Which parts of Sonic 4 felt like a true sequel?

[Barry the Nomad]

I knew this thread would devolve into snippy remarks and one sentence jokes. What ever happened to having a good discussion on the internet?

Anyway, good idea for a thread as I've thought about this from time to time. Like, I look back to playing the classics, and I recall when Sonic 2 released, it really started to feel like a sequel when new elements appeared. Emerald Hill looked very much like Green Hill 2.0, but seeing this odd orange fox following me and being able to spin dash was when it started to feel like a sequel. From there, obviously, every Zone felt like I wasn't playing an extension of Sonic 1, but rather a real sequel building on and improving on the original.

Sonic 4 Episode 1 was totally a step back (or sideways), but given the history of the game's development, it was not initially meant to be Sonic 4. So I totally get why it feels like Sonic 1&2 HD remix without Tails and with the homing attack in place.

The only elements of Episode 1 that felt like a sequel were, as you mentioned, the torch gimmick, the mine cart gimmick (not the original version, the later version where they were automated), Casino Street's road of cards gimmick, the card matching gimmick from the same stage and the homing attack. Yeah, yeah. I know, blasphemy. But aside from bubbles chains over pits, I actually really enjoyed the homing attack and thought that it worked. It wasn't necessary, but I enjoy chaining attacks and pulling off little aerial tricks. Interestingly enough, the torch, mine cart, road of cards and card matching gimmicks were all added late in development, after the Sonic 4 title was revealed. I actually think the devs stepped up their game a tad with these stages and I speculate that part of the reason was that they knew by this point they were making a sequel to the classics and should offer up new elements. Who knows.

As for Episode 2, I'd say a lot felt like a sequel. Metal returning, the Sonic CD callbacks, nearly all the zones and bosses. I actually really enjoyed Ep 2. It doesn't dethrone Sonic 1-3, but it does feel like a sequel to me. It's just a shame that we didn't get something like Episode 2 as Episode 1.

[Nix]

There isn't a single goddamn thing that felt like a sequel.

There was no sense of forward progression or improvement like a sequel should have, instead, the games reek of blatant pandering to the crowd who believe the 2D games to be "Holier than thou", and coattail riding of the past 2D games, where they tried to copy every damn thing from said games except for what made them fun in the first goddamn place.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Pinkamina

[HexiDecimel]

I honestly don't really know. It tried to imitate the Megadrive music, but personally, just ended up failing at it. Most of the tunes themselves were pretty good, but honestly, I think they could have been composed using much better instruments - i.e. ones that weren't poor quality synthetic ones.

The level themes felt pretty classic, though I think that might just be because I can relate all of the Sonic 4 levels to something from the classics:

Splash Hill / Green Hill / Emerald Hill, Lost Labyrinth / Labyrinth, Casino Street / Casino Night, Mad Gear / Metropolis, E.G.G. Station / Sonic 2 Death Egg, Sylvania Castle / Aquatic Ruin with elements of Marble Garden, White Park / Carnival Night with elements more of... Snowy Mountain, oddly enough, Oil Desert / Oil Ocean with elements of Sandopolis, Sky Fortress (Interesting note: A beta name for Wing Fortress in itself) / Wing Fortress / Sky Chase, and I'm not even gonna say what Death Egg MK. II looks and plays like.

The bosses for the first episode were all rehashes, and those for the second felt like they were from Sonic Rush or Sonic CD (Particularly in the fact that a lot of them required certain conditions to be able to actually damage the boss), aside from the Metal Sonic ones which I felt were... pretty cool. The final boss was also strange, also felt like it could have been out of CD with it's unusual nature.

Level design was reminiscent of the classics, but didn't feel truly classic because of the abundance of speed boosters and sections which are continual running for a couple of seconds doing impressive things such as running on water or around several loops feel a lot more frequent than in the classics to me.

And the graphics for episode 1 were just poor. I'm sorry, but the textures looked so... fake. Everything look like it had a piece of printed paper stuck on it or was made out of plastic. It just didn't look at all convincing to me.

[Barry the Nomad]

For me, I like when I can think of the game and a unique screenshot can jump into my brain representing the game. Like, Sonic 1 is Green Hill Zone for me. Sonic 2 is Chemical Plant, for sure. Sonic 3 is Ice Cap, Sonic & Knuckles is Mushroom Hill.

Problem with Episode 1 is my mind can't really latch onto a scene that felt new and unique. Best I can do is this:

and even then it is mostly black. :-/ But its that gimmick and that stage that stood out. Granted, I love that stage, but thats what visually stuck with me and that's no good (to quote Sonic Says).

