I'll be honest: I regret buying this. It's just taking up space on my Wii, and it hasn't been touched since I beat it in October. Nothing about the game was memorable for me, I don't see any point in playing this when S3&K has much more to offer, is better designed, and overall, S3&K is just more fun. I'm not excited for Episode II at all.
I find Sonic 4 pisses me off significantly more than any of the Genesis Sonic games, so much so that I'm taken out of the experience. Maybe I'm just not playing it right. I should probably make it a point to not every use the homing attack or avoid springs as much as possible—you know, go against how the designers designed the game to be played—and see if that makes it any better. The Special Stages are fairly tolerable, but it's not like I'd prefer it more than Sonic 1's specials stages, especially with that freaking baby lullaby music. Seriously, Senoue? Seriously? That being said, I do find I have the most fun in Lost Labyrinth and Mad Gear. And my favorite moment in the whole game was the brief cutscene with the cool "This Is Happanin'" music right before you get to E.G.G. Station Zone. I can definitely see how certain parts of the game balance themselves out nicely for some, but for me it's just half-baked. Splash Hill is so much a lift of every beginning zone trope so as to be transparent and nonexistent. You could replace it with all-white backgrounds and a black foreground and it wouldn't make a difference. Maybe if they did more to make it look like an organic lagoon or a swamp, something different, I would've been distracted by the less-than-remarkable level design. Casino Street did look and play a little better, but I hated the Road of Cards and I didn't need to spend an entire act blasting out of 50 cannons, with the very last one launching me into a do-or-die Bubbles chain over a bottomless pits (hint: I actually liked that act best in the whole zone). The level design was partly lame as it was, but the bottomless pits at the end of each act just piss me off. Almost as much as falling straight down in Lost Labyrinth because I didn't hold right all the way after being launched half of the way from a mine cart stop. So far, I'd even rather playing one of the Advance games than Episode 1. At least they're not trying quite as hard to be Sonic 1 or 2 but with different physics programming. They're don't handle as smoothly as the Genesis games, but they certainly handle well enough. EDIT@Chaos: Yeah, come to think of it, I think my $15 would've been better spent on World of Goo. It's not to say I didn't have any fun at all with Sonic 4—it's decent—but it's still disappointing.
I sure wish they would've had those at the end of each stage, and at least some sort of transition between each act instead of just dumping you into the next. Not only would it have emulated S3&K, but I think a lot more people would have overlooked going to the map screen if there was that sense of unity.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't find that stage particularly impressive. It looked cool at first, and it isn't that bad imo, but the gimmick just feels kind of boring to me. And I always have trouble with the infamous troll platforming section in the middle of the stage.
Casino street 2 cards would have been much better if sonic was able to jump through them from below, so many times I slipped off one, jumped to hit sonic's head on a freshly turned card only to have the one below me dump me into a bottomless pit, hayoo! more frustrating then fun.
My wallet certainly isn't. If it ends up at 1200 points again (which, less face it, it will), I'm not going to bother. I'm still intrigued as to whether we'll actually see any originality in Episode II, though. I'm hoping for colourful, 'fresh' looking new zones (but instead will most likely be faced with yet more re-hashes.)
The Casino Street 2 cards remind me a lot of the light tubes from Death Egg Zone; aka more "oooh look how pretty."
Yeah, it was mainly there just to look pretty, which isn't a bad thing at all. They did look quite nice! I just hated the rest of the stage. Death Egg Zone, on the other hand, has a whole lot of awesome level design going around, and in only two big n' beefy acts.
My wallet isn't either, but I just want it to release now so the speculation (omg new levelz? omg better physicz? omg moar chrctrz?) ends.
Well, this thread is supposed to be about Episode I. You can always prohibit Episode II speculation until further notice, or have someone open a new thread for Episode II. Episode I, Episode II, I feel like I'm talking about Star Wars.
After thinking it over, unless I come into contact with an extra $15-$20 I think I'm gonna wait out buying Episode I. When all episodes are released SEGA will (Most likely) release a disk-release of the entire series for $30-$60, I'm kinda banking on getting that instead of $15 per episode.
