• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4 or AGAINST |OT| of Huelen in Green-Eyed Heaven

Mael said:
Seriously what are you trying to say?
Pokemon by any mettric is doing better than the blue rodent, there's not really much to say.
It sells better, it's better received by the critics, even the fucking anime is actually performing better!

What metric do you use to come to another conclusion?

So basically scores matter when its in their favor. Awesome. I'll remember to bring up scores every time there is a debate.
 

Mael

Member
Phoenix Fang said:
What the fuck does sales and merchandising have to do with anything?

Phoenix Fang said:
Andrex said:
What the hell? Jump into this thread and you losers have devolved into bashing Pokemon around? Get a grip. Sonic is half a percent the franchise Pokemon is.

F you RobbieNick. I thought you were cool.

maybe in bizzaro world.

Yep nothing to do with anything? well since we're talking franchises and not series it's heavily related.

Phoenix Fang said:
So basically scores matter when its in their favor. Awesome. I'll remember to bring up scores every time there is a debate.

I don't give a shit personnally about scores or any validation for that matter.
But clearly Sonic is not as well received as Pokemon by the public AND the critics.
And from you come to the conclusion that Sonic is bigger?
What's next Crash is a bigger franchise than Mario?
 

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Phoenix Fang said:
Wow the Pokemon fanboys are in full force in this topic. You would think that for people who don't like the game would stay the hell out of the topic.

Uh. Pokemon is a far more well-received, and profitable, franchise than Sonic is in this day and age. And I don't even like Pokemon.
 
Just tried the demo and it isn't bad at all. Physics aren't perfect and his running animation doesn't match the speed he is actually going at times...but its still a very decent game. I can understand someone not enjoying it or it just not being their style, but it is in no way "bad omg terrible" like people are making it out to be.
 

Mael

Member
Combichristoffersen said:
Uh. Pokemon is a far more well-received, and profitable, franchise than Sonic is in this day and age. And I don't even like Pokemon.

Like I said it's not even debatable at this point I mean we're speaking of the best selling rpg series against Sonic here, it's not even a case of whether or not you like Pkmn or Sonic.
It'd be as wrong as saying somehow CoD is more popular than the Sims
and I know you were agreeing here
 

Mael

Member
RobbieNick said:
Good lord! Could we please stop with the Pokemon thing? It's turning into an entirely different argument now.

but...
duty_calls.png
 

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
RobbieNick said:
Good lord! Could we please stop with the Pokemon thing? It's turning into an entirely different argument now.

We've exhausted the 'Sonic 4 is terrible' topic, and 'Sonic 4 is decent/good' just isn't as interesting, so we've resorted to 'Sonic isn't as popular or profitable as <franchise>'. Next up we'll talk about how 'Sonic should be adapted into a live action TV series just for shits n' giggles'.
 

luka

Loves Robotech S1
Tried the psn demo and..uh, wow. I really can't get over how messed up the physics are. It doesn't play at all like you'd think. It's just...awkward. I know it's been said enough times for 3 internets, but it really does feel sloppy. The running animation is really silly too, and the music is pretty grating.

Other than that it's...ok. I guess.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
RobbieNick said:
Good lord! Could we please stop with the Pokemon thing? It's turning into an entirely different argument now.

Hey man, this is all your fault.
 
Andrex said:
Hey man, this is all your fault.
Actually, I'm the one that brought Pokemon up. But only as an example of a series where the developer puts in half an effort and ends up with a series that in many of its trappings is stuck in the OG Game Boy era.
 

DeVeAn

Member
So if the gameplay style is not like the originals and the story doesn't even seem to pickup after Sonic and Knuckles why is this called Sonic 4? Other then money. I mean technically Sonic advance is more like Sonic 4 right? Just a thought.
 

