Unofficial Sonic Unleashed Port

After over a decade, I've finally gotten to play through and beat Unleashed. I conquered a crimson carnival, ran along the arms of a chocoholic's Megazord, and mashed a button 60 times before flying through a destruction god's eyeball so I could put the planet back together. I even managed to meet Adabat's medal requirement on arrival thanks to meticulously combing the main Acts along the way. There's not much I can say that hasn't already been discussed to hell and back over the past several years, but it was nice to watch the credits roll for me this time, and not just a Let's Player. And I've still got plenty of side and DLC missions to try out, too.

Thanks again to the team that made this happen. I'm glad Unleashed finally isn't out of reach anymore, and with a more thoughtful port than anything official probably would've been. If I ever meet any of you properly, I owe you a drink.

 

Pretty full circle for me to see the unofficial PC port, 17 years after Unleashed's original release (which was actually my gateway to Sonic Retro, holy crap does time fly), being discussed here.

Ever since I first beat Unleashed on PS3 back in the day I really truly loved it and being able to play the game now at a locked framerate AND above 800x720 is remarkable and feels like a dream come true. Hats off to the recompile effort, this is amazing.

Imo there really is no other Sonic game quite like Unleashed. It's flawed but it's easily the most polished 3D entry until Shadow Generations. It's still a gorgeous game as well even after all this time. I actually don't think the Werehog is really all that bad, yes it's a bit slow and some of the level design choices are questionable, but to be honest I actually do enjoy the combat and the variety keeps the day levels from ever feeling dull. The medal hunting is a bit silly though and I agree that it's not worth the effort 100%'ing either.
I think I actually prefer Unleashed's level design over Generations after years of flip-flopping on it. Unleashed plays like Crash Bandicoot on crack, less of a Sonic-y momentum open ended platformer and more of a test of precision and reflexes. It makes every level feel like a challenging rollercoaster and I really like it for what it is.

 

How do you hit that orange ring with the shortcut when you run at 60FPS? The window seems really tight. At 30FPS, I can hit it no problem. But I have been playing Unleashed in 60FPS since 2022 on Series X and have only hit that orange ring once. I saw a Youtube video say it's "impossible" to hit the ring at 60FPS, and while I know that's hyperbole, because I was able to do it the one time after reading that, the window is insanely tight. Even at 144FPS, I just cannot figure out the timing. Even mashing the jump button doesn't get it to come out. Does anyone know how to hit that orange ring at 60FPS and above?

 

Skip ahead of the dashpanels on the loop and go through without them. You'll be able to hop into it easily

 

The worst part of this port is that I can't play it on PS5, and so that leaves me out of the revisit conversation and kinda robs an imaginary future official port of that impact and opportunity (and I already felt a little robbed of the revisit from the KNuckles Unleashed stream since it'd been a while since I played or watched any Unleashed material.)

Even though I would 100% just say "Yeah it's still peak you just hate actually playing games now"

 

You could, however, play it on a PS4! It would probably run like trash, but it'll run!



EDIT: Actually.... it might not run bad at all on the PS4 lol. I don't have one anymore so I can't try, anyone want to bite the bullet?

 

Goes on the PS4 Pro apparently if you get the correct setup...



...But that's still not the point.

 

Just looked it up and apparently they're at the stage in PS5 jailbreaking where they can deploy elf binaries. Linux should eventually come, nerds will port it everywhere. Patience...

EDIT: Jeeze the frame pacing in the video above gives me vertigo

 

UWP version for Xbox is in the works. Series consoles run it fine, but apparently One consoles can't.

 

Looks like the issue is known. Explains why even attempting to use a known good archive DLC dump was not sufficient to restore her. Won't be surprised to find 1.0.3 has the fix in it.

(And I can confirm that the build provided in the issue thread worked for me as well, if people on the project are still checking for feedback here.)

 

Skyth is gauging interest in Unleashed Ray Tracing vs. Generations Ray Tracing

Somewhat predictably, Unleashed is winning out.


Edit: I'm not enabling absolutely briandead behavior like forcing linking to the wrong website. I will not be mischaracterized that way. I want to link to Twitter because the poll is on Twitter and the ability to vote is on Twitter, and I included the image so people who for some reason think it's the end of the world to visit a website won't bitch about stupid shit.

If I find that shit anywhere else I'm breaking the link altogether and I don't care if my post makes sense or not anymore. You're welcome.

 

I did a playthrough of Unleashed on RPCS3 a while back, which on my PC it ran somewhat poorly, particularly the night stages, having the ability to play it at a somewhat solid 60FPS on my Steam Deck was like a dream come true, honestly I didn't even find the werehog stages that bad, they don't feel anywhere near as bad at 60FPS as opposed to the mess that's on RPCS3 and og PS3