Well, I played this thing. Finally. Late to the party, as ever. Gotta say, the best bits were the bottomless pits I had to be airlifted over with Tails; and the rising sand bits. Fuck, all of Oil Desert apart from that boss with the twitchy toes. Especially the soundtrack, haters gonna hate on me for loving Act 2's music but it really is some of the most charming and funny Sonic music since The Good, The Bad, And The Aquatic Ruin Zone. Last boss is nothing short of amazing. Fuck, that whole screen-rotating thing in Death Egg mkII had me yelling at the screen; "I WANTED A SONIC GAME TO DO THIS SINCE FOREVER!" Physics are still a bag of shit, but this time the game itself is better to compensate.
I still can't get past the bitch that is known as Sky Fortress Act 1! I hate those cargo charging sections. I cannot list how many times I haved "barrel rolled" through the crates and STILL fucking die. This is the only time I have ever hated the 2D ness of a Sonic game...which surprises even me. I feel that all wall crushing segments in Sonic 4 fail to move at a constant rate and moves at rotating random speeds. Another issue I ran into was after the third barrel roll section, the turtles come back and the screen pushes me off a turtle back before there is anything to jump onto! I went against my morals and went ahead and cleared act 2, along with the red ring. Act 3 is a different story, but I only tried it once.
Sky Fortress 1 should die in all the fires. All of them. Damn thing dicked me around time after time with occasionally non-functional homing attack, stupid and cramped enemy placement, and too many non-interactive cutscene elements. Fuck it in the ass with chili for lube.
I didn't think Sky Fortress Act 1 was hard at all. I died twice on it initially, but afterwards it's pretty simple. Having Tails as a partner basically kills any chance the pits have of getting you at all!
We had a Sonic Talk podcast with Ken Balough over at SEGAbits: http://segabits.com/blog/2012/06/07/sonic-talk-9-sonic-4-episode-ii-after-party/ Little after party discussion. I'm sure there is plenty you guys will rage about, like when physics are touched on. I'm glad we got to ask him about Big the Cat porn, though it turns out Big is now retired, thanks to Iizuka. So instead of fishing for a living, Big will be spending his retirement fishing for fun. Ken *sort of* answered my questions regarding the names of bosses, and revealed the island that Sonic 4 takes place on. He wasn't 100%, and he'd have to double check the Sonic 4 bible, but it may be Westside Island. Those with Sonic CD -> Sonic 2 theories should enjoy that, as it explains how Sonic could have gone through Sonic CD and met Tails afterwards, leading into Sonic 2. Also explains why Casino Street, Sylvania Castle and Mad Gear are all so much like Sonic 2 locations, and why they exist right near Never Lake. Anyway, give the interview a listen.
Yeah, sounds like something WAS meant to be there but at some point they decided to pull it. Sounds like they wanted to release the game without a "To Be Continued..." so they wouldn't have a Shenmue 3 on their hands. Not to say that Ep III is on the same level as Shenmue 3, but its seemed like they rather wanted to leave a third episode up in the air rather than a definitive "To Be Continued..." answer. If they did that, they'd be tied into doing a third. And if they didn't make it, they'd get bugged by fans from now until the end of time. However, it seems Ken hopes to tell us what the deal is behind it eventually. My guess, if an Episode III happens they'll add back in the "To Be Continued..." or Ken will tell us what was intended to be there. If an ep III doesn't happen, then we won't hear a thing about it until a former employee leaks it or something.
What was supposed to be the cutscene for the TBC ending? we have the sfx, we just can't pinpoint what its supposed to be exactly. Also about the Big thing, its really still unconfirmed since we haven't heard anything from Iizuka himself yet.
I really wish I could just throw up a reaction image to respond to this because after all we've done to try and clear everything up so people would stop complaining about whatever imaginary canon the series has, this goes and happens. Fuck it, writing it all off as beer mentality.
Sega wouldn't be tied down to anything at all. If anything, a "To be continued..." would be a cheap way to drum up interest for Episode III, just in case they did decide to continue the series. If they don't, oh well. Seriously. Is there anyone that doesn't buy Sega products because Shenmue III hasn't seen the light of day?
If the actual soundtrack sounded more like this... Ah, well. As for the "To Be Continued" thing, I think they should've left it in. Even if they do decide not to continue Sonic the Hedgehog 4, the Death Egg mk.II plot could just carry over into another game, couldn't it? Perhaps it floats off with Little Planet and reappears years later for the awesome post-Generations main console title, or something.
That guy is not a very good musician...he got lucky with White Park. Notice how his descriptions explain that he only took MIDIS and inserted instruments. ANYWAY...I hope that there is an episode III, but then again I don't. The quality of the level design leaves much to be desired, and I still don't think that the music has improved. I actually prefer the Sonic 4 Episode I music because despite its brevity, I think that its tunes are catchier.
That Bassline sounds like ASS. So now since Dimps had little to no creativity for most of the Sonic 4 levels, their "secret explanation" is that Sonic 4 actually takes place on Westside Island....again? I guess if Angel Island came back, so can this...absolute bullshit. I guess Sonic 5 is going to be on South Island guize! How long is it going to take for people to realize they created the ultimate "Fuck You!" with the ending of this game? I guess we'll find out what happened with the Death Egg Mk.II in 10 years if we're lucky. The usual "we're going to remove the most important pinnacle of this game at the last minute before release!" of the Genesis/MD games is ALIVE AND WELL. Why the fuck do I keep buying these games....I bought Episode 1 TWICE for god's sake!
According to the Steam registry, there's a patch being tested for the PC version of Episode 2, and the beta entry has been updated a few times, it's now version ID 15 (the release version, which is what we can play, is version ID 11). It has gone through quite a few test versions, that makes me wonder what the patch will do whenever it is released.
In all reality, attempts to make a cross-game canon are impossible at this point. Them saying it happened on any old island is sort of meaningless. It could take place on Earth for all we care, only for the next game to wildly change everything yet again.
Yes, indeed. It's really trying to attach two gears with glue. A specific canon like this is not really needed. Sonic CD is fine orbiting the classic series - people don't really need to think about it. It's stable like this.
To be fair, does any long-standing franchise have a coherent timeline? Zelda and Castlevania are two really wacky franchises when it comes to figuring out what happened when, so yeah it's not that big a deal. I mean hell, Sonic's wacky timeline feels logical compared to Castlevania's. Now that is something.
Mega Man. His timline was divided into eras such as Classic, MMX, Zero, ZX, and Legends in that order. plus entries 9 and 10 in classic support the X series.
In what way? Castlevania has a clear timeline with only one game having been retconned while Lords of Shadow takes place in an alternate timeline.
