05-05-2013, 12:57 PM
I was going to review Sly Cooper 4 but instead decided to do Sonic 4 Episode 1 since it is still fresh in my mind.
Anyway Sonic 4 Episode 1 is a 2D platformer that to many is Sonic's strongest point so from what I heard from various people, it is a disappointing game but needed to try for myself to see whether it is bad or just the fans being extremists. It was on sale with its sequel so it didn't cost much to try it out. First things first, I had low expectations and noticed straight away the physics were a bit off but got used to them fairly quickly.
The graphics are pretty good and can't really seem any problem with them what so ever. Sonic is animated fairly well like if you look up, you can see his smiling expression and Robotnik well... Eggman getting angry when he loses. The sound a lot of people don't like at all but since I am tone deaf, have no problems with the music even if Splash Hill Act 1 sounds like a cheesy synthesizer. In fact Casino Street Act 3 reminds me of Spring Stadium from Sonic 3D. There is no story in this game and only Sonic is the playable character which is a good thing since it is more focused on the star of the game but some people may not like it if their prefer another character.
As for the gameplay, the best way of describing this game is Sonic 1 and 2 Revisited with a homing attack. The five stages are inspired by both games. Splash Hill (Green Hill [enemies, boss] mixed with Emerald Hill [the background, the corkscrews]), Casino Street (Casino Night), Lost Labyrinth (Labyrinth), Mad Gear (Metropolis) and the final stage (Death Egg mixed with a bit of Scrambled Egg from Sonic 2 Master System). Oh and the special stage is the Sonic 1 one. Since I love Sonic 1 and 2, this is like getting the best of these 2 games by condensed. Yes, I liked Metropolis Zone from Sonic 2. For the diehards, it does seem uninspired though.
The controls aren't bad apart from the dodgy physics but I am not one of the knowledgable fans to know whats wrong with them. The collision detection is also a bit off as well like for example in Casino Street, you can launch in flipper mode even if you are a touch outside the flipper and does affect the bosses a bit. To get into the special stage, the player shouldn't run too fast otherwise they miss the jump to the giant ring at the end. Too bad Sega didn't make a patch to fix the problems but the sequel did fix them though so at least they figured it out. As for the level design, most of it is actually decent but I did notice quite a bit of homing attack the bubble type of enemy from Sonic 3 (I forgotten the name of it...) to get to higher areas. For the diehard Sonic fan at a certain website, they mocked this game and made a hack called Sonic 2 Dimps Edition so if you ever played that, you would have a good idea what this game is about.
Usually I struggle badly at the 2D Sonic games with only getting as far as Labyrinth in Sonic 1, the final boss in Sonic 2, Marble Garden in Sonic 3 but have completed Sonic CD, beaten Sonic Triple Trouble and the Dimps 2D Sonic games but this game is an exception. I have beaten the game within 3 attempts with only 4 Chaos Emeralds left before truely completing the game. The first 2 stages were easy getting at least over 20 lives [there were a couple of problems regarding Casino Street Act 2 in terms of timing of the cards], the only stages I had problems were Lost Labyrinth Act 2 with the fire platform puzzle and the final boss in terms of timing. After all I am a rubbish player. So the experienced Sonic fan can complete this in their first try.
So yeah, this is a decent game. Not the best Sonic game but definitely not the worst. However it could have been worse. As some people may or may not know, the game got leaked before it was finished on the 360 and the Wii [the PS3 was also leaked but only a few played it] and had two different stages. Casino Street Act 2 and Lost Labyrinth Act 2. The former was a pinball challenge and the latter was a mine cart stage ala Donkey Kong Country. Due to the physic problems, they showed the games weaknesses even more. Apparently the mine cart stage uses tilting and it got stuck. Obviously they changed it for the better and they made the stages more Sonic like but if you have a mobile, the stages weren't changed so you get to play the original version of this game with the pinball challenge and the mine cart stage.
