Beware, massive TL;DR block of bitching ahead.
A while back I played through and beat the Wii version of Unleashed, and some of the secret missions. I generally enjoyed it, defended it, et cetera. I still would, because Dimps made a decent game out of it.
I bought the 360 version early this year, because I knew the Wii version was abbreviated and some of the extra Sonic stages I saw in videos looked entertaining. I just wasn't prepared for the sheer amount of bullshit one would have to deal with. I made some progress, had some things distract me for a while and put it aside, but the past few days I've been trying to crack back into it, and it's pissing me off badly at every bend.
It's strange how Dimps took the blueprints, and made a better game out of the Wii version with less content than the 360 side did, the latter adding pounds and pounds of useless extra padding, forgetting to polish the edges and streamline to make things really work.
Firstly, the 360 version is frustratingly hard, and needlessly complex. I don't understand why it is. I had a few troublesome spots in the Wii version, but it was generally acceptable. And the Sonic stages on 360, at least the default ones, aren't usually that bad, although I suspect they're getting there. The Werehog stages, on the other hand, quickly become frustrating almost from the get-go, and usually on purpose. It's amazing that they would even begin to consider this a kids or family property when they're making the game this tough. Mechanics that are slow-and-steady on the Wii version force you to rush on the 360 side, such as hanging from enemies or jumping from poles or shifting around blocks while enemies shoot at you. You're drowned in robots and creatures and golems and wizards who will be constantly taking shots at you, and who do annoying things like constantly turtle, switch to long-range weapons while off-screen, or just generally beat the hell out of you without much chance for respite. Those huge golems are so much more fatal than on the Wii, for example. They can injure you by just being close to them, your shield can be drained in a single casual swipe, and they can knock you further back while you're already knocked down.
Example: Right before I started writing this, I was playing in Empire City. I got to a point where there was a single golem on top of a building. I used my Unleashed gauge, tore him down to half-health, then QTEd him to death. That wasn't so bad. I went on, and eventually flubbed a crappy jump right before a checkpoint. The game set me right back at the start of the golem fight, with no Unleashed energy. Whatever, I started wailing on him. That's when I discovered the neat trick of that area. You see, if he knocks you down in any way, then he usually does his little shockwave jump, and before you can get up again, he knocks you off the building and kills you. Let's repeat, if he hits you right once, you're completely fucked, "It's no uuuuse!" style. You just fall into that green Superman 64 Kryptonite fog and start over again. Now, there are some powerups scattered around in the breakables (which get in the way of you seeing what's going on), but while you're hunting for them, near the edge, guess what attack he keeps doing? He tore through all 5 of my remaining lives that way, then the game happily slapped a "GAME OVER" in my face, and all my progress through the level was gone.
It doesn't help that the Werehog has terrible controls. On the Wii his combat mechanics were oversimplified, and he was slow to grab onto ledges, but he did pretty much without fail (it was extremely forgiving), so the worst it generally was was boring, except for the occasional wasp enemy. On the 360 side, he gets locked into performing all sorts of animations while fighting, jerking you around and occasionally missing (resulting in a pathetic slow motion hang and drift down as the enemies walk around you at normal speed, charging up punches). On the Wii there's no QTEs for standard enemies, and while I like the idea of them on the 360 side, not only did they idiotically put them on the same button as Grab, but if you fail one, you lose health and they gain health back. They gain health! What a damn joke. His controls can be finicky sometimes, refusing to jump from poles (that are collapsing while he screws around) and even his basic turning is awkward and jerky. I will also, happily, point out that balance beams are not in the Wii version, not to my memory anyway. Ironic, given the whole motion controls thing. Which you can ignore in the Wii version by using a Gamecube or Classic Controller.
