The Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Megathread

Yeah, I never really took advantage of that bounce technique. I guess I'm one of the few who think air dashing is cool, especially since Sonic has been making moves like that since AoSTH and SatAM. I've been waiting ever since. And since Sonic 4 is a new "installment" it's only natural that Sonic have new moves in progression. I really am starting to think that as a whole we will never be happy because Sega took to long, but then again if Sonic 4 was released as originally intended (whatever Sonic Crackers would have been called if it wasn't Knuckles Chaotix), then there would be bitching about this being called Sonic 5 (which now has a fat chance in hell after all that has happened regarding Sonic 4).

 

Hey, so I wonder if Tails and Knuckles will have homing attack whenever they are playable in episodes 2+.

I'm hoping it's going to be a Sonic only thing like it should.

 

Given that bouncing to your previous height can be used to get Knuckles onto Sonic's route in Angel Island Zone, I'd say the homing attack is hugely underpowered in comparison.

 

I doubt it. The only time Tails and Knuckles have had a homing attack is Sonic Rivals 1 and 2, and that's more for balancing than anything else due to the racing nature. Even if that's not the case, the game wasn't made by Dimps. Dimps is pretty good with keeping homing attack as a Sonic only move, as Tails and Knuckles had their normal move sets in Sonic Advance 1 through 3

 

I wouldn't mind having the air dash as the "progressional new move" alone, but the homing attack has no purpose in 2D whatsoever, other than to make defeating enemies easier by being able to lock-on to them, making it very unnecessary in my eyes.

 

Though that makes me wonder if they even would be able to "lock on" the episodes to let the other characters be playable in Episode 1. As it seems to have some parts that rely on the homing attack.

Like if Tails and Knuckles were to uncurl after a ramp like Sonic, they couldn't do anything until they land. Guess we will see.

 

When Sonic uncurls off of a ramp he can still do the homing attack, so Tails and Knuckles should be able to fly/glide too. Things is being done Unleashed style rather than SA1 style, and SA1 style would be more suited to this title really.

 

Well Tails being able to fly makes all homing attack chains useless, and Knuckles being able to climb makes some things easy enough to get by hitting a wall and climbing up or down to get the item or whatever is needed. Plus even in the old games Knuckles couldn't reach everything Sonic could

 

Personally, I think Sonic's shortcomings, or differences in this game will be purposefully made up for by the other characters. Uncurling? Tails will be able to fly, Knuckles glide. Special moves? Creates a whole new way to beat zones and stuff, and since I doubt Tails and Knuckles will home-attack, the levels will be played from an entirely new perspective, even more so than what it was in S3&K.

 

The air-dash gives Sonic an extra boost of speed while in midair, but it seems like you'll be dashing head-first into enemies more often than you'll be finding it useful, unless you curl into a defensive hedgeball. Then that's better. It's pretty much the homing attack without the auto-targeting and the Sonic 3 fire shield powerup without the fire. I don't think I'd mind that actually.

Well, that's definitely what I'll think will happen, but it's a poor reason to keep uncurling in.

You know, this underlines one of the problems I've had with Sonic's evolution as a game character: unique moves. Over in 3D land, he's gained such abilities as stomping, sliding, wall-kicking, rail grinding, the light-speed dash, and the homing attack. Over in 2D land (brought to you by DIMPs), he's gained wall-kicking, rail grinding, air-dashing, and the homing attack (not counting the new double-jump and crate-kick). Before the 2000s, Sonic technically already had the homing attack with the gold shield from Sonic 3D Blast, the stomp with the Sonic 3 Bubble shield, the airdash with the Fire shield, and the double-jump with the Electric shield, not to mention the Insta-shield. Other than those and slightly greater agility, Tails and Knuckles already had his main abilities of spindashing and overall high-speed acceleration, and then some. The only moves added to their repertoires were Tails' Tornado attack in SA1 and Knuckles' digging and special flame attack.

Colors shows at least two new moves that can put Sonic on par with Knuckles in terms of maneuverability: spikes for climbing and drilling for digging. The Hover ability may as well be Tail's flying ability, only slowed down and with the light-speed dash concatenated to it, but that one can reasonably stay with Colours exclusively. Digging as it pertains to a strictly retro-2D style game should be limited to certain types of "permeable" ground or walls, where repeatedly spindashing (or some combination of revving up and stomping down) will allow Sonic to burrow underground, through a weak wall or door, and even deal repeated damage to much stronger bosses. Think of Sonic grinding into a part of the boss instead of just hitting it and bouncing off, but only after revving up a super spin dash. Hell, the bosses (Eggman or not) may as well have life gauges if they're going to be stronger. Knuckles can still be relegated to taken down stronger walls and thicker floors, of course, as well as creating earthquakes and doing shoryukens.

Now, think. What other special moves would be perfect for Sonic AND make a Sonic platforming game more fun? Inversely, what moves from the 3D games simply wouldn't work well in a 2D Sonic platforming game, and why?

 

Okay, firstly:

A. Where did you hear that the bounce is small no matter what? No one confirmed that.

B. Why does this mean you wouldn't be able to bounce from bubble to bubble?

 

EDIT: Oh hey, it's my bouncing video. :specialed:

If Devil May Cry 2 didn't stop Devil May Cry 3 from being made, I see no reason why there wouldn't be a Sonic 5. All they need to know is that it would sell and what they'd need to do to make it sell.

 

Personally, I'd rather have the Air Dash and Homing Attack stay as power ups granted by shields. Not doing so isn't going to ruin the game though.

 

I don't know about bouncing from enemy to enemy, buI doubt they let you bounce too high after killing a single enemy. Honestly, I never even used that mechanic in the Classic games anyways, so replacing it with the homing attack doesn't bother me.

I am very doubtful though, that there will be any sort of lock on feature with the episodes of this game... it just seems like something they're not going to do. I expect each episode to be a fully separate release, played separately- but all part of the same ongoing plot. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this is far more likely than locking on between the episodes.

 

For the people who are talking about bopping enemies one by one, jump to 5:13 in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCjxMmZg3QI
This is the Wii footage with slightly different music that we saw awhile back, but it's still relevant.

(Bear in mind that Sonic used a Super Sneakers power-up so his airborne horizontal speed may have been altered depending on how DIMPS programmed the game).

 

What the hell happened at 1:40?

 

DIMPS skipped their trigonometry classes.

 

I don't get it.

 

When Sonic collides with the ground, his new speed should be

v = ucos th

where
v = new speed, running along the ground
u = original (airborne) speed
th = angle of incidence between the direction Sonic is moving in and the ground.

Sonic 4 doesn't work like that. It seems to just make him run along the ground at whatever speed he was moving when he hit the ground, as shown at about 1:40 in that video.

Therefore, DIMPS skipped trigonometry classes.

 

I don't know about anyone else here that feels the same way. But I will not be buying this. I would just be disappointed with how half arsed everything is.