First Sonic 4 Boss Pic, Fanbase in Disbelief; Obama Demands Change

[Blacklightning]

I only really see Emerald Hill (not as much) and Neo South Island as Green Hill Rehashes. Heck, I don't even see Neo Green Hill Zone as a Green Hill rehash..

There are alot of 2D games I haven't played, though and by some I can't remember the levels...

I said themeset, not rehash. While Splash Hill shares more similarities than others, a remake of this kind was pretty much inevitable, and more or less obligatory given the trend most other games set, not to mention the time that's passed since we had a "classic" Sonic game.

Also, I'd argue Leaf Storm (Rush), Sunset Hill (Adv3) and whatever 3D Blast's opening level was falling under the same themeset too. There's more than that, but my memory of the GG games, Rush Adventure and the other two Advance games is a bit hazy too.

[Marcello]

Ah, I guess I read wrong... But Leaf Storm? I disagree with that :-/

[Slingerland]

[Marcello]

The more I look at the boss fight pic, the faker it looks :-/. I'm really starting to wonder if its real.. But the chain on the ball looks shorter, so the that ( and the homing attack) will make th eboss easier..

[Agent York]

The more I look at the boss fight pic, the faker it looks :-/. I'm really starting to wonder if its real.. But the chain on the ball looks shorter, so the that ( and the homing attack) will make th eboss easier..

Until we realize the boss is fast as lightning and swings the ball around to pummel and home in on Sonic! Ohhhhh~ Then Sonic tries to chase Eggman as he swings his ball back and forth, back and forth, when he gets near Eggman SWINGS! and Sonic gets hit. Watch out for that checkered ball!

Yeah I totally typed this tired as hell, but I mean seriously maybe he's faster, maybe the chase sequence is actually like that, maybe Eggman doesn't just go back and forth but actually chases Sonic with the nightmarish ball from checkered hell!

Edited February 25, 2010 by Dusk the Biohazard Keeper

[Stasis]

Loving it.

[Shiny Gems]

Okay, in regards to Endri's claims and this picture below that is supposedly being used to back up Endri's claims some,

I noticed some possible flaws here that I think I want to point out to you all. I am not directly trying to disprove Endri's claims yet, but I think you guys should take a look at this, which is mostly in regard to the picture:

Now, look at this picture of Sonic 4 as it appears on Partnet.net (again):

Now, here is another game as seen in Xbox Live that can be downloaded:

Now, comparing these two screens, I found some differences:

Now, the Sonic 4 on Partnet menu whatever has, in the second box, the trial and full game to download as stated here:

Sonic 4: Episode 1(Trial)

Arcade Trial Game

And...

Sonic 4: Episode 1

Arcade Game.

Now, the latter picture shows,

Trial Game - Net Rumble

Community Trial Game

And...

Full Game - Net Rumble

Community Game

Now, even though it says community game below, Arcade games do list it similarly, excpet they are refered to as Arcade Games. For now, we'll treat this as an Arcade Game, even though it is not.

Now, as you can see, the text in the second box of both screens are spelled differently from each other. However, since Sonic 4 is being displayed in Partnet instead of Xbox Live, persumably, it could be different and acceptable in this case. However...

Usually, when Xbox games are up at the game marketplace of Xbox Live as arcade downloadable games, they have their full name spelled out, with no exceptions. Yes, the name of the downloadable game is usually spelled out completely. Now look here...

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/offers/0bbf0002-0000-4000-8000-000058410a07

The name of the game is stated as "Sonic The Hedgehog™ 4 Episode I", and in the assumed partnet screen, it is spelled, "Sonic 4: Episode 1".

Partnet or actual Xbox Live material, I doubt Sega would even allow it to be put on Partnet without having its name being completely spelled like it would in the Xbox Marketplace, for like I said, Partnet or Xbox Live, I don't think that Sonic 4 would be up as a downloadable game spelled like Sonic 4: Episode 1 and not how it is spelled in its own page in the Xbox Live marketplace website, since Sega allowed it to be like that when that page came up.

