Sonic Unleashed: The Post-PC Port Discussion Thread

Forces got criticized for a ton of different things, but with the story, the major part's because it dropped the ball on the plot thanks to Executive Meddling. We know what parts got cut by now, and how it would have allowed the story to take itself seriously.

The other big part of the story that gets rightfully shit on is the fact that so much of it is told, rather than shown (the biggest offender here is the literal white text on a black screen telling you that Eggman took over. More cutscene, less text. Dialog over 'radio' kinda makes sense, but less of that for more cutscenes would have been better). Again, I put the blame for that on Executive Meddling, just in the form of rigid deadlines. I'm sure if they could have made more of those into cutscenes, they would.

 

Something that's been especially refreshing about this game is that the homing attack isn't camera-based. That shit actually drives me nuts when it is.

 

It's been fun to dig through the original release thread and compare to today's video essays about this game. A good chunk of members are still here.

I like Unleashed about as much as I do SA2. Playing the game start to finish is a bit of a chore, but replaying the eight main daytime stages is still a thrill. I hear a lot of talk about how this game has soul and passion missing from later games. There is a lot of stuff in the game, yes. Most of it really just bogs the main gameplay loop down. Leveling systems and intense gating make a first playthrough really annoying. The art direction definitely holds up extremely well. Being the progenitor of all Modern games, it's surprising that most of the games since haven't been able to match it. This new port unlocking the performance does take a good bit of the rust away, and the charm is absolutely still there. However, there is a reason we got Colors and Generations after this. A more focused, shorter game is better than a sprawling mediocre one.

 

I think Sonic Unleashed is a flawed game that was marred more by hardware limitations and performance issues (which this PC port just about entirely fixes) than being fundamentally bad. I bought it on release day in 2008 (taking a big risk after being disappointed by 06) and was pleasantly surprised by how playable it all was.

It's not my favorite game, not even my favorite boost game... but with a proper PC port it's 100% worth revisiting and has every right to be preserved. The werehog gameplay goes against the main gameflow of Sonic, but is perfectly functional and playable in its own right with surprising amounts of depth once you get past how different it was.

It's a good game, just not necessarily a good Sonic game, if that makes any sense. The speed stages ARE a good Sonic game, but too few of the game's hours are spent on them to make it the biggest focus. That doesn't mean the game itself is 'bad' though, just not what Sonic fans wanted at that time. Generations was much closer to what we were looking for back then. Unleashed is still a fun game once you get past all this, not at all flawed in the same ways 06 and the Wii storybook games (which have sadly aged much more poorly) were.

SEGA missed out big time by not porting this. I'm glad someone did, and I'm sure with mods the game will only get better with time. My full compliments to the team for their incredible accomplishment at developing this port. Now my superfan wishlist is basically just a modernized chaotix, an HD Advance collection, a high quality remake of Sonic Chaos, and better emulation (or a full port) of 3D Blast Saturn. I don't know how often I'll play it, but I'm very glad I can if I wish!

 

Just wanted to use this as an example to post about how unreliable information on the internet is. If you google "Sonic Unleashed release date" you'll get November 18th as the result. You can see on page 174 where I and another member post in real time about the street date being broken on November 20th. Which is to say, that November 18th date online is completely wrong.

EDIT: This is what I was posting in November 2008: "I love the later werehog levels. They're just what I wanted - tons and tons of platforming."

Looks like my opinion hasn't changed at all lol

 

went into this expecting major freakouts over the werehog getting revealed and wasn't disappointed at all haha. I have to see if there's a thread for Generations, I imagine classic sonic would be the anti-werehog.

 

No it's not, it's garbage. If you're the kinda avid player who likes to build like a 15+ rensa that stacks up to the top of the screen, it's kinda not doable since pieces can't be moved left/right for a brief moment after they appear. Also as a multiplayer game it's based on the OG ruleset and not the far superior Puyo Puyo Tsuu.

This being said, as a novelty boss it's great -- wonderful throwback and one of the highlights of my first playthrough. But as a Puyo game; from my POV as a fan of the series; it's fucking garbage. :P

 

I'm an avid player and have the saturn version of Puyo Puyo Sun in front of me right now and I don't find it garbage at all. It's a video game boss. But more to the point, this sort of post is basically everything I was saying I found irritating about the discourse back in 2008: purity tests and hyperbole. If you don't find it garbage, you're not an avid player, or rather, avid players have more weight to their critical analysis, and you can tell they're an avid player, because their tiny nitpicks are game ruining. "You don't find the puyo puyo boss of sonic mania to be garbage?? Psh, amateur."

 

Which is why the wiki cites the press release dated November 18th saying the Wii/PS2 version available now, showing a November 24th release date for the Xbox 360 version and December for the PS3 version.

 

The Puyo Puyo boss would have been okay as a puzzle minigame, but it made for a really lousy boss battle... if you can call it that.

I like Puyo Puyo, but I felt short-charged to get that in place of a proper boss. I mean... there was literally nothing fresh about it beyond the novelty of being shoved in a Sonic game. There was no clever twist to it, no Sonic-flavored additions. It was just the exact same gameplay as regular Puyo Puyo copy-pasted without alterations. It felt like filler they put in so that they wouldn't have to come up with a boss.

