Sonic Unleashed revealed and confirmed!

[Irregular]

This looks good . . . so far. I hope Sonic Team gets it right this time. As for calling it Sonic 4, it won't happen. Just look at Mega Man for where that leads. So let's hope Sega follows Nintendo's example and resurrects the franchise. Kind of strange to think two former archenemies would work together, but better an honest [former] enemy than a lying friend. I know I've paraphrased that from somewhere. . .

[BardicKnowledge]

This does look good -- if they deliver the quality of Rush to the (comparative) graphical powerhouse of the consoles, that'd be awesome. I wouldn't mind a few 3-d segments around long downward falls or loops even, as long as the core gameplay was 2-d goodness.

[JCvgluvr]

Ionno, I've been skeptical about the 2D Sonic games lately. The ones on the Genesis/Saturn were perfect, but the ones on the GBA felt like I was just holding right and jumping randomly not knowing what in the Hell I was doing almost like he's going TOO fast. After watching the vid, it really looked like the GBA games to me, except in 3D.

Dude, it looks like you played too much of Sonic Advance 2. I don't know if you even touched 1 and 3, but neither let you just push right for very long. It was suicide to do that (especially in SA3's case)!

I don't understand the general bashing of the Advance games. They're better than the Rush games, IMO. I say that because of physics. The Advance games got it right by the time the 3rd one came along.

When Rush was released, and was praised for its tension gage and stuff, I was psyched for it. But they got it wrong. Using the boost didn't actually make you go faster than normal peak speed. What's the point of boost if you can't actually go physically faster? Sure, it gave near-instant acceleration. But isn't that what the included spin dash is for? Sure, it can protect you from oncoming enemies. But isn't that what turning into a ball is for? Don't replace something that doesn't need replacing.

Another strike against the Rush games was the way they did handle ball form. Its supposed to be faster using it downhill right? Its supposed to make you faster than peak running speed, if your on a downhill incline. Then why the heck didn't it do that!? The Advance games had all these physics down pat. They made the characters an utter joy to control!

Regardless of the portable wonders, no game has gotten Sonic more right than Sonic 3 and Knuckles, IMO. I still have yet to 100% completely rekindle my indescribable joy I experienced in that game.

[Ramaniscence]

Picture it...

1280x720 at a 16:9 ratio, animation that's roughly two->three times the frames of Sonic 3 on every enemy and character, backgrounds filled with lush and smooth animation for the grass/trees/water/etc, tunes that share common audio links while still reflecting the area types they play in, all at a rock steady 60fps no matter how many enemies and effects are on the screen.

And not a polygon in sight.

Ah, if only Sega could see past the 3D realm they've been so infatuated with since Sonic Adventure.

That's a lot of individual work, though. I mean...3D does all the in betweens for you. So you always have as many FPS as you want (can handle)...2D they'd be doing all that by hand.

The environments and models would arguably be more time consuming, too

ANYWAY, I think it feels like a step back, but I'm still glad to see a new 2.5D Sonic game. I just hope this doesn't mean Sonic Adventure 3 is not gonna happen at all because with some work that series could be gold.

And I miss the Sonic Adventure musicc , or at very least the Sonic rush music which is super <3

[Ashram]

Yeah, judging from the music and the dashing, this looks to be a Sonic Rush 3, but on a real console.

I personally hate the way Sonic's music has gone... it went from awesome up to Sonic 3 & Knuckles with its stage-themed music, to good with Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, and partially Heroes with rock (Shadow the Hedgehog was alright in terms of music,) and the Sonic Advance games did justice.

But ever since Rush and Rush Adventure came out, Sega's been leaning the 2D games' music towards a pop-ish, techno area that I personally don't like. Unleashed looks to be the same.

Also, from the brief looks of the stages, it'll be the Rush layout, also... You're generally going so fast you won't have time to admire the scenery, or watch where you're going... <insert random spike pit or pit hole here> That's another thing. The original Sonic games gave you the option of slowing down in the level and taking your time (To an extent,) or speeding through. Now it's all about one or the other.

If it doesn't have an island/beach level, a water level, a fire level and an ice level, I can't consider it a Sonic game. >.>

[Nekofrog]

Sonic 2 had the best soundtrack of all the Sonic games, and after that it went pretty much completely downhill.

Yeah, I don't like S3+K much.

[SynthesizedStampede]

Second. Though they have some bitchy areas of "falling your arse into a bottomless pit for no good reason" they're far, far better about it than the Advance games ever were.

You see, I totally would, if my stupid DS hadn't been doused in lighter fluid and the screen wasn't cracked in the bottom. I've heard good things about the game, just haven't had time to get my hands on it. But I really, really hope this one turns out good.

[Drack]

I'm with Coop and zircon on this one.

We need a 2-D Sonic, with the music in the style of the genesis Sonic games, and with the same awesome platforming we got back then.

New 2-D attempts (Advance and Rush) don't show us the creativity we've seen concerning stage and boss design in the oldschool Sonics, and the new 3-D ones just haven't been fun.