Now, for the back ground of the first, but not including the second picture: Almost every arcade game on Xbox Live has a backround behind its own menu. Surely, this is not seen in the latter screen of the two I show to you, but in the first picture with Sonic 4 in partnet, look closely into the background. Now look at this:

http://www.sonicthehedgehog4.com/assets/wallpapers/wallpaper1_1024x768.jpg

Doesn't the background and picture seem familar? It seems that in the partnet background, it looks like it is, though perhaps a little different on the background's edges, taken from the Sonic the Hedgehog 4 wall paper picture from the Sonic 4 site. Now, as for Sonic in that ringed shaped object in the middle, you cannot see it, but only because the boxes may be blocking the way of that part of the image.

However, I am sure Sega would use a better background than what we see here, because not only is it some months before the game's release, but I am sure Sega would use a nicer background than the one in the partnet page. I am sure that such an image that came early after the offical name of the game was revealed would be the last thing Sega would want to use as a background for the game's download menu on Xbox Live.

Also, you can see the logo of Sonic 4 on the middle-upper part of the screen. In other Arcade games, you can see a background of the menu of the selected arcade game, depending on the game itself. The logo for that game is somewhere at the upper middle of the menu too. However, in this case of Sonic 4 in the partnet screen, the logo for Sonic 4 looks as if it were just "stamped there" in a background picture that resembles the wallpaper from Sonic 4, which did not have that logo anywhere on it. Besides, would it be a bit weird to have a logo like that just there in an early image of Sonic 4 on the screen when you download the game?

Also, note the part in the first box, which is the part where it appears to be marked off by a black marker of some short. The marked area, in shape, is not so smooth when compared to the rest of the rectangular highlight-able boxes in those boxes. Why would that part be crossed off?

Well, that area is usually where the name of the game is shown, and I have a good idea why it may have been crossed off. Whatever the real name was, well...

Go here again:

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/offers/0bbf0002-0000-4000-8000-000058410a07

And highlight "Sonic The Hedgehog™ 4 Episode I", and try to imagine putting it in that blacked out area.

And what do you see?

You see that name is too long to fit in with the area that is marked off, because the name reaches the edge of the box closer than whatever name has been crossed off could. Plus, Sonic 4: Episode 1, as typed in the smaller boxes in the second box, would not fit there either, for it is still too long to fit as a name.

Now, I am aware that Partnet and the actual Xbox Live may be different in some ways, but here, the two, in terms of the initial two screens I provided above similar enough. Plus, Endri claimed that this, backed up some by the Partnet picture here, that this is the final version of Sonic 4, or is it? Even though Partnet may be different in some ways from Xbox Live, they are still similar in terms of menu screens as in the initial two screens. Plus, if Sega has finished the game by now, I really doubt, especially with reasons I have provided above, that they would put Sonic 4 up on Xbox Live's game marketplace the same way that it is "assumed" to be set up in Partnet. Plus, even if the game were finished by now, I doubt that Sega would put Sonic 4 on Partnet the same way that it is shown to be in the Sonic 4 Partnet picture.

I tell you, something smells fishy here. What do you guys think?

Oh, and I know that there are people around, whose names I will not mention, that believe him or think he is right on this and defend his claims. To those who do, do you have any explainations to why the flaws I pointed out in that supposed "Partnet Sonic 4 screen" picture may be the there, or want to try and debunk the flaws I pointed out? Feel free to try and do so, if you want.

[DMNBT]

Games put up on PartnerNET do not necesarily (sp?) need to have it's final release name in it. I remember that for a while Ikaruga was on there without a name!

[Tornado]

I was going to start a single topic about this, but I know it wouldn't stay open for long.

But here is a very great article from Destructoid: Here

When Sonic Advance was released, it was like a breath of fresh air. Or old air, if you tend to look at it that way. It was a proper, 2D, old-school Sonic game. It even had the original Sonic the Hedgehog theme tune. There was no game closer to a true Sonic game within a hundred miles, but what did the so-called experts say?

"WAH WAH WAH SONIC IS TOO SLOW!"

