Sonic Unleashed Review (Nintendo Wii)

Once upon a time, there was a hedgehog named Sonic who captured the hearts of every gamer around the world. His speed was legend. And his fame quickly rose to be on par with icons of the likes of Mario, the plumber.

Then, like a whisper lost in the breeze, that legend disappeared.

Sometime around when Sonic went 3D – he simply lost the interest of his fans. Maybe polygons were just too much for them. Or, maybe those fans just simply grew up. Who knows? The Dreamcast release, Sonic Adventure, was hailed as the top selling title on system. But, it didn’t do much to keep the Sonic flame alive.

And, now Sonic is back in Sonic Unleashed, a game that could have been the best Sonic game in over a decade. Could have been.

What happened? The game was designed with two characters. No, not Sonic and Knuckles or Sonic and Tails. It was designed with Sonic the Hedgehog, the lightning fast character we all know and love. And, with Sonic the Werehog, a slow, poorly conceptualized character many will come to loathe as the worst Sonic character of all time.

The game immediately starts with a familiar tale. Dr. Eggman is back and is about to wreak havoc on the world. How? With the use of Chaos Emeralds, what else? Sonic shows up to try and stop him, but instead gets himself turned into a werewolf. For a hedgehog that is supposed to move at super speed, you’ll only wish that his mind worked just as fast, so that he could have realized that getting turned into a werehog would just piss off gamers.

Now the graphics are a solid visual treat. From the water to the snow-capped mountains, you’ll feel like you’re playing inside a painting that belongs in the Louvre instead of a simple Nintendo Wii game. The opening animation sequence is a gift to fans who just like freakin’ cool cut scenes.

The sound score is great. The upbeat music keeps you inside the game, and makes you want to keep playing. There is one sound that will become the bane of your existence though. Every night, when Sonic turns into the werehog, he lets off a howl. And, that will signal the beginning of the end in your love of this game.

When the sun is out, Sonic rocks as the lightning fast hedgehog of legend. You’ll have fun sliding under treacherous terrain, zigzagging down mountain slopes to avoid ice structures and, of course, zipping around the good-old-fashioned sonic rollercoaster loop. You can boost your speed by collecting rings, for amazing effects and attacks. Oh, and speaking of attacks, you can chain attacks together without losing your speed. Superb.

The animation screams perfection as the game moves at such an alarming fast frame rate that you’ll think you were playing on a government super computer. Kudos to the design team for this.

The use of the Wii-mote actually augments the gameplay for this title, and will bring a tear to your eye when you wonder, “Where has Sonic been all these years.”

There’s also some cool non-traditional Sonic fun. One cool thing was the inter-game use of a snowmobile during the day. You get that same sonic speed with the addition of some wicked fun snowmobile action.

Every time you play you earn medals and different rankings. Chances are you won’t perform at your best the first time around. And, since the daytime boards are so fun, you will want to keep playing the them just for the sake of earning medals or boosting your rating.

But, that’s when the fun ends. Because at some point, you’ll have to play the night scenes and experience some of the most monotonous forms of torture ever known to man. Sonic the Werehog is simply not Sonic. You’re a slow wolf, with arms that can stretch to reach anything.

Well almost anything. The geometry in the gameplay hinders exploration. You’re a wolf with long arms like Mr. Fantastic or Plastic Man. Yet, there are ledges only a foot away that you just won’t be able to grab, while at other times a pole will be four stories up in the air and you can stretch to grab it with no problem.

Also, the fighting is redundant with left and right punch action via Wii-Nunchaku combo. Comparative to the daytime scenes where you move at Sonic speed, it will feel like the night scenes take forever. And ever. And ever. And ever. You get the point. You’ll begin to ask yourself, “Why didn’t the design team mix it up more and throw in an even mix of day time scenes? Well, they did. It’s just that the nighttime scenes are so slow and monotonously boring that you’ll feel like there is one daytime sonic adventure, amidst a nonstop barrage of werehog activity. In the end, there are just too many night scenes to put up with.

Throughout the game, you’ll navigate to different parts of the world that have been broken up due to Dr. Eggman. The World Map gives you a visual representation of where you’ll need to travel to next, and also serves as a means of keeping track of progress and ranking. Each section of the world has a Village Map which is the second downfall to Sonic Unleashed. The Village interactions serves no purpose and forces you to click through useless dialogue. Extra time lost for no reason. And another thing to take away from daytime Sonic bliss.

Sonic Unleashed for the Wii has exceptionally fun daytime gameplay that gets boggled down with werehog monotony. If you can suffer through werehog gaming and a useless village map you’ll be in for the ride of your life. Hopefully, the designers will scrap all the useless gimmicks and the next installment will be focus solely on classic Sonic gameplay.