I sound like a total and utter whore, but the second Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode II comes out, I'll be straight on to iTunes/WiiWare. I'm sure Episode II will be a major improvement over the Episode I- SEGA thought they could just ignore the issues people raised with the first, thinking that they could get away with bringing out a merely 'good' product with some silly flaws. How wrong you were SEGA. Next time you don't listen to us properly and fix your shit, we'll be gone so quickly you'll only hear the door slam. It's not the overall physics that irritate me, it's the fact they clearly didn't bother at all to rectify the silly parts which clearly didn't make sense even in the Sonic world- like standing on verticle walls. Those were clearly things that were MEANT to be fixed, but just weren't because they thought they could fob us off. In contrast, the total lack of inertia was intentional, but they didn't bother fixing that either because they'd spent time programming the game and were too lazy to go back and change it based on fan input. That said, I do really enjoy Episode I. It's not the best 2D Sonic game I've played, but it's still decent. It'll feel so much better if they'd just fix those silly issues. It's not like they even affect gameplay. It's like buying someone a mashed up birthday cake- yeah it's edible, but surely having smooth icing and cream which spells HAPPY BIRTHDAY would fit the occasion much more nicely. Anyway, Takashi Iizuka, if you ever actually read this, you're a dick, and if you listened to people who actually gave constructive feedback, rather than "OMG SONIC ALONE", then maybe Sonic 4 would've blown the classics out the water. The bar has been raised and you're failing to jump over it. I don't care if it's not all your fault, when you say shit like "we made it so Sonic could run on walls this time", I can say whatever the damn hell I like. Episode II will be a major improvement, or I'll really reconsider giving my cash to you. I don't quite fit the bill of the stereotypical Sonic gamer, I didn't buy 2006, or import your crappy GBA classic, and I also didn't buy Sonic Riders 2. Fo Sho'. if you hadn't realised by now, I'm talking to Takashi :v: Time to take my medicine. Actually, on the subject of Sonic 4, I was in the top 8 for Mad Gear and Labyrinth's boss for a while, until people started cheating, and then magically being able to get 20 seconds faster than my best time, which I honestly don't see as a possibility without some major-turd exploit.
How many times has this been said by fans, yet these same people keep buying new Sonic games? I'm not spending another cent on the Sonic Franchise unless they actually release a game that has its shit together and gets amazing reviews across the board, leaving no doubt in my mind that it'll be good. Which will most likely be never. Oh well. At least Sonic Retro exists.
Most of the same people, I don't really tend to say that. I bought Shadow The Hedgehog, was disappointed but did enjoy the game due to the fact it was in soul, a Sonic Adventure game with some silly stuff, was pleased with Sonic Unleashed, was also pleased with Black Knight, was overjoyed yet a a little cautious over Sonic 4 due to the silly things that could have been fixed, and Sonic Colours definitely delivered. With regards to all previous games before then, and the DS games, I've always been a happy bunny. I've never been a massive fan of Dark Brotherhood though, it seemed to feel like an old PC game. Certainly not a bad game, though I'm not a big RPG man anyway. I do feel sorry for those people who bought Shadow and that said it, then bought Sonic 2006 and said it, then bought Sonic Unleashed and said it, then bought Sonic 4 and said it. You really have to give up at a certain point. Lately I've kept my hopes for Sonic games to a minimum, though Sonic 4 and Colours have definitely put Sonic back in the spotlight, despite some shortcomings.
The less people care about Sonic being "good enough", the less people will buy Sonic games that are barely good. Then again, as fans, we're an easily excitable bunch. We might just plunk our money down anyways and hope for the best. I can't promise whether I'll do one or the other, but I can say I'll be excited when the first tidbits of news come rolling out. I am totally susceptible to the hype train. Doesn't mean I'll end up buying it by the time it comes out, because I payed for Episode I and was simply not impressed. But yeah, the nice thing about Sonic 4 is it has the right idea. It really does. Making a sequel to the last greatest Sonic game ever made? And it's supposed to be just as awesome as they were and then some? That sounds awesome. The execution did not meet that utterly reasonable expectation. It's not rocket science and it's not unreasonable to expect a great game like that. Any other team or company can do it, and many have done so already. Even if they said it was going to be Sonic Remake instead of Sonic 4, it would've sucked, because using a cheap air-dash homing attack move to traverse stages laden with the same auto-acceleration mechanisms and punctuated with a lame bottomless pit challenge is stupid, and it's nowhere near as good as the old Sonic games.
For every fan that... "leaves"... they're replaced by another little kid or three. Trust me, the fanbase around here isn't as special as they think they are.
EXACTLY! They called everyones bluff for Episode 1, and they're sure as hell going to do the same for episode 2. Hands up anyone (besides me) who complained about how shit E1 looked and DIDN'T actually buy the fucking thing...