Not only was this ridiculously wrong, it also led to Dimps answering those stupid criticisms with Sonic Advance 2, a game that put speed over level design and fell into the same "hold down the D-Pad to win" gameplay that haunted all recent Sonic games. Sonic Advance 2 proved that sometimes, fans really don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

He wants to play that card? Forgive me, but I see his "presumptuous fanbase" and raise him "pretentious dickhead." He's completely correct, of course, but this "Sonic fans aren't smarter than Sega so they should STFU" bullshit is so fucking hilarious that I can't believe a person who works for a videogame news outlet had the balls to even say it. For every thread on a Sonic message board bitching about Sonic not being fast enough in Game X, I can find a professional game review that says the same fucking thing.

What about all the reviews around when Unleashed came out said "this game would be fucking awesome if there was no werehog." I know of only two reviews for the game that dared say otherwise. Or how about the ones that said "these Sonic Rush titles are just like the classics." For that matter, Sonic Advance 2 was the best reviewed game of the entire series! You can laugh at the Sonic fanbase all day, and I'll even agree with the insanity for the most part, but I put my foot down at the shit talked about in that article. At least the Sonic fanbase is divided over the stupid ideas that it has. The more-influential-yet-no-less-stupid game journalists generally aren't.

Edited February 26, 2010 by Tornado

[Eternlo]

Well the warehog was the fans fault anyways, or at least the ones that were like "we hate all these characters being playable, we just want sonic", and "sonic needs to do more platforming".

They gave them what they wanted just not how they wanted it. But the warehog parts were pretty fun.

So now we know to stop complaining about the characters we have and just beg them to stop adding them... and use shade again, she was awsome.

[Semi-colon e]

If that boss isn't fake, I'm disappointed. Especially considering Rush Adventure proved bosses can be epic as hell in the Sonic series.

Unless, that is, it has a completely different set of attacks or movements and is a bit more aggressive, to fuck over people first time who were expecting a rehash that would be pretty win.

Also Blacklightning Rush Adventure's first stage is Plant Kingdom, which harkens more to Mushroom Hill if anything, but is it's own stage nonetheless and is AWESOME.

[Rusty Spy]

Well the warehog was the fans fault anyways, or at least the ones that were like "we hate all these characters being playable, we just want sonic", and "sonic needs to do more platforming".

They gave them what they wanted just not how they wanted it. But the warehog parts were pretty fun.

No, it's Sonic Teams fault for skewing what the fans asked for and making themselves look like sarcastic assholes by basically saying:

"What? You said you wanted only Sonic playable. You didn't say you didn't want another gameplay gimmick!".

When the fans said they wanted to play as just Sonic, they basically ignored the point being made that they wanted just Sonic GAMEPLAY and just made two gimmicks but made both be played as Sonic.

When they ask for more cheese with their pasta, Sonic Team just gives them back their pasta and a grilled cheese sandwich.

[Nepenthe]

Or as with Sonic 4, when people ask for more cheese with their pasta, Sonic Team gives it to them, only to have it thrown back in their face because the cheese was the wrong cheese...or... supposedly the wrong cheese. Who knows? I mean, the customer didn't even taste the new order; They just kinda took a quick glance at the ambiguous shredded white milk fats on top and decided it was wrong before confronting the waiter.

Indeed, the type of outright disownment of the project we've seen abroad nearly single-handedly renders the entire issue of Sonic Team's gameplay and aesthetic compromises as a non-issue. And the way I see it, if I were in their shoes and found that subsequent releases were probably going to be such lose-lose situations, I'd say we might as well go out doing whatever we want. At least you'll be more personally satisifed that way.

So I say bring on Sonic and the Olympic Deities, the epic, waggling Wii-sclusive where Sonic is sucked into the Greek mythos, and along with Heraldine, Hera's illegitimate daughter, goes off to gallantly save Ancient Greece from a suspicious Zeus and Hades team-up which ultimately ends in Sonic gaining the speed, power, and light of Hermes to thrash a wild-eyed Hydra in a dual Mount Olympus and River Styx parallel universe environment.

[Gamenerd]

You know what? I like the idea of the first level being a complete Sonic 1 ripoff/homage.

