Sonic The Hedgehog 4

[Ramza]

Sonic cycle applies to 3d games only. Fact.

[MeshGearFox]

Tons of bad 2D sonics. Even if you disregard the fact that I sort of hate sonic I don't think anyone's going to have any fond memories of the GG or SMS titles.

[CDFN]

"Today we have some good news to bring you guys in regard to Sonic's running animation in Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode I! Specifically, we wanted to cover a topic that many of you have asked about after seeing the trailer. Q: Is the running animation in the trailer what Sonic's fastest running animation will look like in Sonic the Hedgehog 4? It looks kind of slow, don't you think?

A: Actually, it is not his fastest speed! There is a faster animation for Sonic's running that was not shown in the trailer, and is more akin to what you might be familiar seeing from Sonic 3 & Knuckles or Sonic CD. So there you have it! We'll get to show you guys firsthand what that running animation looks like in the future - but until then, rest assured that there's a lot more to the game than what you saw in the trailer: running animations included."


How about showing more than 2 seconds of footage next time?

[Parn]

i dont like sonics green eyes he is supposed to have black eyes just like the original series

also the grass looks like plastic this is unacceptable sega

yours truly,

a sonic fan

[Aeolus]

^ Some fan. That Sonic doesn't have green or black eyes. Fail.

[Kaspian]

I'm just glad the series is returning to its roots.  I've had enough of Sonic in his most recent outings.

[Prime Mover]

Yea... but I find myself not caring. I loved sonic, but that was long ago. Now, I really could care less. Sonic's GBA adventures were pretty similar to the original Genesis ones anyway, but noone rushed out to play them, either. Why should Sonic 4 be any better? Also, I notice they're still intent on using the newer, more spindly Sonic model, which looks really weird anyway. No... it's not that... I just really don't care anymore.

[Bernhardt]

Shadow the Hedgehog was unplayable. I'll agree to that.

But I'm willing to consider all these latest Sonic games as spin-offs, rather than legitimate entries in the main series, even Sonic the Hedgehog 360/PS3. They didn't call it Sonic 4, so...yeah. Whatever.

Episodic content is just bullshit. Why not just make us download a full game for $50, if you're aiming at us giving you a full $50 damn bucks?!

For what it's worth, I actually enjoyed Sonic Unleashed. The controls were kind of broken for the speed stages...but you could consider that a challenge, too; people always complain about how games are too easy these days; most games were challenging back in the day just because controls were difficult and unresponsive at times. I also enjoyed the atmosphere, graphics, and music, of the night time stages. And making it a world-traveling adventure, even if you're only playing on existing ethnic stereotypes, was a little interesting. And actually having to talk to characters to figure out what to do next gave it a little RPG flair.

Sonic Vs. The Black Knight, again, the controls were kind of broken, but again, I also liked the atmosphere of the game. It's generic medieval as hell, you could've easily slated any main character in instead of Sonic, but I still enjoyed it. And I rather appreciated the traditional, cel-shaded animation in the cut scenes, as opposed to the fiber glass marionettes that everyone likes to use in their FMVs...

It should've stood to reason, that when Sonic wasn't quite catching on anymore, that SEGA would start doing some crazy shit just to get attention again. I guess things started hitting the skids when everyone expected things to be in 3D, and when they finally got what they wanted, they were like, "This's SHIT!"

At any rate, I'm holding my breath for Sonic 4. When I think back to it, the old Genesis Sonic games were rather lather-rinse-and-repeat, kind of like the Mega Man series, with a few additions and little innovations for each successive title.

[Dios GX]

I'm just glad the series is returning to its roots.  I've had enough of Sonic in his most recent outings.

Someone seriously thought this was a good idea. I think they need to fire their entire marketing dept and start anew.

[jello44]

I'm just glad the series is returning to its roots.  I've had enough of Sonic in his most recent outings.

Someone seriously thought this was a good idea. I think they need to fire their entire marketing dept and start anew.

Fucking terrible.

In other news, Alpha footage was leaked.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3177976

[Parn]

That person fucking sucks at 2D Sonic.

[CDFN]

Man, it really looks like the green hill zone lol. Looks like there will be 4 zones divided into 4 acts and a special stage. Physics seemed different from the 16 bit games but I'll have to play to see how it feels.

[CDFN]

Found this on gaf:

Early in the morning today, I, and a other few (un)lucky people, had the opportunity to playtest the X-BOX 360 version of the game. In fact, any of you could do it as well, provided you own a Developer’s Console, or a J-TAGed system.

