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Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II |OT| Let's Go, Friend of Friends!

Kokonoe

Banned
I did enjoy Episode 1, but I have to say hearing that boss battle music again wasn't charming. Not so much of the quality, but the mood it sets is completely off par for the bosses in this game.

You can use the team moves to get by those? Huh. I was light-tapping too.

I feel slightly better hah. Really though, it just goes to show how the team roll doesn't add much to the gameplay.
 

goldenpp72

Member
I beat the whole game, going for my last achievement which is the red ring one, fun game, better than episode 1. I like the team mechanic, better level design, bosses, graphics, but the music sucks. I liked the special stages after getting used to the slow controls, but level 6/7 were too hard even with retrying.
 
The answers are only in Episode Metal not Episode II.
Get ready for the most intense reveals in the world. These are so crucial yet shocking to Sonic Canon I'll hide them behind separate spoilers:

Mad Gear:
Eggman Built Mad Gear to power up Metal Sonic

Lost Labyrinth:
Eggman was searching in Lost Labyrinth for some purple altar gem thing to further power up Metal Sonic

What it all means:
Eggman is doing all this to kill Sonic

Woah my mind has been obliterated!
So much effort to power up a single average robot, I don't know where Eggman gets his funding from but it's the biggest waste of all time
 

OnPoint

Member
Picked this up on XBLA and finished the first world with two emeralds. I have to say, it feels a little bit better than Ep 1 controlwise. The level design is still kind of eh, but maybe that's due to my usual hate of water-based levels. Who starts a Sonic game on a water area?

I'm also a little annoyed that my WiiWare version of Ep 1 has no way to stack with this one, so I can't play the Metal Sonic stuff unless I buy it again. Eh, oh well.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Kokonoe said:
I feel slightly better hah. Really though, it just goes to show how the team roll doesn't add much to the gameplay.
It really doesn't.

The only team move I've been using liberally is the Copter Combo (which turns into the Sub Combo underwater). Outside of that, you don't need to use the Rolling Combo unless:
-The game tells you to
-Probably if you want to move much faster

Because you have access to the Spindash, outside of the objects that the game tells you to use it for, you can just spindash things out of the way. And because of that, you get accustomed to not using the rolling combo. That move isn't as seamlessly implemented into the level design as the Copter combo is, I guess.

Woah my mind has been obliterated!
So much effort to power up a single average robot, I don't know where Eggman gets his funding from but it's the biggest waste of all time
You're talking about the guy who's been wasting his money for a heck of a lot of games to get rid of just one hedgehog. He probably gets it all from LORD REGIS.

And the guy who built these things:

N8d8B.jpg


KXqdn.jpg
 
I'm sure Eggman planned to recuperate lost money with overpriced fees for his interstellar amusement park and Eggman Land, Rollercoaster Tycoon style.

His other plans not so much.
 

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
After you have unlocked the level select/world map (which is unlocked after the first act of the game), you have to exit the game and enter it again for Episode Metal to be unlocked.

Thanks. Finished it and.. yeah, that kinda sucked. Also, the difficulty curve was completely ass backwards (not to mention spikes and enemies EVERYWHERE), the first act was hard as shit and cost me like 9 lives, with act 2 being somewhat easier and act 3 and 4 being pitifully easy.
 
Well from what little my gf (the Sonic fan) played, she seemed to like it. Though she found the first boss to be frustrating.

The music is shit though.

Most bosses in this game require you to use tails to fly and get to him somehow, it's a bit annoying because I'm to used to waiting for a moment to attack only to realize I could fly to him easy enough.

This made the first and third bosses so damn easy.
 

Lijik

Member
Thanks. Finished it and.. yeah, that kinda sucked. Also, the difficulty curve was completely ass backwards (not to mention spikes and enemies EVERYWHERE), the first act was hard as shit and cost me like 9 lives, with act 2 being somewhat easier and act 3 and 4 being pitifully easy.