Picture this; the first level is a complete Sonic 1 ripoff. Most of episode 1 is a ripoff. Then Mad Gear presents new and crazy stuff. Rotating, plane-shifting, gravity twisting challenges. From there, each episode (I hear there's gonna be four?) becomes progressively less like a ripoff, and more like a game of its own, showing off twists and turns on the Sonic formula and straying away from typical Zone cliches.

It would be like luring people in with Episode 1 by making it seem like a complete copycat of the Genesis games, and then gradually moving away from that, until by episode 4 the player realises "hey, I'm not playing a ripoff/sequel to the Genesis classics, I'm playing a new game entirely". Basically I think Episode 1 is to lure casual gamers and jaded fans in with lots of old-school references, and slowly introduce them to new mechanics and ideas that we'll see more and more of in later episodes.

[EXshad]

You know what? I like the idea of the first level being a complete Sonic 1 ripoff/homage.

Picture this; the first level is a complete Sonic 1 ripoff. Most of episode 1 is a ripoff. Then Mad Gear presents new and crazy stuff. Rotating, plane-shifting, gravity twisting challenges. From there, each episode (I hear there's gonna be four?) becomes progressively less like a ripoff, and more like a game of its own, showing off twists and turns on the Sonic formula and straying away from typical Zone cliches.

It would be like luring people in with Episode 1 by making it seem like a complete copycat of the Genesis games, and then gradually moving away from that, until by episode 4 the player realises "hey, I'm not playing a ripoff/sequel to the Genesis classics, I'm playing a new game entirely". Basically I think Episode 1 is to lure casual gamers and jaded fans in with lots of old-school references, and slowly introduce them to new mechanics and ideas that we'll see more and more of in later episodes.

Y'know, I guess I wouldn't mind seeing some really iconic old bosses returning with new tricks, such as the Egg Hammer, or the Metropolis boss.... but still, I was holding out hope Sega wouldn't digress to using old boss designs.... I was hoping to see new bosses that took advantage of the old gameplay style, to try and mix it up. I always used to look forward to seeing what new invention Eggman would whip up next, and it was one of the things I loved so much about the classic games. I just was expecting this game, episode 1 and all, to be in the spirit of the classic games, not copy them. 'cause that's what Sega promised us.

But I won't judge. I'm gonna wait and see what happens. I could get surprised, it's happened before

Edited February 26, 2010 by EXshad

[Eternlo]

True Black Spy. But if they wouldent have wanted just sonic in the first place we could hav had awsome sonic gameplay and maybe awsome knucles platforming game play, without the emerald shard hunt.

On the matter of the emerald shard hunt why do people hate it so much? knuckles and rouges embles were always the first ones id get cause i thought they were easy.

On topic, im interested to se how the chase scene would go. What if he goes down in one hit, and robotnik falls to the ground and you start to chase him, but he keeps ordering badniks to attack you. And then he would jump in the real end stage boss. that would be kinda cool.

Edited February 26, 2010 by Eternlo

[Rusty Spy]

True Black Spy. But if they wouldent have wanted just sonic in the first place we could hav had awsome sonic gameplay and maybe awsome knucles platforming game play, without the emerald shard hunt.

If Sonic Team actually did what the fans really asked for, we wouldn't have the Werehog to begin with.

[jackskellinghog]

I made this as a statement on how Sonic 4 has currently gone:

[EXshad]

If Sonic Team actually did what the fans really asked for, we wouldn't have the Werehog to begin with.

Unfortunately, they can't because the fans can't agree or be happy with nearly anything they are given. So if Sonic Team made a game truly based on nothing but fan input..... it'd probably be worse than anything they could concoct. INCLUDING the werehog.

[Phos]

He wants to play that card? Forgive me, but I see his "presumptuous fanbase" and raise him "pretentious dickhead." He's completely correct, of course, but this "Sonic fans aren't smarter than Sega so they should STFU" bullshit is so fucking hilarious that I can't believe a person who works for a videogame news outlet had the balls to even say it. For every thread on a Sonic message board bitching about Sonic not being fast enough in Game X, I can find a professional game review that says the same fucking thing.

