It's still not the type of game I would give any mind if Sonic wasn't attached to it, but it doesn't detract from the experience as much as I initially believed. It also helps to level up Sonic's combat stat early since new moves rotating in regularly helps stave off the monotony and the other stats feel like mechanical dead ends. Exploring the inside of Spagonia, the climb up the clocktower with the shifting gears, and the rolling barrels are level gimmicks that are bizarrely absent in the day stages that add some flavor. They're upheld a little by the ability to get up close and personal with these stages in a way that daytime Sonic can't hope to. I'm still not really convinced the night stages needed to be included, but I can see the reasoning a bit better now. The other Sonic games had flashes of moments like this, but Unleashed felt like they'd achieved what they wanted to do since Sonic 3 started changing up the visuals in each act to make that sense of progression stronger. I'm particularly fond of the way Sonic moves from the fishing village, across an island chain, through the jungle and arrives at the gaia temple in Jungle Joyride. The way these levels 'progress' in terms of visuals is spectacular and I hadn't seen anything else like it in a platformer until Retro's DKC games really started to take off. Once you're good at the game and can create those 'unleashed opening' esque moments yourself it's a lot easier to appreciate the spectacle. Sonic Colors seems to be on a similar level at first but the scoring system cracks wide open under pressure, and Generations opts to make A ranking a given instead.

The day stages turned out to be some of my favorite 3D Sonic levels to return to for their difficulty and how S ranking came from an actual solid playthrough. I could still go without hubs in Sonic games for the most part but Sonic Unleashed gives me a little bit of pause and makes me consider how much this kind of thing could add to the world if done well. They're like lovingly crafted pieces of a diorama. Moving around these little towns may be sluggish at first, but they're actually pretty small and have a lot of details and characters worth appreciating. The NPCs turn out to be more endearing than they initially seemed too. Hiding collectables through little pockets of gameplay feels like the nuance that SA1's take on hubs was missing. The same nuance can be found in the hub worlds if you comb them instead of beelining for the next area. Medals are rewarded through optimal play in the day stages and exploration in the night stages, and it turns out those playstyles makes both of those groups of stages more fun. Once you know the medal checks are coming, your approach starts to change.

Someone here(I don't remember who) pressured me to try it again, so did. By the time I got through the extended minigame that was the final boss, I was about done and ready to take it back to the story.Д«ut I didn't. The constant back and forth in the hub worlds felt like they flew in the face of how easy to navigate SA1's were. It flies in the face of what makes every other Sonic game enjoyable with it's constant medal checks and the inconsistent rhythm. The wolf stages were were nightmarish mashfests that seemed engineered to suppress the game's best qualities with the way it's aesthetic choices swallowed all the game's bold colors and the glacial pacing cut into Sonic Unleashed's defining trait: the power fantasy of Sonic as a superhero that could make miles in our world feel like inches. Playing the day stages for the first time with the comparatively mindless Colors and Rush Adventure as my only reference point was kind of like getting sprayed with one of those spray bottles they use on dogs every time you pressed a button. At the start of the game, two or three werehog stages back to back were paired with the worst tornado minigame in the entire franchise to filter out the weak willed. My first playthrough of Sonic Unleashed was not fun.

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