It's a game of high highs, but low lows.

"Day good, Night bad" has been said ad nauseam, because it's true. The daytime stages are fast-paced thrills, requiring precise reflexes to keep moving. When you fail in one of these stages, it's generally because of your own error, and you learn something from it. To me, they're what Sonic is all about. Speedy gameplay, diverting routes that reward masterful platforming, and wonderful setpieces. They're just plain fun to blast through. My complaints for the day stages are minimal, and boil down to them sometimes overusing QTEs. Meanwhile, the Werehog stages kinda suck. They're full of repetitive brawls, tedious tightrope sections, boring backtracking, and so on. They really kill the pacing of the game, as does returning to them because you missed a few medals. They're not all bad, but I just can't say this is what I'm playing the game for. They really hinder the sense of progression, which is a shame.

I did at least like the boss fights. All of them were memorable, and Dark Gaia was a great sendoff to the game.

Where the game truly shines is in its presentation. I love the globetrotting nature of the game, exploring the vast array of communities that you come across. The music never misses, and the game looks and runs stunningly on Xbox Series X|S as well. I was also fond of the cutscenes. You can tell a lot of love was put into these aspects of the game, so I just wish it was this consistently fun to actually play.

I don't play Sonic games for the story. That being said, it was pretty inoffensive. It added some interesting lore to Sonic's world, which is a big plus. I enjoyed seeing the friendship between Sonic and Chip flourish too. I wish the other characters didn't get so sidelined, but oh well. Everything else was fine; I liked how Sonic was motivated by a personal goal as well as by saving the planet.

All in all, fun game, but some questionable design choices hold it back, sadly. 7/10.

Link turns into a werewolf. Nobody bats an eye.

But when Sonic becomes a werewolf. EVERYBODY LOSES THEIR MINDS.

Honestly on par with Generations with how enjoyable this is but the medal collecting is pretty much the only real problem I have with this game, other then that this is a peak Sonic game with a pretty fun character action game attached to it.

With having an Xbox Series X/S and now having to play the game that isn't played either on a 360 or through emulation, I have been playing the game on and off for a few days and I gotta say this, I love it so much!

Both the daytime stages and night time stages are fun, the Werehog's gameplay is actually quite entertaining to play through, guessing it's because I love beat 'em ups games like Devil May Cry and Hi-Fi Rush for example and the bonding between both Sonic and Chip is really wholesome!

Also for the level Eggmanland, the level isn't that hard, but it's both long and challenging, but I had fun with it.

Though there can be problems with the game because of course it happens to any Sonic games, like the quick time events, like good god can you give me more time to breath so that I can press the buttons and not even making a mistake on pressing the button to fully react.

Sonic Unleashed is definitely one of the more polarizing entries in the series, and it's easy to see why. The 2 gameplay styles clash so hard to the point that you're playing 2 games in 1, so it's easy to heavily prefer one style. But the despite that, I still really enjoyed this game for what it is, so here's why, with positive and negatives. Let's start of with the presentation. The presentation of this game is phenomenal, and it still holds up to this day for a game made in 2008. The Pixar-like art direction and the awesome global illumination effects does a great job at making the world feel alive and fits really well with the world adventure theme of this game. Same thing goes for the soundtrack, which is easily one of the best in the series due to how much variety there is and just how darn catchy and fitting it is. The story is also more on the lighthearted side, which is pretty fitting for the world adventure theme of this game. The opening CGI cutscene does an awesome job at setting up the story, and I think the theme of light vs. dark is a pretty neat idea. My main criticism with the story is that I kinda wished there was more that happened between the beginning and the end. At least it somewhat makes up for it with really good character writing, and the voice acting, primarily with Sonic as Jason started to get much better with his performance as the character. Now onto the gameplay! The daytime stages just might be some of the best 3D Sonic gameplay in the series. The sense of speed you have is exhilarating, and the levels are a blast to run through, with some solid enough platforming, and obstacles you have to quickly react to in order to stay alive. As a result these levels can feel incredibly rewarding to master, but they can also be kinda frustrating if you're playing these on your first time, cause some of the later levels can feel a bit trial-and-errorish. It's like the desginers were aware of this, since the levels hand out lives like candy just in case. The controls can also feel slippery but nothing you can't get used to after some time. Now onto the night gameplay! Yes, it is indeed strayed far away from what you'd expect from a Sonic game, but what's here is fairly competent. really enjoy the platforming sequences from swinging on poles to grabbing onto ledges, and it can feel good once you start to get a good flow. The combat is solid enough, though you'll need to level it up quite a bit to get a bigger moveset and power. The puzzles are pretty basic and not anything special, but they aren't offensive either. As a result, my favorite night stages are ones such as Cool Edge and Skyscraper Scamper Act 1, while my least favorites are Dragon Road and Arid Sands Act 1 due to how repetitive those stages are with combat. Some other criticisms I have are that the controls of the Werehog could be a bit tighter, and the lack of a proper drop shadow can make certain sections such as beam balancing ones much harder than they need to be. Overall, I think the Werehog is pretty solid for what it is, but I can't blame others for being fully against the idea. This was clearly something added for padding, as Sonic Team knew that game with just day stages would be extremly short otherwise. As for the boss fights, I think the day ones are pretty good with how you have to boost into the bosses in order to knock them over while dodging their attacks, though they can feel kinda samey. I'll have to give a slight edge to the night bosses, as they all have something to set them apart with how you have to expose their weak point, then attack. Last aspects I'll touch upon for now are the hub worlds and pacing. I think the hub worlds are pretty good and they do a solid job at adding worldbuilding, and it's not too hard to figure out where you have to go. The pacing on the other hand is a pretty major issue, primarily because of the forced medal collecting you have to do in order to finish the game. The medals aren't too much of a problem in the night stages as you're meant to take things slower, they're an issues in the day stages, because you are running by so fast that it is very easy to miss medals. Doesn't help the fact that some of these medals are hidden in REALLY obscure places. While it is something that does become less of a problem on repeat playthroughs, it can be pretty demoralizing to encounter the first time and can absolutely drive away new players from the game. Despite the major flaws, this just might be one of my favorite Sonic games. As for recommending this one, I would NOT recommend this game to anyone trying to get into 3D Sonic. I'd suggest playing Colors and Generations first to get used to the Boost formula, and then ask yourself how much can you tolerate alternate gameplay styles in Sonic. If you have a high tolerance for them, I'd say give this game a shot if you don't mind having to deal with medals. If you don't meet these recommendations, perhaps this isn't the game for you.