This was one of the few major Sonic games I never played before so I decided to finally give it a try. The game starts out great, the opening stage playing as Sonic is very fun and was a great evolution of the 3D Sonic gameplay at the time. Then the werehog hits... and it wasn't that bad honestly. It was a light/worse version of God of War but it was pretty inoffensive. So I was feeling this game as I was plowing through stages.

Then I hit a road block and realized I would have to go back and find Sun and Moon medallions... okay okay I can make. Using some YouTube videos I was able to get through these roadblocks without too much issue. Continuing on the game was still fun, but the Sonic levels were getting a bit more frustrating with the camera and controls, with the levels punishing you for going fast?, and the werehog levels were getting longer and more drawn out. Nothing horrible but not as good as before.

Then the final section is just horrendous. Excruciating platforming with the wonky controls, an even more reliance on lightning fast QTEs with extreme punishments for messing up, and some long painful fights as the werehog where I encountered multiple glitches. I was just happy for this game to finally end at that point, which was sad given a lot of the rest of the game did at least have some charming fun to it.

You know, it's been a long time since I got to actually replay Sonic Unleashed instead of just loading up my complete save file to play the daytime stages and some of the boss fights, or listening to the soundtrack on Youtube. I used to think this game was pretty decent and that the daytime stages were basically good enough to make up for the boring parts, but that's because I kept going back to them while the boring parts kept fading out from my memory, but experiencing a new save file brought back all those sealed memories to the forefront of my brain. It's not just the night stages, though they are boring ass pace-breakers where you basically stop playing your Sonic game so you can play some uninspired God of War knockoff, but it's also... Everything else.

Why do I need to keep going back to spagonia every time I'm done with a continent? Yeah, I know the in-universe reason, so that Professor Exposition there can tell me where to go next, but sometimes I even need to talk to him in order to unlock shit in the continents I already had unlocked before. Can't he just communicate with Sonic, Chip and Tails using a phone or something like that? Why do I have to collect these stupid medals just to progress? The night stages already take long enough to complete on their own, but you still have to go out of your way to search for every nook and cranny for medals, or else the game will just cock-block you from entering the next stage because you didn't collect enough of the damn things.

"Well, why don't you collect them in the day stages then?"

Have you seen how fast Sonic goes in those things? They obvously weren't meant for exploration, almost every time I collected a medal in these stages it was by pure accident, I was just blasting through and then oh, I collected a medal, arlight then. Plus, these levels don't have as many medals to collect as the night ones, so it's not really worth the effort, I was collecting from the hub worlds and the night stages instead. Let me tell you, I was not having a good time doing any of that, all this tedious process made me think was "Jesus fuck I'll have to do this just to get to the next day stage" instead of having any kind of fun. The hub worlds are charming and have a lot of personality, but the vast majority of the side quests you get to do in them are just glorified time attacks or enemy gauntlets in slightly modified parts of the regular stages.

Oh, and the story is mediocre at best, don't even get me started on that, seriously.

So, if most of my game time is spent doing tedious shit I don't care about while roughly 40% of the game is the part I have fun with, then why was it that I believed Sonic Unleashed was a good game to begin with? It's not, it never was, I just liked the daytime stages way too much and kept replaying them after I was done with this game for the first time, this whole process caused me to have a bit of a selective memory. Eh, I really should have just stuck with the Unleashed Project mod for Sonic Generations, it already gives me the parts of Unleashed I like without forcing me to play through the rest of the game. Yeah, I'll do that, so goodbye Sonic Unleahsed!

[Verse 1]
The secret side of me
I never let you see
I keep it caged, but I can't control it
So stay away from me
The beast is ugly
I feel the rage, and I just can't hold it
It's scratching on the walls
In the closet, in the halls
It comes awake, and I can't control it
Hiding under the bed
In my body, in my head
Why won't somebody come and save me from this?
Make it end!

[Chorus]
I feel it deep within!
It's just beneath the skin!
I must confess that I feel like a monster!
I hate what I've become!
The nightmare's just begun!
I must confess that I feel like a monster!
I, I feel like a monster!
I, I feel like a monster!

[Verse 2]
My secret side I keep
Hid under lock and key
I keep it caged, but I can't control it
'Cause if I let him out
He'll tear me up, break me down
Why won't somebody come and save me from this?
Make it end!
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[Chorus]
I feel it deep within!
It's just beneath the skin!
I must confess that I feel like a monster!
I hate what I've become!
The nightmare's just begun!
I must confess that I feel like a monster!
I feel it deep within!
It's just beneath the skin!
I must confess that I feel like a monster!
I, I feel like a monster!
I, I feel like a monster!