I think the majority of my Sonic 4 ep 2 playtime was spent on Episode Metal Act 1.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Most bosses in this game require you to use tails to fly and get to him somehow, it's a bit annoying because I'm to used to waiting for a moment to attack only to realize I could fly to him easy enough.

This made the first and third bosses so damn easy.
Yeah, it probably takes a little bit to realize that the boss isn't going anywhere near your hit range until you realize that, hey, you can use the copter combo at will, so you just attack it from the air. I even used it against the second boss when
it was destroying the track
.

I have one more zone to finish off of Episode 2, but I'll finish it later tonight before I go to sleep.
 
I just bought this on iOS also, only £5 and I spent more then that tonight on chocolate peanuts, I own an ipad 3 so why not eh :p

At least I feel like this game is worth owning, ep 1 is just terrible and bad.
 
hm the water in the iOS version has a really strong ripple effect like say sonic 1 jp or sonic cd water which also effects sonic and the badniks, on the 360 I didn't notice anything as strong going on visually.

The intro is a video, too. lol.

Played and beat the game during a livestream just now, and...

No sir, I don't like it.

whats your biggest problems or dislikes? I quite like it as it's about the best we will get from a dimps sonic, classic is dead. Well there could be much better level layouts.
 
whats your biggest problems or dislikes? I quite like it as it's about the best we will get from a dimps sonic, classic is dead. Well there could be much better level layouts.

I don't want to give away too much of my review for TSSZ News, but basically:

Bosses are too long. Most bosses in the game take a minimum of 3 minutes, and in extreme cases, can take more than 6 minutes. Given that the clock when I beat the Oil Desert Boss was at 4:51 and it gave me a huge time bonus suggests I actually finished it under par.

It's made worse by the fact that it's pretty easy to die in these bosses midway through the battle, meaning you can pretty easily have to redo 5+ minutes of "Wait for the boss to make themselves vulnerable and do your one hit of damage". Worse yet, the game rubs your nose in it - most bosses have "start up" routines that front-load fights with nearly a minute of pointless fluff. Dying near the end of a boss and having to stand around and wait for the boss to do its "hey I'm here" animation really sucks all immediacy out of everything.

Most of the difficult parts of the game force you to use Tails. This has one of two effects, in that it either trivializes what was difficult about it or it makes it even harder because Tails' flight controls are kind of unwieldy. I must've lost 10 or 15 lives to various "fly over this huge bottomless pit as Tails" sections in Oil Desert and Sky Fortress, which, much like the difficulty spikes in Episode 1, were several orders of magnitude harder than anything else in that level.

Sylvania Castle and White Park were pretty good levels. But everything after that? No thanks.

Aw, you should've mentioned that you were doing a stream in here.

I would've had something informative to listen to while getting some studying done. :)

What were your major concerns about it?

Yeah, sorry. I did a really good job "prepping" people for my Sonic Generations stream and I kind of forgot to post about this anywhere except for Twitter. At least there's the archive, though, if you want to listen to me babble over the game for three hours.
 

Xav

Member
Bought the game for the sake it's Sonic 4 so I guess I should own it but first impressions are that while the physics are better the overall game is still trash. Strange considering this is Dimps, the company who gave us the Sonic Advance/Rush games which I found rather enjoyable.
Sega should just pretend these Sonic 4 games never happened & let the Sonic Generations team make Sonic 4 because classic Sonic in that game was a lot better than whatever Dimps is trying to pass off as Sonic 4 here.
If you're wondering what my main problem is it's the same one I had with Sonic 4, level design.
 
just to be sure, did you mash jump when flying or tap it every second or so? he only gets like 7 or 8 flight boosts before becoming exhausted but you can glide down without using them up.
 
just to be sure, did you mash jump when flying or tap it every second or so? he only gets like 7 or 8 flight boosts before becoming exhausted but you can glide down without using them up.

I knew you couldn't just mash the button, but the way Tails jerks up really fast throws me off quite a bit and there are sections of level that seem specifically designed so that unless you very specifically space out your button presses as long as humanly possible you'll never make it.
 

clav

Member
The physics are not fixed. What are you guys smoking?

