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

This is neat, and kind of sad. It's nothing we couldn't have predicted (and follows the trend of S4 being a total retread) but I do kinda wish we had been able to see the trilogy completed, even if only as fodder for a better reimagining down the line. I don't mind Sonic 4, EP1 physics or not, and it's such an awkward coda on the classic era to be left incomplete like this. As it stands both episodes together are as long as Sonic 3, but a third episode would've made it the longest 2D Sonic game, which woulda been novel at least. I wonder how and which Sonic 3 zones they would've ripped off for it, haha.

I still think that if they wanted to do a "Sonic Origins volume 2" with the missing 7 classic-era games, including Mania and a Retro Engine reimagining "Sonic 4 Ultimate" (Superstars too?) with it as stocking stuffers would be the best course of action.

I hear that the Episode 1 source code was leaked with this. Does that mean there's any chance of finally fixing the physics in that game? I bet that would do wonders for letting its level design actually shine a bit, since I do think the unique stage layouts and gimmicks are the biggest point of value in these games.

 

I do not believe that just changing the physics of the game will make the level design better. Sure Sonic might feel... different, maybe control marginally better on slopes, but if the level design was built with these weird physics in mind then drastically altering them might potentially do more damage.

 

So what is the timeline of SEGA deciding to cancel Episode 3?
I always assumed they canceled it when Ep2's sells didn't meet expectations but considering they removed the teaser/cliffhanger animatic before Ep2 was even released, they were already expecting Ep2 to not sell well?

 

Re: Knuckles

Since the little planet was involved, perhaps that's knuckles from actually Sonic 3, as in Robotnik didn't trick him again, but rather time-traveled the previously-tricked Knuckles into the future. Seeing as Episode 2 merged Sonic 2's Death Egg with the Little Planet (and actual awesome concept IMO), perhaps this was their way of spinning Sonic CD into the Sonic 3 plot.

 

Who says Knuckles is actually working with Eggman, at least willingly? It's equally as possible they intended to have a full campaign involving Knuckles reaching the stolen Master Emerald akin to Episode Metal. From there, stuff happens and he gets involved in the main story of Episode 3.

 

You're giving 2010s SEGA a lot of credit here...

 

The first seconds with the Master Emerald really remind me of the original Xbox boot animation:



Seriously. They both start in total darkness, then a pulsating glowing green thing appears floating inside a vertically symmetrical machine and gets progressively brighter until it covers the whole screen, even with similar sound effects. I wouldn't be surprised if that animation was an inspiration.

 

Episode Metal had largely similar level design to episode 1, just in reverse, right? But it still used the controls from 2, which weren't classic Sonic per se but were mostly fine. I dunno, I'm not sure it would be as big a difference as you might think. There might be some adjustments needed, but I can't think of too much stuff in the games that rely on Sonic uncurling, not having badnik bouncing or good rolling.

 

I honestly suspect a good chunk of Superstars derives from scrapped S4 Episode 3 concepts. Press Factory gives me that vibe as well, especially the gimmicky Act 2…

 

I've been given permission to share what I know, from a guy who knows some guys:

Episode III didn't get much further than the idea of Knuckles being in it and brief talks about moving development from Dimps to SSA and getting Taxman involved. As far as I know, basically no serious pre-production had started on it. Anyone who thinks there's some big lost Sonic game in Episode III is probably going to be disappointed. There was really nothing much planned for it by the time Sega killed it.

As for why it was canceled, Sega seemingly didn't want to do a third episode that was another complete rework that would have to be released as a standalone product. It was already really annoying for them that Episode I and II had to be released as separate apps and couldn't be a singular one like most episodic games were. Episodic development in general ended up creating way more problems than it solved (which is why Telltale was the only dev who really stuck with the model). Episode III was seemingly canned well before Episode II was finished.

 

This is really cool. Definitely a better teaser than Metal's lame appearance at the end of EpI. Such a shame they didn't leave this in. If they had then there could have been more of a demand from fans for a third episode, so maybe SEGA could have changed their mind.

As for a theoretical EpIII, I like to think we would have at least got all new zones, or zones inspired from Sonic 3, a blue sphere type special stage and Knuckles playable along with "Knuckles in Sonic 4 Episode 2"

 

Has literally any game ever benefitted from an episodic release cycle? The only examples I can maybe think of are indie games that literally need the revenue from episode to episode to even finish the damn thing, and obviously that's not really for the game's benefit so much as the developers putting food on the table. I don't think it's ever done a good thing for studios that can sustain themselves otherwise.

 

I reckon they probably intended to make S4 a more traditional episodic game, recycling the engine and assets for three parts. But the fan reception of ep1 happened, so they tried to placate people by reworking ep 2 and completely redoing the engine, physics and graphics. Then Sega realized it was too much work for an episodic game and canned ep 3.

