The current edition of UK magazine GamesTM has a bunch of new details for Sonic Unleashed, mostly gleaned from chatting to lead designer Yoshihisa Hashimoto. In the four-page piece, we learn that the game eschews traditional Sonic locales in favor of nine different worlds, each set in a themed geographical location -- so instead of Green Hill Zone, we'll be guiding the blue one through levels based on The Great Wall of China, an African plain, New York City, and a Spanish villa.
Stages are short (apparently, no stage lasts more than five minutes), and will contain both 2D and 3D sections that last for around 15 to 30 seconds each (this snappy level design, explains Hashimoto, is intended to prevent players from growing bored). Perhaps most importantly of all, the 3D sections will only use techniques that have proved successful in the past -- so there's the rail grinding from Sonic Adventure, and the ability to switch lanes, a la Sonic And The Secret Rings.
Of course, the Wii version is being outsourced to Dimps, so we'll just have to wait and see how much of this applies to the game on Nintendo's console.
[Via videogaming247]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-14-2008 @ 7:50PM
Mr Khan said...
Remember: There is a PS2 version of this game in development
Which is sad, we'll have gone from the beauty of Secret Rings to something on par with Sonic Heroes...
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7-14-2008 @ 9:30PM
Kokomadeta said...
Sonic Heroes was good; why don't you play it again and find out for yourself? It was literally the last of the good Sonic games on home consoles, hopefully until Sonic Unleashed hits.
7-14-2008 @ 8:27PM
Mr.ESC said...
Awesome.
I really can't wait to play this.
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7-14-2008 @ 8:34PM
TX2 said...
The fact that their even focusing on level design gives me slight hope.
Still I'm a little worried about the comment of making the levels shorter to prevent boredom. I would assume making the levels more interactive would be a better way to do that.
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7-14-2008 @ 10:53PM
Khaki said...
Good Sonic levels have been 1:30 ~ 5minutes in length, anyway. Keeping them fast and short has been a working strategy so far, hopefully it will stay that way...though the statement doesn't seem to change anything from what I expected. I don't remember many levels besides hunting levels in SA 1/2 taking longer than 2~3minutes on average.
7-15-2008 @ 12:36AM
TX2 said...
The levels in Sonic 3 n Knuckles tended to last a while. They never got repetitive, though
7-14-2008 @ 8:53PM
Metayoshi said...
"No stage lasts more than five minutes."
Please GOD let this be true. The thing that turned me off from the recent Sonic games were the long 10+ minute levels, such as the last few in Sonic Heroes using the Dark Team (or whatever Shadow's Team was called, I forgot already).
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7-14-2008 @ 9:00PM
Matt B said...
Is it really too much to ask to have a Sonic version of Mario Galaxy running through the Green Hill zone? That's all I want. And update of the classic game.
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7-14-2008 @ 11:28PM
ChromeAlchemist said...
sonic turning into a werewolf, where in GODS name could they have got that from? *COUGH*twilight princess*COUGH*. seriously man they have the audacity to rip that idea from zelda, not that they were the first to do such a thing, and then make a ps2 port of it by giving the wii version to dimps? i dont even need to see a review, in the past i absolutely loved him, and had all of his games from megadrive and gamegear, but this game is FAIL, at least on wii version. what hope is there when the people who are promising a good game arent even making the version you are waiting for?
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7-15-2008 @ 9:00AM
TriptychR said...
I can understand your reluctance given the past record of this series, but don't you think you're still jumping the gun a bit with your judgment? No one still even *knows* how the "werewolf" thing even works! Do you really expect it to be a copy of Wolf Link in anything more than "Sonic goes kind of wolf-like"?
Sit back, take some deep breaths, and then wait for the game to come out. Then if it sucks, I'll be happy to listen to you say "I told ya so."
7-16-2008 @ 12:24PM
ChromeAlchemist said...
TriptychR - the thing is, i know you are right about me jumping the gun here, i am. you are right about me not knowing anything about the werewolf thing, but its just the fact that after link has done soemthing like transform into a werewolf in his game, now so has sonic, and it just seems a bit odd to do such a character changing thing now of all times, just like microsoft creating avatars for the 360 and calling it 'innovative' >_>
i will take a deep breath, because i liked secret rings, adventure 1 n 2 and loved the retro ones, but if it does suck, i wont say 'i told you so', ill be dissapointed that sonic team lost respect for us wii gamers.
P.S was it sonic team who developed secret rings btw? anyone know?
7-16-2008 @ 12:27PM
ChromeAlchemist said...
BTW, how good would it be if sega did a capcom, and created a new retro sonic game for wiiware n others? imagine a new retro sonic game with, i dunno, cutscenes and whatnot to progress story? or not even bother with cutscenes, it wouldnt matter!
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