As for Episode 2, thankfully, I have a lot of screens in my mind when I think of that game. But here are two:

Though Sylvania Castle was a lot like Aquatic Ruins, I think it really transformed at night and had a very cool castle atmosphere. I loved the touches of the platforms moving about in the background. Very much reminded me of how Sonic 1 would have all these odd, but cool, little background elements. I also liked the gimmicks and music in this act. White Park Act 2, admittedly, isn't my favorite stage but I do think the visuals are very nice. I like the gold glow and all the stuff going on in the background. Very unique act, in my opinion.

[Chaos Rush]

The only, and I mean ONLY thing in Sonic 4 that made sense in terms of being an actual sequel is the map screen. That's literally the only thing I liked about the game, imagine if Sonic 1 had a map screen of South Island, or if Sonic 2 had a map screen of West Side Island, or if Sonic 3 & Knuckles had a map screen of Angel Island. Now that would have been pretty cool.

[Indigo Rush]

Lost Labyrinth Zone easily stands out as the most original level in the first episode. It had a surprisingly (well, surprising in comparison to the rest of the game) original look and feel to it. It was less like Labyrinth Zone and closer to Lost World. Besides that, though, everything else is a shameless copy. To be fair, that was the intention... even Emerald Hill and Palmtree Panic are obvious Green Hill knock-offs, but Casino Street and Mad Gear could have at least showed up with a different color scheme.

As for Episode 2, it shouldn't need to be said - the originality is much more prevalent, despite Sylvania Castle Zone taking more than a few cues from Aquatic Ruin and Marble Garden, though the castles and night-time atmosphere really help it stand out. White Park Zone is the perfect representation of what the game should have displayed in terms of level ideas. Oil Desert, though a bit too gritty and brown, is at least an interesting spin on the whole desert trope. Sky Fortress... I can't really defend it. Another color scheme would have made it much more easier to overlook the similarities, though the first act was a nice homage to Sky Chase either way. Death Egg mkII was good, but it could have been so much more than just an extended gravity ride.

[Barry the Nomad]

Sky Fortress is one of my favorite zones (from act 1 through to the boss), but yeah, it's hard to defend it visually. It looks lovely, but it is as much Wing Fortress as Mad Gear is Metropolis Zone. I do think, however, that act 1 is a lot of fun, and Metal's ship the Metal Carrier (as revealed by Ken B in a SEGAbits podcast) freshens things up. I also really liked act 2's gimmicks, though the rest very much was Wing Fortress HD. Though, the in-universe geek in me likes to think that Wing Fortress was one ship of a fleet, and Sky Fortress was a similar ship in that fleet. Act 3's originality was helped by the sky and the lovely beams of light.

[Winston]

The name made it a sequel. That is all I can truly say on the matter. It's not that I don't like Sonic 4, I find it fun and I like it a bit, but I'm not going to call it a sequel to the original Sonic the Hedgehog series, because it's nothing like it besides the name.

[Endy]

Nope! Instead of expanding on ideas, episode 1 just rehashed everything and made it worse.

Edited September 5, 2012 by Enderwoman

[Jango]

Not sure. While Ep1 was rehashed, Ep2 does looks like a modest sequel. Yet, both together aren't better or add something relatively new compared to the original trilogy. It's shorter, have worse level design, physics and music. Sure some ideas are clever, but it feels like... it's just THERE and it's called SONIC 4.

Honestly, I don't like Sonic 4, IMHO the game isn't fun. I can enjoy some musics, the visuals and even the plot, but the physics aren't as fun as the super fast and bouncing original ones, also the game's too short. I don't like the level design either, it's just not appealing, you don't feel like exploring things, it's all simple and automatic.

Edited September 5, 2012 by Jango

[Blue Blood]

I'll admit that E2 feels like a sequel and improvement to E1. You really can't argue against that. But neither of them feel connected to the classics. It's like how NSMB is a Mario game, but is by no means Super Mario Bros 4 or 5.

[TheOcelot]

I'll admit that E2 feels like a sequel and improvement to E1. You really can't argue against that. But neither of them feel connected to the classics. It's like how NSMB is a Mario game, but is by no means Super Mario Bros 4 or 5.

Ep2 at least has cutscenes and the backstory to Sonic CD. You see how Metal Sonic is brought back to life in the bad future (should have been good future) of Stardust Speedway. There are no cutscenes to connect Ep1 to Ep2 regarding Sonic and Tails arrival apart from that comic. If anything the cutscenes show a tiny connection between CD and Ep2 but nothing from Ep1. It's as if Ep1 had no relevance and never existed.

Edited September 5, 2012 by MilesKnightwing

[Blue Blood]

Ep2 at least has cutscenes and the backstory to Sonic CD. You see how Metal Sonic is brought back to life in the bad future (should have been good future) of Stardust Speedway. There are no cutscenes to connect Ep1 to Ep2 regarding Sonic and Tails arrival apart from that comic. If anything the cutscenes show a tiny connection between CD and Ep2 but nothing from Ep1. It's as if Ep1 had no relevance and never existed.

