It's been little over a month since Sonic Unleashed was unveiled and it's already one of the most talked about Wii games of the year. We recently had to opportunity to chat to Yoshihisa Hashimoto about the hedgehog's latest adventure...
ONM: First off, can you give us a brief overview of what you're doing with Sonic Unleashed? Yoshihisa Hashimoto: This game will have different types of gameplay - Sonic will be going on a great adventure around the world. By using various new action systems, players will be able to experience a brand new high-speed action game for Sonic The Hedgehog. Sonic will also have new abilities in this new title. As a development team, we originally started off this project planning to create Sonic Adventure 3. In our minds, this game will have more in common with the older Sonic Adventure series. It has no relation to Sonic The Hedgehog (the 360/PS3 game) or Sonic And The Secret Rings.
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ONM: What brings on Sonic's transformation and what new abilities does he acquire? YH: Trapped by Dr. Eggman's evil plan, the powers of the seven chaos emeralds is misused and something changes in Sonic's body. As for what he will be able to do with these new abilities, you will have to look forward to hearing more soon!
ONM: Why have you decided to bring another new character into the Sonic The Hedgehog universe? YH: We wanted the Sonic fans to love Sonic even more. Also, for the people who are not familiar with Sonic, we think that this will be a great way to introduce them to Sonic The Hedgehog. Those you are not familiar with Sonic will be able to easily enjoy some of the new gameplay modes. For those of you who are familiar with Sonic, the new modes will provide a change! With the two main elements of 'evolution' and 'bold change', we believe players will be able to enjoy the new Sonic The Hedgehog.
ONM: Sonic And The Secret Rings was a great game. Have you taken any elements from this game or from Sonic The Hedgehog? YH: We have not installed any features directly from Sonic And The Secret Rings, but one of the new features - Quick Step - will allow Sonic to move left to right quickly, so that could be something that looks similar to what you have seen in Sonic And The Secret Rings.
We only used the Wii Remote to control in Sonic And The Secret Rings, but the players will also be using the Nunchuk controller in Sonic Unleashed. Sonic Unleashed was developed from scratch and will purely be Sonic's new product. Of course, players will still be able to enjoy Sonic's symbolic actions such as Spin Attack and Homing Attack.
ONM: What new enemies can we expect in the game?<.b> YH: There will be a lot of new robots created by Dr. Eggman appearing throughout the game. The robots will be both comical and cool mixed together, but there will also be some darker monsters that will appear. Some are small but big ones will be about seven metres tall. We tried to add as much variety to the enemy characters as well. Other various gigantic mechanical and boss monsters will appear in the game too.
ONM Finally, can you tell us about some of Sonic's new moves? YH: Three of the new moves include Sonic Boost (by collecting rings, Ring Energy will fill up, which you can use to dash through the course at high speed), Sonic Drift (players will be able to take a short turn at any sharp curves while running through the course) and Quick Step (when running in high speed with an obstacle ahead, players will be able to move left or right rapidly). We'll also have other new actions in the game that will be revealed later.
