Nazo Unleashed
Nazo Unleashed is a fan-made Web Animation trilogy of Sonic the Hedgehog by Flash animator Chakra-X (Newgrounds, deviantART, YouTube). It is based around an unused screenshot from Sonic X that had a mysterious hedgehog with spiked-up quills and a silver coat. The mysterious character was Fan Nicknamed "Nazo", a Japanese word for "mystery".
The premise of the trilogy is that Nazo is a sentient form taken by the negative energy of the Chaos Emeralds. Nazo is a hedgehog because the Chaos Emeralds have gotten accustomed to the forms of Sonic and Shadow. Of course, something made of negative energy like that is going to turn out evil. Nazo then goes around the world collecting the Chaos Emeralds in his plan to become more powerful, leaving much destruction in his wake. Sonic and his friends hear of this and go to take him down, but he is easily defeated. Shadow then comes in try to defeat Nazo, but is defeated too. Only when the two hedgehogs use their Super Modes together can they take him down, but it turns out Nazo has other plans...
The biggest claim to fame of this series are the masterfully animated fight scenes. Of course, it's quite obvious where they got their inspiration, but it pulls it off very well, as they carry the tension, action, and fluidity as expected of those scenes.
- Animesque: The art style is much like that of Sonic X, just more on-model.
- Approval of God: Sonic's first credited games voice actor, Ryan Drummond, praised the series.
- Autobots Rock Out: Uses some of these themes from the Sonic series to emphasize the action. To name a few, "Open Your Heart", "Live and Learn", and "|His World".
- Ax Crazy: Nazo. He eliminated one of the cities where one of the Chaos Emeralds were stored just because he could.
- Badass: Everyone who engages in action is highly Badass.
- Back from the Dead: Tails, thanks to Knuckles reviving him.
- Bash Brothers: Super Sonic and Super Shadow, who take down Nazo working together.
- Beam-O-War: Hyper Shadic engages in one against Perfect Nazo's giant Energy Ball. Nazo then adds more energy to it, increasing its size and Shadic starts to lose. Only with Hyper Knuckles and Super Tails' assistance does Shadic win.
- Big Bad: Nazo
- Big No: Sonic, when Tails is killed by Nazo.
- Brought Down to Normal: After Hyper Shadic apparently blasts Perfect Nazo into a void beyond space, Hyper Shadic then pulls out the extra energy that made Nazo perfect, turning him normal, then blasts him away.
- Classic Villain: Nazo, who fits the mold of a Pride villain.
- Combined Energy Attack: Hyper Shadic powers up his Kamehame Hadoken by absorbing the rings throughout the world. Sonic's friends and rivals, as well as Mario and Luigi, help by raising their rings skyward.
- Fight Series
- Fusion Dance: Sonic and Shadow, after assuming their Hyper Modes, fuse to become Hyper Shadic.
- Heroic BSOD: Sonic undergoes one after Nazo kills Tails. Sonic then assumes his "Dark Super Sonic" form to beat Nazo down.
- High Speed Battle: Super Sonic and Super Shadow engage Nazo in one, in which the two finally defeat him.
- Ki Attacks: Or Chaos energy attacks if you prefer.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Tails at Nazo's hands, though it's more like killed mid-word (as he was saying Sonic's name).
- I Am Not Left-Handed: Shadow removes his Power Limiter rings in order to perform a Chaos Blast to take Perfect Nazo down. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, and the effort wears Shadow out and leaves him vulnerable to an attack from Nazo.
- Made of Evil: Nazo, who is made of the negative energy of the Chaos Emeralds.
- Meteor Move: As part of the Dragon Ball Z homages, this is used a lot.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Nazo
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Perfect Nazo, who is dark red and even more powerful than "normal" Nazo.
- Sequel Hook: The Stinger of part 3 has Eggman laughing to himself as he finds one of Nazo's rings. Unfortunately, Chakra-X said that he didn't want to follow up on this hook.
- Shout-Out: The fight scenes are styled very similarly to those of Dragon Ball Z. Chakra-X justifies this saying that Sonic's creators admitted to using Dragon Ball Z as inspiration for the series; Chakra-X just takes the references Up to Eleven.
- Super Mode: Used very liberally in this series. First, there's Super Sonic and Super Shadow, then later, Nazo assumes a dark red form called Perfect Nazo, then Sonic and Shadow assume their Hyper Modes right before they Fusion Dance into Shadic, then Knuckles and Tails become Hyper Knuckles and Super Tails to assist Hyper Shadic in defending the Earth from Nazo's earth-destroying sphere.
- Super-Powered Evil Side: Once Nazo induces a Heroic BSOD in Sonic by killing Tails, Sonic goes into his "Dark Super Sonic" form from Sonic X. Sonic then calms down and assumes his "normal" Super Mode.
- Take That: Word of God says that the scene with Shadow pointing a gun to Nazo was one to his game.
- Teleporters and Transporters: Shadow and Nazo use Chaos Control teleportation frequently.
- This Cannot Be!: Nazo says something to this effect right before Hyper Shadic blasts him away.
Nazo: No! Stop! You can't be doing this!
- Updated Rerelease: Chakra-X released a YouTube-exclusive update called the "Special Editions" which updated the animation with techniques that he learned later on.
- Voice of the Legion: Shadic, who speaks with both Sonic and Shadow's voices.