Sonic 4: Episode III cancelled according to Ken Balough

I don't really care that much about Sonic the Hedgehog 4, however the fact that Episode II ends on a cliffhanger with the Little Planet still inside the Death Egg mk. II really bothers me. It's kinda like Sonic Underground - it was poorly made on the cheap, the ending is never resolved and frankly, nobody asked for it in the first place. My only question is, will SEGA ever do something about it or are they just gonna pretend it never happened?

 

Well, my "involvement" was really just a phone call so I don't really feel it's appropriate to make any kind of judgement that could be misconstrued as "official". The only thing that could be said is that while Sega is around and has the Sonic IP, there's nothing stopping them from coming back to it if they felt it was good for the market.

I will leave Sonic 4 with the following words uttered by The Hitcher from The Mighty Boosh

"Elements of the past and future, combining to create something not quite as good as either"

 

Classic 2D Sonic doesn't need a S4E3. It doesn't need a Sonic 5.

It needs a completely new branch, where sequels get a 2 and 3 and so on all over again (assuming sequels to this are ever made) to both distance itself from the critical trainwrecks S4E1/E2 were, as well as to manage expectations as to how much it takes from the classics.

This is what Sonic Advance did with its modern aesthetic. And it was reasonably successful in its own right. I don't see why something similar can't happen where a new series brands itself to be first and foremost a throwback to what was good about the classic games.

And as much as I am anti "fans do what SEGA don't" (which is a really stupid mindset, really*) the fact that the Taxman CD/1/2, various fangames (LakeFeperd's stuff might be the most prominent but there's so much out there) and Freedom Planet exist in the past few years is pretty telling, in that those got a lot about the classics right but didn't claim to be a continuation of classic Sonic. The complete antithesis of Sonic 4 which claimed to be a continuation of classic Sonic, but didn't get much right at all.

*edit: As clarification, this is stupid because more often than not it's used to put blatantly sub-par fan work up on a pedestal while bashing anything and everything SEGA, with little to no understanding of how game dev actually functions both technically and as a business. A sad showcase of double standards, really.

 

I'd argue that Episode 1 burned too many people badly enough for them even to consider a shinier looking episode 2. In some respects Episode 2 was a fresh coat of paint over the same shitty level design, same small amount of content, same grating music, and slightly tweaked physics. The only difference is that it at least didn't look nearly as embarrassing.

I definitely agree here. Sonic seems to be trying out lots of new things anyway. A subline that just pushes 2D.5 further than Classics Generations tried to. Complete with it's own set of new mechanics that work with what the game is trying to add like the advance character abilities/tricks and not slapped on because they were band-aids for unrelated legacy gameplay (homing attack I'm looking at you).

 

Well, I guess someone will make a fan conclusion to Sonic 4 someday. I still haven't gotten the last emerald in episode 2.

 

Well atleast I got to kinda play as Knuckles in the past 4 years.

 

I don't understand why people say S4E2's physics are a big improvement over E1's. There's only a difference when you're not touching the controller, which is never if you're actually playing the game.

A little disappointed by this news, but I won't lose any sleep over it. I think the best thing to come out of Sonic 4 was the Metal Sonic theme - I hope that gets more use in future games.

 

Wow... Now I'm really disappointed Episode 3 never happened. It could've been great.

 

Well, like Taxman said in a later reply it wasn't much more than a phonecall, meaning that those plans probably didn't get much further than the planning phase. What does kinda disappoint me is that it sounds like Sega Studios Australia was going to focus more on platformers before they were shut down. Their Castle of Illusion remake was pretty good and I would have liked to have seen more from them.

 

Wasn't the cost of game dev in Australia prohibitively high? As in on-location facilities, etc. I don't think it was something specific to SEGA Studios Australia.

 

Yeah, lots of big Australian game devs shut down. I can't really blame SEGA for doing so considering the costs, but it's still kinda disappointing cause I liked what they did with Castle of Illusion.

 

I'm kind of sad about this. On one hand, Sonic 4 as a whole was mediocre. On the other, it was more fun to play than Lost World, and I don't like stories without endings.

So I dunno. Mediocre is better than utter tripe.

 

I hope they will do a Sonic 5 or Sonic Reborn or whatever other name you like at some point, with a creative team that knows what they're doing. Not that any of that is likely to happen, but, if anyone's listening, there you go.

 

I don't doubt that SEGA will do another attempt at 2D classic Sonic, I just don't expect them to do that anytime soon.

 

They were making a third?

It's a toss-up for me between Sonic 4 and NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams for the most offensive video game of all time. I think NiGHTS probably has the edge but Sonic 4 is a traversty that is best off being forgotten about. At least it has the grace to play its own part in this, with wonky compatibility with modern phones and tablets.

 

I still haven't played through either episodes of Sonic 4 fully, so this doesn't make me too mad. It does suck to see another Sonic game go forever unfinished, though.

 

No no, I wasn't asking in context of this proposition, but rather I was asking you as someone who has more "general knowledge" in case of Sonic franchise's history (well, I'm quite fresh member here ). And that's why I've written my doubts (because as far I know, all cancelled games with Sonic were cancelled permanently).

Well, anyway, thanks for reply.

 

I bought Episode 2 while it was relatively cheap on Steam, and I fucking hated it. I managed to complete Episode 1 (somehow), but I found this to be worse. If it lead to massive improvements, Episode 3 would have been nice, but the chances of improvements were slim.