 

My hot take I guess is that I've always liked the Werehog and I think his levels are fun. Here's some tips on playing as him:

- Use all your EXP meter at the end of every stage on unlocking your moves. Then strength when youre done. The full moveset shouldve never been locked like this, but it moves so much more fluidly when its all unlocked.
- When you jump towards ledges or poles, hold B, don't mash. You'll grab everything easily. It seems like it's not going to work almost every time, but it does.
- As you pull yourself up from a ledge, jump out of it as you're pulling up to launch yourself. You can move with way more fluidity and speed that way. I wouldn't recommend doing it on the small handles, though. You move quicker and higher just by jumping normally off of it.
- Attack while holding the run button, those moves are stronger and come out quicker than the ones without.
- Use the running jump Y/Triangle Button attack as a dash move, it speeds the game way up.
- You don't have to defeat every enemy. Pay close attention to when the game locks you in a room. When it doesn't, you can breeze right past those enemies. There's a lot more spots like that than you may think.

I've got times on every Act 1 Werehog stage below ten minutes, with some below 5 minutes. Chun-Nan Night I've done in 2 minutes! Playing those stages quick can be just as rewarding as the daytime levels if you're willing to get good.

 

This is just not true. Playing through it again for the first time since it came out in 2008 and the only NPC you have to interact with is Professor Pickle, which you put in a separate bullet point.

This is a skill issue.

 

I'll go ahead an repost my post from the other thread as well.

So some addendums to this, I talked to my brother, and it seems we did attempt Eggmanland and collectively gave up because of how difficult it was. We also tried to be a bit more nuanced about the split, I think I was the one who got to wander around the hub world while he got all missions Daytime or Nighttime so both of us could get a taste of the other half. I do recall him getting very frustrated with the hotdog missions in particular.

There is one sidequest chain that kinda bothers me, though. There's a girl from Adabat desperately searching for love who forces this guy from Shamar to upend his life there and come with her back to Adabat to marry without hearing any objections he may have. I get that it's played for laughs, but that's kinda creepy...

 

It is 100% true.

On your first trip to Spagonia, you have to talk to NPCs to learn that Eggman took Pickle to Mazuri. You can't leave until you've woken to one of the correct NPCs to learn this information. You also can't access the Chun-Nan Entrance Stage until you've been granted permission from Lin.

I'm not sure if there are any other scenarios where it's necessary, but there are at least those two.

 

So it's just two specific instances early in the game and not every hub like Shaddy is implying! Wow! So it's not as big an issue then.

 

I'd also include the matter of navigating the Shamar hub. First time players are likely to spend a fair while longer than ideal searching for Pickle's study. It's not super egregious alone, but it's just one of many things that all add up to made Unleashed tedious Just having to wander back and forth through the multi-layered hubs is bothersome enough, so any time at all that they add extra steps can salt the wound.

And not to speak for Shaddy, but I don't think he was implying that you have to talk to NPCs every time you enter the hub. That said however, you do need to speak with them to get side missions (which function as mini acts with collectables), find out who's possessed and get your camera recharged every two flashes.

 

The skill of the devs at making intuitive stage gates, maybe. All I'm saying is that in other Sonic game as far as I can recall, including 06, have I ever completely missed a level entrance like that (albeit with 06 having the inverse issue of having no idea where to go except for the stage entrances). Rooftop Run 3 is placed at the top of a wall jump sequence that isn't telegraphed and the camera doesn't focus on! The entire rest of the area is taken up by bizarre half-gate-half-archway architecture encircled (ensquared?) by a weirdly-angled grind rail that distracts from it. I am within my right to say that's kind of stupid!

I implied no such thing, please do not misrepresent me. The events in which NPC interaction is necessary, rare or not, compound the fact that slowly walking through town, a town that as you're putting it is mostly pointless, over and over to different objectives, professor included, is annoying. And it's not really your place to decide whether that's "as big an issue" for me? It's one part of the padding and bloat issue that ultimately makes me not like the game, so I listed it. We do not need to make this into something it isn't.

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about this one, how them making it a stated objective actually made it way less intuitive to find. There's a guy at one turn that says "the professor? oh yeah just follow this road to him!", and then the road leads to the Gaia Gate, and the first time round it took me a couple minutes to realize that there was a path off to the side.

 

This part actually pissed me off the other day when I got to Shamar, the tips the NPCs give are not helpful at all. "Oh he's just around the way" "Right at the bridge" "Can't miss him" blah blah blah. Not one of them say anything about making a right turn at the bridge that's on the other side.

Also having to go through the villages to get to the entrance stages is another thing that makes Unleashed super tedious. Its one thing when it's the first visit to a new continent, but having to go through the village/town/whatever to get to the Entrance Stage to find the next level feels like very blatant padding

 

Your post said, and I quote "the repetition of moving through the hubs, especially when interacting with the NPCs is necessary". Which yes, does imply you are referring to every hub when that is not the case. Even in Chun-Nan, that hub is small, so finding the person you need to talk to is easy. Spagonia while bigger, I remember finding an NPC that said "I saw them going to Mazuri" did not take me long at all.

If my 12 year old self in 2008 when Unleashed came out was able to find all these acts, then, yeah, I'd call it a skill issue on your part.

Pickle gives you more flashes the more you give him souvenirs from other places.

I'll admit when I first played in 2008, the Shamar thing did get me, but I think it took me like... maybe 10 minutes?