Sonic Unleashed: The Post-PC Port Discussion Thread

I put it on the pedestal then and I still put it on the pedestal now. Recomp doesn't really change anything for me other than make a great game even better.

Liked the boost, like the werehog. Simple as.

 

Man, this proves what I've been banging on about Sonic Unleashed for years: If they would reduce the enemy count, and remove the room barrier crap, the werehog levels would be pretty damn awesome. The platforming in those sections are a lot of fun, IMO. What drags it down are the locked rooms where you have to beat waves of enemies and how much of a sponge they could be. Remove those rooms and maybe either make enemies much easier to kill or reduced in numbers and -- most importantly -- give the werehog a drop shadow, and I think people would actually really like the stages. It'd make Unleashed super short, but it'd be very focused.

 

My opinions haven't meaningfully changed as someone who played the Wii game as a kid and the 360 game as a teen. I've always adored the day stages, the production values, and the tone of the writing. Though simple, I love all of the optional sidequests and the little stories that play out. It's like an amped up version of SA1's NPC character progressions in many regards.

Even with great performance, Werehog is still a slog through the main campaign. It only becomes fun once you're upgraded enough to get the dopamine hits of combos and to hit hard enough for enemies to go down in a handful of hits. Even maxed out, I only just barely like the process of optimizing Werehog stage runs for time.

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Regarding that particular video, Werehog level design is something of a crapshoot in how fast you can go. Dragon Road and Windmill Isle are great in how open they are, but something like Rooftop Run has a lot of purple walls segmenting off the stage into battles or puzzle solving. It's not un-fun, but it's a pace-breaker if you like going fast.

 

I guess I'll repost what I said in the other thread.

TL;DR - unleashed has soul and looks pretty, probably not the most compelling argument.

I'll add that I do think the werehog is a little bit of a slog and that video in the OP where the player skips past all the enemies and doesn't interact with anything is not very convincing at all lol.

 

I have to admit, seeing this game be reappraised in the context of this 'port' is making me very happy. I have said for years that Unleashed was massively overhated and, annoyances aside, really did a lot to make Sonic seem like a franchise you could take seriously again after the dark ages. High production values, really well-thought out design, a vision of where to take the series and a feeling that amateur hour was finally over.

 

lmao this is so blatantly cherrypicked (and I only just noticed your hidden text, womp), Dragon Road is the only main Werehog level that lets you do this. Bypass nearly every enemy encounter, actually has some branching paths and meaningful shortcuts, etc.

This always stuck out to me when I did the hot dog missions (for those unaware, Don Fachio, the hotdog vendor, gives you specialized chili dogs in each world for like, "beat the level in xx:xx time," "beat the level with 100 rings," etc.) and every one of the Werehog's stages asked you to beat them within 10 minutes... except for Dragon Road, which asked you to do it in 3 minutes.

But the game definitely does not expect you to play it like this if you want to S-rank, even in that video they only get an A-rank. Plus there's the fact that the Werehog stages make up the bulk of medal collecting, so you really want to poke around in those levels as much as possible on your first playthrough to save yourself the hassle of having to comb through older levels later when you don't have a high enough medal level.

Anyway, I don't mind the Werehog as much as most people do, but I won't pretend it really adds anything to the experience. I still don't think the daytime levels have been bested by the other boost games, though Colors, Generations, and Shadow Generations are certainly better all-around packages IMO. At the time of its release I was one of those Sonic freaks who thought the game was much better than it was given credit for, even if I can understand the base level complaints.

Speaking of, I don't think there's ever been as much of a disparity between critical and fandom reception for Sonic as there was with this game. The mainstream gaming media/community acted like it was just yet another embarrassment in the vein of Sonic 06 or Shadow, it was the fans who saw it for the best of what it was - a major step forward for the standard Sonic gameplay, with an extreme level of polish and charm. I genuinely think the game at its best rivals stuff like Mario Galaxy, and the fact that it holds up incredibly well for a game from 2008 will only further bolster its reputation.

 

I think it's a good game overall, albeit pretty flawed. Glad the recomp makes it accessible to a wider audience on modern hardware, because I do think more people should definitely play it.