Even the Sonic levels aren't devoid of this. What the hell is with the 360 version and QTEs? On the Wii version, Sonic does occasionally have to use a QTE in the level, but it's always the same. You can memorize it like any other part of the level. Which makes a sort of sense, since it's the same hazard Sonic is navigating through every time. On the 360? Oh of course it's random. That ramp that's LB RB Y one life is A Y RB the next is X X A the next is Y RB Y the next. It doesn't fit with the concept of why there would be a QTE in the first place, it's just random awkward challenge at that point. And there should never, never be a prompt on screen that says "X x 60". If your game's challenge is "Hit this button so much omfg", you have fucked up badly. I thought Sky Chase was going to be a fun little minigame, it was 10 minutes of QTE Hell. What in the flying fuck were they thinking?
I haven't even gotten into the unneccessary Level Up system. The Wii version does it by counting rings you've collected as Sonic in that level only, and through a very linear progression as the Werehog. It's just extra crap to deal with for no useful purpose on 360 side with all sorts of different stats to upgrade. At least on the Wii side they can kind of plan around it, but they can have no concept on the 360 side if you've upgraded Sonic or the Werehog a single level. How about those level hubs? Confusing, awkward messes on the 360 side, with enemies there for no reason but to annoy you further. On the Wii side, a basic interface, with extra doors leading to puzzles with bonus goods as the reward. (And the only place where you have to worry about Sonic switching to Werehog and back as you play, with puzzles designed around it.) It's not perfect, but damn is it just much more tolerable.
I don't even want to get into the platforming, or some of the puzzles. Some of the block-dragging stuff and "just high enough" platform raising wasn't what I would put in the early levels, I'm dreading the crap it's going to put me through later on. And I loved when I got to that part of Empire City where they started adding spikes to the side of balance beams, so you couldn't grip on them as a fall-back.
Bottom line is this game is complex, and hard. How in the fuck did they think this was OK for kids and families? I would rather a Sonic game be an easy-to-complete sleepwalk than a frustrating, confusing wreck like this. It's okay for the game to have extra challenges that are hard, or a dedicated Hard mode, but I'm talking about the early, basic stages!
Secondly, they got in over their heads making too much content that they didn't need. Now, honestly, I was surprised just how much extra crap there was in the 360 version over the Wii version. I mean, those hubs can be huge, filled with all sorts of characters who change text at almost every step, and even shift around between hubs and talk about their traveling, remembering other NPCs and such. And there's shops that sell souvenirs (you have to buy items to look at the unlockables you've already earned?) and upgrade items, fetch quests, all that joyous stuff. The Wii version basically picked four or five NPCs for each area. You don't care much about them or see them in such surprising detail, but it does the job. You really don't need the talking to people side of it, but the Wii rev is very straightforward about who's left to talk to and when you should talk to them. The 360 version does allow several different people in the town to tell you the important information to move on, but you're still plodding around town looking for people to chat with in the meantime. And again, these hubs can be large. Some of them, anyway. You can clearly see when they had to cut corners when you get to places like Empire City.
And let's not forget the exorcism sidequest using the camera to... fight in highly repetitive and frustrating battles often with short time limits and turtling enemies... I've changed my mind, let's forget about those.
But why? Did anyone really want all this junk? I don't even mess with many of the NPCs anymore because there's just too many, and you have to do so much talking anyway. Souvenirs fit the World Adventure theme (oh, right, the game is "Unleashed," that doesn't work then, does it?), but upgrade food items? Most of it's completely unexplained, so it's just buy it and see what it does. I have a bunch of teas and things from the various level hubs, that Chip says he doesn't want, I don't know whether to try them on Sonic, or hold onto them for some reason. Why am I even having to think about this stuff in regard to the game? It's just in the way, it doesn't add anything of merit.
