Together with the rest of the recent moves SEGA has been doing (I suppose it'd be SOA's doing, but I wouldn't know) with putting ROM Hacks on Steam Workshop, Sonic Mania and so on.. They must know generally what people think about Sonic 4. Obviously, there are so many weird facets of Sonic fans so I don't disbelieve in the idea that some people really like Sonic 4.. but generally, the opinion that Sonic 4 (both episodes) are middling to bad is pretty canon in the grander scheme of things. I don't think rebranding Sonic 4 is a bad idea.. I'd show that SEGA understand what Sonic 4 sits in the canon of Sonic games, which is, not really the sequal to Sonic 3 & Knuckles most people wanted. I'd liken what I'd like happening to Star Wars Extended Universe books getting rebranded as Legends something or other. Still stories with some worth, but not officially part of anything. Sonic Mania might be the closest thing to Sonic 4 we get, but it's also "not Sonic 4" in some areas. I'd wish for the 'Sonic 4' name to not be used, with what that implies. A name can imply a lot. I wouldn't disregard the value in that.
Yes, and that's a problem. It's a meme. The narrative has now progressed to talking about full-on "contempt" from not just Sonic 4, but fucking Nights 2. So sayeth the "second only to Sega". You guys have already half-joked about "mutinies" for years. I'm as hype for Mania as the next person, and that's exactly why this is the best time to put aside all that nonsense hate, all that nonsense nostalgia fanwanking, and actually stop to appreciate Sonic 4 for what it is. This was never a problem with Sonic Advance or Sonic Rush, and it does not need to be a problem here. Something like Mania was literally impossible at the time, no matter how you tried to play that card. It needs to be called Sonic 4 for two reasons: because that was its original name (the most important reason), and because that was Sega's honest attempt at "Sonic 4", something that should not even exist. For Sega, that was supposed to be Sonic Adventure or even Sonic Advance, and everyone needed to get over that.
"Accepting the game for what it is" does not exist. Comparison and attention to a game's contemporaries is inevitable; and anybody who criticizes people for doing so is probably more interested in (un)officially towing the brand's image instead of actually analyzing why people aren't doing so. Nobody really focuses on a game "for what it is", because that never happens anyway. With that said, people would be less inclined to do so if the game could actually speak for itself; but Sonic 4 is a case of selectively playing up the nostalgia cards of its predecessors and its status as a direct sequel in almost every chance it gets as its biggest/only selling points. And when that didn't work, also resulted in the game's PR having to pony up prizes to those who bought the game four times over in order to milk more copies. Unlike Sonic 4, Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush have the hindsight to bill themselves as something different, so the complaints towards Sonic 4 don't translate to those titles (and even if they did, Advance to its credit makes a decent case for itself being a basic recreation of the classic gameplay as it is). Besides, why should people "appreciate" the game for any reason at all? Not have egregious technical faults or questionable gameplay gimmicks like a talking sword, or simply being 2D, or even for the sole sake it being a Sonic game doesn't exactly call for much, if any, accolades. These qualities make it no different to virtually most other Sonic games out there, and leaves it easily outclassed by the Sonic games that exist that do more than just being "good enough". Whereas speaking favorably for it for the Sonic games that fail to meet the bare minimum standards (Sonic 2006, Shadow the Hedgehog, Rise of Lyric, etc.), is less commendation and more damning it by faint praise. And stating that a game like Mania was "impossible" at the time of Sonic 4's release makes for a moot point when you have games like NSMBW, Megaman 9, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Rayman Origins successfully managing the supposedly impossible balancing act of bringing back their original gameplay styles in a modern age to critical and/or commercial success; all of those were released around the same time. Producing a proper classic Sonic game is a matter of concept, not execution; and those responsible weren't even interested in getting the concept right. Stealth is on record for stating that Sonic 4 was a name suggested later on during development and wasn't there from the start (at 38:00 in the video). Which, on its own terms, doesn't read to me as an honest attempt at all, and more of an unrelated product which got a name slapped onto it for cynical hype marketing purposes. And while games like Sonic Adventure and Sonic Advance do exist as indirect sequels that still retain some (if not all) components of their Genesis predecessors (and actually are appreciated as such due to those reasons), the same cannot be said for most Sonic games that followed, which by the time Rush and 2006 came onto the scene had virtually threw out the old gameplay entirely. It's not like Mario, where you can pick up almost any 2D Mario title and it still plays like the very first game that laid the foundations; or how 3D Mario titles like 64, Galaxy, and 3D World still share the same groundwork for how they control and play. Despite what many like to claim, Sonic's the one that still hasn't "moved on", rather than reviewers or fans.
Mirage Island fits. I dig it. When I got the joke of the two islands before it merged, I cracked up. Sonic 4's Island as we truly imagined it.
Ben Kalough the legend lives on.... Barry if you dare try to name Mania's islands I'll fire you out of a canon into the Sun :v:
David is the naming guy, I just wrangled everybody together and made the certificate. Also, if you fire me out of a canon is that canon?
My headcanon name of "Southwestside Island" is ruined. I died when I got the Ben Kalough joke though.
Since the thread was bumped, I'll use the opportunity to post something. You might remember the S4E1 MIDI rip posted here. A few months ago I took the original RSEQ files and a more recent version of rseq2mid and reconverted the songs - and they weren't as broken as the MIDIs from the original post. While being at it, I also updated/modified rseq2mid to also convert labels - which indicate the loop points. Here is the new MIDI rip, also including the exe+source of the modified rseq2mid: http://vgmrips.net/misc/S4Ep1_MidiRip+rseq2midi.7z (converted with "-i -d" options) The MIDIs play fine now and I didn't notice anything odd. (Of course the instruments aren't correct, but that was to be expected from a direct conversion.)
Sorry to bump this thread, but I couldn't see an answer to this - is there a reason that the sound effects in the recent 're-release' of this game on the iPhone are lower pitched? It's really bothering me and I just can't think why this wouldn't have been tested prior to the release.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBzBrNf24jM So a beta build similar to the Wii beta build was found for the 360. It's basically the mobile version. What garbage.
Uhm, that's some pretty old news you're telling there. The Xbox 360 beta, also known as the "PartnerNET build" has been known for a fairly long time.
Oh is that right? I was only aware of the Wii beta build, not the 360 one. Well then lets use this time to review the garbage of 6 years ago and then see how far we've come with Mania :specialed:
Not only are there a Xbox 360 and a Wii beta, there's also a PS3 beta. :specialed:/> http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_4_Episode_I_(Sony_QA_Network_prototype) I don't even know how they let this many betas get leaked.
