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Lord, have I been waiting for this day.

Being a Sonic fan is all about seeking attention. Sonic himself is one of the biggest attention seekers in all of fiction, but more specifically, the act of labeling yourself a fan of a series so…we’ll call it divisive, is absolutely a call for others to look at you just a little bit funny.

I’m the biggest Sonic fan, and that makes me the biggest attention seeker. I thrive off my eye-brow raising opinions. I live for the, “you’re kidding right?”s of the world. So here goes: Sonic Unleashed is my favorite Sonic game. 

Pick your jaw up off the floor, I’m being serious. Sonic Unleashed bangs. It bangs crazy. And with the recent release of the ground-breaking recompilation by the Hedge-Dev team making the game natively playable on your big fancy PC, I’ve been given the rare chance to tell you why it’s so good. Thank you Unleashed Recomp – it’s finally, finally time to talk about this game.

People like to say Sonic Unleashed is a bad game, and, well, yes, it’s got a lot of bad. I like to look at things holistically. If season one of a show is excellent, but the next five seasons are a chore to get through, I gotta say the show is bad. It’s just how I am. If you’ve got one good gameplay mechanic drowning in a sea of terrible gameplay mechanics, sorry, game sucks, try again. Conversely, a game full of great ideas burdened by an omnipresent bad one probably isn’t making it onto my favorites list. It all depends on the overall quality. Does the good outweigh the bad significantly enough for this to be worth my time? With that in mind, it might be surprising to hear that Unleashed is my favorite Sonic game when, by my estimation, its bad content outweighs its good content at about a 70:30 ratio. There are plenty of games in the series much more consistent in quality. But the thing about Unleashed is that even its lowest lows aren’t enough for me to stop adoring it, not when the game accomplishes so much in its positive moments. The good that Sonic Unleashed manages is so good that the bad manages to fall away from my memory. So, no, we’re not going to be going over Sonic Unleashed’s faults today. I literally, actually, genuinely just do not care about the problems this game has. I don’t have anything to say about the bizarre night stages that hasn’t already been said, nor about levels being gatekept behind hidden collectibles, the annoying final boss, the weirdly convoluted story, or whatever other missteps exist in the game. Moreover, I don’t want to talk about those things. Not when what the game does right is so much more important. Instead, I want to highlight the game’s strengths, explain the core of its appeal, and use the word “speed” entirely too many times. Smile, friend — today, right now, we’re going to pretend we live in a world without the Werehog levels. And god bless you if you don’t know what that means. 

So let’s talk about Sonic Unleashed. A game where all the levels are set during daytime and nobody turns into a weird stretchy monster.

Unleashed is obsessed with going fast. I’m about to explain some of the many techniques the game employs to add to a player’s perceived sense of speed, but before I can get into any of that I need to stress that the game is truly fast. If you’re thinking it’s redundant to point out that a Sonic game involves going fast, you haven’t seen what this game is made of. Sonic Unleashed might find clever ways to make you feel that speed, but even if it lacked any of these tools, the game would still be, and I really cannot overstate this, unbelievably fast. Show this game to someone who’s never played it and they might say it’s too fast. Show it to someone who’s never played it and has even a basic idea of game design and they’ll definitely say it’s too fast. Even Sonic Team seemed to think it was too fast, seeing as all of its gameplay successors — collectively referred to by fans as the “boost era” for reasons that will soon be made apparent — slowed things down considerably compared to Unleashed. I’m going to reveal to you now Sonic Unleashed’s greatest asset: it does not care if you think it seems too fast. Sonic Unleashed doesn’t care if you think it’s too fast because it knows it’s not too fast. Sonic Unleashed dares to push past any reasonable concept of “too fast” because Sonic Unleashed trained for centuries on a mountain with monks seeking ultimate enlightenment and descended from this peak to share with the world an ancient and universal truth: it’s really really really fun to go really really really fast.