Thing is, it's really not connected to CD like it pretends to be. Through laziness we're shown that Sonic didn't save Little Planet and just left it for a bad future. And somehow, Eggman was able to turn the whole planet into a new Death Egg when originally it was taking him a long time to take over it, and he only able to do so with the help of the Time Stones and LP's time travelling capabilities. But uh... what happened to all that in S4? For all it matters, it may as well not be connected to CD at all. It also left Metal Sonic in the exact same situation he was in after CD ended.

S2 hardly connected itself to S1, but S2 though to SK had a continuous story. S4 tries to squeeze itself in right after SK without being related and is also "sometime later" than SCD to which it is supposed to be connected. Kinda odd considering CD happened before SK. It's messy, and for the first part there's not even any relation at all. S4 is really just it's own thing entirely. It disregards the main plot points of the games it's supposed to follow, and works much better as it's own, independent arc. In this way, I suppose it's sort of similar to SA1 being unrelated to SA2, Heroes and ShTH but because of it's placement in the timeline (and the way it doesn't match up to CD too well) it simply doesn't work

Edited September 5, 2012 by Blue Blood

[TheOcelot]

Thing is, it's really not connected to CD like it pretends to be. Through laziness we're shown that Sonic didn't save Little Planet and just left it for a bad future. And somehow, Eggman was able to turn the whole planet into a new Death Egg when originally it was taking him a long time to take over it, and he only able to do so with the help of the Time Stones and LP's time travelling capabilities. But uh... what happened to all that in S4? For all it matters, it may as well not be connected to CD at all. It also left Metal Sonic in the exact same situation he was in after CD ended.

S2 hardly connected itself to S1, but S2 though to SK had a continuous story. S4 tries to squeeze itself in right after SK without being related and is also "sometime later" than SCD to which it is supposed to be connected. Kinda odd considering CD happened before SK. It's messy, and for the first part there's not even any relation at all. S4 is really just it's own thing entirely. It disregards the main plot points of the games it's supposed to follow, and works much better as it's own, independent arc. In this way, I suppose it's sort of similar to SA1 being unrelated to SA2, Heroes and ShTH but because of it's placement in the timeline (and the way it doesn't match up to CD too well) it simply doesn't work.

It seemed odd that SEGA used the Generations template of Stardust Speedway for Ep2-maybe more for familiarity for young or new fans, when they had just released an enhanced re-release of Sonic CD which has loads of Stardust Speedway goodness. So people new to CD would have known what Stardust Speedway was if the CD template instead had been used for Ep2. It's not the end of the world, but for the sake of acknowledging after a sixteen year gap that it was a true sequel to the genesis classics, it did feel kind of strange.

It's open to interpretation but I tend to see it as: Sonic 1, Sonic CD (CD feels more like a direct sequel to Sonic 1 than Sonic 2 did because of the gameplay). Sonic 2, 3&K. Then Sonic 4 Ep1 followed by Sonic 4 Ep2.

Personally I don't feel that Ep2 is related to Ep1. Ep1 is like Spinball, it doesn't really fit in anyway. Just standalone titles. At least CD and Ep2 feel connected-well a little bit. What I am not happy with is the ending of Ep2. Why has the proper ending - when you collect the Chaos Emeralds - been kept from us? Is it because it wraps up the Sonic 4 saga (god I hate that term) so that there is no sequel (Ep3), or does it imply that there will be a sequel-an Ep3.

I am grateful we got an enhanced re-released of CD out of Sonic 4, but Sonic 4 feels incomplete and needs to be wrapped up before we move on. At least if an Episode 3 was made they could use this to fill in some wholes and make a decent back story, present and ending story.

Edited September 5, 2012 by MilesKnightwing

[Ryan92]

I do like Sonic 4 don't get me wrong, but I don't like it when I consider it to be a sequel to the mega drive games.

I did a playthrough the other day of 1-4, and while the progression from 1 to 2, to 3k, there seems to be no improvement really in Sonic 4!

In Sonic 3 and Knuckles ( which is my favourite of the classic games ), we had the elemental shields, the transitions between zones, so the environments all seemed linked somehow. With 4, everything that seemed to be good in 3k, was stripped away, as we were left with a sort of bare Sonic 1/2 hybrid that just didn't really work.

If there is an episode 3, I hope it just tries to build upon what Sonic 3&K began.

[theoriginaltrio3210]

Well tails was definately more ambitious with his feelings towards Sonic with their "super 69" attack, so there's character development there.

Maybe the final boss, Sylvania Castle Zone, the Team Attacks and... yeah that's about it. Sonic 4 should have the CD HD team work on it what with their slick new physics engine for CD, all who watched the somecallmejohnny review may recognize this idea. They could have also made Sonic 4 16-bit, like Megaman 9 and Contra ReBirth. They could even implament things they couldnt do back in the 16 bit days, imagine.... "3D rendered killer whale, 16 bit sonic, crazy camera angles that were inconcievable on genesis." OH I JUST REMEMBERED, SONIC 4 EPISODE 2 DIDN'T HAVE PLASTIC GRASS LIKE IN EPISODE 1!