Unlike most Sonic fans, I actually feel sympathic towards the developers in this case. While people blame Dimps for this, I actually looked at the credits and two of the programmers aren't even from that company [one was Safari Games if I remember correctly]. It is probably the case of the game having a low budget, the staff don't have experience since some of the Dimps people were probably working on Sonic Colours DS at the time plus other games and whoever was were probably the younger members who might have not worked on a Sonic game before plus with the two outsourced developers. Yeah... They probably had a idea of what a Sonic game is about from memory but didn't have the full skills to achieve what the fans wanted. They aren't someone like The Taxman who is both a fan and has vast knowledge of the games to know how to program them like how Yuji Naka programmed Sonic 1, 2 and 3, they are doing this as a job and remember Sonic isn't as famous in Japan as America and Europe so their interests might have been elsewhere.
So should I recommend this for the Sonic fan? NO, unless a Sonic fan is more forgiving to its weaknesses. The diehard SR fans hate it for the physics and level design, the Adventure fans probably hate it for lack of characters and for being 2D. However, who should I recommend this game to then? There aren't many 2D platformers on the PS3/360; apart from the other Sonic games [Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 [XBLA], Sonic CD], there's the two Rayman games and Puppeteer on the PS3 coming soon so there isn't as much choice when compared to some other consoles e.g. the Wii has New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Wario Land: The Shake Dimension and they are the ones that I know about. For that, you can try it since it is fairly cheap and is enjoyable. I also recommend this to a younger person as in someone who is younger than a teenager (6 to 11). They get to play a game that they can play and enjoy without much problems, the graphics are good and more appealing to their eyes when compared to Sonic 1, 2 and CD [you got to remember, younger people don't like blocky graphics from 20 years ago unless someone who grew up with the older games is with them] plus for mobile players you get more value than a stereotypical mobile phone game. It maybe more expensive but it is a higher quality compared to gambling Puzzle Bobble/Bust a Move and Bejeweled clones, most endless runners and fixed strategy games that are common with phone gaming.
Anyway Sonic 4 Episode 1 is a 2D platformer that to many is Sonic's strongest point so from what I heard from various people, it is a disappointing game but needed to try for myself to see whether it is bad or just the fans being extremists. It was on sale with its sequel so it didn't cost much to try it out. First things first, I had low expectations and noticed straight away the physics were a bit off but got used to them fairly quickly.
The graphics are pretty good and can't really seem any problem with them what so ever. Sonic is animated fairly well like if you look up, you can see his smiling expression and Robotnik well... Eggman getting angry when he loses. The sound a lot of people don't like at all but since I am tone deaf, have no problems with the music even if Splash Hill Act 1 sounds like a cheesy synthesizer. In fact Casino Street Act 3 reminds me of Spring Stadium from Sonic 3D. There is no story in this game and only Sonic is the playable character which is a good thing since it is more focused on the star of the game but some people may not like it if their prefer another character.
As for the gameplay, the best way of describing this game is Sonic 1 and 2 Revisited with a homing attack. The five stages are inspired by both games. Splash Hill (Green Hill [enemies, boss] mixed with Emerald Hill [the background, the corkscrews]), Casino Street (Casino Night), Lost Labyrinth (Labyrinth), Mad Gear (Metropolis) and the final stage (Death Egg mixed with a bit of Scrambled Egg from Sonic 2 Master System). Oh and the special stage is the Sonic 1 one. Since I love Sonic 1 and 2, this is like getting the best of these 2 games by condensed. Yes, I liked Metropolis Zone from Sonic 2. For the diehards, it does seem uninspired though.