Unleashed continues the modern Sonic tradition of eschewing the original games’ emphasis on momentum by making high speeds accessible on the fly, and it reaches the conclusion that, really, I mean honestly, like, why not just have a button that makes you go fast? Enter: the boost. First seen in the DS-exclusive (and highly underrated) Sonic Rush, the boost makes its 3D debut in Sonic Unleashed and that debut is loud. It’s simple: press the button, start boosting. Boosting makes you go fast; fast enough to shred through any enemies standing in your way, fast enough to scale up walls, fast enough to run on water. The best part is, it all happens instantly. Seeing Sonic reach speeds dozens of times faster than he’d ever gone before at the press of a button for the first time was powerful. It was freeing. It was — and god, I hate using this phrase, but, I mean, come on — mind-blowing. The entire game is built on this mechanic. You’ll be holding the boost button in Unleashed at least ten times as often as the jump button, and that’s a lowball estimate. Nowadays we’re on our, what is it, sixth mainline game to use this formula? But even today, Unleashed has an edge on those later titles in just how extremely it takes its extreme speeds. Once again, there is no overstating just how fast Sonic can go in this game. He starts off fast, there’s a button that immediately makes him even faster, and then — and then! — you can level him up to make him even faster: To this day I can’t think of any game, let alone a 3D platformer, that goes this absolutely bonkers with its speed. And yeah, I’ve probably played whatever F-Zeroclone or weird indie game you’re thinking of. Unleashed is still faster. Tack on the game’s frankly bananas level of motion blur (this is the only game where I’ll defend the motion blur) and it creates a feeling of pure velocity no other game has managed to replicate.

But wait — there’s more. Unleashed is delightfully difficult. A seemingly obvious but somehow overlooked secret to making the best game ever is to offer intense speeds at the cost of heightened challenge. Crazy Taxi does it. F-Zero does it. Your 16 Star PB does it. Sonic Unleashed might seem like it’s doing it too, with demanding level design and shortcuts that require a mix of memorization and reflex — usually at the same time, in fact, as you’ll never memorize the exact timing of a jump, nor will you ever develop the reaction speed to dodge an unexpected hazard coming at you at 600 miles per hour. It’s tougher than anything you’ll find in the game’s boost era sequels. Levels are long, death is cheap, and the results screen isn’t afraid to break your heart with a low score. S Ranks may come easy (a little too easy, I’d say) in later outings using this gameplay formula, but in Unleashed only through honest work will you be grabbing the best grades. 

Here’s the catch: Where other games straight-forwardly offer big fast in exchange for big hard, Unleashed has an interesting twist on this tradeoff. That is to say, there is no tradeoff. Go fast, idiot. Go fast all the time. It’s not really up for debate. You’re playing as Sonic the Hedgehog. Not only that, but reaching top speed has never been easier in the series. Any doubt about whether you should be pressing the boost button in nearly any given scenario can be solved in seconds by looking at the screen and remembering the character you’re playing as. Boosting is essentially always a free action assuming you’ve got enough rings for it (you’re Sonic, you have enough rings) and the game discourages the idea of slow-paced “practice runs” by punishing players who aren’t going as fast as they can as often as they can. A boost-conservative Sonic won’t get the height from ramps necessary for the fastest routes, he’ll lack the speed to outrun any obstacles tailing behind him, and he’ll be forced to carefully pick off enemies that a boost could turn into bowling pins in seconds. Once the game starts introducing sections where you run on water, top speed becomes mandatory to avoid sinking below the waves for a quick death.

The rare occasions where you do want to stop boosting — say, a precise platforming section — then become puzzles. How are you going to get through this part of the level as fast as possible so you can get back to boosting? When exactly are you supposed to stop boosting? Can you squeeze in an extra second of pressing that boost button before things get dicey, and when, precisely, down to the millisecond, are you safe to press it again? In other cases, how many times will you play through a scary part of a level before you have the confidence to boost through it? Sonic Unleashed, rather than teach you that boosting has drawbacks to be considered, teaches you that the consequences of nonstop speed are non-negotiable. You will deal with the danger you put yourself in while moving at top speed, and any time spent doing something other than boosting is likely time spent failing at the game. 