Mael

Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
Actually, I'm the one that brought Pokemon up. But only as an example of a series where the developer puts in half an effort and ends up with a series that in many of its trappings is stuck in the OG Game Boy era.

difference being that the actual product is actually far more successful as a game AND a product.
In the end I don't think effort is something we should take into account,
I mean taking a game I really hate by Project M, I'm sure they worked they asses off on that one, doesn't change that they ended up shitting a turd far more stinky than anything I played this side of Sonic 06.
In short, we, as customers, shoud only worry about our end of the bargain :
- game == good?
- actually tries to rape my rights as a consumer?
and that's about it.

The rest, wether or not Dimps actually had this project in mind since 1884 or last night, if the game is good it'll defend itself well enough.
I would have a good quote for that from Maupassant but my memory is not that good.
 
DeVeAn said:
So if the gameplay style is not like the originals and the story doesn't even seem to pickup after Sonic and Knuckles why is this called Sonic 4? Other then money. I mean technically Sonic advance is more like Sonic 4 right? Just a thought.
Money. It's just for money. I don't know why you're looking for or need a deeper reason. It's the money.

And yes, technically Sonic Advance would be Sonic 4. Unless Sonic & Knuckles is. Or Sonic Adventure.
 
Mael said:
difference being that the actual product is actually far more successful as a game AND a product.
In the end I don't think effort is something we should take into account,
I mean taking a game I really hate by Project M, I'm sure they worked they asses off on that one, doesn't change that they ended up shitting a turd far more stinky than anything I played this side of Sonic 06.
In short, we, as customers, shoud only worry about our end of the bargain :
- game == good?
- actually tries to rape my rights as a consumer?
and that's about it.
Mael, if you read the context I brought it up in, you could have saved us both some time. I brought it up because jman said he doesn't put up with anything but excellence, particularly in terms of keeping up with the genre. He applied this to Sonic 4. I pointed out he is a Pokemon fan and thus that is some shaky ground to be standing on.

And for the record, I think almost half of the Pokemon generations are a frightful rip-off, but to each their own.
 

Mael

Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
Mael, if you read the context I brought it up in, you could have saved us both some time. I brought it up because jman said he doesn't put up with anything but excellence, particularly in terms of keeping up with the genre. He applied this to Sonic 4. I pointed out he is a Pokemon fan and thus that is some shaky ground to be standing on.

And for the record, I think almost half of the Pokemon generations are a frightful rip-off, but to each their own.

Ah indeed, next time I'll do my research better :lol
Still the strange thing with Pkmn is that they keep some stuffs up to date and others are incredibly archaics.
As far as sonic is concerned I don't that should be a focus at all, I mean when you've got that many flaws you gotta chose you priorities :lol (hey maybe Sonic 4 is different)

Still, the market has clearly spoken on Pokemon, Nintendogs and all the other multiversions games : they like it.
I'll never know why people are not appalled by obvious money grubbing methods though :lol

also I was only here when I saw that gross misconception of where Sonic actually stood as a franchise, I don't see much to disagree with what you were saying.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
Segata Sanshiro said:
Actually, I'm the one that brought Pokemon up. But only as an example of a series where the developer puts in half an effort and ends up with a series that in many of its trappings is stuck in the OG Game Boy era.

Yes but I expected that from you.

RobbieNick I actually had respect for. T_T
 

Firestorm

Member
RobbieNick said:
And I would argue that the Pokemon series has been the same fucking game over and over again with new Pokemon. There's change and innovation and then there's doing NOTHING new.
And you'd be pretty fucking wrong.

Andrex said:
Yes but I expected that from you.

RobbieNick I actually had respect for. T_T
Respect for Robbie but not Segata?

what is this i don't even
 

DeVeAn

Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
Money. It's just for money. I don't know why you're looking for or need a deeper reason. It's the money.

And yes, technically Sonic Advance would be Sonic 4. Unless Sonic & Knuckles is. Or Sonic Adventure.
Don't need a reason really just trying to talk Sonic in a Sonic thread. I mean we can pretend on the internetz.

