The Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Megathread

What's he saying is that Sonic Pocket Adventure is a tribute on purpose. That is its identity. It carries no false pretences and doesn't dare to suggest that it is an upgrade in any way. Sonic Pocket Adventure is basically 2 kids performing a tune by their favourite band.

Sonic 4, by definition, suggests it is an upgrade. That is the identity it builds from moment zero. Half the argument is that it can't get away with being a tribute because they called it Sonic 4. The other half of the argument is that Sonic 4 is not bowing its head and paying its respects as a tribute should because it's blowing off the classic feel. It's like picking up a new album of that favourite band and discovering they're all remixes. Remixes are nice but they said this was a new album.

 

One more thing.

Not tropes, levels. Compare Scrap Brain, Metropolis and Mecha Madness; all three zones share the slow-paced killer factory motif, but they're all decidedly different from one another in terms of gimmicks and art direction. On the other hand, Mad Gear is irrefutably Metropolis. It doesn't matter if they don't look exactly the same, or if Mad Gear added two or three new gimmicks. It's still the same fucking stage. Show them both to your grandmother in tandem and she'll think the only difference is that one looks shinier.

 

Delicious

And yet the game is still fun as ever. :v:

The Special Stage music seemed original though. The bosses are also very original, and actually more or less set inspiration for the Advance games.

 

Seconding this. One glance at Sonic 4's level select says all you need. Four clearly identifiable old zones - don't say you can't name them.
Abysmal, tragic lack of inspiration.

 

So the argument comes down to "it shouldn't have been called Sonic 4," then. :/ (Or if one wants to be snarky about it, "Thou shalt not take my name in vain.")

...Well, I suppose I see where the reasoning is (and I'm quite impressed by the bosses in Pocket Adventure thus far, but no surprise, I've always liked the bossed in the DIMPs Sonic games I've played with exception to the Klonoa-styled bosses in Rush). I guess exposure to bad/unrelated numbered sequels has de-sensitized me to that aspect, maybe.

I suppose the posts where I've actually agreed that something is wrong with the game are exempt from the above proclamation. :v:

But in all seriousness, that's a really pompous claim to make.

Then we stand at odds, my friend. Although I love the art styles of Sonic 1 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles (CD and 2 to a marginally lesser extent), the art styles used in the modern games generally never bothered me, either. The only times they did, were when they became blatantly dis-unified (see: Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic '06). Some games struck me as graphically bland (SA1's stuck-between-generations look failed to wow me, as I came to the Adventure games years after the fact and it just looked aged by that point) and there were aspects that irked me (Big Head Mode in Heroes), but otherwise the art styles really didn't... well, register in any negative way at all.

As it stands, though, the only problems I've seen in Sonic 4's art direction have been niggling issues: modern Sonic looks a bit weird when viewed exclusively from the side, the grass in Splash Hill is shiny and plastic, and that's about it. I had a bit of a problem with the running animation's whirlyblur but that was put to rest when I saw that the in-game whirl wasn't as weirdly oversized as the .gif ripped from the official site.

*shrug* And, really, I've already said I had a preference for the modern Sonic design to begin with, so there's no real reason for me to beat that dead horse further.

My statement regarding how important the classic art design was as far as priorities go in terms of how high Sonic 4 ranks on the quality list was unrelated to the rehash issue entirely. It was related to how similar to the classic games the art style looked vs. how similar the game played compared to the classics, and was followed by the disclaimer that we probably wouldn't waste time worrying about that aspect if the rest of the game were the kind of game we wanted.

Am I wrong in saying that if we got an honest-to-god classic Sonic gameplay experience with modern designs and aesthetics, that people would be less concerned with the aesthetic and more concerned with enjoying the game? Obviously this is not the case with Sonic 4; my statement was a "what-if" scenario.

 

I enjoyed the game a ton as a kid, since it was my first 2D Sonic. Nowadays it just sits in my closet, since if I wanted to play Sonic 2, I would play Sonic 2. The game doesn't do anything better, which is why I really don't hold it it in high regard at all.

 

Fine, then, perhaps I used the wrong word. Level "aesthetics." Although now that I've said it, that sounds like it's going too far in the other direction, as the majority of the game's stages show different artistic takes on those old designs. (Tell me you weren't impressed by that version of the Labyrinth Zone aesthetic and do it with a straight face... I'll be impressed if you can.)

EDIT: I will say that Casino Street didn't look nearly as artistically distant from its original as did the other three zones, although Splash Hill is overall more sleek-looking than its source, Labyrinth pushes the envelope on "epic," and Mad Gear really seems to add the dark edge to the Metropolis theme that I actually felt was missing from the original Metropolis.

EDIT 2: I'm watching Aquatic Relix Zone, and that's the first time I've ever seen a vertical rendition of the stuck-between-two-red-bouncers trap...

 

Dude, just admit the zones as obvious rehashes. This is getting old fast.

 

If it's getting old, then we should stop talking about it. A side does not have to surrender victory to the other for a forum debate to end, you know.

 

Seems nobody ever tries to go for the unlockables.

