This review was commissioned. That means I was paid to watch and review the series in question and give my honest thoughts on it. You can learn about my commission policies and how to buy commissions of your own here. This review was commissioned by Josh. Thank you for your support.
During the few years I’ve been operating this blog and offering commissions, I’ve gotten a couple that sit well outside my usual strike zone, the one indicated by my actual commission sheet itself. Of these, I’ve only ever taken three; the bizarre Toei/Marvel co-production Dracula, Sovereign of The Damned, the American cartoon Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart (which I’m actually happy I did write about, now that the cartoon itself seems to have been zapped out of existence), and this one, which, in some ways, might be the most unconventional of the three.
Sonic the motherfucking Hedgehog. The Blue Blur. 90s Attitude Personified. Central idol of perhaps the most devoted, and most polarizing, cult fandom of any video game franchise ever made, who has proven resistant to the changing tides of the industry, more than one notably bad game, numerous critical attempts to declare his franchise “dead” in some way or another, and of course, the internet’s over-developed cringe reflex which attempts to unfairly paint the aforementioned cult fandom as a bunch of depraved weirdos. (I’m a Transformers fan. I sympathize.) The guy has been through a lot. It doesn’t really seem to matter; the franchise has chugged along basically uninterrupted since 1991.
As for myself? I’ve been in and out. I played the original Sonic Adventure a lot as a kid, my family were early Dreamcast adopters and it was one of my favorite titles for the system. (I have played it more recently and don’t think it holds up super well, but if pressed, I’d still put it below only a few other Dreamcast games in a personal ranking. Mostly Panzer Dragoon Orta, which I played on the Xbox anyway, and Hydro Thunder.) I missed out on Sonic Adventure 2, when that came along, mostly because my middle school grades were slipping and my mom thought more video games would discourage me from improving them. By the time Sonic Heroes came out, I played it and liked it well enough, but it wasn’t a primary interest of mine anymore, and my record with the franchise has been spotty since then. (If you’re curious, my two favorite games in the franchise are Sonic Colors and Sonic Pocket Adventure.)
I have never played Sonic Unleashed, which I will confess, I had to actually remind myself was the one with the Were-Hedgehog gimmick as I was preparing to write this review. The fact that I’ve not played it doesn’t matter, given my assignment here, you see. I’m not reviewing the game, I’m reviewing the opening cutscene. A cutscene that I am assured is one of the strongest—if not the strongest—realizations of Sonic, both as a character and as an IP, in an animated format. Having now seen it, if that’s not true, I would certainly like to know what the actual candidates are, because the cutscene serves as a perfectly great little short film. It can’t rightly be called standalone, for obvious reasons, but the amount of style and polish here is admirable.
I’ll admit that I’m a little rusty on my Sonic lore, but I don’t immediately recognize the all-gunmetal space station that Sonic sets foot on in the short’s opening moments. But it’s clear from first blush that this is Eggman Territory. Dr. Robotnik likes painting superstructures red and stuffing them full of guns and robots. Both make their presence known in abundance the second our heroic ‘hog arrives. All of this, bluntly, looks pretty amazing. At just six minutes, the short is low on details like plot or characterization. But still, you get all you need to know out of Sonic zooming through hordes of Badniks and popping them to metallic smithereens with his homing attack. It can often be challenging to make action animation that consists mostly of zipping around actually look compelling, but it’s pulled off very well here. Inevitably, Sonic and Eggman confront each other directly, and Robotnik’s swarms of explosive weaponry are put to more personal use as he fights Sonic one-on-one in a mecha. It doesn’t really help; Sonic invokes the Chaos Emeralds and goes super, blowing most of it up.
Eggman flees, as he does, to a different space station. There, Sonic seems to have him cornered, and he grovels on the floor for forgiveness. Except, surprise! The second Sonic relents, Eggman traps him in some kind of restraint, and points a massive beam at the planet below. This beam both unleashes some kind of Elden Ring-ass purple monster with something called the “Gaia Manuscripts” and turns Sonic into the Werehog from the game itself. Smash to logo!
All told, this is a decidedly compact endeavor, but it does make me wonder why they never pursued this particular look for Sonic cinematics further. (Hell, if you made a series that looked like this people would be over the moon.) Budget issues, perhaps? Some other factor?
We may never know. But for its six-minute runtime, the Sonic Unleashed opening is an admirably stylish piece of 3D animation. That’s all it needs to be.
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