Spoiler

It is pretty fun seeing Big Sonic Unleashed Fans play it for the first time and going "ok, I see why people prefer Colors and Generations now"

 

Reposting what I said in the other thread here

Glad this recomp exists, Unleashed was the only Sonic game I didn't have a way to revisit since Xenia wasnt working for me and my PS3 is dead, and especially hot off playing Colors Ult, SxS Gens, and Frontiers, made it a lot easier to directly compare them instead of relying on decade-plus memories of me sucking at the 360 version. I still vastly prefer Colors and both Gens for obvious reasons, and while I'd love to see a new attempt at the day stages' design philosophy, I don't trust modern Sonic Team to do it. Pretty ironic since I'm actually confident they can make good games again but with how slow the post-Gens 2011 games have been, I think the art of making something that feels and flows as fast as Rooftop Run or Jungle Joyride is completely lost. Tragic.

 

"Did you know that you actually don't have to fight enemies" he asked smugly while constantly performing the fucking drill move that I haven't even unlocked yet after grinding XP for 3 night stages in a row.

I'm also short 3 moon medals to enter Chun Nan action stages despite looking for them in every nook and cranny in night stages. Time to install mods.

 

I can be corrected if I'm wrong, but I remember most of the defenders for Unleashed would always put an asterisk to their positive opinion. The thing people always pointed out is that Day stages were always the main highlight of the game but they were unfortunately packaged with the Werehog and progression system.

I don't think this is like a CD situation where people were trying to gas light others into thinking it was a flawless game for years. Unleashed also was not that inaccessible, you can still acquire a retail or digital copy with ease (this release also does nothing for people who only game on Nintendo for example). Its issues were always clearly laid out. A new generation is discovering the game because it's practically free now, but it's not like the problems were largely unknown.

That said, while I think Shadow is the more refined boost game, as an overall experience it still falls below Unleashed for the same reason I think Mania is just alright. It's mainly made a rethread of things we've already seen. Unleashed and Colors are the last two games from ST that were full blown brand new experiences. I would have liked to enjoy Colors more but its neutered controls and over reliance on 2D sections as opposed to refining the 3D segments more like Shadow just makes that a weaker experience for me. It trimmed all the fat from Unleashed, but didn't improve on the good parts, it made them worse which is why I always fall back to Unleashed.

Also, I like beat'em ups and I'm a sucker for collectables. My bias in those areas does blind me in those aspects. What everyone else hates I ended up finding fun as hell.

 

I do think there's a bit too many enemies at times, but I honestly don't think the werehog stages are too long. They're longer than Sonic levels (like, significantly longer) which I think contributes to the impression, but I was able to basically fully finish Apotos's Night-1 (missing one sun and moon medal!) in 13 minutes after not having played Unleashed in over 10 years. You could easily do it under 10 because I specifically went out of my way to explore and grab every collectable I could find. Maizuri took longer at 18 minutes because I both died and took a bit of time with a puzzle while also grabbing everything I could find. If they consistently stick to the 20 minute mark while exploring, then they're... fine?

I'm not going to say they're short but full chapters in comparable games (i.e. God of War, DMC) can take up to an hour with savepoints that are often 10 to 20 minutes apart for a single chapter. So, I dunno - the werehog feels fine, maybe a bit too combat heavy at times, but fine. My main complaint is that it feels too... boring. It makes the levels drag on longer.

I also remember the later levels taking forever, so I'll have to see how that goes.

 

It's pretty crazy playing both Generations and Unleashed relatively back-to-back at 60fps, especially since I don't think I've touched Unleashed at all since Generations first came out. This experience is really highlighting how much Generations diverged from Unleashed's main Sonic stages in terms of scale, speed, flow, camera work, and the previously deft weaving of the 2D sections. There's a level of craft in Unleashed that just isn't replicated in Generations... well not exactly, anyways. Generations is still great and even admirable in its own right, and it's arguably an improvement in some (but definitely not all) ways.

This port has pretty much crystalized my opinion of Sonic Unleashed: it's a legitimately great game. A bunch of massive highs and enduring, unprecedented polish punctuated with contentious elements that, frankly, don't bother me at worst. I still enjoy the collection/progression/hub systems, as well as the Werehog overall.

