This Sonic game was predicted that it would be one of the best sonic games that was released for a while. I remember that I wanted to get this game a lot. I would read any review about it, see online trailers and pictures, it looked like an awesome game. So one day, I got it. I was really only looking forward to the day stages to see if they were as glorious as Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2. Lets see how this game fairs.

The story opens up with a cut-scene. That is, Sonic is on some big air ship (probably named the "Egg-thing-that-will-most-likely-be-destroyed-within-this-game"), and you see him speeding along, dodging all the missiles and attacks and just generally owning everything in his path. This reminds me of the epic Egg-Carrier level from Sonic Adventure, in which is generally the same thing, only one's a level, and ones a cut-scene. You then see Sonic meet Eggman in his crazy new contraption that resembles one of those robot suits from the Matrix. This suit has everything: machine guns, rocket launchers....the works. I just love how insanely beserk Eggman is acting to try and kill Sonic. I also love the machines Eggman builds to crush Sonic, each game has a certain weirdness to it, but I digress. Eggman captures Sonic, but Sonic uses the Chaos Emeralds (which I never question where he keeps them), and turns into Super Sonic.

We see Sonic defeat Eggman in some explosion, and Eggman is in his Egg-Capsule (which always seems like a copy of the Wily Capsule, but I'm pretty sure Eggman was first. In fact, now that I think about it, they are both evil scientific geniuses, they are both fighting something blue, both have a mustache and they always seem to have an indispensable amount of money in their hands to create these huge lairs, several robots and great battle ships. What did their great grand-parents invent to make them so rich to leve to their children? Air? I digress again, sorry), and is finally cornered by Sonic. Eggman shows remorse, in which Sonic humors him for a moment, until he is caught in a trap. This drains the power pf the Chaos Emeralds out of him and Sonic is transformed into some sort of werehog. I say werehog, but technically it's not a werehog. A werewolf is half man, half wolf, so when calling Sonic a werehog means to imply that he was something other than a hedgehog before taking this transformation. So he's half hog and half hedgehog? Or would he be half hedgehog and half hedgehog? The latter makes sense, lets go by that, shall we?

So Eggman gloats, sends Sonic back to earth by releasing an air lock on him and he falls flat on his face, in which the sun rises. He returns to normal and meets this odd character that is later named "chip", and he is like the Sonic equivalent of Navi, only not as bad as it might sound. He teaches you how to play the game during the tutroial level. The opening is promising enough, and the story has a couple of plot-twists and a pretty amazing professor. The aim is to put back together the world as it has split up into seven pieces.

The controls are simple enough. For the day stages, you move around with the Joy-stick, you swing the wii-mote to dash forward and to use your homing attack, you press A to jump and Z to slide. Combined this with the level design and you have some pretty epic gaming right there. The night stages are a different story entirely. You move with the Joy-stick, and a combination of different movements of the nun-chuck and wii-mote to preform several different moves, some of which you need to unlock. The A still makes you jump, though.

I like how the attention to detail is fine. The graphics in general are stunning in the day time stages, but rightfully eeire at the night time stages. The cut scenes are smooth and well done, while the backgrounds create a somewhat overall good affect when running at high speeds or looking into the background at night. The game play is far better than I expected in the day time stages. It's adrenaline pumping when running at top speeds and intoxicating to preform everything correctly without stopping the beat of the running. It's just what I wanted, the feeling is almost like a 3D version of Ninja Gaiden for the NES. These stages often change from a 3D perspctive to a 2D perspective. At the end of each day stage, depending on how quickly you got to the finishing point, you will get some moon medals, and vise versa for the night stages. Wouldn't it make more sense if you got sun medals for the day stage and moon medals for the night stage?

The night stages seem to slow down the game a bit. You fight these monster, and after every kill, you gain exp, but will only count if you can complete the level. Not much platforming here, just beat them up, continue, and beat more of them up. Again, you get sun medals according to how fast you complete the level. When you level up, you can increase your health bar, or your power, but it's all passive and you have no control over what you level up with. When you get to that level, you get that power-up. Somewhere in these levels, you can find a secret, and these secrets often unlock pieces of art or music you can view in the bonus section. Then there are these temples, in which there are several doors .Doors will open when you have enough sun and moon medals. Two of them open up a level in both the day and night time, while the middle of these two offers a boss. The other doors are for bonuses and stuff like that, and aren't really important unless you like to unlock everything.

