Most members here hating on '4' are mad trolls. That, or grown men who hate children's games. Or children who hate children's games and love big boy games with blood and sex. Whatever the case, I've just decided not to discuss the game here.
For the record, I love blood and sex but not only IRL. :twisted:
That is part of the argument. Sonic 1, 2, 3 and many of the other games in the main series were meant for all age groups, not children specifically. This is how Mario games are still designed, so why not Sonic?
I hate to say it, but Sega Stylista is right here, though DIMPS did not do the art. The art in Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is pooey and does not have much thought gone into it.
Compare Mushroom Hill Zone (Sonic & Knuckles) with Splash Hill Zone (Sonic the Hedgehog 4), not only does Mushroom Hill Zone look significantly better, but it has different styles and art added in between the level as you progress, with cool graphical extras like when you hit the ground you could kick up dandelions. It has extremely creative gimmicks like the pumps, poles you could spin around on, mushrooms to bounce on, to balance on, to glide with, stuff like that. Can you think of any other games that have ideas like this? Compare that to what? Metal speed boosters that clash with the level art that are poorly drawn? Swinging vines that happen to be the only vines in the level at all? Not just that, but it is the little things, like none of the levels having badniks specific to their level, I mean those floating spike enemies are in ever level, this kind of stuff would never have happened with a good set of designers.