Mazuri

Mazuri (マズーリ Mazūri?) is a Town Stage/Village in Sonic Unleashed. It is a small village located on a reddish-brown savannah and features many exotic animals. Sonic the Hedgehog and Chip visited Mazuri during their quest as the first continent to restore a powerless Chaos Emerald its energy and a broken continent of the planet back into its place at Mazuri's Gaia Temple after Dark Gaia's awakening.

Description
Mazuri is based on Africa due to its wildlife environment and animals that live in Africa appear on Mazuri. In fact, the Town Stage is an exaggerated mixture of certain places and aspects from Africa. For example: the sandy buildings of Timbuktu, Mali, the savannas of Africa and the big baobab trees from Madagascar.

History
At some point prior to Sonic Unleashed, Dr. Eggman established a base in the outskirts of Mazuri where he later imprisoned Professor Pickle. A little bit later, Mazuri's continent was torn away from the Earth's mantle when Dr. Eggman awoke Dark Gaia, resulting in the planet shattering into pieces.

Some time later, Sonic the Werehog, Tails and Chip arrived in Mazuri at nighttime to look for Professor Pickle. Discovering Eggman's base in Mazuri's Savannah Citadel, Sonic, Tails and Chip traveled there and saved both the Professor and the Gaia Manuscripts.

Some time later, Mazuri was invaded by Dr. Eggman, Orbot and a horde of his Egg Fighters. There, the village's men formed a defensive line to protect the rest of the villagers as Eggman threatened them to tell him the location of the local Gaia Temple. Kwod refused to say anything though and hit Eggman with a rock. Before Eggman could retaliate, Sonic arrived in Mazuri with Chip and destroyed all the Egg Fighters, making Eggman escape to find the Gaia Temple. After making sure everyone was okay, Sonic left Mazuri with Chip to pursue Eggman (in the PS3/version they pursued Eggman through Savannah Citadel, and in the PS2/Wii version, Gwek made them a Planet Tablet so they could catch up to Eggman with Mazuri's Gaia Gate). Eventually, Sonic and Chip found and defeated Eggman, and managed to return Mazuri and its continent to their proper place with the Gaia Temple and the Chaos Emeralds.

Eventually, as Dark Gaia began casting the world into darkness while maturing into Perfect Dark Gaia, the inhabitant of Mazuri watched in horror was the sky above the village turned dark, but soon after celebrated as the world returned to normal after Super Sonic and the Gaia Colossus defeated Perfect Dark Gaia.

Noble locations
In the point-and-click map HUB world of the Wii and PS2 version, many of the featured parts of Mazuri are shown. These spots include:
 * The Hunters Home
 * The Lookout Tower
 * Shop
 * Holy Tree
 * Sacred Shrine (As Sonic the Werehog)

Archie Comics

 * Main article: Mazuri (Archie)

Mazuri is mentioned in the Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog comic book series and spin-offs. In this media, it is a Human/Overlander settlement in Efrika and a city-state of the United Federation.

Trivia

 * In the Wii/PS2 version of the game, this continent only has one act, which is the Egg Beetle boss.
 * This village has a similar name to Masuria, a land in Northern Poland.
 * Inside the Gaia Gates in the PS2/Wii version of the game, there are textures on the floor indicating Egyptian hieroglyphs. This is a clear reference to the country Egypt, which is located in Africa, the continent Mazuri is based off of.