The interaction of the countries you visit is quite low grade and disapointing. There are four spots, in which clicking on one of these spots will take you to a person. They give a little information and you go back to the city. You don't even explore the area, it's just four spots to go and talk to people. The lowest form of an RPG simplified greatly. When your on the level select, however, you can take part in missions to gain more sun and moon medals. Fail these missons, and you are given a re-try screen. But this screen holds a nice touch. This has the game's theme in it, only it sounds a little messed up and like the band who is playing it is failing, just like you did in the game. That's a really nice touch.

The music is superb. Simply put, some of the levels have really catchy music. It fits well with the game and is a joy to listen to. I don't think there was one bad song in it, in fact. The best songs are left till the credits, with vocals to match the adventure and post-adventure of the game. I couldn't stop listening to these songs when I played this game. I used to listen to the credits just to hear these songs, go to the music section and hear them, lerned the names of them and generally being some of my favouite pieces of music in a sonic game. Shame there was no Crush 40, but this was a nice change.

Overall, I give this game a 7.4/10           The game was very well made. The night time stages were a little off and did slow down the games speed overall, but it doesn't out-weigh the amazing day time stages, the music, the graphics and the enjoyable game play that made this game what it was. If your a Sonic fan and want to find a game that has fast speeds with that Sonic charm that was in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, then this is the best your going to get next to Sonic Colours.

I wasn't a big fan of the game itself. Overall it doesn't feel like a Sonic game. There's a switch between night and day and to be honest, I wish it was day all the time. Nights are just combat, which is NOT a Sonic game. Its just meh to me.

I was impressed with the graphics for this game. Sadly the gameplay for the night stages is awful and whenever I play them I want them to end. The day stages always kept me on. I like the sensation of speed in this game it seems like Sega improved the speed from the terrible Sonic 06' Sonic and the secret rings does not count.

I love this game. It's my second favourite 3D Sonic game. The day stages are unbelieveable and the night stages are fun, in my opinion. I really love the sound and graphical design of this game. Did you know that in the opening cutscene, Eggman has a Dreamcast in his pod?

Great Review, keep it up!

I actually did enjoy playing this game. Despite spending A LOT of time beating the game 100% (trust me, I've gotten plenty of headaches trying to S rank EVERY MISSION, especially in Eggmanland, although Dark Gaia wasn't too hard to S rank)I did enjoy playing this game. I didn't like the night missions much but i did enjoy the night boss themes.

I actually did enjoy playing this game. Despite spending A LOT of time beating the game 100% (trust me, I've gotten plenty of headaches trying to S rank EVERY MISSION, especially in Eggmanland, although Dark Gaia wasn't too hard to S rank)I did enjoy playing this game. I didn't like the night missions much but i did enjoy the night boss themes.

Edit: Whoops. I double posted. My bad...

megamanmaniac : I haven't played the Wii version of Sonic Unleashed. I played the Xbox 360 one.  I did enjoy this game a lot as well but disliked the night stages besides that Jungle Joy Ride stage ( mostly played the stage over and over cause the music was smoothing to me lol ) The Eggman stage was soo long when I first played it. Took me many lives to beat that stage. I think Perfect Dark Gaia was a pretty decent boss the music was epic ! Sorry got a little carried away with this post lol

cnw64 : Smoothing? lol. I think the X-Box and Wii versions are a bit different. My favorite was Chun-Nan Day stage. I found that fun and i enjoy that music. My least favorite would definitely be Holoska night stage. Although Ice Moray was fun to fight.

megamanmaniac : He did? I can't believe I didn't spot that sooner.

I personally like this game. It's fun and has beautiful graphics.
Good job with the review, by the way!

I had the game for the PS2. It wasn't that bad, but it didn't feel like a Sonic game, since half the game was a beat 'em up. Besides that, it was a good game, and a step to another direction.