Players truly engrossed in this sort of design will very quickly (ha) (quickly) (get it) find themselves becoming well acquainted with the nuances of the air-boost to shave off precious seconds from a run. Do you need to be landing on each of these platforms one by one, chaining together homing attacks on each of these enemies to cross gaps, or will a well-timed air-boost launch you directly over these slower sections? Is it better to use a mid-air stomp here to safely descend from the skies, or should you just launch yourself forward with an air-boost and hope you eventually land back on solid ground? The amount of level geometry the game encourages you to skip with this mechanic is remarkable, and it makes the boost button feel at times like it should be some kind of complex speedrunning exploit. But no, the game just gives it to you. It just gives it to you! Unleashed hands you the ability to jumpstart your acceleration to absurd levels at any given moment, and then says “if you don’t use this as often as possible we’re going to bust out the dunce cap and give you, like, a B Rank or something.” This might sound a bit mind-numbing, a game focused so wholly on one mechanic, but as we already established, it feels very very good to go very very fast. Unleashed isn’t as hard as it is because Sonic Team was interested in making a game for children that starts kicking you in the teeth around the third level — it’s hard because you should always feel fast, and being fast should always feel just a little bit scary. It all comes back to speed. It always comes back to speed. Also maybe they did, a little bit, want to do the teeth-kicking thing. I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but I can tell you those DLC levels aren’t playing around.

If you’re thinking Sonic Unleashed sounds like a game concerned primarily with spectacle, you’re not wrong. Sonic Team landed on something more exhilarating than had ever been seen in Sonic, and rather than try to incorporate it into any previously existing ideas about the hedgehoglike genre, they leaned into it, not only in gameplay but also in aesthetics. Sonic’s world has always been malleable; a hodgepodge of vibrant natural countrysides, oxygen-choked industrial hellscapes, and off-kilter interpretations of San Francisco. As long as the highways have inconspicuous shuttle loops, Sonic isn’t afraid to go there. You know where Sonic had never been? Greece. Italy. Alaska. Green Hill Zone is nowhere to be seen in Unleashed. Instead, the game frames itself as a globe-trotting adventure through obvious stand-ins for iconic real-world locales, allowing Sonic to take in unique cultures, try exotic foods, and interact with characters who outshine the residents of Station Square not only through new and improved art direction but also an attention to diversity that still manages to impress me nearly two decades later, even when the representation is still technically built around fictional versions of real places. 

Of course, none of that matters as much as the levels themselves. Have you ever looked at a block of skyscrapers in New York City, or London’s Big Ben clocktower, and thought, “what if there was a little guy running on top of this thing going heeeella fast?” Of course you haven’t. That’s why Sonic Team made the sickest game ever and you’re reading some blog right now. That all-important sense of speed is made to feel so much realer when we have such iconic landmarks to play with. I couldn’t tell you exactly how much surface area Sonic is covering as he jets down the wacky cartoon-land of Sonic Adventure 2’s Green Forest. I’m sure he’s going fast, but something gets lost when the environments are so fantastical and, well, video gamey, that they become unrelatable to anything in the real world. But get him blazing across something as instantly identifiable as the Great Wall of China? That’s a speed you can contextualize. That’s a speed you can feel.

Unleashed does all of this while still managing to keep an artistic direction that feels true to Sonic’s universe. You’ll not see anything comparable to those New Donk City freaks masquerading as Mario characters — it’s a world immediately recognizable as our own, filtered through the visual sensibilities we’d expect from a Sonic game. It’s a balancing act Unleashed pulls off so flawlessly that you’d be forgiven for never stopping to consider just how easy it would’ve been to mess it up, even when it came just two years removed from Sonic 06’s baffling attempt at throwing Sonic characters into a setting that bent more towards Final Fantasy. What ties Unleashed’s visuals together is a graphical fidelity that pushes the series further than it’s gone before or since, with special mention required for a lighting engine that, to this day, feels straight-up impossible given the limitations of the hardware, and which refuses to quit even when you’re breaking the sound barrier because, let’s not forget, all of this, every last detail dedicated to fully realizing these environments, is in service of selling you fully on the idea that, yes, your eyes doth not deceive, they really made a game where you’re going this fast.