The controls aren't bad apart from the dodgy physics but I am not one of the knowledgable fans to know whats wrong with them. The collision detection is also a bit off as well like for example in Casino Street, you can launch in flipper mode even if you are a touch outside the flipper and does affect the bosses a bit. To get into the special stage, the player shouldn't run too fast otherwise they miss the jump to the giant ring at the end. Too bad Sega didn't make a patch to fix the problems but the sequel did fix them though so at least they figured it out. As for the level design, most of it is actually decent but I did notice quite a bit of homing attack the bubble type of enemy from Sonic 3 (I forgotten the name of it...) to get to higher areas. For the diehard Sonic fan at a certain website, they mocked this game and made a hack called Sonic 2 Dimps Edition so if you ever played that, you would have a good idea what this game is about.
Usually I struggle badly at the 2D Sonic games with only getting as far as Labyrinth in Sonic 1, the final boss in Sonic 2, Marble Garden in Sonic 3 but have completed Sonic CD, beaten Sonic Triple Trouble and the Dimps 2D Sonic games but this game is an exception. I have beaten the game within 3 attempts with only 4 Chaos Emeralds left before truely completing the game. The first 2 stages were easy getting at least over 20 lives [there were a couple of problems regarding Casino Street Act 2 in terms of timing of the cards], the only stages I had problems were Lost Labyrinth Act 2 with the fire platform puzzle and the final boss in terms of timing. After all I am a rubbish player. So the experienced Sonic fan can complete this in their first try.
So yeah, this is a decent game. Not the best Sonic game but definitely not the worst. However it could have been worse. As some people may or may not know, the game got leaked before it was finished on the 360 and the Wii [the PS3 was also leaked but only a few played it] and had two different stages. Casino Street Act 2 and Lost Labyrinth Act 2. The former was a pinball challenge and the latter was a mine cart stage ala Donkey Kong Country. Due to the physic problems, they showed the games weaknesses even more. Apparently the mine cart stage uses tilting and it got stuck. Obviously they changed it for the better and they made the stages more Sonic like but if you have a mobile, the stages weren't changed so you get to play the original version of this game with the pinball challenge and the mine cart stage.
Unlike most Sonic fans, I actually feel sympathic towards the developers in this case. While people blame Dimps for this, I actually looked at the credits and two of the programmers aren't even from that company [one was Safari Games if I remember correctly]. It is probably the case of the game having a low budget, the staff don't have experience since some of the Dimps people were probably working on Sonic Colours DS at the time plus other games and whoever was were probably the younger members who might have not worked on a Sonic game before plus with the two outsourced developers. Yeah... They probably had a idea of what a Sonic game is about from memory but didn't have the full skills to achieve what the fans wanted. They aren't someone like The Taxman who is both a fan and has vast knowledge of the games to know how to program them like how Yuji Naka programmed Sonic 1, 2 and 3, they are doing this as a job and remember Sonic isn't as famous in Japan as America and Europe so their interests might have been elsewhere.
So should I recommend this for the Sonic fan? NO, unless a Sonic fan is more forgiving to its weaknesses. The diehard SR fans hate it for the physics and level design, the Adventure fans probably hate it for lack of characters and for being 2D. However, who should I recommend this game to then? There aren't many 2D platformers on the PS3/360; apart from the other Sonic games [Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 [XBLA], Sonic CD], there's the two Rayman games and Puppeteer on the PS3 coming soon so there isn't as much choice when compared to some other consoles e.g. the Wii has New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Wario Land: The Shake Dimension and they are the ones that I know about. For that, you can try it since it is fairly cheap and is enjoyable. I also recommend this to a younger person as in someone who is younger than a teenager (6 to 11). They get to play a game that they can play and enjoy without much problems, the graphics are good and more appealing to their eyes when compared to Sonic 1, 2 and CD [you got to remember, younger people don't like blocky graphics from 20 years ago unless someone who grew up with the older games is with them] plus for mobile players you get more value than a stereotypical mobile phone game. It maybe more expensive but it is a higher quality compared to gambling Puzzle Bobble/Bust a Move and Bejeweled clones, most endless runners and fixed strategy games that are common with phone gaming.