| #BROKEN Hasney |
10-13-2010 12:08 PM |
Guy on another forum I post at pretty much summed up exactly what I thought by using more effort:
Quote:
Well, my curiosity got the better of me, and I gave it a whirl. Here are my thoughts:
My first impression was moderately favorable. The game largely apes Sonic 2; the visual designs of the stages are clear copies of Green/Emerald Hill, Casino Night, Metropolis, and a weird hybrid of Labyrinth and Aquatic Ruin. The enemies are actual badniks, not the generic lumpy robots from the 3D games. The controls felt mostly right (more on this in a moment), and while it really doesn't bring any new ideas to the table, at least it's not terrible... that's a pretty low bar, but already enough to make it the best console Sonic game in the last decade.
I'll admit, the name bugs me a little bit: Calling it Sonic 4 implies a progression--some form of evolution from Sonic 3, which evolved the formula from Sonic 2, which itself saw significant improvements over Sonic 1--but this game is really more of a back-to-basics. It doesn't try anything new; in fact the whole POINT of it is to stick to the roots of the formula. Originally, my reaction was: "Okay, so it's pretty much a Sonic rehash rather than a 'next entry.' Mario, Bionic Commando, and Megaman (amongst others) all did this very well; maybe Sonic can too. Nothing amazing and new, but at least it's doing the old stuff right."
But my only real complaints were the generic music (the Genesis games had some very memorable tunes; this has none. Also, Sonic 1 had some awesomely ominous boss battle music. Whatever happened to that?) and the Sonic character model itself (still using the Adventure design, and the walking/running animations don't feel quite right; they're too slow. Additionally, the spin animations look terrible--as they always have in 3D). However, the game was enjoyable, and hey, it's new old Sonic... which is still fun. The levels are big and colorful, the visual design was very much in line with Sonic 1 and 2, and the levels were big and multi-pathed, just the way they should be.
So, coming out of the first zone and starting to work my way into the second, my impressions were (moderately) favorable.
Then, I got to a section in the third act of the casino zone that involved a series of cannons and bumpers that you had to maneuver through very precisely, otherwise you'd fall back to the bottom and have to start all over. I ran out of time twice trying to get through this section. There were no alternate routes or ways around this part, and in comparison to the rest of the game, it required a ridiculous amount of precision... which itself relied on an intuitive feel for the slightly wonky controls. There was no reason for this section to be designed this way, it was not fun, it wasn't doing anything interesting, and it got in my way of getting through the game. It also brought me to a realization: while the controls are fine, the forward momentum isn't quite right.
Controlling Sonic--especially in the air--is a bit like driving a weak four-cylinder car with overdrive. It starts off a little sluggish, but you hit a certain point where your forward movement just sort of spikes unexpectedly. That's kind of what Sonic is like here. In Sonic 1 and 2, he starts off slow for just a hair, and it's a very smooth and rapid progression to high speed. In Sonic 3, this is abridged a bit by having a higher starting speed, and thus slightly less of a (still-smooth) ramp. In Sonic 4, you start off slow, and the acceleration is more like a hyperbolic curve. It doesn't feel right, and it makes it particularly difficult when you have to do some mid-air maneuvering to hit specific targets... such as bouncing around on the aforementioned bumpers. Your character will be falling too slowly to reach your target, and then all of a sudden you'll hit the spike in acceleration and overshoot your target at the last second. Physics in Sonic have always felt a little jury rigged (to make loops and wall running and whatnot work), but this just flat-out feels broken.
And to jump back to the previous point: the level design is questionable in places. A level will be moving along just fine, feeling like a Sonic level should, then you'll just run into something wrong or out of place. In the Labyrinth-ripoff zone, this takes the form of a dark level that's only marginally lit by a torch, and features sections where you have to precisely light torches and time jumps to manipulate platforms. It feels thrown in just for the sake of saying "See? We did *something* new!" It doesn't work, it's not fun, and it feels both out of place and broken. In the Metropolis-ripoff zone, this took the form of a series of boulders you had to roll along on top of, as they fell through a series of chutes. In one of the old games, if you'd fallen off of one of these boulders, you would have either fallen to a "lower" path or (in a worst-case scenario; think Sandopolis) ended up in a loop that took you back to the beginning of the puzzle. But in Sonic 4, you just fall into a giant endless pit, where you die when you hit the bottom of the screen. Classic Sonic doesn't do that; in fact, that's one of the most memorable traits of Sonic level design, at least to me. There are no pits of nothingness. There may be one or two spike pits, but everything connects in some way. You don't just fall off the screen, unless it's a glitch. The GBA Sonic games had one or two pits, but not enough to really be noticeable; they mostly remained true to the Genesis designs. However, this problem got really bad in the Sonic Rush games... and here it is again.
It was nice that--for the first time in I can't even remember how long--they didn't try to bog the game down with any dialogue or cutscenes whatsoever. They also give you an overworld map, which I can understand for replay value--that way you can just jump in and replay the levels you want to--but doesn't quite make sense as implemented. As it stands, you can go to any level at any time, even if you haven't beaten the ones leading up to it. The only restriction is that the boss battles are locked until you beat all three acts in a zone, and the final boss is locked until you beat all the boss battles. This is unnecessary, and it kind of takes away from the feeling of progression and accomplishment. Sonic 1 and 2 had straight level-to-level progression, and Sonic 3 had acts that flowed into each other, and zones progression smoothed by quick transitional animations. That would feel the most natural; the stage select is nice from a usability standpoint, but they really should have only given you access to a level after beating it. Just a personal preference.
I don't think I have to spend too much time discussing the price. $15 is a bit high for a download, especially considering this is only the first quarter of the game. As a result, the full game will be $60, which is the full retail price of a new title. If that's what they wanted to do, they should've just released it on disc, rather than abusing the download feature to keep price fixed at initial retail. As it stands, the game is overpriced.
So, that's that. In short:
- Sonic 4 is better than any console Sonic in the last 10 years. It is better than the Sonic Rush games, and about on par with the Sonic Advance games.
- It is overpriced, and due to being DLC rather than a physical entity, it always will be.
- It feels more like a rehash than a "next entry." It does feel a little like Sonic Team giving up, but their attempts at keeping Sonic fresh have been so abysmal that maybe this is the better choice. The old stuff done well is better than horrible new stuff.
- The character animation sucks, and there's something slightly off about his movement physics. However, the controls are responsive, and the rest of the artwork is just fine.
- The level design is a mixed bag. It feels "right" most of the time, but occasionally (about once per zone) you'll just run into a big wall of stupid.
All in all, I'd say it feels more like the best Sonic fan game ever rather than the next real entry in the series. It is worth playing, but it's probably not worth the price tag.
|
I will say that even if it played like Sonic 3, I wouldn't say it was worth the cash they're charging per episode, there's just not enough content there. |