I’ll try to give a very briefely analysis of what were my thoughts about this game.

Graphically (and artistically, I must say), the game is very beautiful, even thought I can’t really eat that celshading effect they put in Sonic’s model, to make it look like a differed shaded Genesis sprite.Something important to notice is that, the 3D models are not really 3D models, instead, they are sprites of pre-rendered 3D models. SO we are pretty much dealing with a 2D game here. That goes for everything else but Sonic, since I’m not sure as if Sonic is really a sprite itself, but I pretty much think it is. THat might explain the akward animations.

The level design. I played through Splash Hill Zone entirely up until Casino Street Zone. Splash Hill ZOne is pretty much Neo Leaf Forest Zone (for those who don’t know, Sonic Advance 2’s first stage). Everything about it looked like Leaf Forest. Hell, even the level art itself reminds Leaf Forest some way or another. The level design pretty much encourages the player to keep going to the right, except when the levels abruptuly decides to force you to go in the opposite direction by inserting unexpected walls, making you jump, jump to the left, jump to the right, keep running to the right. It is especially strange, considering the level layouts encourages you to keep running right. The acts are actually considerably huge in size, but quite short in time, much like Sonic Advance 2 stages. I don’t remember any level especific gimmick on the first stage, which is pretty unfortunate. You gotta love Casino Street Zone, since it’s freaking Casino Night Zone. It’s exactly identical. The colors, the tiles, everything. The level layout however is much like Music Plant Zone from Sonic Advance 2. A level that right encourages speed. Ha, about the Special Stages, they are quite fun actually, it is Sonic 1’s Distorted Dimension, but with a new twist: instead of controling Sonic, you control the stage itself. So yeah, my oversight was right after all. In terms of difficult, I found it harder than Sonic 1’s Special Stages (and provided, they were rathereasy). I belive they are going to be even fun/harder with the motion controls of the Wiimote/Six-axis/DualShock3, since you have to rotate the stage using the trigger buttons in the X-BOX 360 version (RT rotates to the right, LT to the left, etc). Looks like a pinball of sort. Oh, don’t let me get started on the bossfight. You might already imagine how it is by now.

The gameplay is pretty solid, actually. Which is a great thing. However, the game pretty much have the physics of Sonic Rush. I hate I hate I hate I hate I hate, I can’t stress enough how I hate the jump! Fucking jump! It’s the worst jump I’ve ever seem in a Sonic game to date. Apparently they tried to mimic the ‘the longer you hold down the jump button, the longer you accent’ mechanic of the classic games, but as a result, they fucked the freaking cake with it. The jump is all over the place: if you rapidly tap the jump button, Sonic almost don’t jump; if you hold a little and release, Sonic starts accending, but hebreaks to the floor as soon as you release the jump button. If you hold the jump button all the way down, Sonic jumps like if he had touched a spring, he jumps so high and almost no gravity, it’s like you are jumping on the freaking moon. And I thought the jump ing the Rush series was bad. This one is even worse. The jump is so bad that I preffer to keep running right to win really. Don’t let me get started on the spin dash. THe spin dash don’t have enough power, no matter what. It behaves much like Knuckles’ Chaotix spin dash. Running rewards you with much more speed than spindashing.

My final remark of this game? It’s freaking Sonic Advance 2! It’s written Sonic Advance 2 all over the place. It is Sonic Advance 2 all over again. In fact, they could have named this game Sonic High Speed, and I wouldn’t mind it at all. But it is supposed to be Sonic fucking 4. To be honest, the name Sonic High Speed would fit this game better.

I am afraid to say that we are actually dealing with the very final product here, folks. Since the developers already sent the software for the Microsoft Evaluation Proccess. Additionally, the game’s software was sent to ESBR game content analizys team. Considering the game is already been analized and rated by ESBR, the development team cannot overgo any significative change in the game, visually or otherwise, which therefore pretty much means that this is what the game looks like.

I’m in a hurry here, and I’m sorry to not give a better insight on the game, but I’ll make sure to edit this post or whatever, whenever I have the time.






So, all they had to do was put in the exact same gameplay of the 16 bit games but they actually managed to fuck that up.

[Parn]

haha

was never giving sega the benefit of the doubt anyway since i was going to wait for review scores

[Hathen]

Per your promise, I shall now laugh at you, CDFN.

Ha....ha....ha.