New Info: Destructoid Staffer Dishes on Unleashed Combat

How does the Werehog Play?

The inclusion of Sonic the Werehog and nighttime combat as a major component of Sonic Unleashed remains a serious point of contention, even as launch day draws near.  There are still plenty of both fans and media who feel the dynamics of this gameplay could make or break the entire game, and crush a fanbase still reeling from the failure of the 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog.

So, why not hear first hand about how the Werehog will handle from someone who’s played it?

Jim Sterling is a writer for Destructoid, one of the premier gaming sites on the Internet, but he also frequents the Sonic Stadium message boards.  Another SSMB member asked in a thread how the combat system in the night would handle.  Sterling, having played a build, was happy to respond:

The combat system is almost exactly like Dynasty Warriors, with God of War finishers tacked on. The combo system is just like DW’s — You do regular attacks with square, stronger attacks with triangle, and to get new combos, you do square triangle, square square triangle, square square square triangle, etc. There might be even more complex combos but not from what I personally saw.

When an enemy is near to death, a symbol will appear meaning you can initiate a QTE finisher. Then it’s a fairly standard quick-time event to finish them off. There is no variety in finishers, so each enemy type dies in its own way. I can see that being a bit tiring. You also have the Unleashed meter, which will make Sonic tougher and stuff once it’s filled.

The combat is not especially hard, but there are a lot of enemies. The sub-boss fight was a little bit tougher, with you having to time shockwave jumps and fight a huge monster while fending off little ones. Nothing devastatingly hard, but he put up some resistance.

Sterling will be reviewing Sonic Unleashed for Destructoid, look for that when he receives his final copy.  In addition, look for our reviews of the game shortly after we have our copies.