[SHowin]

Jeez everyone here seems to hate EP2.

I seem to feel the other way around.

EP 1 is not only worse graphics and physics wise but its also a lot more gimmicky level design wise. Everything aside from those obnoxious gimmicks is a rehash. It's an alright game that doesn't deserve the name.

EP 2 got an increase in quality in every aspect. Everyone complains about Tails and the special moves and while I would prefer the game without them I don't think they ruin the game by any means. The level design quality aside from that doesn't differ much from episode 1 but the attempt to make the levels more original makes the game feel a lot less rehashy in general. The boss fights can drag on but since they are they're own stages it doesn't bug me that much. It's also an alright game that doen't deserve the name but there's one thing that makes it stand out as a pretty good game that I'd recommend.

The coop. It's fantastic! I always wanted to have good coop in a 2D game but its always shit in the classics. No one would ever want to be Tails except this game fixes all the issues by keeping both players on screen at once and making it follow them both. If you get off the screen you can instantly teleport back to the other player. Playing through this game with a friend is a pretty good time all things considered. I wish Mania would have tried to make the coop better but for the sake of being like the classics they didn't change anything about it. This results in Mania's coop being trash like the classic games.

Sure EP2 isn't a fantastic game by any means but it has some good qualities and great coop that is definitely something that should be carried over to future games.



I know I'm beating a dead horse but these games also really should have had Classic Sonic instead of Modern. The title just feels so less fitting without Classic Sonic being the design they used. Gameplay is always first but I gotta admit its always been a thing that has made these games feel particularly wrong.

[Lapper]

SHowin, on 09 October 2018 - 01:34 PM, said:

great coop that is definitely something that should be carried over to future games.

Not played it but cant say any of the coop I've seen looked fun in the slightest. Screen pausing animation then an auto boost move or a 2 second flight? From what I've gathered it's absolutely awful and I can't see how it adds any challenge or fun.

SHowin, on 09 October 2018 - 01:34 PM, said:

Classic Sonic instead of Modern.

If this had happened we'd have only had a crappy segmented classic game and classic Sonic would be dead on his feet. (I'm glad the only new classic focused game was a hit and so much has and will spawn from it)

Laughingcow said:

Edit: Remember, Nintendo added rolling physics in Super Mario Odyssey for shits and giggles. Checking the credits, nobody is listed as a "physics programmer" which means all that was manually programmed.

I hate that 3D Sonic games use real physics. It should all be manual imo. If the classics used true 2D physics they'd handle terribly in comparison.... oh yeah case and point classic Generations and Forces. Sonic should move in very deliberate ways when reacting to surfaces, it was never meant to be truly realistic no matter how much you tweak certain values or use scripted arcs. Of course, it has to be done RIGHT if done manually - but that's just the fault of those specifically doing it. It's not hard.

[Billy]

Never forget.

[Yeow]

TripleXero, on 08 October 2018 - 10:00 PM, said:

I don't have too much to say about these games that haven't been said to death, but have a lasting hatred with how the games were handled on iOS over the years.

I played a lot of Episode I when it first came out. I got it on my iPod touch at the time and thought it was pretty fun. Special stages kinda sucked but it was playable. I had even 100%'d the game. Eventually an update came out and my save data was deleted. I've had an iDevice since 2008 and still have save data from games back then on my current iPhone, games that cost $1 from one-hit-wonder developers, how could Sega not handle save data well enough? I think I ended up deleting the game for a while, at the very least I didn't play it any more.

Eventually Episode II came out, along with Episode Metal. I went back to Episode I a bit to compare gameplay and I think I needed to open it at least once to unlock Episode Metal. I feel like I remember Episode II not running very well on my device at the time, but I think I completed it. Eventually with an iOS update, the game stopped working for a few years, despite Episode I was still working. I deleted the game in hope that it would fix the crash because that was a common problem fixer at the time, but it didn't and it also lost me my save data for that game. When it was finally updated again, Episode Metal no longer was playable due to how they set up the unlocking process.

It was all a mess. I don't know if Episode Metal ever got fixed on iOS, but Episode I eventually got an update that updated its presentation to be on par with the other systems it was released on. The update kind of took away a bit of the charm (the idle animation of Sonic jamming out to music on an iDevice was now gone and I believe the mobile specific levels were gone, for example), but by the time it arrived I had long lost interest in the game realizing how truly awful it was. I also somewhat recall losing what little progress I made in Episode I again at some point.

Ahaha, oh wow, I forgot to address this in my writeup!

And let me piggyback on your post to add the coup de grace to that fiasco: the only reason people those buggy updates were even pushed out in the first place was apparently just to insert advertisements for other Sega games. The descriptions gave a generic "bugfixes and enhancements" but nobody was able to find any significant changes.

The iOS version for Epi. II also stopped working after the iOS7 firmware update in November 2013. Sega said they were working on a patch....which originally didn't happen. Instead, they pulled the game from the store (the US iOS store anyway)....a year and a half later around May 2015. And Sega continued to sell the game during that period of time! (Sega eventually brought back the game to the iOS store in January 2016, with an update that fixed the bugs...but again nuked existing save files!

