell, slap a logo on this and add it to Steam. I'm sure most people just want the game to be playable.

That said...yeah, can't be bothered to remember Unleashed. I dunno what it is with this game! I'm playing with almost every mod I had on Xenia (note: de-leveled isn't working yet) and I still just feel a sense of blaahhhh when playing this thing. I remain resolute that the campaign is the worst-paced in the series, at least as far as linear main entries go (not sure how you'd rank something like Shadow or Chronicles, other than "bad"). I just can't ever seem to not get exhausted with the game. I'm really happy for the people that like the set-dressing, but I'm actually kind of astonished at how obvious an improvement I can make out with this and still have my eyes glaze over outside the daytime levels. And even then...I don't think Savannah Citadel or Cool Edge are very good levels! Arid Sands, Skyscraper Scamper and Jungle Joyride are definitely where the game peaks, and I guess I respect Eggmanland if only for its audacity.

 

apparently the mod doesn't work right with the title update? and there's some kind of patch for the title update that's provided, but unleashed recomp is very clear about not modifying system files, so i'm not sure what to do

 

All you have to do is drag and drop the work folder into the improved progression root folder

 

lmao and i thought i was the only one who thought cool edge was ass

I like SC a lot! I'm surprised you think that way; suppose it doesn't offer much if you're here for the 3D gameplay though. Its 3D is really just an opening drift tutorial + a decent quickstep section and then another drift section, so yeah that can definitely be boring.
BUT the routing and camera choreography in SC's 2D sections is pretty fun. I also like the tree climb section a lot and think the sub acts making use of that was tight. Messing it up can be frustrating but getting the hang of it it's a fun challenge--my only actual gripe is higher framerates show just how choppy some of these splines are and hopefully that can get massaged in a mod in the future lol

I have a feeling that'll get fixed pretty soon. Might just need some tweaking, hopefully the devs can sort out what the problem is. Or at least make a title update 2 compliant version that drops w/e changes are too problematic to fix at the moment.
EDIT: ah charcoal said the solution already lol whoop
(also hi !!!)

 

I think for me that aside from the issues with the 3D interaction points being minimal (though I'll say that in Unleashed I mind it less because the entire other style of play in the game is pretty much exclusively 3D) the level was very obviously the basis for Sweet Mountain's first act, though the latter has had the benefits both of hindsight and more means of interacting with the stage. And instead of tree there is borgar

I actually was pretty fond of Cool Edge, though. It was the first day stage in the game to leave me satisfied after I beat it and thought "wow. that was both a fun and visually impressive level". It's mostly an autoscroller what with the bobsled (and you can't even boost in it like the Wii version, something that I did find funny) but I found that it had the layout that was easiest to parse while playing it. I don't know that I love it now, but I'll put it over what's probably its closest analogue in Colors (Starlight Carnival).

 

This game has such a warm spot in my heart. It's definitely flawed and has wonky pacing, but God it makes me so happy. It's not close to SA1 & SA2 but it's easily my bronze medal for my favorite 3D Sonic.

It can't be stated enough how much joy this port has given me so far. I think the Sonic modding community is the most talented out there. Absolute madmen.

 

60fps Werehog feels... really good. I've had a bit of an affinity for this goofy, stretchy, slower-paced-platforming bastard ever since the game came out, but between the amazing performance, resolution, and novelty of it all, this version of Unleashed is just utterly fantastic to experience. Warts and all.. and much fewer of them, now that the performance has been completely driven out of 30fps hell.

I've always liked Unleashed a lot, even way back on the 360 when it was basically doing all it could to maintain 30fps. If somebody went and plopped a Steam Deck with this recompilation on my lap back then... I would have legit had a heart attack. This is some magic right here.

 

The game is 17 years old and it would probably still melt my computer from 2021.

 

last time I played Unleashed was probably 2011, I almost unlocked all the achievements before my Xbox 360 shit itself and got the red ring of death. Going back to it is pretty fun.

