Sonic Unleashed was one of many Sega’s 3D games from the 2000’s that fans and critics remember for all the wrong reasons. Sonic Unleashed was released back in ’08 and was another attempt to recapture the magic the two Sonic Adventure games between the late 90’s-early 00’s. In fact, Sonic Unleashed was originally supposed to be Sonic Adventure 3 before Sega’s creative direction had changed during the development. Sonic Unleashed was originally going to be called Sonic World Adventure before the idea was ultimately scrapped during development. Sonic Unleashed was a game were Sega decided to try something new in terms of story and gameplay. While the idea of Sonic becoming a werehog at night sounds cool the execution was something critics had issues with. Sonic Unleashed had a cool intro involving Sonic going into his super form and Dr. Eggman awakening Dark Gaia who is the main antagonist of the game.

Dr. Eggman utilized the Chaos Emeralds to unleash Dark Gaia to help him conquer the world but instead the creature ends up splitting the world in different parts while creating monsters in the process. After Dark Gaia was awakened Sonic ended up absorbing some of Dark Gaia’s negative energy causing him to turn into a monstrous werehog at night. The entire intro scene took place on a spaceship and was one of the best parts of Sonic Unleashed because of its cinematic quality. As the game progressed you learned more about everything in relation to the story including Chip the main deuteragonist being revealed as Light Gaia. Chip’s primary purpose in the game is to guide Sonic to the Gaia Temples in order to replenish the power of the Chaos Emeralds while defeating Dark Gaia. Sonic Unleashed had around eight global locations and had at least 70 different levels. The day levels where Sonic was in his base form felt like normal fast-paced levels players are used to seeing in older 3D sonic titles. The night levels were Sonic was a werehog felt completely different because emphasis was placed on beat-em up gameplay.

Also, the night levels felt like more of a slow paced platformer opposed to the high-speed action players are used to seeing in a Sonic game. The werehog mechanic was something that made Sonic Unleashed feel like a completely different game. There are certain stages during the werehog levels where Sonic Unleashed feels like a Crash Bandicoot or Spyro the Dragon game. Sonic Unleashed also had a series of travel hubs similar to that of the original Sonic Adventure but they looked a lot better and were inspired by real world countries. While the gameplay for Sonic Unleashed feels more intriguing than other entries of the Sonic series it could have been much better than it was. The Sonic Unleashed had inconsistent gameplay because the day and night stages felt radically different. The werehog concept in Sonic Unleashed was something that felt forced because Sega clearly wanted to make the night levels standout. The gameplay featuring werehog version of Sonic is something that could of been an entirely different game on its own.

Also, the Sonic Unleashed being canon does not make too much sense since its something that is not heavily referenced in future installments within the series. Despite, its mixed reception Sonic Unleashed did good in sales reaching over 2.4 million copies worldwide on consoles like PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii. Even though, critics were initially hard on Sonic Unleashed when it first came out it was still far better other 3D entries like Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. Sonic Unleashed was a game that had a bunch of cool ideas but deviated a little too far from the basic gameplay formula that gave Sonic games their identity. By the late-2000’s Sega had seemingly lost their touch in relation to make high quality Sonic games. Sonic Unleashed is not really a bad game but its not great game either which left many Sega fans with polarizing opinions towards it over the years.