The Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Megathread

I swear to christ, this is the whiniest topic I've ever had the displeasure of taking part in.

Sonic 4 isn't up to par with the original 4 titles. Deal with it and enjoy it for what it is. Don't say there's nothing to enjoy, because then you're lying to yourself. Look, everyone who has played the game has only good things to say about it. If you honestly think you won't enjoy this game at all, then you guys have to be the most elitist, high horse nitpicks on the fucking planet.

 

I entirely agree. ALL the problems with this game stem from its name.

If it had been called Sonic Rush 3 or something, we'd all be jizzing about how the physics and style are much closer to the classics than they have been in recent outings and how cool SEGA is, because it would seem like they were going above and beyond the sort of mediocrity you'd EXPECT from a game called Sonic Rush 3.

But since they called it Sonic 4, what we EXPECT is something higher in quality than even S3&K, way up there on its lofty pedestal. And that, evidently, is not what we're getting.

Whiniest topic indeed

 

Hear hear! We all know there are flaws in this game, but it's not like you have to dig through them to find anything remotely playable. We are getting 2D Sonic gameplay, and even if it's closer to Advance or Rush style gameplay, and even if it involves homing attack chains, and even if the music has a bad choice of instruments, at the end of the day, it's 2D Sonic gameplay. It's the reason we're all here in the first place.

 

Honestly, I don't see the point in delaying with the promise of tweaking physics if they aren't going to do nothing about it. Those who are satisfied with the physics would buy the game as it is right away and would not complain while those who aren't satisfied will still detect the same flaws when it was released, would still not buy and would still complain.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't tweak anything at all. 06 PS3 version was not tweaked from 360 even with six months of delay. I'm not being naive I just really don't see the logic on this.

 

no rly.

 

You're fucking retarded. I still find alternate paths I didn't know were there. The game has the most branching paths out of any 3d Sonic game to date.

 

'06 does have a lot of branching paths and shit in some of its stages. I actually got lost in Silver's run through Tropical Jungle while recording '06 for BrainScratch, in fact. But that's not quite the same as having good level designs, and to be honest, I actually think that both Adventure games and Unleashed had "better" level designs from a quality standpoint—from a simple "this is how good they are at what they do" standpoint, that is.

Then again, maybe I'm just bitter because the game keeps dumping random giant spikeballs on my head, I dunno.

...?

Even if the game plays terribly, if you have to learn to "cope" with anything to beat Splash Hill, I feel bad for you, son.

 

I see no one mentioning anything about the video I linked to and how the video is just the trailer from the delay, only the Late 2010 gets crossed out and NOW takes over.

 

Presumably there was some kind of gameplay involved, it being a competition and all. I don't know much about conventions or ScrewAttack's in particular, but that's probably part of the excitement—I'd be excited to play Sonic 4 early, too, but, um, probably not to the point of screaming applause.

 

I think what happens is:

1. Someone like me announces their displeasure at something about the game.
2. Someone else chastises people complaining about the game (and by extension people like me), citing it as either "no big deal [that it sucks]" or claiming that it's exactly what I've always wanted and am unpleasable.
3. ???????
4. Profit!

 

Man, THQ would be an upgrade compared to Sega. Like a year ago, there was a leaked video of a Warhammer 40,000 game, called Space Marine. You play as a space marine (the original kind of space marine, mind you). The problem was that the leaked video showed a game that basically sucked, shooting someone in the face only stunned them so you could run up and do a scripted kill animation to them, jerky as shit. What would Sega have done? They'd look at it and say, "Oooooh, that's terrible', and then put it on sale anyway. THQ, on the other hand, fired the company working on it and had Relic (a famously good developer) start over from the beginning, and now it looks awesome.

 

That the so-called "E3 Trailer" available on PSN and XBL is the very same Splash Hill trailer they showed up back when they announced the delay offers a fair amount of support to your hypothesis, I think. :v:

 

Six months?

Xbox 360
USA November 14, 2006
JPN December 21, 2006
PS3
JPN December 21, 2006
USA January 30, 2007

That don't look like six months to me.

But anyway... It doesn't really seem necessary to delay the game for such a long time when it's just a simple physics tweak, unless they have to remake the levels to match up with the new physics.

Everyone seems to care WAY too much about this. I'd still buy this game if it had Rush-style physics. In fact, my only real hope is that the story will turn out to be good, like S3K was.

 

Released in EU:
November 24, 2006 (Xbox 360)
March 23, 2007 (PS3)

Four months for my region. I have no clue why I thought six.

 

Time is money in the world of business as I'm sure many will understand.
So wasting time by delaying a product that is ready to generate profit, is a stupid idea.
Like I said before, the delay isn't going to change the general sales trend of this game. People who were going to buy it originally are going to buy it, and people who aren't won't.
Most of the people who whine here will probably have bought the game, even if it wasn't delayed. SEGA's PR know this, they've been here and probably saw people would do that.
So then why, even after receiving confirmation that the product is guaranteed to sell even amoungst disgruntled fans, would they delay the process of making money.
I've said this SO many times now. They could have said "Fuck it, its gonna sell, so why should we bother with improving it?", but no, they decided to do the smart thing and actually delay it.

And no, they can't get away with not making improvements, even with the gushing media. The media have played the demo at E3, and they were promised by SEGA reps present, that improvements will be made. If they show no improvements, the media will probably slate them for it (whilst still giving average to good reveiws). Heck people like IGN openly aknowledged the mine cart in one of their articles. They have seen the leaks, and if they see no changes, they may not directly say it, but their reviews will reflect this.

+ - they'll probably say shit like "Overall this game feels LAZY to me. There were a lot of opportunities for improvement, but they still didn't improve it. It just feels LAZY" etc. They won't say why, but they'll say it, because everybody loves to subtly bash SEGA :v:  

 

I think the point is that in Japan, there was not a single day of delay, meaning that probably there was no time at all to change things.

 

And as I have said before, it's all on account of the leaks.
So people who have the leaked version will buy the real one as well, credulously believing that "Six months has passed, so they must have changed something!".

They'll make one or two cosmetic changes, sure - enough that idiots will go "Look X is slightly different and Y is slightly different therefore the whole game has been revamped wow thanks SEGA", and there, done.

Hanlon's razor applies in this case too - in that it is far easier for an incompetent design team to change nothing than it is for an incompetent design team to change something.

 

1) It turns out that with the internet being so widely accessible, and with Sonic being such a popular franchise, there will be people that will outline exactly what has changed, down to the tiniest details. Bear in mind the list of Sonic 2 BETAs and what has changed between them. You can then use this information to decide whether you'll like the released version or not.

2) Nobody thinks that slight tweaks = game revamped. And even in the unlikely case that someone does, they'll still give enough details for you to know what has changed.

3) Some people are happy enough with the leaked version to buy it as it is. SEGA aren't delaying the game for these guys; they're delaying the game for people who are unhappy with the game as it is. See point 1.

4) Why are you so insistent that SEGA aren't going to change anything? Seriously, you're touting it as fact, and it's incredibly fucking annoying.