[Bridge]
It's hiding in the dark!
Its teeth are razor-sharp!
There's no escape for me, it wants my soul, it wants my heart
No one can hear me scream
Maybe it's just a dream
Maybe it's inside of me
Stop this monster!
I feel it deep within, it's just beneath the skin
I must confess that I feel like a monster

[Chorus]
I hate what I've become!
The nightmare's just begun!
I must confess that I feel like a monster!
I feel it deep within!
It's just beneath the skin!
I must confess that I feel like a monster!
I’m gonna lose control!
It’s something radical!
I must confess that I feel like a monster!
I, I feel like a monster!
I, I feel like a monster!
I, I feel like a monster!
I, I feel like a monster!

I'll admit I might be nostalgia blind with this one. Sonic Unleashed was the first ever videogame I ever saw. I didn't get to play it but little 5 year old me was hooked on the story and how fun the game looked. And well years later here I am finally playing it.

To say Sonic Unleashed met my expectations and THEN some would be an understatement. The daytime stages are genuinely some of the most fun I've ever had in a videogame, getting a good S rank run or pb is one of the most satisfying things I've experienced in recent years. Stages like Rooftop Run, Cool Edge, or Jungle Joyride never fail to get my blood pumping. Every daystage will put your reaction speed and memorization to the test and finally putting it all together for a good run is super rewarding. Anyways time to talk about the werehog!!!

Honest to god the werehog isn't too bad. Don't get me wrong the DMC fan in me is dying slowly about the combat. All I can say is that it's kinda okay to maybe decent if you just hyper focus upgrading combat and strength, there's also quick time events that look kinda cool that I'm pretty sure is an instakill against enemies. The werehog also has a focus on platforming. I think the platforming is pretty fun but it's by no means remarkable. They're like all 20-30 minutes if you actually participate in the combat sections but if you REALLY hate werehog you can like skip 90% of them and just shove chilidogs down sonic's gullet to make up for the lack of exp.

Should probably talk about medals. They honestly aren't too bad. I played all the night stages looking out for all of them and barely had to replay night stages as a result. If you keep an eye out for them then you'll have enough to get to the next stage, I spent way more time replaying day stages during my play through than I did playing werehog stages in general. During this I accidentally got like most of the medals available in the day stages.

Anyways in conclusion I really love this game and I'm super glad it met 5 year old me's expectations of peak gameplay. I totally get if you dislike this game but for me? This is one of the best games I've ever played.

I think people misunderstand why this game is so ballsy with its difficulty. Of course it’s so incredibly hard; SEGA obviously wanted players to develop quicker reaction timing. Having lightning fast reaction is important, especially if you’re driving. In fact, playing the daytime levels is a lot like driving through a city. The only difference is that if you die in the car, you die in real life as well. SEGA weren’t being sadistic; they were looking out for their fans. They want us all to be good drivers so we don’t crash our cars because we didn’t play enough Sonic Unleashed. I think S ranking every stage in Unleashed should be a requirement in receiving a license. Maybe then, the roads would be less dangerous. …Or, they’ll end being even more chaotic and unsafe.

Em um certo momento do game, presumia que seria mais um daqueles q tinha criado uma expectativa e teria perdido com o tempo, mas com insistência, o final compensa todo sentimento de rancor q tinha com o game.

Consegue ter personagens ok e até pouco carismáticos, as fases diurnos, pra mim, são as fases que dão mais emoção e divertem pela gameplay e soundtrack. Já as fases noturnas achei meh, com sistema hack'n slash e tem uns inimigos irritantes que podem atrapalhar um pouco da experiência, mas não completamente, fora alguns erros que acontece como o botão de pular não responder, às vezes. O que me faz ainda ter esse sentimento era ter que coletar Sun & Moon medals pra desbloquear as fases, sério, tinha que ficar repetindo umas fases (maioria noturna) pra coletar cada uma delas com guia no YouTube, isso me fazia ficar cansado rapidamente e já sair dps de coletar algumas poucas.

Agora o final foi que me faz contrariar a maior parte do meu desgosto que tinha desse jogo, a batalha final contra Eggman e Dark Gala até em sua forma final com a luta do Super Sonic contra o bixo é mto foda, dps é só alegria qnd zera pelas corridas que tem que fazer com um tempo bem apertado.

No geral, eu não ruim mas não 100% excelente por falhas, bugs e os coletáveis que creio q não combinam com o game, mas há diferença bem notável comparado à outros games do Sonic lançados até então, por isso, acho ótimo jogar pela história e diferenças de gameplay. 👍👍

After Sonic 06 nearly killed the franchise, SEGA and Sonic Team knew they couldn't mess up the next major game or the hedgehog would be dead.

They took the mock speed sections from certain Sonic stages from 06 and the boost formula from the Sonic Rush games to make a high speed adventure.

They added the Werehog because the game was too short. The Werehog is a hack n slash gameplay with puzzle elements. They slow the paste down and are very monotonous.

The boost formula is a very interesting idea but it wasn't very well executed. The levels require you to have full knowledge of the levels which is impossible on your first playthroughs.

Unleashed was the first game to use Sonic Team's Hedgehog Engine which showcases the power of the graphics. With that the game will lag when too many items appear.