Out of all the magazines to have a cover story on Sonic Unleashed, Play Mag takes the cake with their May 2008 issue featuring 10 pages of Sonic Unleashed goodness. In celebration of their lengthy publication, we’re going to recap a few of the things they mentioned about the game.
Oh yeah, and we have scans from the Sonic Unleashed Article in Play Magazine.
The real meat of the article was the exclusive interview with Sonic Team Producer, Yoshihisa Hashimoto (that guy we mentioned a few days ago). To get started, Hashimoto reveals to us that Sonic Unleashed is under new management, which ought to bring a sigh of relief to many of us losing faith in the series. While the Sonic Team is still in charge of development, the core development team in charge of design is completely new. What does all this verbage mean for you? A fresh, NEW Sonic experience, unlike any of the recent installments!
The team has decided to divide gameplay into two different views, which would be the 2D sideview, and the 3D forward view. According to Hashimoto, the two mechanisms are split about half and half throughout the game, and “fills the void” us classic Sonic fans have experienced ever since the hedgehog ever made his way into the 3D realm. Also, to put to rest any rumors about Sonic Unleashed being restricted to rails (ie: Secret Rings), he will have complete ability to roam around in immersive 3D environments.
To our delight, Hashimoto also revealed that “Silver won’t make an appearance in this game“. That’s one more excessive character we can mark off our Not Wanted list. Rather than focusing much on new characters, Sonic Unleashed will focus on “Sonic and his travels around his world in a big adventure“. Phew!
Sonic Unleashed will feature hub like stages (similar to towns in previous titles), that will act as a means of adding “color and background to Sonic’s adventures“. While we’re not entirely thrilled of this concept, Yoshihisa assures us that the hubs will not hinder the tempo of the game. SEGA has learned from their mistakes in the past, and are making sure they address them to provide us with an awesome Sonic experience, and so far, we’re impressed.
We highlighted some of Sonic’s new moves in Sonic Unleashed a few days ago, but we’ve been clueless as to how new moves are going to function in the title. Apparently, new moves can be found within stages and added to Sonic’s abilities as you are playing (versus a purchase system introduced in previous games). Some abilities mentioned in the article that we haven’t seen before include stomping and wall jumping.
What about graphics? We’ve heard that Sonic Unleashed is coming to 4 consoles, but how will each console compare visually? The team has been working for the past 3 years on the Hedgehog Engine, which is being used to power both the Xbox 360 & Playstation 3 versions of the game, while developers will be working hard to develop visuals that mimic the engine on the Nintendo Wii. This may come as a hard hit to Wii players who up until now have thought the Wii will be getting the stunning visuals we’ve seen so far.
For the full read, we highly suggest you go pick up a copy of the magazine yourself. It’s really worth the read, and we’ve only covered a portion of it here. Our hopes are high for more information coming soon!
Scans after the jump!
Sonic Unleashed Play Magazine Scans
awesome info, but like you said its a hard hit to me, as Im buying the wii version and it might not be that GREAT as weve seen, but Im sure they can pull it off, at least they say they will MIMIC the other versions, but if it is the main console we might still see great graphics
You know Ssonic22, just because the visuals aren’t as good doesn’t mean the gameplay won’t be fantastic. Personally, I can still be won over to get the Wii version if I find that it will offer something the other consoles can’t compete with in terms of controls or other features.
Visuals aren’t everything! And even saying that, Hashimoto makes it sound like the Wii will still look fantastic!
really amazing graphics there….
A new move called “Stomp”…
Does at remind anyone else of Sonic’s aerial A+Down move in Brawl?
They sure are. I’m just impressed without how stylized it is. Reminds me of the classic games, not in a sense that they are really the SAME style, but have a unique style of its own =)
At least that’s what I think…
Missed your comment Mynameisonic, sorry about that. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if that’s what the Stomp will look like… How confusing could such a simple named ability be?