So if there is an episode 2, do you guys think the will remake other zones are go all new? I wouldn't mind a chemical plant redo. Also what about the hyper emeralds?
 

Mael

Member
DeVeAn said:
Don't need a reason really just trying to talk Sonic in a Sonic thread. I mean we can pretend on the internetz.

So if there is an episode 2, do you guys think the will remake other zones are go all new? I wouldn't mind a chemical plant redo. Also what about the hyper emeralds?

So that's it? this game will be the final obituary of the blue rodent?
I mean if they only do remake of old zone for old time's sake....
 

RobbieNick

Junior Member
Andrex said:
Yes but I expected that from you.

RobbieNick I actually had respect for. T_T

I don't hate Pokemon okay?! I bought the last game! (Even used the Pokewalker while walking my dog). I just think they need to update it is all. We're still playing a game two generations separated that almost identical to it's original. The last one was actually the most innovative, but the battle system has not changed.
 

Mael

Member
DeVeAn said:
Wha? Idk?

I mean unless they greatly changed the episode 1 from the leak, there's not much in term of new content in that game. So it would seem less a swan song if they made new levels instead of blatant retread
 

RobbieNick

Junior Member
DeVeAn said:
Don't need a reason really just trying to talk Sonic in a Sonic thread. I mean we can pretend on the internetz.

So if there is an episode 2, do you guys think the will remake other zones are go all new? I wouldn't mind a chemical plant redo. Also what about the hyper emeralds?

I think they will go all new. This was the introductory episode and they wanted to give fans some of that nostalgia going in, so they brought the classic levels back. We know
Metal Sonic
is returning and it looks like
Tails
may be along for the ride as well. (But that's all speculation due to an emblem on a rocket.)

Don't expect the controls/physics to change much. If they lock on episode 2 to 1 they will need consistency. I do expect the uncurling to be gone due to the incredibly heavy demand by fans, but homing attack will stay.

What I'm saying is, if you don't like episode 1, I doubt you'll like episode 2.
 

Firestorm

Member
RobbieNick said:
I don't hate Pokemon okay?! I bought the last game! (Even used the Pokewalker while walking my dog). I just think they need to update it is all. We're still playing a game two generations separated that almost identical to it's original. The last one was actually the most innovative, but the battle system has not changed.
It has changed quite significantly at least twice now. They've struck a pretty fine balance between evolving the series and not alienating old fans of the series. Something Sonic could probably learn from.

Sonic and Pokemon defined a good chunk of my childhood. I stopped playing both for some time. One I found worth going back to later. The other I didn't. Pokemon was able to appeal to the players who had grown up with the games by offering enough that was new while keeping its original charm. Sonic was not.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
Firestorm said:
Respect for Robbie but not Segata?

what is this i don't even

Segata will get my respect when he's earned it.

RobbieNick said:
I don't hate Pokemon okay?! I bought the last game! (Even used the Pokewalker while walking my dog). I just think they need to update it is all. We're still playing a game two generations separated that almost identical to it's original. The last one was actually the most innovative, but the battle system has not changed.

That's like complaining you have to jump in a Mario game. The battle system is fundamental to Pokemon and they have made all sorts of enhancements to it. Really I get the impression people wouldn't complain about Pokemon as much if the storyline was radically different in Gen 3 and 4 like 2 was. I mean, it is pretty samey and as such it's easy to just get the feeling nothing's changed, but a lot has. B/W has the most noticeable-to-casual-players changes yet, but there was a fair amount of progression in Gens 3 and 4 as I'm sure Firestorm would love to point out.

CurseoftheGods said:
Did Pokemon Battle Revolution wipe out any good Pokemon games done before or since?

I'm just trying to make sense of your logic.

PBR was bland but not a crime against humanity.
 

ShadiWulf

Member
I got the Japanese PSN demo

The graphics are crazy awesome, so clear and bright. Sonic's model looks great too.

