Sonic the Hedgehog: Before and After

Sonic Unleashed vs Sonic Colors

Introduction

I enjoy the Sonic series, so I'm gonna compare three of his games released before 2010 to ones after it. The first match up is Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colors, the game that started the Boost formula, aside from Sonic Rush, and the one that improved it. I'm going to compare them on three categories: Gameplay, Graphics, and Story. I will be reviewing them as fair as possible and I'm not just comparing the HD (360 & PS3) version of Unleashed and Wii version of Colors. I'm looking at the SD (Wii & PS2) versions of Unleash and DS version of Colors. Out of these four, which one is superior? They're will be spoilers ahead as well, with that said, here we go.

Gameplay

The gameplay category, I played each one for three hours each before to judge them properly. Here I'm looking at how it functions, it control scheme, the collectables, and it level design. By which I mean its level, hub worlds, bosses, and missions in the game. Let's start with HD version Unleashed.

  Sonic Unleashed, oh yes, Sonic Unleashed. The most decisive game of the bunch. Even through this game came out after the infamous Sonic '06, sorry it had to be said when talking about, this should be a god sent. Yet people still manage to complain about it. With that said, back to the review, this game actually has two gameplay styles at work here. Daytime and nighttime. The daytime stages are filled with high speed action with the blue blur and the night stages with platforming and beat 'em up action with the Werehog, or whatever you prefer to him. Certainly brings new meaning to day and night. This is the fastest Sonic has gone as you're able to run above water with ease and platform nicely. Here he can boost, stomp, quick step, slide, and drift. The controls are great with two flaws. The homing attack being mapped to the same button as the boost and drifting isn't as solid. I can excuse the drift as it mostly Empire City shows this. The homing attack problem will be more obvious when you get the air boost skill and the downward death spiral only rarely happens. And the other style, the Werehog gameplay, platforming and fighting. He can climb, grab ledges, and swing on poles. This game also comes with RPG elements for Sonic and his Werehog form. The most noticeable stats are the Werehog's combat, life, and shields along with Sonic's speed and ring energy. The Werehog also has a strength stat, though not sure if it's that makes you stronger or the combat giving you new skills. Not sure. Strangely through, the energy attracts to Sonic during the day yet not to the Werehog, very strange indeed. Which leads to the quick time events, during the day, they can either give you a short cut or send you to your doom in later levels. During the night, they can either help you defeat enemies faster or damage you and recover their health, be careful with that, luckily, they aren't needed to finish the enemies off, just as a quicker alternative. In addition, in this version, they're also used for the Tails levels, they're entirely made up of them. They're amazing through as you get to soar through the air with Tails as your pilot and Sonic on gunner. There are only two of these levels, one after the first location and before the final location. Which leads me to the one collectable that could damage the experience for some, the sun and moon medals. You need them to progress in this game. At the start their not bad, though they could put a damper in some cases. Another one is collectable shoes, unlike the Werehog, who gets his combos from the combat stat. Sonic gets his other skills with collectable shoes in four different styles: Gold, Spike, Spring, and Wing. The gold shoe grants Sonic the Light Speed Dash. The spike shoes allows Sonic to stomp the yard. The spring shoes gives Sonic the ability to Wall jump. And the wing shoe allows him to soar through the air with an aerial boost. Finally, you can collect food, souvenir, art, and videos that can be found in your local hub world or level. You can also get your hotdogs by the venders found in every hub world offering you missions to complete. Now onto the levels, the daytime and nighttime stages, daytime built for speed with nighttime stages with enemies and platforming. The hardest of the bunch being the final stage, Eggmanland, sponsored by Eggman industries. The longest stage in the game with daytime and nighttime segment in one location testing your skills in almost every way. There are also hub worlds for each capital, one main hub and entrance hub leading to levels, except for Eggmanland, which only has one hub. The other hubs also contain missions and shops. The hubs aren't too big and a decent size. I enjoy them, as long as they're not too empty. Each hub does contain that hot dog vender offer missions for Sonic, three daytime and two nighttime, with Eggmanland only having two. Leading to the boss battles, there are eight in total, four daytime and nighttime bosses. All of the daytime ones aside from the final boss is Eggman in his Egg Beetle, Egg Devil, and Egg Lancer being a combination of the two. While the Werehog's bosses are the Dark Phoenix, Dark Moray, Dark Guardian, and the Egg Dragoon being the fourth Eggman fight, each boss being different from one another. And the final boss, Dark Gaia, having segments: the first being Sonic and Chip with the Gaia temples. As chip, Light Gaia, you charge towards Dark Gaia throwing boulders, in which you can dodge or attack them. Through you have to charge his attack. Then quick time events followed by Sonic charging to reach the Dark Gaia before time runs out. And you have to repeat this two more times. The second segment has you controlling Super Sonic as you charge at Dark Gaia. This is badass, it feels like Doomsday from Sonic 3 & Knuckles going into the third dimension. After you go around its shield to defeat its tentacles. Which leads to the third and final segment, quick time events, or hell in carnet. Mess up and you'll have to repeat, and the ultimate hell, pressing a button sixty times within a minute. And you're done. That does it for the HD version, now for the SD version.