Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1

[crackdude]

And Sonic CD is better than Sonic 2 and nobody gives a shit.

Hey you left yourself open by not saying 'in my opinion'.

Fuck! You're right!

In my defense, I played it on emulator. There were no loadings and crashes.

I think it's the best, but I have to be on the mood to play it.
It has hugely improved graphics over Sonic 1, while maintaining the great art direction. It's like Sonic 1 on steroids.
It has Sonic 2 like gameplay with spindash and all, so it's the best of both worlds to me.

I thought the level design was complicated but not obtrusive. That is good. Everytime I play it I go through different paths, even if inadvertently (for some this may be a nuisance, but I like it).

I like the MegaDrive Sonics in this order: SCD>S2>S1>S3>S&K

to me Sonic 4 looks capable of being better than 3. That's good.

EDIT:
humm.. in my opinion.

[Barry the Nomad]

What I liked about Sonic CD was that it felt like it came from a bizarro world in which it was the alternate universe release of Sonic 2. Sort of a "what if" in terms of another direction the games could have gone post Sonic 1. I also really liked the design of Metal Sonic.

Not my opinion, FACT. Yes, I went there.

[CosmicCastaway]

I liked Sonic CD, but the faulty SEGA CD hardware causes the game to crash on me 25% of the time. :-/

...in my opinion.

I like the PC version of Sonic CD better.

[Sega Uranus]

I think Sonic the Hedgehog 4 will be better than Sonic CD, and while I like that - I agree with Sharky that it is the most overrated of the original series and the only reason it is a cult classic is that people newer had the platform to be able to play it, so it was some kind of mythological quality, Knuckles Chaotix sometimes gets a similar reaction for the same reasons.

I think MadeMang put it best with 'Splosion Man. To add insult to injury, that game was specifically designed around the newer style Sonic games. =/

It really is just so upsetting to me that Sonic Pocket Adventure uses almost all of the same kinds of concepts as Sonic the Hedgehog 4 outside of the homing attack and just nails it all so much better in so many ways, as far as I can see it has way better replay value too... Ugggh, I just hate Sonic Team so much for always ruining everything, even small children who know nothing about the franchise can understand some of this stuff better than them now.

[Shigs]

And Sonic CD is better than Sonic 2 and nobody gives a shit.

The hell it was... Sonic CD is the most overrated crap of all the classics. Level designs are cluttered and fugly. Who thought it was a good idea  to make it so momentum is interrupted by shitty loading screens every time I dare to go fast enough for the game to be enjoyable.

Game sucks dick... Only reason it got its cult status was because it was on the Sega CD and nobody bothered to get one.

Urm… In my opinion.

I agree 100%. The levels are too huge for it's own sake. Trying to go into the past is a huge pain in the ass, while accidentally going into the future is too easy so you never get the good ending no matter how hard you try. Even if you do find your way into the past, finding the machine to destroy can be tough as well. Everything in the game can kill your momentum too easily. It's actually one of my LEAST favorite Sonic 2-D games. From what I played of Sonic 4, I enjoyed it more than CD.

^ Hey look!! Sharky and Seguranus agree on something!! :lol:

[nuckles87]

Sonic 4 is a lot tighter then Sonic CD, and heck, a bit slower too. I liked Sonic CD, but not as much as the main series games.

[crackdude]

Rethinking myself, I would say I like SCD and S2 equally.. But I've played far more S2.

[CrazyT]

I am not allowed to dislike changes that I feel are stupid and pointless? I was not even really complaining, just pointing out something I feel is retarded. I like how pretty much everyone decided to be a dick and point out their thoughts, so I think I should be fair with this too.

If I were really to complain I would say Sonic Team is the absolute worst fucking 'big' game developer in the world by a few lightyears. Sonic the Hedgehog 4, while far far far from one of their worst releases in the past 8 or so years is the biggest disgrace SEGA has ever given us, making an extremely low budget buggy rehash sequel to their biggest game trilogy of all time WITH INNOVATIONS nearly everyone hates while they constantly ruin everything else they touch.

TL;DR Rage.

I think that this post from uranus is spot on.

I agree and it's exactly how I think about the game. I don't know why but I have faith... faith that there "will" be lots of things fixed in the final release. It's crazy but this will be "it". If they fuck this up, i'll be done with sonic.

I'd even buy the game for the price of 20$ if they fix everything for the sake of gratefulness. I'd be ****ing grateful if the endproduct really fixes a lot of stuff, and if rubyeclipe's suggestion on fanfeedback implementation isn't just the things that "obviously" need fixes.

