Balloons in Sonic Unleashed?
With how fast things were moving in that Sonic Unleashed gameplay footage unveiled by IGN a few days ago, it was pretty easy to miss interesting elements shown in the video. There were a few things that caught the eyes of our fans (including the clock tower’s stunning resemblance to Big Ben in London), but one of the things that really slipped by a lot of our viewers were the balloons.
Yes, the Balloons… I’m no nut… I know I saw them.
To prove it, I’ve taken the time to take screenshots of the 12 I managed to count in the video (you can see them after the jump). As to what there function will be in Unleashed, it’s hard to say for sure, but they do appear to give Sonic a boost when he hits them. Whether they will be used to help guide the player in the right direction, or lead Sonic to secret, otherwise unaccessible areas is anyone’s guess at this point.
Anyways, I wanted to get everyone’s thoughts on how you see them being used. Also, point out anything else you may have noticed that the rest of us missed on our first… or thirty-first viewing.
Looks like you can lock onto the balloons!
This one was hiding from me… but I found it.
A path to an otherwise inaccessible path?
103 Comments
O those things. I planned to react on them,but I forgot.
I think they have the same function as the enemies over a bit before.
I mistook them for the classic special stage marbles first.
whoops,I meant pit.
whoa some are so obvious i dont know how i missed it
wonder if they can upgrade your attacks or something
Remembers me on Sonic Advance, there were a stage with balloons. When you hit them, they blow you up or make a bubble in water so you can get air…and Sonic the hedgeog 2 Casino Night…or Polis….woa I forget it every time Dx anyway, there were baloons, too.
Speaking of admins comment…
I have lost count of how many times I watched the video,but it is over ten times now.
How many times did the others see it?
I personally think that the balloons are simply used to boost you up to new places. I dont think that there is anything spacial that they give you, but that you can simply use the homing attack on them to reach new areas that may or may not be shortcuts or offer you an extra life.
Would there be an extra mission ”pop all the balloons” perhaps?
Maybe. One thing I also noticed on the high Europe trailer is an X button prompt. It appears when the three enemies fly in and Sonic takes a boost pad towards the three rails. It appears very shortly as the video is then faded into a new scene. I was wondering if the X command was for when Sonic is on the rails and if this is true does it mean he can attack on the rails or is it just a boost he recieves? If anybody knows I’d be happy to hear what they have to say.
Or the “pop all the balloons” could be an achievement for the 360. I hope not though, because I hate achievements where you have to collect all items or something like that. There was a similar thing with medallions in the Sonic the Hedgehog 360 version, where you had to collect every silver and gold medallion for different achievements. These were horrible because they took away from the entire speed element of Sonic. Instead you’re trying to find these medallions. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed Sonic 360 even though everyone else seemed to absolutely hate it.
well we can now say that is big ben tower in london.
those ballons will help guide your way in the game looks it pretty helpful!!!
Responding to dragonite’s: “How many times did the others see it?”, I know I’ll sound like I’m completely obsessed but I must have seen it at least 10-15 times/day, every day since it’s been released. I haven’t been this excited about a game since Halo 3.
@Nano: It’s not an exact match, but definitely bears a close resemblance in my opinion.
On a completely different note, I was pointed in the direction to Wikipedia’s discussion page on Sonic Unleashed, and I was kind of surprised at some people’s reaction to Camp Sonic. They keep calling Camp Sonic unreliable for some reason, and saying we don’t provide citation for our posts…
I can totally understand not citing a fan site, but I think it’s silly that some people are calling us unreliable, and making false claims about no citation. Anything we state as fact on the main site only comes directly from reliable sources (magazines that interview Hashimoto/SoA Producer/Official Press releases, etc), and everything else we talk about is always clearly stated as speculation (and we do very little of that here outside of the discussions).
I might dedicate one of my next posts to answering some ‘citation needed’ remarks on Wikipedia.
I think they just lead to alternate trails. I must update immediately!
I want to see more gameplay footage to see how well these are integrated into the levels
Wikipedia always needs to be somewhat short,and only uses things that are completely confirmed.