I will admit though, the controls feel much different then I was expecting them to. Not that it's a bad thing, but it's defiantly took me a while to get used to the controls.

That said, if you go into the game with an open mind, it's a lot of fun. Much better game than Sonic Rush is. It's just that.. Sonic 4 Episode 1 shares one thing in common with Rush.. the physics =P

When you spin-dash, hold forward on the D-pad / control stick , otherwise you will just stop.
To stop yourself from uncurling on a ramp, jump just at the right moment...

Those are the two most helpful things to know ;3
Oh, and don't be afraid of the homing attack. It's not bad as it sounds.

The game is addicting! My current best time for Splash Hill Zone Act 1 is 1:03:15
Basically, to enjoy this game you have to forget everything you knew about the Genesis games and learn anew =P It's completely different due to the physics. But it's still just as fun.

TLDR: This game plays nothing like the Genesis classics and if you aren’t willing to adjust to the new physics then don’t bother with this game. Just know that you are missing out on a great time.
 
So the consensus seems to be that it's not close to what sega promised us but that it is actually a fun game in its own right?

Would it be fun to someone who despised how the rush games played and their level design(asking on behalf of myself here)?
 

ShadiWulf

Member
Sir_Crocodile said:
So the consensus seems to be that it's not close to what sega promised us but that it is actually a fun game in its own right?

Would it be fun to someone who despised how the rush games played and their level design(asking on behalf of myself here)?
I despise the Rush games. I like what I have played of Sonic 4 so far. It's very addicting. Splash Hill Zone act 1 is a great time attack stage.

Like I said in my other post though, it WILL be awkward at first. It takes getting used to.
 
Outside of about 5 major issues I have with sonic 4 I think the game is ok, but I am not changing my mind any time soon because of 5 classic sonic breaking reasons:

1) Rolling is borked, Sonic's roll doesn't work anywhere near the same as the 16bit sonic's, hell, even sonic adventure has a better roll then sonic 4 and that was a fucking dreamcast launch title! in SA1 I can roll down hills and around loops and go fast while in a ball, and launch off ledges maintaining sonic's ball form. Rolling is important to a 2d sonic game because you trade things like air control (jumping out of a roll takes away sonic's air control )and the ability to brake and slow down for a better and faster top speed, being able to attack badniks and launch off a ramp for more height.

2) Uncurling, this also breaks rolling because you are forced out of a ball into a vulnerable state just so you can abuse the homing attack, it's stupid and silly for a 2d sonic game to have uncurling like sonic 4.

3) Boost pads are way overused, if you go and look back at the classic games only a few choice zones had boosters to help you around loops or over a long stretch of layout, chemical plant for example. In that zone there was only about 6 areas where you really went flat out and because of that it felt great having a quick burst of speed and 4 loops to run through before going back to a slower platforming route, it was a luxury and thrill to have that speed only for a few seconds, sonic 4 slaps this up constantly. The classic games would use side facing springs or expect you to roll down a hill before the speed trap.

4) Forced homing attack, the closest we had in the classics were the flame shield and sonic 3d's red shield which was important because of the whole isometric angle made it tricky to sometimes hit an enemy. Instead of sonic gaining homing attacks out of the blue it would have been better to give it via a shield, if you lost that shield before a homing segment then you have to take the default route instead of the homing bridge one, which could have rewarded the player with more rings and an extra life, something else which is overly-plentiful in sonic 4.

5) Floaty jumping with a terrible pointless X-axis momentum stop when you let go of a direction, it's not the worst problem out of the 5 but it's still stupid, this isn't a 3d title where you sometimes needed to press B and land on a tiny platform, classic sonic's never had a problem with tricky jumps, never, why bring in stupid jumping rules when they were not required? Launching out of a cannon without holding a direction will stop you dead at peak and you will drop like a brick, not cool.