THE HOMING ATTACK MUST TO BE REMOVEDD!!!!!!!!

[Sharky]

I think people want far to much things to be fixed that arent actually broken... just not what they personally want from a Sonic game.

So if you are like Sega Uranus... or Crazy Tails you should probably just give up on the game right now.

[MadeManG74]

I think for the most part the people in this thread have valid concerns. I don't know if I can say it's 'broken' but I am concerned that things like the Homing Attack are just 'not Sonic'.

I'm willing to wait until the game comes out before making a concrete judgement, but things don't look very good to me so far. And again, as I pointed out with my comparison to games like Splosion Man, the value for money/polish of the game just seems lacking.

[Aki-at]

I think another issue is one problem that has slowly overtaken Sonic since Sonic Adventure. See originally Sonic was not fast enough which is why they added the speedbooster (Which would seem odd when you gave him the spindash for a reason, but as a stage gimmick, it worked) however as the series went on, more and more speedboosters were placed in the game, then you add grinding (And yes I know it's not in Sonic 4) and plus a few moments were Sonic bounces off of springs and it really does feel like the game is playing itself for you.

Taking away this level of freedom to enjoy the momentuam based gameplay I believe is an issue. In one instence in Sonic 4, in the first stage, Sonic ran along, hit a bunch of springs then went top, hit a speedbooster and then used a pulley to get across a gap.

Now I think this is fine, but he seems to do it a bit too much in the first level, though if I remember correctly, Mad Gears and Lost Labyrinth does not have this issue so that's fine in those issues.

But I do think this "auto-play" problem has distracted people from enjoying Sonic games as much as they could, homing attack is just another ploy on that and I can see how it could annoy people.

Also:

http://soniccenter.org/maps/s3z91.png

You will be amazed, AMAZED

[Hanyou]

I don't have much of a problem with the homing attack, so long as it is not used as an excuse for lazy level design, whereby you zoom over miles of bottomless pits, jumping from enemy to enemy.  I think it can be implemented cleverly and can be a logical advancement from classic Sonic gameplay.

Also, I actually liked Sonic 1 and 2's aesthetic more than Sonic 3's...the original games just had a bit more style.  I would have liked to see a "combination" of sorts with classic pixel art, but I don't too much mind the style they've come up with.  The new Sonic is still a major problem for me, because I think the character design is godawful and not in the least bit fitting for what's supposed to be a classic Sonic title.  People always bring up how Mario's design has changed when talking about this, but really, Mario has changed with every iteration--from the NES to the SNES, and from the SNES to the N64.  Also, these changes were incremental enough, like color swaps, etc., that most people honestly didn't notice.  Sonic's new model looks radically different from his old one.

But it will all come down to the gameplay, and I am deeply concerned by some of what I've seen.  There are still levels that play themselves, as Aki mentioned, and classic Sonic level design has been replaced by Rush-inspired material.  Sega has delayed the game and claimed they listened to the complaints of fans, so this is actually encouraging.  But my expectations for Sonic 4 are high, and I feel I'm justified in that.  Sega must deliver or risk the death of their mascot.

And reviewers and gamers MUST remember that while speed has been Sonic's selling point, the best Sonic games were about good level design and platforming.  That's exactly why so many fans (myself included) believe Sonic 3 and Knuckles to be the best the series has to offer.

[Sega Uranus]

The people who defend the game are usually doing so blindly I feel. Of course a lot of us want the game to actually be good, it is a sequel to something we all love and feel are some of the best games of all time. We are not going to accept just any kind of release, we want something around similar quality. I do not want perfection, but I want a great product. It cannot be that hard, SEGA has done it often with small time releases of Sonic games and random fans do it all of the time.

I think almost every little detail about this game is poorly planned, everything from the level design to the badniks to even the story all just scream it was all done without much care at all. I do not see how anyone can find this acceptable, especially when these are such easy concepts to do right. Not all of it is bad, but it just really upsets me that Sonic Team is just doing this with a smug attitude while not really caring much for the outcome.

The fact that less love and effort was put into this than Sonic 06 and was done much faster and is universally liked to a much higher standard should be proof enough to everyone that SEGA should not let Sonic Team have large amounts of money ever again.

[Happy Cat]

Haters gonna hate. These people seem hyped

[youtube:3ppq799q]A86KjhpN9zo[/youtube:3ppq799q]

[fluffymoochicken]

You can't even see how many people were actually standing up and cheering in that video. It was nearly everyone who was there. Ruby was quite pleased as well.

(I, however, knew that the second mystery game was going to be Sonic 4 the moment that I saw Ruby on Saturday night. ^^)