But enough with my dead "jokes", I still think the transition from ep 1 to ep 2 was at least a good step forward, but compared to the classics.... haha lol. They're good games sega, but they need to be ALOT better to fill the big shoes that the title "Sonic 4" carries

[Alice Twilight]

Nothing, but I don't care.

I had fun with it.

[SilverTH]

the part where it was in 2d

[Solid SOAP]

The graphics were nice, controls felt good, and the music was pretty good in some levels. Otherwise it was very bland compared to the old games, but it isn't the insult that many make it out to be, in my opinion.

[StaticMania]

the part where it was in 2d

I guess all 2D Sonic games are that then aren't they?

[Chaos Rush]

There's this one section on the title screen that has the number 4 on it

[Sega DogTagz]

I thought the Tag system was a real attempt at bringing back a focused teamwork theme that was seriously stepped up between Sonic 2 and 3&K. I realize that a lot of people had a few reservations with how it was implemented, but I thought the whole idea was great.

The submarine combo was a natural evolution of their combination tactics and it really felt like something that I would expect out of a Sonic 4. The overpowered combo roll falls into that same category to a certain extent.

Furthermore, the water stages really felt like something that I would expect in a Sonic game like this. Colors gets the credit for bringing back water in the series, but the infinite jump changes the way those stages play. Episode 1 and 2 brought back the water stages I knew from this series past heritage.

[Hyper-Shan]

Whilst the rest of the game doesn't feel like a step-up in terms of a true sequal, I would have to say 2 things that have definately improved: Tag team & Graphics. Graphic is usually a strong point in Sonic games, & Episode 2 looks absolutely beautiful. Tag team is already explained by Sega DogTagz above! ^ =)

[EXshad]

Episode 2 in general, to me, felt more like a true sequel, just marred by some poor design choices. I liked the ideas of executing co-op moves with Tails, although I think they could have put a bit more thought and care into the moves' execution. The level motifs, besides the last 2 levels, felt rather fresh to me, feeling and looking like new levels rather than blatant rehashes. The plot was interesting, to say the least, tying it in with Sonic CD by revealing Eggman's true motivation as turning Little Planet into another Death Egg (although they really didn't resolve anything, with Metal Sonic being brought back just to be defeated and disabled on the planet AGAIN, and the planet still being encased by the Death Egg 2 by the game's end). The physics felt really well-done, the only problems being that an over abundance of dash panels and the sex dash co-op move essentially nullifying it's value. The boss designs were also creative and grand, and really brought harkened back to the creative designs of the bosses in the Genesis games. Hell, the lack of creative bosses was one major reason Episode 1 disappointed me so much, besides the fact that it was, y'know, broken.

 

So overall, I think episode 2 was a step in the right direction, but it wasn't quite enough. I think there should be an Episode 3, simply to wrap up the story, as well as introduce features that should have been in Episode 2. For example, I'd love to see Knuckles appear, since so far, each Episode draws parallels to the classic title its number corresponds with. But one idea is that perhaps, this time, you can create a co-op team with any of the 3 characters, each having unique moves and the like (also hopefully meaning that Sonic doesn't always need to be in the team, nor be the lead character). I'd also like to see some new power-ups; perhaps new shields, maybe a power-up that makes you in invisible, or maybe even one that allows you to temporarily get rings for destroying enemies.. I dunno, just something new and creative. It would also be nice to have creative level designs that aren't peppered with speed boosters and other automated bullshit. That'd be cool too.

Edited December 23, 2012 by EXshad

[Emerald-shine]

To me nothing of sonic 4 felt like a true sequel. Ep 1 was a carbon copy of old levels, awfull physics, repetative music. I hated the overused speed boosters, homing attack chains ad worst of all the uncurlling. Ep 2 fixed some of these problems and was a step in the right direction. The team mechanic worked well for the most part, the flying was very clunky but the swimming was a great addition. Better graphics, more original level design, new bosses. All in all a great improvemnt on EP2. But thats my problem with EP2. Its part of sonic 4. Its bogged down by EP1's dissapiontment and Generations Greatness.

 

I remember playing Generations classic levels and thinking "THIS is what sonic 4 should have been", when EP2 rolled around after over 2 years of waiting I expevted something great and got an improved EP1.

 

My biggest issue with sonic 4 is actually the name Sonic 4. It feels like the game was in development before the sonic4 idea came into play and the higher ups decided to cash in on the nostaliga craze and slapped 4 on there and called it a sequel when it so obviously isnt. Why cant they jsut take the classic parts of generations and make a new 2d game with that?