 

Your post is about how you were able to easily get through the levels in reasonable times... what about when people aren't good enough to breeze by? I watched my nephew play the game today, and he gave up in the actual last room of Spagonia's night act because he kept dying in the last big wave of enemies. He had basically poured all his stats into strength but had little life, so he could kill the enemies fast but not withstand wave after wave. And so, even though he reached that room with in like 10 minutes, he spent another 30 minutes trying to get past the last room before he quit. So more than a half hour playing, and he didn't even make progress.

You shouldn't judge how long something is by how quickly you could beat it when you're decent at the game, you should judge it by how long it would take a poor player to get through it. And further, it's important to realize that the length of the levels for bad players comes from repeatedly having to try the same area, not because the levels are gargantuan. People could probably tolerate long levels if they were constantly making progress, but if you're being sent back over and over again to the same area, they give up. That's precisely why Eggmanland has the reputation it has in the HD version.

What's more jarring is playing this right after playing Shadow Generations specifically. There are small things Shadow Gens does right, that sonic games have been getting wrong for so long, that fully on display in Unleashed. Namely that it's possible to "miss the mark" in the level so to speak. An example is in Holoska, during the day act 1, when you're on the sled. Either the first or second sledding section has a point where you take a curve and have to hit a ramp that launches you up to the next level set piece. Because of how you come form the curve, you can actually miss the ramp quite easily. You have to basically aim for it. With Shadow Generations, I noticed that sort of stuff was completely eliminated. The game will nudge you subtlety and take control so you don't miss those kinds of invisible level funnels. It's a small level of polish that makes Shadow Gens IMO a better game, even if it has lower visual production values. A game with Shadow Gen's layout polish and sonic unleashed's visual and audio budget would be amazing.

 

Ignoring the FPS issues from original consoles ver., it's insane how fucking well Jungle Joyride Day aged; the level design is awesome with a lot of shit going with visuals in the stage.

 

That and Empire city. In both my original play through and this new one both took me the longest to unlock but they were completely worth it. Those two levels are the peak of the boost formula IMO. I love nailing the quick step in Adabat's plank sections.

 

Well then I'm reposting my first ever playthrough of the game here, thanks to this port.
This is a better thread to do it, indeed.



So this is the first time I actually got to play Unleashed.
I didn't go to it blindly though. I watched Clement's playthrough many years ago, although I did not pay much attention to the werehog stages because they were pretty boring to watch. I rewatched the cutscenes recently when I was trying to understand the timeline due to the events of Frontiers. And I played the daytime stages on the Unleashed Project in Generations a while ago - and, funnily enough, I did not like them very much.
Also, I knew the nighttime stages drag too long, I knew Eggmanland was infamous, and I knew the medal requirements are atrocious.
But knowing and playing are two different things, of course.

So here's what I thought of the game. VERY LATE (almost 20 years late) but yeah.

• Presentation / product quality

Very, very good. Miles better than what came after it - Colors, Generations, Lost World (never played), Forces (never played) and Frontiers. Even Shadow Generations, which was good, I don't think it was as good as Unleashed.

• Hub worlds

They were fine. Would I prefer it without them? Yes. But they make sense in this game. We're not playing in an island or a city, it's the entire world. It's interesting to know the other cultures we're visiting.

• Entrance stages

I hate them. I'm okay with the hub worlds, but at the end of the day I just want to play the levels. The entrance stages are like a second hub world, but an annoying one. The levels are not always easy to find, and very often the game makes you platform to get there - which is boring with the werehog and irritating with Sonic, which was not made for platforming at all.
There was no reason for the entrance stages to be this troublesome. Just put the levels well arranged and we're good to go.

• Music

Very good. But the werehog battle song got me tired in the first level. I love this port for the option of disabling it.

• Story

Ehh... I mean, the story itself is good. Okay, at least. The plot is enjoyable. Chip is nice, and his interactions with Sonic are also nice.
But there's a tone mismatch that bothers me. The whole planet was split apart, the world is ending. And everyone is... fine? Nobody seems to care that the Earth is shattered in pieces? Were people already used to the idea, after Advance 3 broke the planet in seven dimensions or something? Forces were rightfully criticized because it tries too hard to take the events seriously, but Unleashed does the opposite. The events are serious, but sure, try this ice cream, it's delicious.
And the werehog thing... Sonic became a werehog BEFORE Dark Gaia woke up? But isn't the werehog related to Dark Gaia's influence? I'm assuming Eggman's tech was using some of the Dark Gaia's energy to shoot the planet and to trap Sonic, instead of a simple beam of energy, but I have no idea how he managed to have this.
Besides, how does the Dark vs Light Gaias make sense? Wasn't Light Gaia supposed to be a fucking kaiju too? Chip had never seen the world before, how are his temples scattered across the globe? And his Megazord were buried inside the planet at the end of the game, won't he need it the next time? I don't get it.