Unleashed is a really soulful game, I can't think of a better way to describe it. I always loved the soundtrack, the character designs by Gurihiru and the overall charm of the game. I read that Yoshihisa Hashimoto and Sachiko Kawamura wanted Unleashed to be a total refresh for Sonic's look/visual design and they definitely succeeded considering that it still endures 17 years later.

The way I see it Unleashed is Sonic Team coming out guns blazing on a brand new technically advanced engine redefining Sonic's style after the failure of '06. Maybe it didn't quite get its fair shake back in 2008 but the fact that Unleashed developed such a cult following is proof enough that their efforts weren't in vain. God I hope we get this kind of revitalization for the next game, I'd love to see a new Sonic game that feels totally fresh the way Unleashed did back in '08.

 

There's a chance more of this stuff gets addressed with time. i think this is a new beginning for Sonic Unleashed and not really the definitive edition. I long for a version of the game where the progression(day stage - night stage - boss) is more straightforward, even if it's at the expense of some of the story/hub world stuff.

Even with all the mods in the world though some things will just be. These games will always alienate folks as long as they're on such cracked foundations. This is a pretty great version of a game I enjoy well enough, but it's only made the flaws that exist down in the root of it clearer and there's not a QOL fix that can help those things.

 

Playing through it is just solidifying that I really don't like the Werehog. And its not even like I'm bad at it, its just really mind numbingly boring. Sure I could use mods to improve the experience but that says enough about how bad the base experience was.

The day stages though, playing them through the Unleashed Project really wasn't doing them justice, its been years since I played this game on PS3 and now feeling that intense speed at 60fps is an experience. I'd be interested in Sonic Team taking a shot at making a new game that tries to capture a similar essence to what made these day stages feel so good to play, but I doubt they're capable of it.

 

Savannah Citadel is definitely the better of the two, you won't hear me denying that. I suppose I may actually be overfamiliar with the 2D design and find it boring because of the Sonic Frontiers level that uses it's layout. I never had that problem for Windmill Isle and 1-2, but who knows.

Maybe it's also because the drift in Unleashed is designed by bad people for bad people.

So I've thought about this a lot, and while I don't think there's much that can be done to fix the wonky order of the stages, the map screen highlighting available areas should completely replace having to awkwardly walk back to the professor for every single act. That alone does a lot, but then they should also unlock every side act and DLC based off a single daytime or nighttime level when said level becomes available, and if they are each given spots in the Gaia gate (which the DLCs already have actually! But they go unused in the OG release) and you'll hugely expand the amount of possible gameplay between each interruption, which does a lot.

I've also toyed with ideas about how level completion could give you medals like the Wii version does and how more stages could potentially affect the amount of backtracking for them, but ultimately there's no solution I could find that's better than "just unlock the next stage when the previous required stages are complete". Because why complicate things, really.

Which leads me to my most-desired mod currently, which is the entire second game's worth of extra stages. Yes, I'm going into selfish pipe dream modding fantasies, feel free to ignore me if it's not something you wish to indulge in.

It's kind of hilarious how the Wii version has a pretty similar amount of levels overall to HD, but feels so much more insubstantial due to completely cutting Savannah Citadel and Skyscraper Scamper. Between the Wii levels, the extra acts, and the DLC stages, even daytime Sonic would have an acceptable amount of playtime for a full-priced release. The roadblocks I see with this are...

1. Getting them into the game, obviously. I know some of them have been ported to Generations, but best I can tell those efforts were all a little awkward and never made it super far. They're built for different physics, and I'm not entirely sure if they'll all play perfect with HD's engine (they certainly don't look like the HD version, but modern lighting and the odd texture replacement here and there could improve that), but I'm less worried about that and more about whether they can actually fit. I don't know if extra level slots can be added, and even if they can, I don't know how that can be integrated into the menus, or like I was wishing for before, the hubs. I'm not a modder as established, but I have to imagine editing the geometry of an existing Gaia gate has more variables to consider than implementing something that's already finished and made for the mod to begin with.