Which makes it kind of behind the times at ocassion.
lol look at this
note that Camp Sonic don’t state where they actually get their information regarding characters
They are a bit looking down at us..
And they don’t do their homework of checking the site fully.
We are trying to be reable,and admin ALWAYS posts a ? before a
speculation article?
but wikipedia only accepts true facts,so it makes sense but..
Exactly, it seems to me that CS is just a rumour site. “Rumour site, AGAIN?!?!” “Again
This is just plain horrid.
at bit elitist,if you ask me…
Since they can be locked on, Looks like you’ll be able to homing attack a chain of them to find shortcuts.
“t camp Sonic, at the news section, it sais Tails, Amy, and Knukles are appering in the game. Should we put this up? User: Sonic&Mario KId 10:23, 18 June 2008″
In Response:
“Camp Sonic is unreliable, so no.Fairfieldfencer FFF ”
–
We’re not making this stuff up or anything. We clearly stated that it came from Playstation’s Official Magazine (and included a screenshot of the excerpt). http://www.campsonic.com/2008/04/22/knuckles-confirmed-for-sonic-unleashed
@AAA:
Indeed. I haven’t watched as many times as you, but still, 9 times since I found out about it…
…
*Frolics off to watch it again* XD
Everything I’ve seen on this site has been confirmed in other reliable sources as well so I don’t understand how this site can be unreliable. The magazine articles are actual scans of the article as well which means that there is no way that they can be unreliable (unless somebody decided to photoshop parts of it which is ridiculous).
One more thing…
Does anyone know what the X prompt that I mentioned in the previous post could do? I’m really curious because maybe its a new command that SEGA hasn’t spoken of yet…
I have to admit I am getting slightly sick of that video by now:P
But I still watch it often.
I believe it is simply sonic boost,because it also appear by breakable walls.
@dragonite: Yea I think you’re right. I still wish there was more to it than that though. Maybe there is but until there’s a new video or until the game ships, I don’t think we’ll find out.
Hopefully there’s a new video soon…
reminds me of the level in Sonic 3, the Carnival level where Balloons were used to reach different levels. fun stuff
I wouldn’t worry about the “unreliable” issue. If people see this comment, I believe that they would want to check out this site anyways, to see what kind of “rumours” there are on it. Once they see for themselves that everything, is in fact, cited, they would realize that the accusations are false.
How exactly did you guys notice the balloons when watching the video at full speed? Did you watch it in slow motion?
@blah…okay: Haha… funny story actually. I’ve watched it basically frame by frame to find everything I possibly could about the video we didn’t notice on the surface.
Not funny I guess, but pathetic…
@AAA: You’re probably right, I guess it just rubbed me the wrong way when I saw that at first since it’s clearly wrong. No sense in arguing this one out I suppose.
@blah…okay: No, I watched it full speed. The ones that were a dead giveaway for me were the two that appeared before Sonic slides under the building, and the one that bursts when Sonic launches into it from the fountain. If you play and pause at moments it’s easy to notice the balloons. At first I thought they were orbs, though.
@admin: I fully understand your frustration. I mean, the reputation of the website is at stake and I don’t think people should be toying with such things so carelessly. I discovered this website on the day of the High Europe trailer launch and have visited it daily ever since. The updates are great and all credible so I was surprised by that accusation.
One other thing I have to admit is that I tried to look at the video frame by frame as well. However, since I didn’t have it downloaded, the best I could do was pause and play at every possible moment. I wouldn’t say it’s pathetic because I think it’s just excitement and wanting to know more. OK, maybe it’s because I want to believe that I’m not completely obsessed with this game.
Hm, I think they may be collectable items like in Sonic R. And if you get them all in each level, you unlock something. Maybe. If not, they may be just things you use to access other parts of the level.
@admin: Speaking of which, I noticed on wikipedia that it says your dash meter decreases when you run into enemies or obstacles. Is there anything you can say on that?
I tried looking a bit as well ,but the pause and play button of the player on the site are not the same,making it impossible to really dig into the video at times.
