![]() But playing this game 13 years later, I can only conclude that every single element I’ve just described legitimately works really well. I can completely understand why, in the year 2008, people weren’t very excited by a Sonic game in which half of the levels are beat ‘em-ups played by a hedgewolf, the other half had to be replayed over and over to hunt for medals required to unlock the next stage, and the open-world from Sonic 06 is still here with Sonic co-existing with regular human-looking humans. Instead of all of its flaws becoming apparent over time, it’s become clearer that all of the things that people initially complained about were actually pretty good. How could this happen? How could a game so notoriously average and disappointing turn out to actually be amazing? Well, the way I see it is that Sonic Unleashed kind of… aged badly, but in reverse. Sonic Unleashed is the game that tipped me over the edge into becoming one of those fans. Sonic Generations is the game that made me wonder if maybe all of the diehard Sonic fans who complain that people are biased against the franchise, might possibly have had a point. While not quite at the level of Sonic Generations, Sonic Unleashed is undoubtedly also one of the best games I’ve played this year, a truly fantastic Sonic game, and I would completely, sincerely, genuinely recommend it to everyone. The perfect thing to lower my expectations with, while still having a bit of fun here and there as I checked a title off my to-do list. It’s not a bad game or anything – you wouldn’t expect to see it on any lists of the worst video games of all-time – but the impression that I got from reviewers was that it was a pretty uneventful, middle-of-the-road kind of game. It’s still sort-of an open-world experience like Sonic 06 was, and while the daytime stages are decent, they’re not (allegedly) good enough to justify all of the sub-par bits. Sonic turns into a big dumb werehog (I mean… ‘werewolf’ is a combination of man and wolf, so ‘werehog’ literally translates to ‘man-hog’, but I have to admit that it sounds a lot cooler than ‘hedgewolf’) and punches things with his big stretchy Mr. But if I go straight from Generations to 06, or Sonic Boom, then what if they turn out to be so bad that I start to assume that Sonic Generations was a fluke, and lose interest in the franchise again? So I needed a Sonic game that was alright, but not great, and Sonic Unleashed seemed to fit that bill.Įverything I heard about Sonic Unleashed when it came out was that it was not great. ![]() See, if I went from Generations to Colours, or possibly Mania, then I run the risk of playing the best Sonic games all at once, which means that if the rest of them aren’t quite as good, it might sour my newly-found appreciation for the series. So I decided to pick Sonic Unleashed as the next game to play, for a simple but well-reasoned… well, reason. But that will be an article for another day. And after how good Sonic Generations was, I’ve even accepted that at some point, I’m going to have to play Sonic 06. I was hardly a stranger to the series, having beaten the original trilogy, Adventure 1 & 2, Heroes, Rush, Rivals and the Gameboy Advance trilogy, but I haven’t touched Sonic and the Secret Rings or Sonic and the Black Knight or the console version of Sonic Colours. On the other hand, since the game was so kind as to force me to re-evaluate my opinion of a franchise that I’ve played around with but never been a dedicated fan of… it meant that a whole bunch of 3D Sonic games that I was bound to get to eventually, maybe, if I had the time, have suddenly shot up a few places on my to-do list. But hey, that’s still better than The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and Little Nightmares 2. I would gush more over it, but I’ll save it for the top of my ‘Top 10 Games I Played in 2021’ list, if I ever write one, which I almost certainly won’t. ![]() It’s not just the best Sonic game that I’ve ever played, but a game that changed the way I look at Sonic games in general. On the one hand, it’s one of the best video games of all-time a nostalgic trip through the history of a beloved franchise, with 2D and 3D levels set in the most recognizable worlds of previous Sonic games, beautiful graphics, perfectly responsive controls, excellent level design, a soundtrack that includes remixes from all over the series, including Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic Battle, Sonic R and Sonic Spinball. ![]() ![]() I have mixed feelings about Sonic Generations. ![]()
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