The Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Megathread

I hold off getting believing this until it's concrete. Only because it's nothing but a rumour right now and TSSZ have had mishaps with trolls before, however likely it may seem. Truth be told, I quite like the minecart stage. But seeing it replaced with a proper level (maybe with a few minecarts ala Underground Zone and Coral Cave) would be pretty nice.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing a minecart stage like that in a normal 3D Sonic game like Unleashed to mix things up a bit, but it's really out of place in Sonic 4, unfortunately.

 

I actually think there's a good reason for that. In 2005, you had Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, as well as Sonic Riders. Until Sonic '06, the franchise pretty much hit rock bottom around that time. It's pretty easy to see how and why Rush was considered the best thing ever with Sonic's name on it. Now it's 2010 and all of a sudden we've got Sonic 4 coming our way, with all this talk of being a sequel to Sonic 3 and being just like the Genesis games, only in HD.

Suddenly, the standards bar was shot into the stratosphere, and then the fanbase began to eat itself.

Yeah. No justification for the retardedness, but the basic reason still exists under the bullshit, and people began to fight over it. Same old story, same old song and dance. Now we're here, and we're still fans enough to keep paying attention, so who's who?

EDIT: As for Mr. Oliver's source, I'm leaning towards Chimpo's suspicion. That one line about his "source" having doubts over an "internal lack of classic Sonic comprehension" smells fishy. Perfectly plausible, but still kinda fishy. Another Ben Andac perhaps?

 

I'm really not seeing the Rush comparisons, personally. I mean, the physics don't look exactly finished right now and it looks like Sonic builds momentum too quickly, but it looks more like Sonic 2 in HD to me than anything. There's platforming, multiple paths, classic sound effects, and art more inspired by Sonic 1 & 2 than Sonic Rush, etc.

 

And that's how they keep the folks who don't tediously scrutinize it from realizing how the physics are more like Rush than the classics.

 

They should use instruments that actually sound like such, not simply 'retro' synths (read: fly in a jar). Someone pointed out previously that in at least some of the MD songs, one could tell that certain sounds were meant to sound like real instruments. Sonic 4's are all just cheesy synths, not recognisable as anything but. I'm not saying those can't sound OK—in moderation.

In other words, Sega types, please change your instruments, and also lengthen the songs. Oh, and get rid of the dust trails, unrolling after ramps, and forced rolling after boosters. Plz?

 

So we're losing the minecart, alright. But what about the Special Stages? I think they'd still work fine with the titl controls.

 

I'm so glad they're removing those levels...

 

The soundtrack does indeed lack depth. SHZ theme might have been okay if it was 1991, but S2 and S3 set the bar for awesome soundtracks really damn high - though I'm far more satisfied with the "cheesy synths" (very similiar in style to Sonic 3D by the way) than the pop music direction that the whole series headed towards since SA (actually preceded by Sonic CD).

In other words, I really look forward to S4, and I believe it'll be still the best thing that happened since 95 - only thing that I'll miss will be Tails, for sure. There's literally no reason not to put him in. (story my ass, too much focus on the background is what killed all the other games)

 

Know what's nice? The whole thing could be baseless speculation (how many times have I said it's very likely the two gimmick levels are going to iPhone?) and it can easily be grounded by fact through an "anonymous source." Under the guise of protection, the identity can't be revealed. Following that, if when the game comes out the levels are still in, covering your ass is as simple as saying, "It's likely they changed their minds in the middle of development."

tl;dr lol posting obvious guessing as exclusive news with ass-covering contextual moves.

 

I thought of Sonic Heroes and cringed. Sorry, but I hated the minecart segment in Heroes and thought it was bullshit they didn't need, but maybe that's because of how bad the control was in the game in general.

I quite liked the mine carts in one of the GG games. Maybe it was Triple Trouble... But I don't honestly recall. You jumped in the mine cart and spindashed in the direction you wanted to go, I think.

 

Mansion stage Hard Mode. :specialed:

 

In what way would the pinball act have been designed to take advantage of motion control?

 

Shake the iPhone to use the flipper. :v: But really, probably shake the system to simulate shaking a pinball machine.

This wasn't in the Sonic 4 release leak we had. The problem with the level was the dumb requirement of having to build up 100k points. It got to the point that the person playing started cheating by spamming pause to hit Jackpots.

 

I'd like to know about that troll since I was living under a rock last week. :v:

In other news at least that moving the pinball level off the consoles that matter home consoles takes away the argument about making it rings instead of points. (you can lose rings, it would make it harder.) or shortening the points. Let them have the shitty levels. I bet anyone who owns a console and an iPhone will just buy the console version anyway (or the console version first,then fool with the iPhone release.)

 

Something along the lines of that huge announcement involving Sonic Retro, etc, ...which turned out to be a lie as Sega just went off and announced that Sonic 4 is getting delayed and nothing appeared on Sonic Retro at all! :p

 

Since no one here posted it...

http://forums.sega.com/showthread.php?p=5849652#post5849652

 

I thought it was confirmed the game would be available on the iPad. Why wouldn't it? Don't all Apple devices work the same? (In the DLC area, anyway?)

 

The iPod version will work on the iPad, but won't be as pretty as a version made specifically for the iPad.