2. The hacksaw that was taken to the levels themselves. Both HD and Wii do the Sonic Colors thing where full levels are deliberately split into multiple chunks to serve as separate acts, especially the werehog levels. The Wii version has completely finished Act 2s for daytime Dragon Road, Jungle Joyride and Arid Sands that are only ever chopped up to be challenge missions, despite clearly working as full stages of their own. Furthering this, nearly every night stage in a given continent has obvious connections in the Wii version, but all of the HD DLCs are also split off from the main acts, which end early in the release build. I think removing these borders and combining the stages is one great way to make space for level slots, but that then introduces the problem of pacing on the micro level (rather than my previous problem of pacing on the macro level). So I'd also want to see the werehog stages reframed to space the enemies out in a wider array over these longer levels, and more importantly, never ever lock you in a room until you beat all the enemies, unless it completely breaks the level not to. Maybe minibosses are okay. This is the big problem with almost EVERY Sonic game with combat (I say "almost" because I'm not sure if Frontiers does it more than like, twice), because even in the jankiest Sonic 06 or the sluggiest werehog, I'd still rather be doing acrobatics and platforming than button-mashy combat, and it's not like Unleashed has a wide array of enemies to go around in the first place. Enemies in Sonic are hazards, not roadblocks. I wouldn't mind if they were made faster and more dangerous for this, too. Hell, make Sonic faster, make the night levels as much of a sightseeing tour as the daytime stages, that's what the World Adventure is all about, and it's the main reason I'd even want more werehog stages in the first place. As mentioned, it doesn't delete the innate issues of the gameplay, but there's a lot that this can do.

3. The extra stages and DLC acts kinda suck. This is kind of the punchline to me wanting these stages in the game at all, which is that I don't actually like them much. They're not all terrible, but a lot of them are really gimmicky and rely on just throwing you in a hole for the smallest of fuckups. The worst ones are the ones that require extreme precision from this, the slipperiest Sonic game of them all. As previously mentioned, the Unleashed drift is made by evil people for the specific purpose of delivering hemorrhoids to me and me alone, so I don't have a solution to Cool Edge act 3 being the most insufferable design ever created for a Sonic game. But I do think that a lot of them could just do with more scenery or platforms to catch yourself on. Apotos, Empire City, Mazuri and Adabat all have original challenge or DLC acts that feel like their design was scooped out of a larger normal act, and maybe even stitching one or two of those together could go a ways in making them feel like proper followups to the main levels. Hell, pull a Final Horizon and just stitch cardboard boxes together for some of them, anything works as long as it takes these things that are almost fun and makes them into actually fun.

Anyway that's all the stuff that's been rolling around in my head for the better part of like five or six years since I first played and was subsequently baffled by my extremely mixed and confused feelings towards the abusive spouse that is Unleashed HD, and my imagined headcanons about how he may one day kick the habit and treat me like a proper wife. Any modders reading this, please don't take it as a list of demands or requests, I'm constantly just fantasizing about ideas that I wish would happen, not trying to instruct anyone.

 

Wow, I missed the news for a couple days but stumbled into it face-first this morning. Congratulations and MASSIVE thanks to all involved! I can't wait to finally sink my teeth into this game.

EDIT: The touches I'm seeing mentioned in this thread and the added options (in-game, no less!) are outstanding.

 

I downloaded this mod, I didn't realize it would automatically skip the Tornado stage. I probably should've read that part first, I got to Spagonia and was like "wait isn't there something missing here" lol

 

I had the 360 disc before my system bit the dust. I've had it sitting on my PS3's hard drive for a couple years, and the last time I played it, the system froze mid-level. I tried playing again but never had the heart to power through it since.

Now I'm both weary and excited.