Sonic Unleashed -- Final Opinion.

I have completed Sonic Unleashed for the Xbox 360. Or I should say I've gone as far as I'm going to go with the game. I've completed the main story and have seen the credits roll. There is still technically a lot of stuff to do towards one-hundred percent completion in the game. The game is quite massive in that regard. In Japan the title of the game is Sonic World Adventure. I have no doubt that Sonic Unleashed began production as Sonic Adventure 3. That's really what the game is. You'll explore towns and villages across the world. Each town or region in the Xbox 360 version has what's called an entrance gate. It's a little hub world for all of that region's missions. You'll have to explore and find the stages. You'll need to return to them later on after having acquired new moves and abilities to access areas within the hubs you previously weren't able to. It works in a very Metroid-lite kind of way. The game adds in the concept of day and night cycles and includes having Sonic transform in the moonlight like a werewolf. There are specific missions for night and day. And the gameplay changes entirely based on night and day. The day stages play just like every other 3D Sonic stage. The Sonic Adventure standards are all there. You can jump and boost and use a homing attack for enemies. You can speed along lines of rings with the light speed dash. For the night stages it's a far slower pacing and it comes off more like the combat of God of War. Combos and chain attacks with the slower platforming. The game takes a little bit from Sonic and the Secret Rings. It borrows the leveling up system. Sonic earns experience from defeating creatures and eating food. He can buy food in the towns with rings. In Sonic and the Secret Rings the control was entirely broken until you started to level up. That's not the case here thankfully. Sonic in the day stages controls well enough right from the start. But to gain the highest speed you'll have to level up his speed rating and his boost. And in the night stages you'll need to level up his combat, strength, life, shield, unleashed abilities. Sonic Unleashed is a great looking game. And the Hedgehog Engine moves along at a truly blistering pace. The sense of speed in the game is truly amazing. The sense of speed also creates a strange disparity. The day stages are blisteringly fast, but the night stages are plodding and slow. I know a lot of people actively despise the night stages but I didn't mind the gameplay all that much. Especially as you become more powerful through leveling. As far as the camera goes it's rather improved upon compared to the previous 3D Sonic games but it will still cause you to die every once in a while. The scripted lock on events as you're rocketing through the stages will also sometimes still fail if you happen to hit the stick just so. The bosses are fun and impressive. The music is great and worthy of being in a Sonic title. The voice work is decent. Entirely cartoonish and fitting. Who is out there taking the story seriously anyway? The story is again decent for what it is. Sonic Unleashed will provide you with some decent thrills and some decent frustration as it actually becomes truly difficult. It's very well worth playing if you're a Sonic Adventure 1-2 fan. If you're looking for that mythical return to the 16-bit Sonic form, this isn't it. Sonic Unleashed is a game you should pick up at a reduced price. I'm giving Sonic Unleashed a solid 7.