I can’t not mention the soundtrack when talking about the identity of the game’s levels. There is, and I don’t say this lightly, not a single miss on this OST. Every track complements its stage excellently while also being stellar music even removed from the game. Windmill Isle’s care-free guitars befit the laid-back seaside town just as well as the cheery Christmas synths do the frozen oceans of Cool Edge. The intense woodwinds of Jungle Joyride and the sudden bursts of loud horns in Savannah Citadel could tell you exactly what kind of level you’re in for without you ever actually seeing the levels themselves. My personal favorite, Dragon Road, layers a playfully overactive kalimba on top of beautiful violins to evoke a basic idea of an elegant Chinese piece seeped in pop sensibilities, without ever stooping to any cliches associated with “Chinese themes.” It all culminates in the tune used for Eggmanland. To even name a level “Eggmanland” after years of fans listening to the titular doctor use the term to threaten his ultimate final project, his final step towards world domination, in one of his countless big evil monologues, was a bold choice. It’s a name that demands a truly psychotic level in order to meet the mental image fans had spent so long cultivating, and so the game sets the mood perfectly with an aggressive piece of techno, sharp and frantic synths punctuated by menacing keys. It’s the hardest level the series has ever offered. Eggmanland’s level design takes the “always go fast and deal with the repercussions” rule ofSonic Unleashed to its limit. Everything is trying to kill you, and the accompanying musical piece follows suit by skipping right past “goes hard” and nose-diving into “this song is also trying to kill you.” Seriously, go listen to that track right now. “Eggmanland (Day).” Go on, look it up in another tab. As manic as it is sinister, but somehow still so good. The drop a little bit before the 2 minute mark gets me every time.

It should come as no surprise that the unifying sound that blends this soundtrack together is drum and bass, a genre made specifically for those looking to go really fast. It’s the sauce that makes every track so addictive. Every song’s unique soundscape is fused with lively DnB. Skyscraper Scamper’s jazzy horns compete with hi-tech synths and Rooftop Run’s triumphant strings are pushed to their breaking point by relentless percussion. Impressively, the differing sounds never clash, but instead elevate each other to ensure your blood is pumping and your brain is ready to start slamming down on that boost button. Whether it’s the complex pop melodies of the Genesis games or the commanding rock riffs of the Dreamcast titles, Sonic has always been known for excellent music, but Unleashed’s inspired use of DnB across the entire game harmonizes so perfectly with its goal of being the fastest game ever that it makes you wonder why the series hasn’t stuck with the genre as the default sound for all of Sonic’s high octane adventures going forward. If you’re wondering if this all makes the game feel faster — yeah, it makes the game feel faster.

We’ve discussed a lot of ways Sonic Unleashedturns 3D platforming into a thrilling roller coaster ride, but the game’s real secret, the one element so perfectly tuned that the title’s successor’s haven’t even come close to matching it, is the camera work. Every second of every level in Sonic Unleashed is being filmed by possibly the hardest-working cinematographer in the whole of video games. While the current gaming zeitgeist has taught us to bemoan the scripted camera in favor of right stick propaganda, I will always be a champion for meticulously crafted visuals, and none are as delicately constructed as Sonic Unleashed’s. Where conventional wisdom might have led Sonis Team to provide a consistent and reliable point of view for a game as fiercely fast as Unleashed, instead they’ve opted for a camera that is restless and surprising. It’s by far the aspect of the game that goes the least examined, but absolutely one of the most important.

The game’s big memorable setpieces are made eye-catching by moments where the camera pulls back to reveal the detailed scenery, and that’s lovely, but what’s tragically easy to overlook while barreling through levels is the moment-to-moment camera shifts. The camera reels back to display incoming batches of enemies, crashes into overhangs, tilts to the side to telegraph traps lying ahead, and bounces alongside Sonic over bumps in the road. When the gameplay shifts from 3D to 2D, the camera might make the expected adjustments, leaning back and moving to the side, or maybe the director will prefer to stay put as Sonic himself takes a hard right into 2D. The game knows when to close in and focus on Sonic, and when to zoom out to show off the environments. When Sonic is running away from something, the camera will flip around to show us the danger, and then reorient itself behind him and slowly close into him, as if we’re seeing from the eyes of whatever is chasing him, narrowing in on its target. When Sonic grinds across overlapping rails, the camera might fly above the chaos, or it might dip low to dodge the upper rail. When those rails start to twist and turn it’s truly a toss-up where the camera might go, constantly inventing new and creative ways to show us the action. A double-helix rail grind might, finally, put the camera on level with Sonic, but only so players can be stupefied by the spiral of rails surrounding every corner.

