Sonic Unleashed - Unused Hard and Very Hard Layouts

[@SSRUS1]

25:16 "A Milfed Mom" LMAO. Glad you're still alive man, basically solo carrying the unleashed beta/unused content on youtube. It's always so interesting to watch these basically documentary videos. Great job!

[@TheStormsChannel]

I always keep misleading that mission name, was wondering if anyone would spot it. Also I have been busy with real life stuff so sadly didn't have much time or motivation to make vids for a while

[@SSRUS1]

@@TheStormsChannel It's understandable, i have not had any motivation to make content for a good while as well, lol. Don't feel pressured to make content, do what you think is right. Good luck!

[@hawk6901]

It's funny looking at this knowing Unleashed is already one of the harder games in the series, which makes me wonder how people would've reacted to these if they ever made it into the final game. Also, 56:19 made me laugh more than it should've.

[@selassieaspen9940]

People already hated this game back then. They would have hated a lot if they kept the stuffed in. But then later on, I loved it in 2017 after dealing with Rise of Lyric and Forces. 😂

[@somehelluvafanboy8357]

Oh I would have depsised it if those layouts were required My playthrough wasn't fun as is, imagine with all that

[@tamedlyneldog8210]

IGN 💀💀💀

[@Hyp3rSonic]

@@selassieaspen9940 Imo, Unleashed and Forces are both mediocre. Still enjoyed playing both games, however

[@GlitchSpeedrunnerTrevor]

Dragon Road's and Jungle Joyride's Hard/Very Hard Modes would've been insane. Though a pain for what it could be, imagine all the rage compilations we would get out of it.😂

[@TheStormsChannel]

You should see the beta layout for Jungle Joyride, that's even more difficult than any hard layout

[@dionysusantaeus2937]

This was an extremely pleasant surprise to have in my sub box. Always love the little sprinkles of humor and running jokes throughout. Kind of a shame to see some of these have some decent work put into them and not all of them being used. It really would have been interesting to see what would have happened if these and the DLC stages were just part of the main game. Certainly, it would have been a bit bloated on content, but still would have been an interesting challenge for full 100%

[@rottenmind6991]

Oh hey! My least played mod got featured! Thanks for showcasing it! P/s: I couldn't implement very hard layout of Cool Edge to the mod bc of the crash so you have always been playing the hard version only. Funny that it already made some ppl lose their minds xD Dragon Road only used hard layout as well bc the very hard one is insanely difficult at the beginning.

[@TheStormsChannel]

Any idea on what object is causing the crash? Must be something with either invalid variables or a removed object perhaps

[@ajcox4771]

Glad to see another video after a while, unused and beta content really fascinates me, especially my favourite game Unleashed. I'm no expert into modern sonic game hacking but I assume as of right now there's not too much to discover or really hidden unless a new prototype releases.

[@TheStormsChannel]

There are a lot of unused layouts in the files, and outside the bounds of some missions, I've shown off some in previous videos but there's still more to show off

[@ajcox4771]

@TheStormsChannel Yeah, should have held off what I said at the end since I just finished watching the video, can't wait to see more of course. I was wondering if there was a guide around showing how to load unused layouts etc?

[@TheStormsChannel]

Basically you need to decompile the stage files so you can access the .xml files, find the one called "Stage.stg.xml" Open it and scroll down to the layer section, set the normal mode layer to false and either the Hard or Very Hard layer to true, then recompile the stage files again.

[@ajcox4771]

@@TheStormsChannel Ah okay sounds good, thank you and sorry for the late reply.

[@stanzacosmi]

One thing I noticed, alot of these got combined and then iterated on to form the act 1-2s, like the start of very hard rooftop run for example

[@TheStormsChannel]

Well it would make sense for them to develop those layouts from these, instead of starting from scratch.

[@GiulianoPascuali-jy4lf]

lo mejor que he visto de sonic unleashed broo❤. sigue asi subiendo este contenido!!

