I'm just saying it's a shame that Lost Jungle went from that wonderful melodic track to... whatever noise was used in the final. But now we're straying off Sonic 4 discussion, so... :v:
Wow, you guys have basically been talking about what I said ages ago. To be blunt, we can all agree that this isn't Jun's thing! We know what Jun likes to do and this isn't it but SEGA demands to shackle this poor guy down and force him to mimic work he hasn't had real experence with. If SEGA demands music consistancy in this series, Then he needs help someone to bounce ideas off of so we can get a better sounding soundtrack with what we have to work with.
So, to sum this up, Sonic 4 is what happens when you take the wrong game developers and the wrong composers and have them make a game they don't actually know how to make. Seems about right. If they called it Sonic Rush 4 or Sonic Advance 4, I don't think they'd get anywhere near the same level of hate. Expectations are just out of whack because you basically have them doing things they aren't accustomed to. Why can't SEGA hire any of the old composers, anyway? What happened, did all the old Mega Drive people vanish?
Ocean Palace sounds very empty. I don't know why, it just sounds incomplete. Maybe if you had a bit more instruments at times, it would seem more complete IMO. Edit: If you excuse me, I'll be running away now.
Well there's Naofumi Hataya, who worked on classic tunes in Generations and the original SCD soundtrack, and then several other artists who workedon Generations that for whatever reason weren't drafted into S4. I think Iizuka is a big fan of Jun's work, and so wanted to get back on track with him when he returned to Sonic games. Iizuka stepped away from his important roles in Sonic games after ShTH until Colours, much the same as Jun did. When Iizuka returned to the forefront it was for S4, and hey presto Jun was back too. There was an interview somewhere where Jun spoke about the music for Splash Hill 1. Apparently the director of E1 really didn't like the track at all (hooray!) but Jun was very pleased with his work and insisted he didn't change it (boo!). Something about it sounding very fun and perfect for a first stage. I dunno. I always thought SH1 had quite sad sounding music. Sylvania Castle 1 sounds very upbeat, but at the same time it's stupidly unfitting of the stage. S4's music rarely hits the right note.
Hm, so it's the same sort of logic I see in their continued use of DIMPs. "They were good at (other thing which is completely different), surely they will excel at this other thing!" Yyyyeah... The good news is, one way or another, there is only one more Sonic 4 thing left. If they make a Sonic 5 or just abandon it altogether maybe they can put the round peg in the right slot next time. Since unlike some people, I don't think they are completely unable to do nice things. Classic Sonic tunes and gameplay just isn't one of them, at least not without heavy supervision from the actual people who did it. It's like, you don't have Neo-Cubists try to make photo-realistic paintings. They share the same basic abilities at the low level, but in the actual high level stuff it just falls flat, what they make is a pale imitation of what someone who is trained in that style properly can do.
I was just talking about those Sonic 4 remixes you posted. I have all the Generations music on a CD in my car :D Although this doesn't sound complete and polished, it still sounds great! I do think that those drums were a bit messy to have them going throughout the entire song. I think the final version was more balanced, but would it have killed them to extend the song even more to include these slightly different note in the melody to have variation? I fell absolutely in love. I had a CD with Sonic Heroes music as well and Lost Jungle was a track I skilled quite often. This version actually had direction and not searching for a purpose like the final version. But back on track to Sonic 4. I think one of my most favorite "WOW" moments was when I saw this screen: It was a total "OMG Classic Title Card in New Game!" moment. I totally went Squeeee over this. I take it this was after the Original (or Generations?) battle and when the screen goes black then back in color, it's "Present" Day.
Yeah, we need Ep. 3 to follow up Ep. 2's cliffhanger ending. But seriously, Sonic 5? The expectations for that would be through the roof, and only because of it's name. Take out the 5 and cram some random word in the title and you have yourself a good game, guaranteed. The number 4 made developers lose their minds to where they couldn't help but overthink everything. They got wound up more in trying to replicate the classics' style than just making an original game with its own plot that fit well into the continuity. Ep. 1 was a complete flop in every way imaginable, especially the story. Hell, it had NO STORY.. not until Ep. 2 and Metal came about. It was all just rehashed levels and bosses, playable in full plasticky 2.5D. When I played through Ep. 2, it felt like how Sonic 4 should have started. The opening cutscene with Sonic & Tails flying to Sylvania Castle on the Tornado explained how they got there. Splash Hill just had Sonic standing there with no explanation on how he got there and where the fuck Tails was. Ep. 2 actually made sense of everything and was complete as a game, regardless of its length and flaws.