Pressing down going on a loop slows Sonic as I have to keep pressing forward.

AVGN would be displeased. Not buying it.
 

RagnarokX

Member
Bought the game for the sake it's Sonic 4 so I guess I should own it but first impressions are that while the physics are better the overall game is still trash. Strange considering this is Dimps, the company who gave us the Sonic Advance/Rush games which I found rather enjoyable.
Sega should just pretend these Sonic 4 games never happened & let the Sonic Generations team make Sonic 4 because classic Sonic in that game was a lot better than whatever Dimps is trying to pass off as Sonic 4 here.
If you're wondering what my main problem is it's the same one I had with Sonic 4, level design.

Dimps has never been good at level design.
 
The physics are not fixed. What are you guys smoking?

Pressing down going on a loop slows Sonic as I have to keep pressing forward.

AVGN would be displeased. Not buying it.

it's not fixed but at least it's a playable game now! like I said a few pages back you should be naturally rolling down slopes at the speed of the team roll move which is a totally pointless gimmick and excuse for tails to give sonic a 69.
 
Few thoughts

-Am I crazy or is this game amazingly beautiful. it's so pretty

-Oil Desert and Sky Fortress bosses suck so hard. Oil Desert because it takes a dick year to get to his final form. Sky Fortress because the Tornado controls like thick shit in molasses and the insta kill at the end is too unpredictable, with the busy as fuck background and all that.

-Sky Fortress Act 2 is GAWDLIKE

-Tails flight section in Sky Fortress Act 3 is such a random difficulty spike

-Eggman/Metal Sonic tag team match at the end is very difficult to figure out. No indications of their weakness or anything. Seemed overly obscure

-I actually like the final boss *shrug*. Just spam flight. Fuck that intro animation though
 
The boss music is so horrible, I am honestly at a loss for words. What on earth were they thinking? Did they not playtest this AT ALL? That's my guess.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
The physics are not fixed. What are you guys smoking?
They're not fixed. They're just... kinda better in some places, but unchanged in others.

Sylvania Castle and White Park were pretty good levels. But everything after that? No thanks.
So far, I agree with that. Still have Sky Fortress to go.

Agree with what you have to say about using Tails too. It's not bad for the first two zones, but Oil Desert? Not very fun.

Yeah, sorry. I did a really good job "prepping" people for my Sonic Generations stream and I kind of forgot to post about this anywhere except for Twitter. At least there's the archive, though, if you want to listen to me babble over the game for three hours.
Ah well. I think it's a demonstration of how interested you--and other people--were in Episode 2, lol.

Thanks for the archive, though. :) It should be entertaining...

Green Scar said:
"I don't think Sonic has a prostate. I don't know."
... :|
 

Lijik

Member
The physics are not fixed. What are you guys smoking?

Pressing down going on a loop slows Sonic as I have to keep pressing forward.

AVGN would be displeased. Not buying it.

I cant think of a single person in this thread who didn't complain about the rolling when talking about how the controls feel. What are you smoking?

The mere act of running and jumping no longer feel like Im playing a chinese bootleg, I think thats enough to call the controls "decent".
 
Just tried the demo.

Tried to spindash up a wall. Nope.

Run up the wall? Sure!

That's pretty much sums up my entire experience considering the demo only lasts for about a minute. Nice way to try to keep people from testing the physics properly.

Of what I played, I did not like. I will not be buying.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Oh yeah, I have plenty of friends like that. Haha. Or maybe I'm that friend, bit of both really.
It seems like almost every time I watch a stream of his, I hear something that would make my cheeks feel warm, haha.

Still, it's entertaining. I like hearing what other people think, and Sega1991 knows his way around Sonic games in general.

That's pretty much sums up my entire experience considering the demo only lasts for about a minute. Nice way to try to keep people from testing the physics properly.
That was really annoying, I agree.
 