• Gameplay
  • Daytime stages

For some reason I enjoyed them way better than when I played them on the Unleashed Project in Generations. I don't know why.
But what I disliked about them on Unleashed Project I still did on Unleashed. I can't see what I'm supposed to dodge because of the 2D/2.5D camera. Even the things I can see, when the camera is in 3D, sometimes I can't dodge either (like falling pillars and icicles, I'm probably just bad). But in general, when I can fully see what's ahead, it's fun.

• Nighttime stages

Jesus fucking Christ. I finished the first level in like 15, 20 minutes. I was thinking to myself "man, I'm really bad at this". Eventually I got the hang of it, but somehow I was taking 30 minutes now. Why are these levels so fucking long? It's three or four times the length of a daytime stage.
I mean, maybe I could stand them if they were fun to play. But 30 minutes of boredom?
And I really hated when there were platforming sections right after a battle. Because many times the checkpoint was only before the battle, not after. So if I die missing a jump, I had to battle those things again.
By the way, I remember people saying the werehog would be better if instead of the werehog it was Knuckles. I mean, sure, Knuckles would be a better choice than Sonic becoming a werewolf. But the main problem is not the character, but the gameplay.

• Eggmanland

I took SEVENTY MINUTES to finish this. Fuck this level.

• Difficulty

Harder than I expected. At some point of the game I had more than 20 lives, almost 30 I guess. I beat the game with only 2 lives remaining. Eggmanland and the two phases of the final boss dried it all.
Something I really didn't like is that you die for any mistake. Missed a jump? Death. Missed a quick time event that lasts half of a second? Death. Your foot slipped when you were tiptoeing? Death. The target on a pole didn't show up in time and you couldn't grab it? Death.

• Medal collection

Like I said, I knew this was a pain. I knew I had to get 120 sun medals from a total of 200. So I played with care, searching for these fuckers everywhere. Hub worlds, entrance stages, nighttime stages - but not the daytime stages, because at least some fun I need to have. And when I got to the daytime stages in Adabat, I had... 121 medals. ONE MEDAL more than the minimum.
I mean, sure, I probably missed some extra levels. I did not bother to do those missions from the hot dog guy. But I just want to enjoy the story and finish the game. And man... I looked EVERYWHERE, and I only got 1 medal above the bare minimum. I can only imagine those who did not know this requirement when they were playing for the first time. It's ridiculous.

• Overall

I wanna say I liked this game, but I didn't. The daytime stages are fine and all, but 75% of the game is werehog. And I'm sorry, but the werehog is boring as hell.
While I don't think the game deserved the bashing it got, I also don't think it deserves such praise some people give. Maybe it's the same phenomenon that I think happens with the storybook games - people say they love them because they only watched the cutscenes on Youtube, but did not actually played them, or were too young to remember the quirks.

 

I clapped at the end-credits when I originally finished the game, so I definitely felt something. It felt like an achievement I think it's a flawed great game, if that makes sense. The best 3D Sonic for me in terms of faithfulness to what Sonic is, is still SA1, but as a standalone game with the boost/racecar feel, I think it's the best we've got at AAA ambition-level. At full framerate and performance, it's great, incompleteness aside (and sure the werehog is questionable). Shadow Generations doesn't count because it's still not fully-original, but I think we're on the cusp of a new format anyway.

Long story short, it's the 3D Sonic game with the best production quality, soul, and presentation, regardless of the gameplay. I know that doesn't mean a whole lot to some people, but hey. I think we've never seen anything nearing the quality of this one.

That said, I liked that this was probably the last time the developers weren't afraid to make the levels challenging.

 

Except instead very specific circumstances (s-ranks on *specific* stages) this is how I play every level