Sonic Unleashed (Which I'll refer to as Unwiished from now on) is a port of Sonic Unleashed from the 360 and PS3 however the game is vastly different compared to that game.

The HD versions of this game are some of my favorite sonic games ever, however this version I think is definitely worse in almost everyway.

Presentation - The actual plot of the game hasn't changed and the cutscenes in this version have highly compressed video quality. The hub worlds have also been cut in favour for a simple selection screen where you can talk to villagers, and go to a shrine allowing you to access levels. I personally prefer the hub worlds though this isn't the worse change in the world.

Graphics - in this version are significantly worse in this version which is understandable considering this is the Wii, and I wouldn't say this version looks awful or anything, it looks fine. Though sonic's model does look strange.

Gameplay - So they decided to just cut two whole areas out of this game, Savannah Citadel and Skyscraper Scamper. The egg beetle from Savannah citadel is in the game but the levels have been cut. The Gaia Gates serve as your way to get into levels and while I miss the hub worlds these aren't bad either. One positive change are the way Sun and Moon medals work in this version. Instead of having to physically collect them, they are rewarded to you by simply getting high ranks on stages which is vastly better than having to try find medals in the HD version.

Daytime - The day stages in this game are quite good. They are split up into 1 main act and 2 smaller missions which are usually collecting a certain amount of rings or beating a level in a certain amount of time. Dimps did a good job at level design as these levels don't feel unfair and even feel somewhat more accessible than the HD versions. However I do think Sonic controls a bit bad in some ways. While I do think the drift is better in this version, the actual boosting feels worse and sonics high speed control is awkward. Overall though the daytime levels are great and you can have some good fun with them.

Nighttime - Similarly to the HD versions, I do think the nighttime levels where you play as the Werehog aren't as good as the daytime stages. In fact these levels are what really brought the game down from being 'Great' to just 'Good' I do enjoy the platforming aspects of the werehog albeit even if the werehogs controls feel a bit too sensitive sometimes. However these levels will like to just throw hordes of annoying enemies at you when they run out of good platforming segments. These enemies are extremely annoying as some fly around like the wasps which are annoying to hit, or the wizard enemies that will teleport when you get near them. I did feel that the moveset of the werehog isn't as good as the HD version and so the combat in this game feels repetitive. The worse part is unlike day stages that have 1 main act and 2 smaller missions, the nighttime stages have a minimum of 3 FULL ACTS! These can drag on for like 5 minutes and the worst part is that while playing through Shamar and Adabat, they make you play a total of 8 nighttime stages in a row, making it feel so boring and repetitive seeing as these stages don't have unique set pieces that really drag you in into thinking you're playing a different level. The worst is eggmanland which is no longer a gauntlet but rather 5 werehog stages in a row.

Bosses - The boss fights in this game range from Bad to Pretty Good. I do think the Eggman boss battles were fun but the Dark enemy battles were just annoying simply because you are the werehog. The Egg Dragoon is pretty easy but still a fairly fun fight. The final boss is pretty good too

Overall, I think this version of Unleashed is good, not bad, not great but it is good. There is no reason to play this game over the HD version unless you wanna give Unwiished a try. The day stages are fun but night stages are boring and repetitive as well as being worse than the HD werehog stages.

Reviewed on Jul 01, 2023


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