Sonic 4: episode 2 Official thread

[crackdude]

freakishly excited about episode Metal.


Also, in that trailer, if that's Dust Hill then color me bloody excited, it would be brilliant of them!
(Dust Hill was a Sonic 2/Sonic CD level that was cut out of the final game. Notice how in the Sonic CD's world map there's a sand mountain thing, and no sand level).

[max_cady]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVgfPuK4FdM[/youtube]

Thought you guys wanted to know this, Ken Balough chats about Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II in this new interview.

One question: Who the heck is playing the Billy Hatcher theme in the background?

[Barry the Nomad]

Steam dun goof'd. They had the game up for pre-order, but it turned out the be the game itself. It's a beta, and not all the data is there, but the game is playable. Some folk are up to White Park act 3. A few things I've heard:

White Park features a remix of this classic tune:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPkEk2mvJgg[/youtube]

The Sylvania Castle boss has a hilarious introduction [spoiler]from what I read, the boss begins as though its an Aquatic Ruins boss rehash, but all of a sudden the giant Egg Serpentleaf boss appears and destroys the iconic pillars. Sounds like SEGA is making a joke about Episode 1's rehash bosses[/spoiler]

[ezodagrom]

Steam dun goof'd. They had the game up for pre-order, but it turned out the be the game itself. It's a beta, and not all the data is there, but the game is playable. Some folk are up to White Park act 3.

It's been fixed already, it's not possible to download it anymore.

[crackdude]

It's been fixed already, it's not possible to download it anymore.

YOU'RE TOO SLOW

[max_cady]

Waaitt... Whaaa...?

Did the game come out today or something?

[Aki-at]

Waaitt... Whaaa...?

Did the game come out today or something?

Steam released/leaked the game early, bunch of Sonic fans downloaded, began to notice nothing has changed but only made worse, Iizuka laughs and Nagoshi gives him the award for biggest internet troll to ever live.

[Barry the Nomad]

From what I spoiled myself with, it looks much improved. Physics look far better (compared to Generations 3DS, Ep 2 looks a lot better). Graphics are what I always thought they should have been from the get go. Music is probably the one area that will cause a lot of arguments. I liked it, but it's not what I'm sure many fans wished it would be after episode 1. I like how dark Jun went with a lot of the tracks. They actually remind me of Genesis tunes from grittier games. Far fewer cheery happy tunes and more driving "serious business" adventure tunes. I like it.

[ezodagrom]

As expected, the PC version of Episode 2 works like Episode 1. 1280x720 is the internal resolution, all others are just upscaled or downscaled.

It's also possible to force anti-aliasing through the graphics drivers for AMD graphics cards, but only at the 1280x720 resolution.

Default:



8x Super-Sample Anti-Aliasing, Edge-Detect Filter (24x Samples):



Also I switched the spindash charge sound effect with the spinning sound effect in both Episode 2 and Episode Metal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AVocorEcvs

Here are the modified files:
http://www.mediafire.com/?e9qwk528b2718w7

They have to be put in the SOUND folder.

[Barry the Nomad]

Cool job! The second screen looks so much better, and those spin dashes sound superb. I never was annoyed by the swap, just consfused. I always meant to ask Ken or Aaron whats up with it. You'd think an iOS update and a PSN/XBLA/PC update could fix all versions of Sonic 4 in terms of the spindash sound effect.

[ezodagrom]

Cool job! The second screen looks so much better, and those spin dashes sound superb. I never was annoyed by the swap, just consfused. I always meant to ask Ken or Aaron whats up with it. You'd think an iOS update and a PSN/XBLA/PC update could fix all versions of Sonic 4 in terms of the spindash sound effect.

About the 2nd screen, I forced anti-aliasing through the graphics card drivers, but apparently this only works for recent AMD/ATI graphics cards (I'm guessing it works with HD2000 series or newer), doesn't seem to work for Nvidia graphics cards.
Someone in the SEGA forums mentioned that there's a tool to force FXAA (which should work for Nvidia cards), but I have no idea what tool that is.

[ezodagrom]

Looks like it's possible to force anti-aliasing for Nvidia graphics cards in the PC version of Episode 2 afterall. I don't have an Nvidia graphics card myself, so I can't test this, but someone in the Guru3D forums mentioned that this works for Sonic 4 Episode 2.

First thing, the tool Nvidia Inspector is needed:
http://download.orbmu2k.de/download.php?id=51

When you open Nvidia inspector, next to the driver version tab, there's a little icon with the screwdriver and a wrench, click on it.
After that, follow the steps in the picture:



1: Select the game executable, it should be located in steam\steamapps\common\sonic the hedgehog 4 - ep 2, and then it's the file Sonic.exe.
2: Write 0x000012C1 in the Antialiasing compatibility option.
3: Set the Behaviour Flags to None.
4: Change the Antialiasing mode to Override.
5: Pick the Antialiasing setting you want (I don't have an nvidia graphics card, so no idea what options it has).
6: Click in Apply Changes.

[Radrappy]

so um, the game is pretty awful so far.  Physics are as bad as they've ever been.  it looks pretty nice though. 

[max_cady]

It's already out on both Steam and XBLA today. There have not been any major reviews out yet. This gives me a reason to be concerned...

[Barry the Nomad]

I'm ignoring the reviews on this one. Fuck them, day 1 buy for me. I read a few 5/10 reviews and then played the first half of the game, and I'm sorry. I really do not see whatever they saw. I'm really loving the game so far.

The combos are fun and feel like an evolution in the series. Gimmicks are far more original, and they make good use of the homing attack. Bubbles chains are still there, but don't feel as forced as before. Physics feel a lot better. Like how Generations 2D acts felt different but worked, same with these. Bosses are original and lengthy, to the point where some feel like whole new acts and not just a single screen containing the boss. Graphics are great. Music is... better than before, but not up to the levels that I'm sure many fans wanted. I do really like about 3/4 of the soundtrack.

If Episode 1 was a 7/10 for me, Episode 2 is feeling like a 8/10. It doesn't beat Sonic 1, 2 or 3&K (those are 10's in my eyes) but I do like it as much as I do Sonic CD, in the sense that I would pick up and play Sonic CD just as soon as I'd pick up and play Episode 2.