Yeah, I beat Secret Rings. It's an ok game, but nothing special.

[Devyn]

Sonic 2 had the best soundtrack of all the Sonic games, and after that it went pretty much completely downhill.

Yeah, I don't like S3+K much.

I think all of the first four main Sonic games pretty much rocked imo, both as games and sources of music. The eventual shift to anonymous butt rock turned me off, as well as references to real-world things like the president of the United States.

"What, Sonic is on Earth? I thought he was on some alien world / alternate dimension!"

[Triad Orion]

Sonic Advance 1 is probably the 2-D Sonic game that comes the closest to its Genesis counterparts, but its problem was that it was too slow, of all things. Another big problem the Sonic series has been dealing with in 2-D as of late is that you're simply going *too* fast in many situations and you can't react to an incoming hazard before Sonic goes flying and losing all of his shinies not unlike the stock market crash of 1929.

The camera needs to be zoomed out far enough to see incoming hazards, or Sonic needs to slow down enough that things don't jump him. Problem was, the level designs in many of the games weren't intuitive enough to handle cautious play; they just encouraged or forced you to go full tilt without regard to your own safety. Or better yet, you had to go full tilt so you could *barely* make that jump even using your midair trick; thanks for that wonderful trial and error experience, Advance 2.

Branching paths with multiple routes is a great idea as well. That's part of what made the original games fun. Deciding which route to take based on danger, rings, feel. Moreover, if you botched on the upper route and fell, you weren't punished by a fall to your doom like in a lot of the Advance games. You usually just ended up on the route directly below yours, and you could carry on your business as usual. You didn't see branching paths much in Advance 2, though they were present in Advance 3 albeit in a weak way. I hated Advance 3's branching paths because frequently many roads required you to have a specific person in your party; usually Knuckles. Obviously not all paths had this requirement, but it was frequently a nusiance. Just drove me insane when I thought I may have found an alternate route to explore only to find out that it's inaccessible because I took the fox instead of the echidna. You could say this adds replay value, but Sonic games in the past were very rarely about forcing you to use a character to find a single damn shortcut in a level.

The point I'm trying to make is if they're going to make a good Sonic game they need to re-examine how speed works in them. Like someone else already suggested, a new Sonic game really needs to accomodate a cautious playstyle too, because I submit that going slower and dropping your damn rings all the time is just as much a viable strategy as hauling ass to the finish line with no regard to greed for all things gold.

I know I'm making a bigger deal out of the Advance games than really needs to be. The Advance games were fun and if nothing else, competent platformers. And as I've said, Rush mitigated a lot of the problems with Advance, though Rush and Rush Adventure aren't quite what their ancestors used to be. If Sonic Team would generally listen to the fans and re-evaluate their insipid excuses for stories after SA2, I think the franchise can make a big comeback.

...Wow, this ended up longer than expected. Sorry about that. XD

[JCvgluvr]

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that both replay value and specific character pathways are a bad thing in Sonic games. Could you please clarify? I find it hard to believe you would find those game traits negative. I mean, Sonic 3 and Knuckles did all that way back in the genesis days, and it did okay for a Sonic game, am I right?

[Triad Orion]

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that both replay value and specific character pathways are a bad thing in Sonic games. Could you please clarify? I find it hard to believe you would find those game traits negative. I mean, Sonic 3 and Knuckles did all that way back in the genesis days, and it did okay for a Sonic game, am I right?

My apologies. I was in ranting mode, and I wasn't as specific as I should be.

In Sonic 3 and Knuckles, where you had Knuckles specific paths, most of those paths weren't simply shortcuts to get to later in the level. Most of the specific paths you had to take as Knuckles there were entirely new sections of levels with their own unique challenges that only he could undertake. Sonic could not hope to clear them because he couldn't glide or wall-climb. These paths were often long and only occasionally served to bring you elsewhere in the level. Many a time, it took you to separate exit. Angel Island 1 serves as a good example. Marble Garden 2 is another one, where Knuckles was forced to take an entirely different route from Sonic where fought an entirely different boss. That's what I would call a good way of doing character specific routes, which adds positive replay value.

In Sonic Advance 3, these "character specific" paths weren't usually all that long or unique. In most cases it was rather arbitrary just why there was a Knuckles Only barrier just in the way. These paths often served little more as an alternate means to getting on a major path. They didn't lead to paths that usually required the character to use their abilities any more than just opening the gate to get through. The character specific paths therefore were not executed well. It was just a pain that could be a good shortcut was just arbitrarily shuttered. The reason why I saw it as "bad" replay value in the case of Advance 3 was because the reward in exploring the levels looking for these shortcuts as individual characters was largely disappointing and unfufilling.

[JCvgluvr]

Okay. That DOES make sense. I agree with you on that. You're right, there is a specific difference. I guess we should be hoping for the former kind of branching paths and secret routes featured in S3&K.

BTW, I'm playing thru Sonic 360 at the moment, and I'm completely lost in mediocre-land...Help!