I agree with the above. Episode II isn't perfect by any means, but at the very least it felt like a "game" as opposed to a soulless, disgusting mess like Episode I did. Episode II has original less, great graphics, decent level design and controls that actually work and can be fun to play around with. It's no Sonic 4 but it's a solid experience and it actually feels complete, Episode I just feels like a shitty tech demo for an incomplete game.
What I'm trying to say is that it's way too short and the level design doesn't scratch the classics but it's still an okay game.
This stance reeks of Gay Marriage Debate syndrome. The "Call it anything but Marriage" NON-issue. Saying this game is not "Sonic 4" is like saying Sonic's real name is Mr. Needlemouse. This ship has said years ago. Literally. I see that you said it's a "solid experience" and "feels complete". Man I sure wish the internet were around in 1988, when Super Mario Bros. 2 (Super Mario USA) came out.
How would Sonic 5 have greater expectations? We had such high hopes for Sonic 4 because of how long we the fans have been waiting for it, tell me im wrong but I've never heard someone go "Man, SEGA needs to release Sonic 5 already, games gonna be kickass!" before. Unless SEGA releases a press release saying Sonic 5 is gonna be 2D with HD Hand Drawn Sprites, have new composers, disk release and be made by Taxman, I don't think expectations will be any higher then 4. And wasnt it established already that Sonic 4 Episode 1 didnt begin as Sonic 4 and was simply a random downloadable game that was given the title "4" later on for marketing reasons? If that truely is the case, then I doubt the developers were "losing their minds" and "overthinking everything" because of the name. WE certainly wouldnt have gone as batshit insane over the game had it been called something else, but its doubtful the developers were getting "wound up".
All I was trying to say that it doesn't meet the expectations that I feel one would have for a sequel to the Genesis games, although by itself it is a respectable game and expecting it to be anything like the classics will leave you disappoitned. I'm not trying to make this any bigger a deal than that dfghjkl
SolidSOAP, I didn't mean to get your panties in a bunch. I apologize if you saw absolute harshness in my humor. It's just that I'm going to have an aneurysm of the brain the next time I hear that Sonic 4 isn't "Sonic 4" It's here, its 4, so get used to it. I'm curious to know what the current sales have been for Episode 2.
To address the guys saying Hataya's Ocean Palace sounds a bit dirty, that's to be expected. These are production tracks. In the same beta, several other songs sound markedly different. For example, Final Fortress lacks its lead guitar, Casino Park is the one heard on the soundtrack, Egg Albatross has a different opening while Egg Emperor has an added guitar in its opening riff, to name a few. The music isn't mastered either, so it all sounds low quality and crappy too. By this time though, the music from the leaked E3 demo was "improved" (I liked the original beats more)
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they really weren't that great. Episode I had the hype of being the first 2D Sonic game on a console in over a decade, however this game really didn't get much hype, even from SEGA's PR. Sales certainly won't be bad, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're a fair bit lower than Episode I's.
Hahaha, that would never happen here. Btw, after watching that review, I sure as sit hope that this story is resolved. It seemed to be as of Sonic Adventure.
I tried this in multiplayer, we got to the Spoiler Death Egg mk.II Zone and stopped there for a while, I would love to continue but my new rig won't choose a resolution for it and I've been trying to find a work around. (There's no resolution to choose apparently) aside from that I haven't had a single player experience of this game unfortunately. The multiplayer was fun at the very least, it had a very slow kickoff because the person I played with haven't played a Sonic game before (Shock), after an hour the experience was still chaotic but was enjoyable. Spoiler Sky Fortress Zone was a challenge with a lot of co-operation and communication that had to be handled which made it feel like an accomplishment after we completed the zone. I might be nitpicking but the multiplayer had a <1 second delay which really grinded my gears, I couldn't get used to it at all and I am hoping that this isn't in the 1player mode.
