I stayed away from 3D Sonic games for years, until I felt audacious enough to buy Secret Rings for Wii. I learned the lesson I thought I'd already known about 3D Sonic games then. I won't be buying Unleashed. I'll give it a rental at best, unless it somehow blows me away... which I doubt will be happening unless it's an all-out Genesis-esque classic sequel in the vein of Mega Man 9 (which it's not.)

Seriously. Sonic needs to pull a Mega Man 9 with us. It's about the only thing left that can make the series look good again.

The problem with Sonic is that Sega has no idea how to get older gamers to get interested in Sonic.  Take Mario.  Nintendo knew that a lot of gamers grew up with Mario, and made sure Mario appealed to these people by making Mario games self-parodying and adding 8 bit elements to the titles.  Sega, on the other hand, is adamant at targetting Sonic at little kids, and their method is limited (and overwhelmed) by stupid side characters and bad dialogue.  There's a reason why Mario is always rescuing the princess from Bowser -- the formula works.  The little kids that are drawn to newer Sonic titles will grow out of them, whereas Mario's fans have never left.

Mario 64 was a glorified tech demo.  For it's time, the 3-D platforming was incredible, and a lot of people loved the game.

Okay so I didnt get to finish the game cuz I had to return it yesterday. Overall I think that Sonic: Unleashed is not a bad Sonic game. Its better than the Sonic 2006 release and Sonic Adventure 2, however, I was not too thrilled about the Werehog sections. At times, the Werehog levels werent bad but I found that the music was soo slow and boring that it made me tired. See I usually love the sonic franchise for the soundtracks and this one, so far, seemed a little sleepy. The boss levels for Sonic during the day were freaking hard. The level in Mazuri was soooo fast that it almost gave me wiplash trying to beat up Robotnik. I beat it after 20mins...20MINS just on that level alone!lol Sheesh. Im a little undecided if I want to buy the game. I think Unleashed would've done a lot better if they enhanced the Werehog's abilities and speed. The regular Sonic levels are great but short.  

I know I'm late but I didn't want to make a new post lol so I'm bumping an old one.

I just started and finished the game and I must say it was HARD as hell.
I thought this was supposed to be a kids game? Or at least aimed towards kids?

The last level is freaking EPIC, took me 66 minutes to beat the last level (Eggmanland) then another while to beat the last bosses (yes, that's plural, there is 3 of them!).

It wasn't that bad of a game but I can see why it got the reviews it did.
I have to agree with all of you and say whos bright idea was it to slow a Sonic game down with "night" levels.
The daytime levels were annoying too, why can't you just play through the game? Play through the levels classic Sonic style. Why all this trial and error?

I did enjoy it more than the new Banjo-Kazooie though and a lot more than the first Sonic game that came out on 360.

Edit: I forgot to mention also that the music for this game is amazing!
Dear My Friend - By: Brent Cash
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUGWCM9aUAw

Anyone else play this recently?