Adam Blue's Sonic 4 EP 1 Post 0
A 2D Sonic sequel to Sonic 3 & Knuckles. This is as exciting as a new Command & Conquer by Westwood. I don’t think they every really needed to go back to 2D; I’ve had a fun time with most of the 3D games, and the Rush series on the DS was good enough. But Sega has been listening and taking advice from the wrong complainers. Sega decided to go back to Sonic’s roots for the fans. Does that mean this was forced? I’ll give two reviews. One, in the eyes of a gamer. The other, in the eyes of a hardcore Sonic fan.
For gamers, Sonic 4 is just fun. I think there’s a good deal of content here for $15. $10 would have been a better price-point, but I’m not bitter about it. The game is definitely challenging and has good graphics and music to go along with it. It lacks in any real story or narrative, which may be a bit out of the ordinary for some gamers. But again, it’s just fun.
As a hardcore Sonic fan: What the fuck. I’ll start with the high points – music is good, graphics are good, and there’s definitely a challenge here. It’s still about memorization, which is what the previous 2D Sonic games were all about. The graphics are a next gen representation of the 16-bit titles. I would have honestly preferred 2D sprites. I mean, they composed the music to sound 16-bit…so why are the graphics not reflective of that? That right there makes no sense, showing a messy development plan and further proves the ‘forced’ comment, since music and graphics don’t match. Who are we pleasing here since this game was obviously made for that reason?
The worst thing about Sonic 4 is the physics. It is excruciatingly terrible. The previous Sonic games laid a foundation for momentum-based 2D Sonic gameplay…but here we have more of a static movement to Sonic. There’s less flow, relying on the terrible homing attack that – again -does nothing to represent the old-school Sonic, when the point of this game was to resurrect that. I really don’t know why they decided to implement that.
Fans wanted a sequel to Sonic 3 & Knuckles. A fan-fucking-tastic Sonic game. The music in that is miles better, and the level design is much more varied. While the music in Sonic 4 is good, it’s way too simple and basic. Composers used the limits of the Genesis sound chip to obtain amazing and unique music. It seems here that Jun Senoue just took the basic elements of the first Sonic game and repeated them. That doesn’t sound like Jun. I’m sure he was told to do it like that (which again doesn’t make sense with next-gen graphics!). The level design here also falls into this contradictory paradox. Most level design are based on previous games, specifically one and two. They are detailed with the next-gen shine, but are bare and redundant. I wanted new locations and new scenery. If recreating the older games is what they wanted, they should have just done that to a ‘T’. But the levels here are drab, and actually contain quite a bit of unnecessary filler. It’s too much of one thing.
They have a lot to improve on for the next Episode. Keep the sound of the music current and in Sonic fashion, get new and outrageous locations, and fix the physics. Out of the 16-bit titles, I would consider Sonic 4 the worst. I would rather play the GBA games which were also developed by DIMPS. They did listen and took the mine-cart level out, just leaving in a little bit of it. So, with all the changes they’ve been making, it really seems like they had no idea what they were trying to achieve.
Still, it’s fun. They just, in no way, achieved what they told us they would and what it looks like they were trying to. I might have even been a lot more lenient if they called it something other than Sonic 4.