[@meltingrocket89yt]

1:36 minor spelling mistake 🔥 nah but seriously this video is very cool it’s definitely interesting to see how these stages could of been in the retail game if they had these harder versions, I personally love when things get made harder so seeing this in the game definitely would of been really cool

[@TheStormsChannel]

I always miss the most obvious mistake until the video is published 💀

[@meltingrocket89yt]

@@TheStormsChannel lmao also it’s cool that some of these layouts can be accessed in the missions let alone a bit more than you probably usually would be able to, cool edge day act 1 has an out of bounds glitch you can do at the start once you reach the second 3d section which most likely you could get out of bounds in love is jerky and possibly make it past where the mission would normally end even reach the object that crashes the game? And as for dragon road you can definitely reach the other unused goal ring and small other section before it in get pumped because of a glitch that speedrunners use that actually glitches through that bamboo right at the section where get pumped would end, possibly make it even a bit further because of the rest of the level being there. I even think that more of rooftop run could also be accessible from that one mission that makes you play from the start using glitches as well, you could most likely use M-speed to skip to past the clock tower and be able to play the rest from there, and all of that could be done without debug mode

[@TheStormsChannel]

To this day I've still never used M-speed :P But I've seen people do big skips with it

[@meltingrocket89yt]

@@TheStormsChannel fair enough but I was just saying how much of this could be possible to see without any external input and just in retail game I think it’s cool

[@BraveBlitz]

It’s pretty cool that these unused hard/very hard versions exist even if most are incomplete, I like that they all have a use in the game still with the missions (unless you’re adabat which i never realised that country didn’t have any missions…weird) My eyes genuinely went wide eyed when I saw eggmanland hard because oh god knowing that stage could have had 2 harder versions terrifies me lol.

[@TheStormsChannel]

Adabat does at least have one night mission with its own secrets out of bounds (Object layout for the beta area plus an early layout)

[@shirohimayumikira234]

My few shoutouts to various moments (out of many I was entertained by): GENERAL - I had no idea this game was supposed to have Hard and Very Hard act layouts. 8:36 - ERROR 404: OBJECT NOT FOUND, SONICUNLEASHED.EXE HAS STOPPED WORKING 27:40 - It's funny how this Rooftop Run mission's layout is the only one out of the Hard/Very Hard layouts that has a skydiving end trigger...... 54:56 - They really cooked with this act's hard layout! 1:06:20 - Xenia REALLY doesn't like Jungle Joyride D-1 for some reason. 1:17:20 - Oh god, they were planning a hard layout for Eggmanland?!

[@TheStormsChannel]

And the grass explosions are with the "AMD Grass Explosion Fix" mod enabled, without it's just pure pain.

[@degeneratemale5386]

So the most important question is this: are the layouts hard because they put so many spikes and exploding dudes in the level, or is it merely a skill issue? Also love the video, cut content videos are my drug addiction

[@TheStormsChannel]

Answer: Yes

[@Hyp3rSonic]

😑

[@selassieaspen9940]

It's just spikes. Lol, wtf do you mean it's not a skill issue?

[@Sholver]

@@selassieaspen9940fr did they even think ?

[@yoshihammerbro435]

That's Sonic games' idea of "challenge" for you

[@CokeMilkYT]

That backwards dash panel in Arid Sands is peak level design LMAO

[@godaberi]

Good to have you back 😄

[@selassieaspen9940]

A lot of these level designs look similar to SXSG. It's awesome how a 2008 game is this good back then. Why? Because 2008 is farther away than 2032. 😢

[@The20thLetter-s4v]

2024* How did you manage to mess that up?

[@TheStormsChannel]

We living in 2025 while this guy living in 2032 💀

[@VectorYT6]

Is there any unused hard mode and very hard mode layouts for nighttime stages?

[@TheStormsChannel]

Nope, the night stages also have a completely different set file layout, it's spilt over many areas and divided into 3 categories. Even the DLC Night X-2 stages aren't really hard modes, but more like mission acts.

[@gamerdon5491]

Is there a link for the very hard layout stages?

[@TheStormsChannel]

In the description there's a link to a mod that combines the layotus together to make a full mod, but as for the layouts by themselves there's no mod for them, I modified the files myself to load the layouts

[@polavux]

Happy (early) new year

[@mrtimtom2631]

YESSSSS1!!!!!!!! LETS HAVE MORE OF THESEEEEE!!!!