Thanks for pointing that out! Don’t think I would have ever thought of that!
[…] Play Magazine isn’t the only one with new info regarding Sonic Unleashed this month! While not as in depth as Play, Nintendo Power also published a short piece on Sonic Unleashed, with some new details in regards to the Nintendo Wii. […]
[…] Sonic Unleashed, complete with… well, actually it feels rather incomplete after going through Play’s writeup. New information has been pretty hard to come by as of […]
mimic the engine,does that mean the wii vesion isnt using the hedgehog engine
@ MTH - Correct, the Wii will not be using the Hedgehog Engine. It’s being worked on by a team of talented developers however that are doing their best to create a similar look.
is it me or are some of the pages missing cuz i cant seem to find the page that comes after the first one,
and the last page also stops outta nowhere. there must be some kind of mistake.
and ofcourse thanks a lot i am a big sonic fan and im desperate to find new things about unleashed thank YOU!!!
Well, as they’ve said, wii has more side scrolling, and thats probobly a good thing. i was hoping for puzzles and some new style simiar to the game, The NeverHood.
double commenting is fun cuz it pisses people off
Pretty artwork. Nice job, Sega.
I think there is another move called dodge. i think he does it when he goes through the tree. here is the link it is the second pic http://www.campsonic.com/new-sonic-unleashed-screenshots-april-3rd
i think there is another move called dodge. he tries to do it under the tree. Here is my link http://www.campsonic.com/new-sonic-unleashed-screenshots-april-3rd (note: it is the second pic on there)
Sonic unleashed looks great! I really am looking foward to buying it!!! …..I don’want it as much now. Silver is not in it. Just great. Why take out the best character? I hope Shadow isn’t in it. I think shadow died 3 times and is still alive [what the heck?!] Anyways still looks great.
I love everything I see in this game now, but I still wish Silver or Jet was playable. I think to keep the speed and ability consistant, Silver would move by levitating at high speed, just as he did in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, while Jet would move at a decent speed until he gets on his board, making him almost just as fast as Sonic himself. If you ask me, he could even use his fans as combat weapons to fly or to use as swords(for close-range fighting), or as turbulent fans, from a distance. Also, I would prefer a multi-player mode, just make somewhere along the lines of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle and Sonic Rivals 2. There should be at least 8 characters available for this mode, so I would prefer to have Shadow and Blaze involved in this game as well. I never got the chancce to experience using Silver or his PK powers, so please, do this if you can. P.S., for multi-player, give each character an ability that could give them the advantage over Sonic and Shadow. For example, Knuckles gliding abilities; Tails copter flight, Silver’s psychic powers; Amy’s new Boomer-hammer ability, can damage any opponent either in front or behind like the homing attack; Jet’s Type-J board, to speed up, and prevents death by falling off the stage,however the time on his board is quickly reduced from his ring supply; and Blaze jumping and hovering abilities to outclass
P.S., if not Shadow, Espio can use all of the abilities he used in Knuckles Chaotix like, clinging and running on walls and ceilings and becoming invisible, or maybe create a new character. His/her ability is just a suggestion, to duplicate, preferably herself.
@underground_3453: I argee about espio,but not another new character there’s too many all ready
I read the full article off the scans. Here’s the videeo for the Europe level.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mtYLeQwjqis
AllHailSilver: The reason Shadow keeps coming back after he died 3 times is cause he can’t die. SA2 stated that with project shadow with trying to create a being with immortality. And I got nothing bad with Silver but the voice actor killed his character. Plus, unleashed is made with no relation with SH2006 or secret rings so Silver and blaze don’t even exist in unleashed.
yes! this game is going to rock! i like how they have gone back to their old ways like in SA and SA2 and how they made it so any newcomers can get ahold of the idea. but i have something to say about your comment yamiseto. i agree totaly, but blaze does exist actualy. she was in sonic rush and sonic rush adventure. but still you are correct.