By far my favorite in Unleashed’s massive book of camera plays is how the game handles linear corridors. Any other game would once again stick to the conventional wisdom that the faster you’re going, and the more limited your space, the more you need to see what’s coming up ahead. Sonic Unleashed, by contrast, loves to get right up into Sonic’s spines, maybe a foot and a half away from eye-gouging range, and just stay there, tracking him closely as he bobs up and down winding roads, obscuring a ton of visual information and forcing us right into the action alongside him as he traverses tight spaces. It’s always such a great trick because it takes the safest moments in the game — straight forward paths through fancy hallways — and makes them feel ferocious. No matter how many times I replay these levels, no matter how sure I am that I literally cannot mess upthese sections, they never fail to deliver the sensation, however fleeting, that Sonic is moving at a pace that is truly uncontrollable, and all I can do is sit back and hope for the best. There’s a reason the first level after the tutorial kicks off with one of these. These moments tend to last only seconds, but they’re where Unleashed shines the brightest. These are the times where you’ll be left wondering how any game could be so beautifully lit, so densely decorated, so intelligently themed, deviously designed, and, somehow, beneath it all, still so motherfucking fast. They’re, to me, the strongest moments in a series that has forsaken the safety net of consistency for a life sustained by a tight-rope of strong moments. They’re the moments that made me fall so head-over-heels in love with this game.

So, that’s Sonic Unleashed. Overwhelming speed, demanding challenge, great art direction, gorgeous lighting, incredible level design, an unbelievable soundtrack, and creative camera work. Go fast, die a lot, pretty graphics, China level, drum and bass, dutch angles.

Sonic Unleashed is one of my favorite games ever. It’s my favorite in a series that occupies probably around 90% of my head space, and thanks to Unleashed Recomp, it has never been easier to play. If you’ve never played this game and you somehow made it to the end of this essay, um, go play it, obviously. I don’t know what else you were expecting me to say. This isn’t a critique, it’s a fluffy gushy attempt at controlling the narrative, written to make you care about this game as much as I do. With the release of the Unleashed Recomp project, the game’s continued availability for purchase on the Xbox Marketplace, and my sincere promise that it’s, and you can quote me on this, “basically one of the coolest things ever and definitely better than your favorite game,” you’re officially out of excuses to not be playing this game literally right now. If it wasn’t already obvious, I do recommend Unleashed Recompeven to owners of the original game. The increased fidelity and absurdly high frame rate really help the game sing. If you’re only interested in the parts of Unleashed I wrote about here and aren’t down to get through the..other….bits……. you can just download a save file online and use the in-game level select to check out the ones that interest you. I promise you won’t lose any cred with me if you go this route. Whatever it takes for you to give this game a chance, go for it.

I want more people to have the chance to fall in love with this game. Just play Sonic Unleashed. Then play it some more. Tell all your friends about it. Make a playlist with some underground drum and bass producers and check out the YouTuber Ajakes (whose insights into the camera work in boost era Sonic games I’ve borrowed from for this essay). Start wondering why Sonic doesn’t wear Chip’s bracelet in Colors and fill your hard drive with videos of failed speedrun attempts at Jungle Joyride Act 1. Then play Generations and complain about how it just isn’t fast enough. Go on a walk with an extended loop of “Apotos (Day)” playing in your headphones and pretend you live in Greece. Start playing Sonic Unleashed, never let it leave your brain, and then wonder where the last 17 years went. Just kidding. You spent them thinking about Sonic Unleashed. Lucky you.

Just don’t ask me about the Werehog. I seriously, seriously don’t care about the Werehog.