Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II Prototypes Found with Unused Ending

Plus they've stated that they visually aged him when they created his SA1 design, and that "parts of his character" had grown:


"We kept the original traits, but raised the age of his appearance, making it easier for the design to express parts of his character that have grown..."

 

Sonic is Sonic, but at the same time he's not. He's one character with many separate interpretations.

Even back in the 90s, you can't honestly say that the Sonic in the games who cabbaged the Death Egg twice and saved Little Planet is the same Sonic from SATAM who lived in Butthole and fucked a squirrel.

Same with Batman. Christian Bale's and Robert Pattinson's Batmans are not the same Batman from the cheesy, slapstick series from the 60s. I look at Sonic like that.

 

That might be so, but Modern Sonic is meant to be the same incarnation and continuity as in the MD games, with the game that introduced his design making various continuity callbacks to the classic adventures.

 

There'll never be a perfect answer, but I'll continue enjoying my headcanon that Generations split the timeline after 3&K, with the branch created by Classic Sonic and Robotnik's return from Generations moving on to Mania and Superstars instead of 4, Adventure, and so on. The Drop Dash even feels like something young Sonic might've come up with after failing to mimic his older self's moves.

 

I think they're alternate universes, SA1 depicts events that were also depicted but differently in S3K

 

Honestly I'm so over this discussion at this point. Who even gives a shit if the classic designs aging into the modern designs doesn't make sense from our perspective? The more I hear it, the more nitpicky it feels because it really doesn't cause any substantive problems - most of these guys retain their core silhouette features anywya. From either side of the fandom, classic or modern, the argument that the games should be a split timeline or in any way separated from each other just feels to me like a petty, foolish attempt to be able to separate and treat with disdain the dirty, impure side of the series from the stuff they themselves like. Sonic is Sonic, there's no reason for that to change regardless of whether it makes sense for someone to develop green irises as they age.

 

Counterpoint: Frontiers flashes back to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and literally uses a screenshot from the Origins version of the game to do so...!

 

While the discussion of timelines and placements is interesting I think it's getting way off-topic considering the nature of this thread.

As of now, all that we have from this unused ending as of now are confirmation that Knuckles (with a model to boot) was gonna play a part in an Episode III, as well as vaguely showing what Eggman's plan seems to be.

Unless more info somehow comes about this I think this is where the story ends..

 

Has anything been done with the Episode 1 source code?

 

Why would you do anything with it?

 

Makw the game better, duh

 

I think it’s meant more as a clear gameplay identifier. You see Classic Sonic and you know you’ll get 2D gameplay with classic style physics. Modern Sonic means whatever the modern version of the character is supposed to be

 

I'm curious too. It's probably a stretch to make the game feel like the classics but I wouldn't be opposed to people modding the game and making it feel more like the Advance games. Those physics are close enough to classic 2D and suits the art style more. I hope I am not thinking too far ahead.

 

Given we've now got it confirmed that Sonic 4 is a fork of the Rush engine, a decomp would probably be a really good start for a fan remake of Sonic Rush for today's PCs.