Even the Android versions weren't safe--Episode II suffered audio glitches (no music aside from the Sylvania Castle intro, only playing sound effects) and also suffered occasional crashes. It and Episode I also asked for unnecessary and intrusive permissions (asking for access for stuff like your location via Wi-Fi/GPS, the state of the phone, contact list and call logs).

lmao They didn't give a fuck!

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

Haha, the quest for physics. I don't think that quest ever ended to be honest. What Sonic Team game in the last decade has a reasonable approximation to the classic physics in it?


Episode I for me was....not terrible? Not because it isn't actually a bad game but because I hadn't had a taste of anything really resembling the classic gameplay in a long time prior to that. Maybe the last original 2d sonic game I'd played before that was the SAdv3 title...which again wasn't too close to the classic formula but closer relative to the few games I'd been playing in that era.
Just so I'm clear, there was a period of time in which I wasn't doing much gaming at all. This all happened during that stretch. My perspective is probably a little warped due to that.

In hindsight, Episode I is bad. Episode II, if not for the Sonic and Tails roll boost/fly combo garbage, would have been fairly tolerable. Part of me even looked forward to an episode 3, thinking to myself "There's no way they can't learn these basic lessons this many times in a row. Even if its just baby steps, we'll get there eventually?"


So yeah, we never arrived with Sonic Team; they're still on that quest. If they do figure that out I think the average quality of their output will increase substantially.

[muteKi]

Episode 1 was tolerable mostly. I don't like the way tilt control was implemented on the mobile ports, and playing it on PC made it clear this was a game whose roots were in the Android marketplace which was at the time very fragmented. Episode 1 isn't maybe a "classic" game but it does feel of a kind to, say, Sonic Chaos or possibly Triple Trouble, but not as artful as either. It is first and foremost a mobile game for a set of mobile devices where physical buttons were unheard of. An interesting idea obviously aged out and lacking in purpose outside its original target platform, where it reads more clearly as an inheritor to 8-bit Sonic

[SHowin]

Lapper, on 09 October 2018 - 02:02 PM, said:

SHowin, on 09 October 2018 - 01:34 PM, said:

great coop that is definitely something that should be carried over to future games.

Not played it but cant say any of the coop I've seen looked fun in the slightest. Screen pausing animation then an auto boost move or a 2 second flight? From what I've gathered it's absolutely awful and I can't see how it adds any challenge or fun.

SHowin, on 09 October 2018 - 01:34 PM, said:

Classic Sonic instead of Modern.

If this had happened we'd have only had a crappy segmented classic game and classic Sonic would be dead on his feet. (I'm glad the only new classic focused game was a hit and so much has and will spawn from it)

I don't think the tag moves are that annoying but I do think the game would be better off without them. Like I said it doesn't ruin the game for me. But that wasn't really my point about carrying the coop over. The coop keeps both players on screen which would be great for the classics / mania. Since the camera always followed Sonic, it would suck to have to be Tails and makes the coop a shitty afterthought in general. Coop can work in a Sonic game if it functioned in a similar way to EP 2.

It should have been Classic Sonic if it was going to be called Sonic 4. Just because it should have been Classic Sonic doesn't mean that it shouldn't have also been a better game in general.

[Laughingcow]

SHowin, on 10 October 2018 - 02:50 PM, said:

I don't think the tag moves are that annoying but I do think the game would be better off without them. Like I said it doesn't ruin the game for me. But that wasn't really my point about carrying the coop over. The coop keeps both players on screen which would be great for the classics / mania. Since the camera always followed Sonic, it would suck to have to be Tails and makes the coop a shitty afterthought in general. Coop can work in a Sonic game if it functioned in a similar way to EP 2.

It should have been Classic Sonic if it was going to be called Sonic 4. Just because it should have been Classic Sonic doesn't mean that it shouldn't have also been a better game in general.

While I do like the sentiment of a Coop Classic Sonic game (or rather a Coop Sonic game period), you run into the same hurdles that Ep2 ran into i.e. why should the player bother using them? It is the same problem Advance 3 ran into. A given mechanic needs purpose in level design and unfortunately the downsides of Ep2 is just that (fly here sections, swim here section, use 69 combo to break wall). Even then, you can still use Tails' flying in Sonic Mania during Sonic & Tails mode. Just holding up and hitting the jump button a couple times with Tails next to you works well enough....And as much as I hate to invoke it, Sonic Boom did alright with the standard two player beat'em up formula.

[Skyler]

Sonic 4 Episode 2 is my masterpiece.

[Sparks]

The only impact Sonic 4 left on me in the long term is the Mine Cart level audition video.

[High Fidelity]

Sparks, on 11 October 2018 - 12:52 AM, said:

The only impact Sonic 4 left on me in the long term is the Mine Cart level audition video.

Haha I remember that - when the footage leaked everyone freaked out

At least (for me) EP1 has some sort of personality, even if it does look like it was made by McDonalds. EP2 sorely lacks identity. Bring back the plastic sheen