Other minor things which are just visual are things like ring splash (too weak in sonic 4) and the spindash sound effect not becoming higher pitch which means when you rev you get a spam of the same sample overlapping each other until your ears bleed, pitch change helps that problem a lot and it lets you hear how fast sonic will launch at.

Do I expect any of this to get fixed for ep2? a few things might be tweaked but I can't see it happening, it would break any kind of lock-on and I fully expect sega are going that route, the map screen kind of gives it away on the right hand side and with the next ep possibly giving us tails, i'd expect him to be playable in ep1 stages too. Sega should have made episode 1 as good as they were able to but failed over just a few things, if only they spent the last 3 months actually fixing the game instead of adding a map screen and animated title, oh and two replacement acts which just use the already broken dimps physics a little better then the other stages.
 

ShadiWulf

Member
New Record for me:

Splash Hill Zone Act 1: 0'55'79

Just beat RobbieNicks best time by 2 seconds.... similar to what i did to him in all stars racing =P
 
Lmao at pokemon hate. Sorry but. It might not change drastically each gen but it sells fuck tons and that's all nintendo care about. And the games are never shit. Stagnant, possibly, not shit
 
I may be coming in to this discussion at a bad place, haven't really been keeping up with the thread...

CurseoftheGods said:
Did Pokemon Battle Revolution wipe out any good Pokemon games done before or since?

I'm just trying to make sense of your logic.

Pokemon Battle Revolution was one game.

Sonic Adventure was already kind of a shaky start, but it was forgivable in 1999 because the game had an epic scope that most platformers couldn't really compare to.

Sonic Adventure 2 tried to boil all that stuff down to the streamlined essentials, but ended up removing a great deal of charm in the process, with tons of same-y levels and forced character switching. It was still an okay game, but could have been a lot better and far less self-serious.

Sonic Heroes got the art direction right, but a lot of that game was made up of ideas that were "good on paper". Controls were sluggish and slippery, the team system sounded like a good idea but wasn't ever utilized properly, and like a lot of 3D Sonic games, it was missing a great deal of polish. Tolerable, but not ideal.

Shadow the Hedgehog made Sonic Heroes look like a GOTY contender. The most self-serious plot yet, even worse controls, and graphics that felt like ugly leftovers from Heroes and Phantasy Star Online. Level design is composed of dozens of cut-and-paste sections repeated over and over again with mediocre grunge music in the background. Sonic Heroes clearly had some polish afforded to it, it just needed a lot more. Shadow the Hedgehog has almost zero polish. The game is not enjoyable.

Sonic 2006 was the cherry-topping on the shit sundae. Imagine a compilation of all of the worst aspects of all the games to come before it, and that's Sonic 2006. Horrendous controls, ridiculous loading times, and so little polish you have to wonder if anybody at Sega even bothered to play the end result before they pressed it on to a disc. The game is unacceptably bad on almost every conceivable level, and retroactively ruined the entire Sonic franchise in ways that are probably irreparable.

Pokemon had some oddball outliers (Hey You Pikachu, etc.), but never anything as truly revolting as Sonic 2006 and the downward slope of games to come before it. Sonic wishes he was stuck in a rut of "remake the one good game over and over and over again" that Pokemon is.
 
Dabookerman said:
Lmao at pokemon hate. Sorry but. It might not change drastically each gen but it sells fuck tons and that's all nintendo care about. And the games are never shit. Stagnant, possibly, not shit
Good, never said they were shit. Stagnant, yes. Not up to the standards of the genre or the hardware they're hosted on, yep. But if it happens that any given Pokemon game is your first Pokemon game, then that game is probably going to be one of the best games you ever play.

Its ability to sell fucktons has about as much to do with the context I brought it up in as potatoes have to do with making dresses.
 

Mael

Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
Good, never said they were shit. Stagnant, yes. Not up to the standards of the genre or the hardware they're hosted on, yep. But if it happens that any given Pokemon game is your first Pokemon game, then that game is probably going to be one of the best games you ever play.

