The Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Megathread

Agreed. Realistically, he probably wouldn't be interested in composing music for video games, but maybe he'll surprise us one day (*wishful thinking*).

But I have always thought that Prince would be an awesome composer for a Sonic game; he could pull off the pop-jazz style of music that made the old Sonic soundtracks cool. Given the current status of Sonic 4's soundtrack, however, I think it's too late for him to compose any music for these episodes, but I'm hoping somewhat that he gets noticed as a potential candidate to compose Sonic 5 (*more wishful thinking*). If SEGA can't get him to do Sonic 5, then I demand Naofumi Hataya, because his Sonic tracks are just brilliant.

 

I dunno, it sounds too excited for the Green Hill Zone opening-level cliche-zone to me.

 

As long as we're thinking wishfully, why not have Michael Jackson do another soundtrack? Death didn't stop Tupac from recording.

Realistically, I can tolerate the soundtrack they have. I, too, would like to imagine that if Sega were truly trying to sell this product as retro, they'd get Hataya in on this. Unfortunately, he only seems to get trotted out all too infrequently. Does anyone know if it's the usual suspects (Ohtani, Nanba, Kumatani, et. al.) backing up Senoue?

 

Probably.

They are almost always there.
I don't think Senoue has ever composed a soundtrack completely alone. He's always had someone backing him up for variety.

I just think the soundtrack is crap because he was limited to crappy synth. He can do better when given freedom to do so.

 

If they wanted to be really retro, they'd have to get Masato Nakamura. That said, I'd be fairly happy with better instruments and maybe slightly lengthened songs.

 

Yeah, the instrumentation is really the only thing that's putting me off the soundtrack.

Well, that and how the reused Sonic 3D tune simply does not work as a boss tune, but...

Also, that YouTube video really isn't how Sonic 4 should sound. The orchestra just doesn't work there.

 

If they wanted to make it a true sequel, they'd have to get Howard Drossin. :v:

But yeah, the soundtrack's decent, it's just a bit on the limited side in terms of sound. I also really, really don't care for any of the three boss themes (the scrapped 3D one is actually the most interesting of the bunch; the pinch theme and final boss theme are just boring, in my humblest opinion).

 

True that.

I want to see the instruments upgraded for the music in Mad Gear Act 1. That is the best tune in the game, and it needs to have proper instruments.
I don't really care for Splash Hill or Casino Streen. Need to be improved or reworked.
I really don't care for the main theme of the game either, it makes a really annoying Super Sonic/Invincible theme as well. They should make a seperate track altogether for the Super form in my opinion.

Senoue can do better....MUCH better.

Example:


And the rest of the 06 and Unleashed crew can join him to make the sound track awesome.



+ - You know you love Final Fortress :  

If they can make tracks that are as good as these, it would be much more satisfying.

 

Well-made soundtrack for a game that was made just to earn easy money on popularity of classic Sonic games? Doubtfully.

 

Reminds me more of Sonic Adventure than the classics. Not bad though. I think Sonic Unleashed had good music that'd work for the new 2D titles.

 

Thanks for posting that. It's been a long time since I've heard those Sonic Heroes songs; I had forgotten that they were so awesome. Also, the Aquatic Base song reminds me a ton of the Rusty Ruins song from the Saturn/ PC version of 3D Blast. It makes me hope that they really give the soundtrack in 4 a facelift. They can make it awesome. The Hang Castle song sounds like it could have come straight from Sonic 3.

A song like Support Me would make for a fantastic final boss them :v:

 

Joking aside, they could still bring Brad Buxer back to write some Jackson inspired music.

It's really a shame they had him work on Black Knight but not 4.

It's an interesting track that really plays up the "comic villain" status but it doesn't really convey the sense of danger that past boss themes had. Then again there never seemed to be much of a threat or challenge in the leaked footage of the boss fights. :v:

 

I love all those tracks. I'm not big on Aquatic Base but it is a good song at least.

But you can't beat FINAL BOSS.


This is also pretty good. I love these remixes.

 

Not entirely true. The first two bosses are obviously loleasy, but the Lost Labyrinth and Mad Gear bosses look pretty decent (although I can't help but wonder why Mad Gear's balloons seem to have reversed their function: when orbiting the Egg-o-Matic, they appear to pop open when Sonic jumps on THEM, but when they're bouncing around, they seem to damage Sonic unconditionally...), and the final boss looks pretty hectic. Those bosses don't look bad for their place in the difficulty curve, although I think a lot of the game's boss-related issues could be solved simply by giving the "pinch" mode its own full-length hit count to place more emphasis on the more threatening, original part of the boss fight.

 

That, and make the boss theme sound less.......lifeless.
Seriously, Boss 1 sounds like Robotnik is drunk and Boss 2 sounds like.....a drone really. Doesn't work and gets so irritating after looping the first 3 times.

 

This, too, but I'm talking gameplay here. When you actually get to see it in motion, the Casino Street boss's pinch mode looks like a right bitch to dodge, but in the leaked playthrough that most people saw, well, the player beat that boss before it even got moving. The pinch mode for the wrecking-ball boss actually takes some pretty precise timing if you want to get in under its swing to defeat it faster, but by this point in the fight it only got in one swing before the fight came to an end. Either of these bosses with a full health bar dedicated just to its pinch mode would be a competent and suitably challenging boss fight (for where it stands in the context of the game, anyway), but as it stands that unique feature that makes the bosses different is too underplayed to really make an impact.

 

I like this, it could do with a few changes for my own personal taste but it fits the graphical look of sonic 4 better then the current terrible fake retro sounding music we have all heard. Either make the music really cheerful and catchy or make it sound retro with style, not half arsed like what we will probably get on release.

 

I'm going to use my 100th post to say...

One of the things that makes me really happy about Sonic 4 is the fact that (not including boosters) Spin Dashing is one of the most efficient and cool ways to build up speed!

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall the bosses being beaten so quickly largely due to the player spamming the homing attack.

 

That was only the case in the Splash Hill boss, mostly because its first phase offers literally no resistance to the Homing Attack and the second phase doesn't really have time to do anything. The Casino Street boss was actually beaten by ordinary jumping with ridiculous ease, until the Pinch portion, at which point the player used a pinball flipper to score the last few hits. The Lost Labyrinth boss actually spends the entire time out-of-range until you get crammed in so close to it that Homing Attacks become pointless. The Mad Gear boss's normal phase is an odd kind of bass-ackwards Metropolis Zone boss where hitting the balloon pods around the Eggmobile causes them to bounce out and present a hazard, the objective being to hit the fairly easy-looking target that is the actual mech (which is fuckin' ginormous for some reason); the second bit is a chase sequence where the Homing Attack appears to make things easier, but not really that much moreso than if it weren't there. The final boss I can't really comment on beyond noting that it seems difficult to avoid taking occasional hits and that spamming the Homing Attack doesn't seem like an effective tactic, although the move does appear to have its uses.