[@Axhell28]

So that IGN Sonic Frontiers Teaser... It was you playing 🤣

[@TheStormsChannel]

If only, I would've loved to have had access to early builds of that game

[@Tromite]

This is cool! I love Sonic Unleashed! Does the Werehog levels also have very hard variants?

[@TheStormsChannel]

None that I could find, even the 1-2s for the Werehog are very different from true hard modes (basically they're more like missions, except for Dragon Road 1-2 which is just the Beta area), and only a few areas even have one Though the October Prototype for Eggmanland has much harder werehog sections compared to the final

[@Tromite]

@TheStormsChannel Interesting! Yeah, there's a lot of unused areas in the Werehog levels, though! They probably got cut because of the game length. Maybe some of those could be scrapped hard modes?

[@TheStormsChannel]

They're parts of the main stage that were cut and pushed back to become their own DLC acts, in the October prototype Dragon Road and Arid Sands actually do have their original full length stage.

[@Tromite]

@TheStormsChannel I guess they didn't bother since most people like to play the Sonic stages. But I actually like the Werehog levels, or at least the platforming parts. They feel kinda like 3D classic Sonic stages since you can launch and gain speed and momentum using stretchy arms 😉

[@ToonyTalesX]

I wondered if these scrapped hard/very hard variants were the inspiration for the DLC stages, and if they were used as the base for them. I also find it interesting how you used a mod to put the PlayStation buttons in while playing the Xbox 360 version. Made me think you were using RPCS3 for this.

[@TheStormsChannel]

The DLC stages were actually meant to be in the base game but moved to DLC for both time and storage reasons, as the August proto has most DLC stages in it (in the half we have) As for the buttons I use a PS4 controller for this game, and I saw there was a mod for PS3 buttons, so I thought why not. Also RPCS3 runs at around 10-15fps on my PC so that's not an option, oh and the debug is for 360 only too.

[@ToonyTalesX]

@ Interesting. So we were going to have to play these stages like 15 times each (if you count the hot dog missions and town side quests) just for 100%?! No wonder why they cut these variants, that would’ve been repetitive as hell. Also would the DLC be considered “Ultra hard” then considering that the current DLC stages would fit the moniker of “Very Hard”.

[@TheStormsChannel]

Well the extra acts in the base game don't have hotdog missions thankfully, so it probably would've been the same for the DLC stages. Also by the internal name some DLC stages were meant to be earlier acts than ones in the base game, both of Jungle Joyride's DLC acts were meant to be Act 2 and 3, same for Dragon Road iirc

[@ToonyTalesX]

@@TheStormsChannel It still would’ve been a lot of re-playing. And by the DLC stages, I was mainly referring to the #-2 stages since they are just harder variants of the main ones

[@TheStormsChannel]

Oh yeah that would've been painful if they all had Had and Very hard layouts, (luckily?) they were scrapped before they could begin with the extra acts, I found an empty hard file on one of them, but that's about it

[@Izhen_UwU]

Maybe it was planned a hard mode similar to Shadow The Hedgehog?

[@TheStormsChannel]

It would've been just like 06, which had both hard and very hard layouts

[@hfplaysrblx6964]

1:07:30 QTE Failled successfuly….:(

[@renanalcantara3940]

How do you make debug work? Do you have to press it on the keyboard? Or on the controller itself? Do you have to disable other mods? I don't understand, I tried using debug, but it's not working for me.

[@TheStormsChannel]

You need to mash RB (R1) ten times then press down on the right stick to activate it, note it won't work if you have DLC installed and it also doesn't work for night stages (unless you're playing the actual October Prototype)

[@thegamingdude6657]

Can I activate debug mode on the xbox one?

[@TheStormsChannel]

I know it's possible to get mods to work on the 360, but no idea how or even if they work on the Xbox One, I only know how to mod emulated versions

[@wuavo9157]

unleashed was gonna be so similar to 06 too bad 06 was a horrid flop