Its ability to sell fucktons has about as much to do with the context I brought it up in as potatoes have to do with making dresses.

You'd be surprised....I mean I actually saw an expop of someone making dresses out of plastic bags :/,
potato is the next logical step I say

And no seriously any given Pkmn being your first plmn that doesn't mean it's the best ever or something.
Heck I started with Blue and skipped 10 years later to Diamond, well diamond is one of the best experience while Blue s just ok (even for its time, you wouldn't believe how fucking slow that game was....even for its time)

To anyone comparing PBR to Sonic 06...
:lol
I'd say buy both and compare you'll soon see what we mean by Sonic 06 being of Sonic 06 quality.

Yes the game is so shitty it's got its own scale.
 

Wallach

Member
It's gettin' a little rage-y in here, let's change the subject.

Edit - I forgot which thread this was. How about that new Sonic game, eh?
 
Mael said:
You'd be surprised....I mean I actually saw an expop of someone making dresses out of plastic bags :/,
potato is the next logical step I say

And no seriously any given Pkmn being your first plmn that doesn't mean it's the best ever or something.
Heck I started with Blue and skipped 10 years later to Diamond, well diamond is one of the best experience while Blue s just ok (even for its time, you wouldn't believe how fucking slow that game was....even for its time)
I would believe it. I bought Pokemon Blue the day it came out. The point I'm trying to make is that any given Pokemon game is a top shelf product, but playing them as they come out really shows a disappointing lack of ambition on the part of the developers. I'm happy Pokemon Black/White at least attempts to address some of the long-outstanding problems with the series, but structurally, it's still not trying very hard.
 

KurowaSan

Member
I just played the japanese PSN and I quite liked it. Yeah, it doesn't quite feel like Megadrive/Genesis Sonics, you just have to get used to the way Sonic moves and behaves. I think it's good enough for me to miss it, and it's been A LONG time since I last played a Sonic game, so i'll be buying it.

If anyone wants to check act 1 in HD, I captured the demo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW0N42wDgso&fmt=22
 

Gravijah

Member
Wallach said:
It's gettin' a little rage-y in here, let's change the subject.

Edit - I forgot which thread this was. How about that new Sonic game, eh?

Yes, subject change! I feel too fanboyish to talk about Pokemon.
 

Mael

Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
I would believe it. I bought Pokemon Blue the day it came out. The point I'm trying to make is that any given Pokemon game is a top shelf product, but playing them as they come out really shows a disappointing lack of ambition on the part of the developers. I'm happy Pokemon Black/White at least attempts to address some of the long-outstanding problems with the series, but structurally, it's still not trying very hard.

I won't claim to be a specialist on anything pkmn but I feel like they really tried making some complex stuffs, heck Green/Blue/Red/Yellow is one damn fine piece of engineering.
Gold/Silver had some really good addition,
I kinda don't know anything about the generation after (other than the wonderful work they did on the wireless exchange thingy they did for GBA, that lead the way for the DS btw).
And for Gen Iv there's a staggering amount of content in the games it's overwhelming, I couldn't actually believe how much shit there's in theses games.

Seriously I don't of any other rpg that has that much depth in it and content in it, I mean for a primarly multiplayer experience they sure put some stuffs for the people playing alone in it.
Although some stuffs show that they can take the lazy route (dear god again the same basic structure? WHY? then again stuffs like the starters and all are just annoyance that bother at the very beginning, it's not like Zelda where the formula is a bigger problem).

All that to say I actually agree with you here.
I'm bad at summary :lol
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Mael said:
that has been said for Unleashed too :lol

and they were right. Sonic Unleashed is one of the "good" games. It has flaws, but it is the next evolution for the "Adventure" Sonic franchise... a franchise which I really liked for the mix of action and adventure elements.

Of course, I am talking about the HD version of Unleashed.
 
Top Bottom