@admin:
what? thats ridiculous!!! Camp Sonic is the most accurate and reliable source of Sonic unleashed, they are just making acusations without a reason. anyways…yay my comment was shown in the news!! lol yeah the balloons definetely makes you go to inaccesible areas (the part where you have to press B to slide is the most obvious)
that remember me the carnibal night zone
@admin: Possibly, they have something to do with advancing in the level, or have some kind of unlockable bonus
these baloons could be the way of accessing special stages. By speculation, my guess is you either use a homing attack to ride the path of ballons or, better yet, be similar to sonic advance 2 where you must pop all the ballons in the level to gain access to the special stage.
The latter makes more sense to me though ^_^
@Link451: They’re clearly referring to this tidbit on IGN:
“Energy is maintained by collecting rings and lost when you lose rings — and, of course, you lose rings by crashing into enemies and spikes, among other things.”
Whoever inserted into Wikipedia should have done a better job paraphrasing. I think they are just trying to say, like in the old Sonic games, you lose rings by crashing into enemies/spikes/etc.
@admin: Usually you lose all your rings when you hit an enemy. Does this mean that if you hit an enemy your dash meter is back to zero or you lose only a specific amount of rings this time around?
@AAA: From what it sounds like, IGN got to see a few demo levels from Sonic Unleashed. By the tone of their writing (Saying “and, of course, you lose rings by crashing into enemies”) they make it sound like it’s just like what we would expect from previous Sonic titles.
So, I’d assume, if you crash into an enemy or spike, you’ll lose your rings, and most likely all your energy in the dash meter.
Balloons??? Thats a new twist! They probably just po when you hit them, but boost you up. I dont know how that will work but hopefully SEGA can work this out…
@admin:
I think all energy would be to much.
Most likely it will drain 30-40 percent or so.
i dont konw if you guys noticed or not but i think he hits one ballon at 1:14 to go on another roof
that is the one is pic number five.
I think the balloons are just for upwards propulsion, à la Carnival Night Zone in Sonic 3.
One thing I just noticed this time around it that at 1:30, he seems to do a downwards kick into a landing boost. I don’t know this has been mentioned. It seems all his moves are about keeping momentum now.
I’m really looking forward to Unleashed, but I’m kinda concerned too. We’ve seen no footage of Sonic stopping, or turning around, exploring, charging up a spin dash, etc.
It’s like Sega have forgotten why he’s a hedgehog. It’s because he curls up into a damn ball!!!
Oh and about the reliability, CampSonic is my No. 1 source for Unleashed info. Thanks guys! (and sorry about the massive post, lol)
@Zink120:
will come soon.
there is an overworld it seems.
Cool! I hope that they lead to secret areas and alternate paths. Sonic seems to have lost it’s exploration elements that were present in earlier games, to an extent.
@Zink120: I think that the downward kick you mentioned that comes on at around 1:30 is simply the activation of Sonic’s new dash ability. Of course, I might be mistaken but it looks as if he picks up quite a bit of speed after the kick.
admin@
:you are rigth with that but i really dont understand why some people say that camp sonic it is unrieliable like you said:
In this site they give all source of information to the game
it is more spinnable than the othres sites i know about sonic unleashed.
Maybe they say that is unrealiable because there are much links highligthed here and doesnt care about some people and one thing:
On my opinion i think this site is a GREAT SITE FOR SEARCHING NEWS ABOUT THE GAME AND HAS LOTS OF INFORMATION AS WELL i will try to get some information about this site(if it is good or not)….
This update was worth it for the screenshots alone. Wow!
As for wikipedia, THEY are the ones who are unreliable. ANYONE can edit their pages to their liking, even if they have no sources whatsoever. Once, someone wrote about a female, human character who would aid Sonic, which is obviously false.
You’ve never posted anything unless it was confirmed by a reliable source, such as SEGA, IGN, etc. This place has 300+ readers for a reason.
Meh… totally Carnival Night left overs. You call yourself Sonic fans?! (just kidding XP)
Thanks for the screens, it’s exciting to know Sega still remembers these things.