ACT 1: I do not like how GHZ1 opens. It is too dangerous and too difficult for the very first action a player takes in the game. At least you added the spindash. Also, the area below the broken bridge? That is too mean for the first level! You need to ease players into the game and ramp up difficulty appropriately. Everything else in that level seems alright, though I had quite a bit of sprite flickering when breaking down walls leading to lots of items, objects, and enemies. ACT 2: The underwater stuff was a nice change of pace! But some of the spike placement was a bit dickish. Also, having Chopper jump out from an area that is not a bridge felt very wrong. On top of needing to fix the graphical issues with the water graphics, you should look into having a different background for the underwater areas. It doesn't look right the way it currently is. This can be achieved pretty easily with clever use of the chunks to obscure the main background. Also, that platform you land on after that big automated sequence at the start shouldn't fall out under the player's feet into a pit of spikes. That's just mean. ACT 3: Aside from a sequence involving jumping across moving platforms above a spike pit, I've got no real issues with this stage.
Liked what you did with Act 2 and Act 3 but Act 1 was not as good. It was too hard for a first level and it had dickish bottomless pits. Rule of thumb on a Sonic game is to let the player know when bottomless pits are and use em sparingly.
I played the latest built, and i liked what i got. The gimmicks per act idea is very good, but here are some critism: I did not liked that the act 1 of both stages are just as the originals, but since the others have different stuff i can see why its like this. The Lost Labyrinth SMPS is high pitched and doesnt sound so good, while the title screen SMPS is kinda loud and highpitched, but an instrument change may solve the pitch thing. I hope you don't plan to use more water acts because it will it way hard and annoying, And finally, the Marble zone act 2 and act 3 palettes could be better and more different than the original. But I can see the effort you putted into it, and the hack is taking an interesting way. I hope to see more of it.
Just played through the demo and had a blast. The art was great, the music was great, and the level design was great. Game plays really nicely. However, we haven't achieved the True Sonic 4 ExperienceTM just yet: Jumpdash feels a little weak, and think adding the homing attack would be nice I noticed some background elements appear to flash when you hit Eggman during the boss fight? wtf where is the Eggman clown music give me Eggman clown music Act 2 music didn't sound like Splash Hill Act 2 to me smh (/s) But these are overall minor quibbles in what seems to be shaping up to be a very fine piece of work. Nice work CHRdutch!
I decided to improve a new remix from Sylvania Castle Act 2. The song uses 55 instruments, I could make something different and light, at the moment, this song liked a lot of people. About the CHRdutch's comment, I'm aware about an instrument that him doesn't like, but I want to know the rest of the guys here what you think. I accept critics and tell me what you think, more remixes like this from Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is coming.