It's so strange, but this game got absolutely mixed reactions on me. I bought the Wii version today. At first, while playing Splash Hill, I had the impression it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either. Then while playing Casino Street, specifically the part with the cannons, I wanted to throw the Wii Remote at the TV. Seriously, that's gotta be the worst segment on a 2D sonic game to date. The lack of proper air physics makes it almost impossible. After that, I played through Lost Labirynth, and it felt like a completely different game. The level design was brilliant; I absolutely loved the torch thing, and the underwater segments were amazing. (For some reason, the water made up for the broken physics, IMO) When + - the wall came in and tryied to crush Sonic for a split second it really felt like the genesis games. Mad Gear was OK, but not that great. + - Adding another wall crushing segment felt cheap. The cogs were cool, but it beats me why some of them were properly animated, while others "jumped" from angle to angle. IMO, the bosses sucked, except for the Lost Labyrinth boss (which is the only original boss) and the second part of the Mad Gear boss. (especially when + - the giant eggman pops up ) The music sounded like ultra cheap MIDI files. (Yeah, it's because of the 40MB limit, but music on the Sonic 3 & Knuckles collection sounded much better) The sound effects are completely inconsistent. The animations are super smooth, but at the same time, they feel completely awkward, weightless or just wrong. Seriosly: What the hell is Sonic doing with his arm when he looks up? IMO, the camera was too close most of the time, which got me kind of claustrophobic (I think an ideal distance would be that of the Lost Labyrinth boss) and sometimes it jumped on a really awkward manner. The game DOES feel polished, yet at the same time, it feels super cheap. The graphics look somewhat good, but at the same time, they look overly generic. Everything has a plastic-ish look, and it looks like they went trigger happy with "Pattern Overlay" on photoshop. But then again, it has multiple paths on the level design, a lot of destructible elements and some pretty good segments. If I had to give this game a score out of 10, it would be NaN. Seriously. I feel so confused.
R...really?! I got the sense the having proper air physics would make it almost impossible... and found it laughably easy as it was.
What we could use right now, is the Wii Hacking scene to create an Ocarina code that disables Homing Attack and leave in only the Air boost. That'd make the game either impossible to beat or better.
Just ran through the Wii version, picking up four emeralds along the way, in one setting. It took about an hour and a half. I'm still not over the fanboy factor of ACTUALLY PLAYING SONIC 4, but I'm going to let it sink in. I'm looking forward to learning the level layouts, and the bosses were a lot of fun. I do agree with something Mark said above, though. Lost Labyrinth seemed to come closest to feeling like the Genesis games. I'll be buying it on PSN tomorrow. It was so strange playing a 2D Sonic game and NOT knowing what was coming, haha.
Hey, is anyone else being pestered by an annoying fly for an upload of the Wii version? Because someone seems to think the guy who kept reporting leaks to RubyEclipse is a good person to ask for that. >_> In all seriousness, 'tis a good game, but I felt like such a beginner. It took me a while to get over Sonic's lesser acceleration (it would appear the previously mentioned acceleration change never happened), and the way the physics worked. I never, never die the kinds of deaths I died during this run while playing classic Sonic. I do very much enjoy the level designs, although Mad Gear Act 3 was a pain in my ass (I'm frankly terrified by the idea that it was actually harder at one point). I was surprised to learn that tilt control in the Special Stages isn't that easy to use. I was not surprised to find that d-pad control is a bit of a bitch. Frankly, I'm surprised I managed to get as far as six Emeralds in one run ("Retry" abuse or no), never mind that it only took about four or five attempts to get that damn seventh Chaos Emerald. No, that's not a fucking dialogue meme, THE LAST SPECIAL STAGE IS BABIES. The final boss is the only final boss in Sonic history that has actually not only managed to kill me, but kill me over, and over, and over, and over again. And there's an achievement for clearing E.G.G. Station without taking damage in the HD versions. But seriously, it's probably the one thing I'll ever agree with Hilary Goldstein on, that the last boss is too hard for the game it's attached to. It's such a random spike in challenge that it feels like a brick to the back of the head. I didn't like how in the Wii version, Sonic seems to have a painted-on mouth. Also, the 3D objects in the Wii version show up on my screen jaggy as hell. I liked most of the music changes, but sometimes it sounded like some intended aspect of the music was just gone. Lost in translation, as it were.
Is there an additional final boss after you get all the Chaos Emeralds? Because if not, I don't see what everyone's complaining about. I died twice, but once I figured out his pattern he went down easily.
your welcome. :p Okay, so here's a run down of the things I gathered from Sonic 4 Wii. -We can probably fix the uncurling issue ourselves by creating a memory patch for Sonic so that he remains in ball state when coming off of ramps. It should be simple, but don't ask me to do it! -On top of this, we can probably fix any acceleration issues with Sonic by using the same method. -We might be able to easy replace the low quality graphics in the Wii version with the graphics from the 360 version, but I'm not sure if this will work correctly. This and the memory patches should be easy to do with Riivolution. -As Tweaker has said, the music is sequenced in the Wii version due to WiiWare file size restrictions. With some elbow grease, the sequence/bank/wav data from the game's BRSAR was extracted and collected in this 7z file for your enjoyment. With this, we can convert the sequence data to MIDI (using this tool, please archive). Please note that the converted midi file is somewhat full of errors, but there are programs that can fix this (Anvil Studio might work). You can also possibly use those wav files for creating a Sonic 4 soundfont. -This game works 100% in Dolphin-Emu, but as of writing, there's a problem with the Wiimote plugin that wont allow you to control the game. I found someway around this, but I couldn't recreate it. But the author of the Wiimote plugin is committing a fix which should appear in the repository in a few hours. Proof! -Like the iPhone version, which unfortunately might be a running trend, once you complete Splash Hill Act 1 - all other zones and acts are unlocked. More soon...