Thirdly, they rushed for a deadline. Again. I know the business world exists with deadlines for a reason, but they fall into this pattern almost every damn time, the game starts rushing toward release and people have barely seen it, they start showing content and promising they're going to fix that framerate before release, then the Japanese release date unmysteriously pushes back (and yet at least Sonic 2006 didn't get much in the way of fixes for Japan, to my knowledge), but don't worry, the US version is fine... and then they dump the shit on our plates and run away. And you know what pisses me off the most? They immediately want to move on afterward. Sonic 2006 never received a patch even though it deserved one (it may have been too much to patch given the 360's limitations on patching), and they cut nearly all of the planned DLC because the game bombed. It's not guaranteed they've abandoned Unleashed, but there's been no even hinting of a patch, and they've moved the hype train completely over to Sonic and the Black Knight. Big surprise. It's not like Sega doesn't know how to patch games, so what the hell's going on? In the meantime, gamers have to deal with the visuals chugging every time the camera gets near vegetation, or the Werehog at all. (There's some flaw with their alpha blending on 2D textures they used for fur and grass, I'm guessing.) The camera can't even get close to the fucking lead character and they're just going to walk away from it? Meanwhile, the Wii version putters along solidly. Not perfectly, but solidly. The camera on the 360 finds some stupid angles to show you the view from, and sometimes can't even decide which angle it wants to use when you're standing still. The Wii version's camera is a little daft and very rigid, but it gets the job done.
The game needed extra time, and once again they rushed for the holiday season. Oddly, Secret Rings and now Black Knight both haven't been forced to a holiday release date, and I was very happy with how Secret Rings turned out, for the most part. Sega needs to stop fast-tracking their Sonic titles when those games need polish above all else. I know every holiday they miss is a chunk of less sales they could have in their pocket sooner, but this is the second or third game they put out where I can only imagine many of the kids getting it are probably confused and frustrated by the gameplay. Why would they ask for the next game in the series if the last one was too hard for them? If they have a way to avoid it, why would the parents buy it if the kids hardly played the one before?
Finally, it's the little touches that can really help. The Wii version's map screen has a running ticker that tells you where you should go next for the story to continue. The 360 version has these flaming columns coming out of the spot, but they're less straightforward to spot, and don't actually tell you "Go to Spagonia and talk to the Professor!" or "Find the Temple Guardian for Holoska." The "Ready," is a countdown on the Wii version (Secret Rings-like), and you can spindash to get a better start if you time it right. If you time it wrong, Sonic stumbles. It's a nice little extra thing that you're not required to do, but can benefit from. The Wii's 3D scenes are usually wider to allow for cornering, and while once or twice I got turned around in them, it did feel a little better than the tight tunnels the 360 side puts you through. The Wii's Werehog levels usually pick a gimmick or two, then theme the level around them, and it doesn't recycle all that much, instead of constantly throwing everything at you in every level. There's a few too many of them, but the nice thing is that they're about 1/3rd the length of the 360's level, and in-between each one, it asks you if you want to keep going. And if you don't, it saves your progress, and lets you come back later. Meanwhile on the 360, my trip through the Werehog's Holoska took almost 40 minutes, and I even started skipping unlockables near the end because I just wanted to get through the damn thing. And when you travel down some hallways or take side paths to, say, activate a switch or hunt for an unlockable in the Wii version, then would have to travel back to the main route, they either give you an obvious shortcut (spawning one of the flying enemies you can hang from as they float you back), or deactivate nearly all the hazards if they would be hard to see. The challenge is presented as getting there, not getting there and navigating back without dying. This happens some on the 360 side, but not nearly enough.
But my favorite touch on the Wii? The Action Gauge. It's completely unnecessary, all it does is reward you for linking actions together into a smooth motion in the levels, and gives you extra boost energy for it. It feels rewarding in its own right, because it encourages a more active play style through the levels instead of just drifting or boosting through them, making you employ moves like the stomp regularly and usefully. It's reminiscent of the Link meter in NiGHTS. The 360 version could have really used it.
They could have done so much less with this game and just polished the hell out of it, and had something pretty special. Even with the Werehog, the Wii side generally finds a way to make it work, or at least tolerable. But they didn't need stores, they didn't need exorcism sidequests, they didn't need giant hubs full of NPCs spouting tons of text. They needed to make sure the damn levels worked well. They did it for the Wii, even if they didn't put enough Sonic in there. But they got so entrenched in this random bullshit for the 360 rev that they couldn't even get the framerate solid when the lead for half of the game is close to the camera. Their priorities were just too fucked up. It says something when I would recommend the version of the game with about 40% as much content over the other, more "complete" version, but there it is. One team had their priorities right, the other wrong.