RagnarokX

Member
That's pretty much sums up my entire experience considering the demo only lasts for about a minute. Nice way to try to keep people from testing the physics properly.

Of what I played, I did not like. I will not be buying.

Yeah, that time limit was annoying. I tried to play through it again without testing the physics and I only made it to a part where Sonic keeps pulling snowboards out of his ass. Should that be listed as one of his powers on a wiki?
 
I hated Sonic 4 Episode 1, it is a terrible offensive game in its own right, never mind as a Sonic game.

However, the Episode 2 trial really felt quite good. I was bouncing and rolling the way I expected and it looks pretty. Then the trial ended after 2 minutes and I couldn't really generate any further opinions. After the disappointment of Ep1 though, I'm not spending 1200 points on this.

I'll see you at the new year's sale Sega, 400 points or less.
 

Galamauth

Member
I thought Ep 2 was great! cool mix of inventive new junk and old nostalgic stuff. I thought most the bosses were really inventive and satisfying to take down. Except for ONE remix the music was complete diarrhea. Overall: beats the shit out of Ep. 1 and would not mind if they kept making them in this fashion.
 

Sandopolis was an obvious answer, but the crates reminded me of Shinobi 3, for some reason, and the way the level was designed where you were constantly running back and forth to the corners of the screen while the camera panned upwards was something Shinobi 3 did, as I recall.
 

RagnarokX

Member
Sandopolis was an obvious answer, but the crates reminded me of Shinobi 3, for some reason, and the way the level was designed where you were constantly running back and forth to the corners of the screen while the camera panned upwards was something Shinobi 3 did, as I recall.

Also Flying Battery Act 2 and Marble Garden Act 2 do it as well.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Finished the main game. Might type up thoughts tomorrow. Will play Episode Metal tomorrow, and that should be interesting based on the stuff I've heard about it.

Towards the end, I ended up cursing quite a bit.

Music gets better towards the end, though, in Sky Fortress. That's something, especially based on what I'd said before in this thread. Some of the samples in
Death Egg mk II
aren't that great, but I guess it gets catchier. Satisfactory, but not really amazing or that great, though.

Last few bosses were poor. If you die, it takes for-effing-ever for the boss to introduce itself. Or if you die during its second phase, you've gotta start aaaallll over again (which isn't too bad because you know what to do for the first phase, but you have to get the boss, watch its long introduction, and then fight it through its phases again).

The Sky Fortress boss isn't good, though. The Xtortionist said it better than I could. The Tornado controls don't feel very good. But I guess when you figure out what to do, it gets better. I still don't like the boss very much.

The
Metal Sonic/Robotnik
boss combo could've been really good, but there was something about it that I really didn't like. Probably because what you had to do for it seemed ambiguous?

The
Stardust Speedway remix
bit with Metal Sonic could have been really cool, but
you know how you can easily accelerate with the Rolling Combo? Just use that and the entire affair will be a joke. THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, or something.

Sky Fortress Act 2? Good. Surprisingly, that wasn't that bad.

The entirety of Oil Desert should be sacrificed for the greater good.

The zone
Death Egg mk II
, unfortunately, makes me feel a little dizzy since it's all spinny.

Boss introductions should be axed completely from the next episode.

I'll write something better tomorrow when I'm not studying, and it'll include Metal Sonic stuff.
 

TheOGB

Banned
Played through the time limited demo 5 times just now.

I have a feeling White Park Act 1 isn't the only place I can start a rolling combo and set the controller down for long stretches of time.

Playing through (most of) the level normally was damn boring.

Not interested.
 
So, based on the first two zones, this game is worse than the enjoyable but flawed Episode 1, and probably the worst 2D Sonic I've played. It doesn't seem to fix anything, and if anything the physics seem more intrusive. The first boss sucked and the second one killed me in one hit by destroying the ground without warning. Next time, I'd be ready for it, obviously, but there probably won't be a next time unless it suddenly turns into S3K. Which it won't.

On the positive side, the second act of the second zone was reasonably fun. I liked the Twinkle Park riff.
 
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