Not overly challenging, mind you, just too challenging for where he is in the game he's in. And long. Very, very long. Remember, as I just said, I'm still acclimating to the severely fucked up different, revolutionary control and physics.
I really, really like this game. It's the first Sonic side-scrolling game I've played since Sonic Advance 1. Uncurling ISN'T a problem now that I know that there's barely any places where it happens and while homing attack is lame, air dashing is really fun. Sometimes I fell down a pit, and I always expected to die from falling into a bottomless pit. Out of the many times it happened, I got pleasantly surprised that I get knocked down to lower route! I only really died once or twice in a bottomless pit! I've only played the iPod version for a bit and it ran smoothly. I cannot wait for the PS3 version. ...BTW, I think this game is very close to the classics. So close, in fact, that when I played Sonic 2 for a bit on my iPod I actually wanted to air dash and kept expecting the screen to rotate everytime I went through a loop! Congrats Sega on making Sonic good again.
I assume this is the emulator smoothing shit out, because my Wii shows all the models as being jagged and pixel-y, which is really annoying.
:specialed: The game is alright so far. Special stages are.. Interesting. The good news is that they give you good, non-motion controls by default. Sonic/everything else is far too big, so you can't really see as much as I would have liked. Vines are goofy as far as they don't let you control Sonic for what seems like over a full second after you release. Edit: Vines in general are fucked. To get full momentum on them, you jump AFTER you've get the apex of your swing, there's a slight pause. Goofy, and totally not based on any real momentum. And no, I wasn't trying to make Sonic do that. God knows what physics-raping monstrosities you could see if you tried breaking the game.
Oh yeah, heh, I forgot to mention that I turned on some graphic settings on the DirectX9 plugin which helps get rid of the aliasing. :P
Hell yeah, its nice to hear that this runs on Dolphin. Im downloading the WAD right now :D...And no, I don't feel any guilty, after all, they didnt released it for PC so...I was not going to be able to play...:P
Downloaded the game at 'round noonish, all that's left for me to do is get all the emeralds and I'll have beaten the game It's quite fun, imo. Sonic feels kinda weighted down while on the ground to me, and I don't care for Sonic's running animation, but those are really my only complaints... Outside of the special stages... Why, oh why did they have to base the special stages on sonic 1's? Super Sonic better be worth getting all the emeralds, or I'll... Erm... Sue!
So I've beaten Splash Hill, Casino Paradise, and most of Lost Labyrinth so far. The game basically feels like New Sonic the Hedgehog, which isn't a bad thing at all. It's so far actually pretty fun, but there are some pretty annoying-ass things that manage to consistantly drag everything down. 1. Tricky platforming sections suspended over bottomless pits. Casino Paradise Act 2 in particular was really fun up until the last part. Which sucked. 2. The game rewarding exploration at times and then punishing you at others (with more bottomless pits- WTF SHZ3) 3. Temporary momentum. It is really jarring to be boosted out of a cannon or jump out of a spin dash, only to come to a complete stop in midair if I don't keep holding forward. This is definitely my biggest gripe with the physics and the game in general. 4. Special stages are ANNOYING- maybe I just suck at them It's better than I thought it would be, and I'm liking it quite a bit, but most of these issues are just PUZZLING.
Got it downloaded and so far I'm really enjoying everything. I will say that Sonic seems to take up a bit more screen real estate than I'd like, but it is tolerable. Maybe it'll be better when I get the PS3 version tomorrow (that's right isn't it?). Special stages are really interesting twist on the classic ones. Kind of challenging for me since I get mixed up easily. =P Sure it does have its bugs, but overall it's a good fun game!
So far, so good. I do have some complaints though... 1.) Well, this isn't exactly a complaint, but Casino Street Act 2...those cards (the ones that give you rings or 1ups) looks like they can be abused...a lot. 2.) It's probably just me, but running at full speed at the sign post and jumping into the giant ring is a bit tough. The major gripe is that you don't exactly have that much time to make up for it if you miss like in Sonic 1. Also, while in the air, when the sign stops, Sonic will screech to a halt in midair and turn around. Pain in the butt since I was only a few pixels away from touching that ring. 3.) Special Stage #3...Wow. If that's only #3, I hate to see the others.
Another question. Since you can run past the screen now before the end of act screen comes up, can you still jump up like in the old games and be able to roam around during the score tally? I loved doing that so I could have Sonic look up at the results tallying up (Stupid little habit of mine from Sonic 2)
No. Just before the score begins to tally, the controls are locked and Sonic begins to run offscreen. Can be a pretty big nuisance when trying to jump into the Special Stage ring if you miss it.
I will be purchasing the PS3 version tomorrow, so then I can post my thoughts. One thing I DID notice from one gameplay video of CSZ2 on PS3, is that the lighting on Sonic's model is noticeably less cell-shaded. This is a change... Anyway, I'm looking forward to play this game.