What about all the reviews around when Unleashed came out said "this game would be fucking awesome if there was no werehog." I know of only two reviews for the game that dared say otherwise. Or how about the ones that said "these Sonic Rush titles are just like the classics." For that matter, Sonic Advance 2 was the best reviewed game of the entire series! You can laugh at the Sonic fanbase all day, and I'll even agree with the insanity for the most part, but I put my foot down at the shit talked about in that article. At least the Sonic fanbase is divided over the stupid ideas that it has. The more-influential-yet-no-less-stupid game journalists generally aren't.

I saw a review for Secret Rings claim that it was the first 3D game bear much similarity to the classic games. Jim Sterling has also apparently forgotten his experience with Sonic Unleashed already. He also seems to think that Dimps can do no wrong when it comes to Sonic, even though he only really likes one of the Sonic games they made.

He also brought up Diablo III. The Diablo III business kind of bugs me because in a lot of ways it really does more closely resemble a Warcraft game. I also think it's funny that he goes on about how, if the fans got their way, that the games probably wouldn't sell as well. Yeah, sure, because those games with Sonic's classic design in it were so poorly received by the mass market, amiright? And the Diablo 3 naysayers's list of demands reminds me of another game that came out recently, namely, "Demon's Souls". Yeah, that game with the more realistic armor and darkness had so little mass appeal it hit number 11 on the NPD reports with no advertising at all! Maybe the people who don't like the way Diablo 3 looks should just play that instead. They'd at least get more than one game each decade. Oh, and apparently, rather than actually bothering to refute or consider differing opinions, it's apparently easier to just discredit it as whining. That's exactly what Blizzard did in a startling display of professionalism.

This article makes me no longer feel guilty about having Adblock Plus enabled when I visit Destructoid.

No, it's Sonic Teams fault for skewing what the fans asked for and making themselves look like sarcastic assholes by basically saying:

"What? You said you wanted only Sonic playable. You didn't say you didn't want another gameplay gimmick!".

When the fans said they wanted to play as just Sonic, they basically ignored the point being made that they wanted just Sonic GAMEPLAY and just made two gimmicks but made both be played as Sonic.

Early on in development, they were planning on splitting the game between stages similar to the day stages seen in the final and slower speed platforming performed as Sonic (This was from an interview, not "Wentos"). But then I guess they decided that would be too logical and that what Sonic really needed was lycanthropy.

Their statement of Sonic being the only playable character along with how they presented it was a red flag for me, not only were they following the word of the request with no regard to its intent, but they also were expecting us to be impressed by it even though they were ten years late in fulfilling it.

[Iceman Etika]

I made this as a statement on how Sonic 4 has currently gone:

Can someone explain this to me? It kinda flew over my head...

[Rusty Spy]

Unfortunately, they can't because the fans can't agree or be happy with nearly anything they are given. So if Sonic Team made a game truly based on nothing but fan input..... it'd probably be worse than anything they could concoct. INCLUDING the werehog.

I was saying that on account of what they asked for with Unleashed. If Sonic Team had actually just done a game with only Sonic gameplay, which I'm sure is what the fans were implying when they say "only Sonic playable", we'd actually have an Unleashed with Sonic gameplay only.

[Marcello]

If that boss isn't fake, I'm disappointed. Especially considering Rush Adventure proved bosses can be epic as hell in the Sonic series.

Unless, that is, it has a completely different set of attacks or movements and is a bit more aggressive, to fuck over people first time who were expecting a rehash that would be pretty win.

Also Blacklightning Rush Adventure's first stage is Plant Kingdom, which harkens more to Mushroom Hill if anything, but is it's own stage nonetheless and is AWESOME.

Most boring boss ever. Only the video I posted sucks, because the guy can beat him so fast >_>.

[Semi-colon e]

Are you kidding, that boss was awesome...

[Djawed]

Yea, even though I thought sonic rush adventure was the most boring easy sonic game I have ever played. I cannot deny that The boss battles were awesome