 

How can it be, when the art design is at the very core of the rehash debacle? Whatever else there is to argue about here is pretty inconsequential in comparison. I haven't really been paying attention to the discussion going down in this thread (and for good reason), but I highly doubt anyone is calling this a rehash because Casino Street has flippers/bumpers and Lost Labyrinth has water in it.

 

Eh... well, being the kleptomaniac that I am, I probably would, but that's not really a massive plus if the core gameplay doesn't wow you to begin with.

It was unrelated because it was about what aspects of the game were like the classics, and which aspects it was most important to take from the classics in order to most aptly satisfy fans of the retro games.

NOW, I'm going to turn that argument back on myself just to show you exactly what line of reasoning you should be fighting with here. I say that, then you say that the game looks like it's taking the least important aspect and leaving out the most important aspects and suddenly you've used my own words to make Sonic 4 look pretty shoddy at a glance. Of course my argument was more in response to questions of modern design versus classic design, but the logical whiplash still applies.

 

Am I the only one who doesn't have a problem with this game being a rehash/remix/retake/tribute/whatever the fuck you want to call it, of the old games? There hasn't been a legitimate Genesis style 2D Sonic game in over 10 years, I'm happy we're getting something of this nature instead of the generic Adventure rip-off, featuring 15+ characters, demons from hell, and spicy kiss-scenes between a hedgehog and a human princess.

It's a rehash, but it's a rehash of something good with a new coat of paint and some new gimmicks and features, what's there to complain about?

 

Nothing. There is absolutely nothing in what we've seen so far that should make us complain at all.

 

Well, obviously you're not, since I've spent the last page or so defending that. :v:

Playing Devil's Advocate, however:

Just because it's a rehash of something good, is it forgivable? Was the Werehog forgivable (rather than simply tolerable) for being a rip-off something good?

 

Oh, that's right! I totally forgot about all about those puzzle pieces (which I collected) that not only fail to change the fact that the game manages to be both massively derivative in terms of level concepts, design, and music, but also lacking in the content and features of the source material (such as zone count and Super Sonic).

Also, the puzzle pieces might as well be life monitors, seeing as how they produce piddling rewards that are normally achieved in other installments by either punching in a code or getting the emeralds and beating the game.

 

Actually, there's plenty, but the important things worth complaining about center around the gameplay. Such as the overuse and obnoxious placement of boostpads, or the oxymoronic nature of the Homing Attack in a 2D platformer, or how said Homing Attack seems to dominate the majority of the game's design (as opposed to the game being designed to balance the Homing Attack out with the other gameplay mechanics for more evenly-distributed use and tactical variety).

 

Not really. I personally didn't LOVE the Werehog, but I didn't mind the levels and they were kinda fun in their own way, but there's a difference in ripping off God of War and the classic Sonics. There hasn't been a video game in over 10 years that replicated the gameplay of Sonic 1, 2, or 3 (Arguably Advance/Pocket Adventure, I guess, if you count handhelds), I say that it's exceptable that this game reuses enemies and ideas from the classic games because we haven't seen them in quite some time. If, say, SEGA decided to release Sonic Unleashed 2, however, which reused the exact same enemies and bosses, and some zone tropes too, there would be a problem. In my opinion though, there is no issue because we haven't seen anything quite like this in over 10 years.

 

I do agree, and aside from being the sort of flow-breaker than a complete set of eight Marble Zones would have been in a 16-Zone Sonic game, the Werehog's gameplay only ever ticked me off in Eggmanland, mostly due to the fucking camera. That said, it was still just useless game-length padding that ultimately contributed nothing to the experience and nothing of substance to the story except some minor interaction between Sonic and Amy that both reaffirms Amy's impaired vision and actually developed the Sonic-Amy relationship just a little tiny bit. It didn't rank on-level with medal requirements on the annoyance scale, but when you're spending more than half of the game playing a decidedly average brawler when what you care about are the much shorter speed-platforming stages in-between the brawler stages, then in the immortal words of E-102 Gamma, "This presents a problem."

...And if that discussion seems like it's worth continuing, just take that quote to the Sonic Unleashed thread.

There's a difference between ripping off others and ripping off oneself, but when the end result strikes the player as not-original-enough, then it's not really all that far off when you boil it down to essential cause and effect.

I do count the time-gap as being one point in favor of Sonic 4's rehash/remix/whatever-you-want-to-call-it theme, though. And yes, handhelds do count. I have to admit that because the DS remake of Final Fantasy IV kicks ass and if I disavowed handhelds I'd have to disavow my favorite version of Final Fantasy IV.


EDIT: Nearing the end of the Pocket Adventure LP I'm watching, and in my humblest opinion, Mad Gear Zone's aesthetic >>>>>>>> Gigantic Angel Zone's aesthetic. I probably wouldn't say that if they'd designed the Metropolis Zone elements to mesh with the Scrap Brain Zone skin in Pocket Adventure, but meh. What's with all the random orange? It looks like a ROM-hack where someone just decided they'd mix Scrap Brain Zone's skin with Metropolis Zone's design and got lazy somewhere in the middle of the design process. Jeezus. Haven't seen a level aesthetic I disliked in a 2D Sonic game this much since Hill Top Zone. I know this is peripheral to the discussion, but seriously, I'd take Mad Gear's look over this, any day of the week, even if you scaled it down to Master System graphics.