A pity really. Regardless of how one feels about Sonic 4, I think it's sad that Knuckles never made it to it, and the game didn't get a proper conclusion, especially considering it's technically a numbered installment of the original series. For all we know, Little Planet might still be trapped inside the Death Egg mk2 to this day.

 

Not only this, but they fucked up big time with the release schedule. Episode 1 came out in late 2010 (delayed from Summer 2010) and was initially teased a year earlier. And between E1 and E2 we got both Colours and Generations to thoroughly trounce Sonic 4's attempt at the Classic and 2D formulas. Sonic 4 was a mistake.

On the one hand, it's a shame that E3 was cancelled and not reworked instead. There were clearly some very loose plans in place at least. And I wanted to see Knuckles return too. But on the other hand, nah. E1 was crap and E2 was stubborn refusal to understand the assignment. They didn't feel like a coherent experience, even in their mediocrity. E1 and E2 are two independently naff Sonic games that are tenuously tied together by a title, by being poor interpretations of the classic formula and being short. Even if E3 somehow was significantly better by Christian Whitehead being involved, Sonic 4 would still have been a mess by virtue of it being multiple games that don't really form a coherent package. Cancelling E3 was the right choice.

 

Incredible to see something newly discovered involving Sonic 4.

I hope that means that whoever makes a video about Sonic 4 in the future will bring this up now while they are regurgitating the same old points

The development timeline for the Sonic 4 saga is fascinating. From the research that I’ve done it looks like even before the release of Episode 2, in May 2012, Takashi Iizuka had already said they had no plans to make an Episode 3.

From Digital Spy (March 2012)
Are you going to do more episodes after this, or is this the final one?
"We are looking forward to hearing the feedback from the users for Episode 2, but we are currently not planning to release another episode. We just want to see how the users accept this episode."
https://www.digitalspy.com/videogam...nterview-sonic-team-on-a-fan-pleasing-sequel/

https://archive.vn/eTYvd#selection-1101.0-1109.119

From Eurogamer (August 2011)
"We can't say if there's going to be Episode 3 or not," Iizuka said when asked if there would be such a long wait between the second and third takes on Sonic the Hedgehog 4.
https://web.archive.org/web/2011083...-episode-ii-release-date-set-for-2012-article

The audio for the cutscene was already found in the final release and documented here:
https://tcrf.net/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_4:_Episode_II

Now that the actual visuals for the cutscene were found it shows that they really did consider, at the very least, making an Episode 3 but at some point they may have no longer had any faith on the project, support from SEGA, or any other internal reason we may never know.

If anyone wants access to that Sega forums thread where Ken Balough confirms there will be no Episode 3 then here is an archived link for it:
https://web.archive.org/web/2015042...dgehog-4-Episode-III-is-NEVER-HAPPENING-Maybe

Also here are the posts where Christian Whitehead (Taxman) mentions information about Episode 3:
I guess it's been long enough that it's not relevant any more, but I was briefly asked if I would be interested in collaborating with Sega Studios Australia (Who did the Castle of Illusion remake) as a potential dev team to work on the third one. Sadly though, SSA were shut down, and Stealth and I worked on the Sonic 1 & 2 remasters in late 2012-2013.
https://forums.sonicretro.org/index...d-according-to-ken-balough.33870/#post-812204

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".
https://forums.sonicretro.org/index...rding-to-ken-balough.33870/page-2#post-812217

 

No big loss in my view. The whole ordeal was a crude cash-in by rebranding and expanding the scope of some forgettable mobile spinoff that was a mere rehash of what came before (and done so much worse at that). This is no Sonic 4, despite what any marketing figureheads may have figured in the moment.

That being said, I’m all for documenting and archiving any and all media in general. I just equate this game with the likes of Sonic Labyrinth, is all.

 

Knuckles: *Stress sigh* The man in the pickle suit tricked me again.

 

Nah, man. Sonic Labyrinth was at least bold and original. It probably would've been received better, if you weren't playing as a character known for their speed.

Sonic 4, on the other hand, deserves to be equated with the likes of Sonic Genesis on GBA. Now THAT's a fair comparison.

 

Yeah, no. No matter how much you hate Sonic 4 for the physics/dashpads/homing attack/retreading/green eyes/whatever. Looking at it objectively, it wasn't a broken unplayable mess on the level of Sonic Genesis. In fact, it had decent critic reviews by home console Sonic standards.

 

Sonic 4 not being a broken unplayable mess shouldn't be worthy of praise. That's the bare minimum of quality a game should strive to achieve.

I do agree that Labyrinth at least brought something bold and original to the table. A game that just cribs everything from previous games in the franchise while adding almost nothing original to the mix feels much more frustrating to me than something ambitious and/or novel that fails. Games like that can be built off of to turn into something great, but you can't do that with Sonic 4. These finds are neat, but I'm not gonna cry over it never getting a final episode because everything it does has been done better in earlier and later games.