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

They weren't praising it. Just saying that it wasn't comparable to Sonic Genesis on the GBA.

 

Of course a thread about Sonic 4 cut content just couldn't help devolving into 'was Sonic 4 bad?'

 

Lol, well, there's not a lot of cut content to see here and it all directly relates to the cancelling of the series. There's not much else to say without it leading to a general discussion of the games.

 

Going by the trend set by Episode 1, Episode 2, and Superstars, Episode 3 would have had better controls than Episode 2 but worse boss fights that make playing the game a chore, so it might be for the best it never materialized. At least, since they cut out the cliffhanger ending, Sonic 4 didn't end on a cliffhanger. Little Planet has never been referred to again, so we can just say everything on it is dead and that ties up that loose end.

Really, the bigger missed opportunity is that this is the only console Sonic game to not have a physical release. I've read that Sega was planning one with a "remaster" on PS4 and Xbox One, but by the end of 2013 when those systems released, yeah I could see why they wouldn't want to touch them again.

 

Actually, the recent Sonic Channel timeline clarifies that the Death Egg MK. II was destroyed, which is something the real Episode 2 ending does not show. So that's how that got resolved.

 

I think Episode I is a barely playable mess while Episode II is an uneven, but overall much better experience. My worst complains about Episode II are more about Jun's surprisingly poor understanding of the genesis soundfont despite the tunes themselves otherwise being surprisingly good (Metal Sonic's theme and Death Egg II's themes are legit excellent).

This is yet another one of those times where I wish a fan hack could open up the game and salvage it, especially Ep I, but admittedly the basic design concept is so flawed I can of course understand why there's no incentive. It didn't help that critics thought Ep II was WORSE than Ep I, despite it being blatantly obvious that I was far more broken and barely playable by comparison.

Anyway, that Ep III teaser is actually really good. I'm surprised. People would've been a lot more hyped for it back then, but not so surprisingly, the project was doomed pretty quickly. The Sonic CD taxman remake was already dominating the scene at the time of release, and glaring flaws of Ep I were impossible to ignore even if the second game was far better.

 

Good news, Episode 1's source code was a part of the leak so it absolutely can be fixed.

 

That's great. Modding/Fixing the game would actually be pretty amazing if possible.

Does anyone have more clear info on the leak itself and how this all came about? I know we've already gained at least a few protos from this, but I'd like to know more details about the circumstances behind all this if possible. 2010s era leaks are pretty unusual for this franchise.

 

https://www.obscuregamers.com/threads/og-25-release-sega-macs-saved-data.4501/#post-29164
This details that a lot of SEGA Mac's were listed on ebay and purchased by ObscureGamers. It contains a bunch of builds for iPhone games. It just happened that Sonic CD and Sonic 4 were the most relevant to us as Sonic fans. But there's other stuff here like Football Manager 2013, Brick People, Virtua Tennis 4, etc. It's probably a mixed bag of protos and final ipas.

 

Id argue ep 2 did do something new by expanding on the co-op elements, adding team moves, and designing the levels and bosses around them. We had something similar in Advance 3 but it was handled differently, and the moves felt like an afterthought.

 

I actually preferred Advance 3's approach to team moves. Finding good uses for them within those stages felt rewarding, be it finding a shortcut through a normally difficult area or working out which is best for speedrunning a certain stage and trying to use it to your advantage organically. As far as I remember, Episode 2's team move dynamic was basically "oh, you use the thing here" or shredding through loads of enemies with the 69 spin thing.

 

Sure, but it would have been nice to have paths based around the moves. Just like Knuckles had his own paths designed around his gliding and climbing in S3K and Mania, while Advance 1 and 2 treated his abilities (and Tails') as an afterthought.

 

I'm not going to pretend that Advance 3's co-op system was particularly well thought-out or even well implemented, but it was at least fun that every characters' base moveset would change quite significantly based on their partner. The co-op moves with Tails, Amy and Cream were just different strengths of overpowered double jumps, instant boost with Sonic and a glide or throw with Knuckles. The were very few times where the special abilities actually had a purpose other than just choosing the team you liked the most. CPU partners were useless basically never around apart from when you summoned them for their ability and there was nothing to keep two players together to incentivise actual co-operative activity in a co-op game.

But yeah, regardless of all that it was so much better than S4E2's. It was just Sonic followed a glorified version of S2's Tails. You'd hit the co-op button to win at designated sections and that was basically it.

There were a few of them in Advance 3, to be fair. Not many, but a few. The problem with E2's is just how bloody mundane they were (and how crappy the moves felt to use). You were guided exactly when and where to use the co-op moves to process. There really was no creativity in the game.

 

The flight and swimming sections were definitely not "hit the co-op button to win". In fact, it was probably the only instance Tails' flight in the 2d games wasn't just "tap the jump button to skip the level design".

 

I wonder if there's any leftovers of the cut Chaotix ring tether in the prototype

 

See, who needs episode 3 when we have superstars

 

Based on the timing of learning of the cutscene (audio only….and I think it was called “Ending C” or similar) which I believe was leaked fairly close to just before the game was released and the discover of it missing, we knew back then that Episode 3 was cancelled. Ep2 didn’t have an opportunity to make traction before the news, even though it was much improved.


Edit: Nevermind, it was explained VERY well above. Par for the course, I’m sure we’re only now going to hear about a few Ep3 ideas since it’s logical to think some attributes carried into Superstars. Like any company, they don’t want to give away all their secrets as they use them for future ideas.

I will also die on the hill that the Superstars menu theme is a reworked ending jingle from S4E3 before the end credits were to roll….theres already precedence for these things.

 

I think we can safely dismiss all speculation about CD/time travel elements in E3.

Don't you people remember the marketing for Taxman's Sonic CD back in 2011? It was propped up as the "prologue to the Sonic 4 saga" where you could "witness the origins of Metal Sonic before his grand return in Episode 2". Hell, I'm willing to bet that Little Planet and Metal Sonic wouldn't have even appeared in E2 had Taxman's CD not already been in development.

It was just weird cross-promotion, nothing more.

 

Episode 1 had already teased Metal Sonic. Of course he was going to appear, lol

 

Yep.

Wasn't the CD remaster specifically greenlighted because of Sonic 4's decision to bring back Metal Sonic?