Sonic the Hedgehog 4 - Episode I

I've seen StH 4 EP 1 a long time ago when I was but an 11 year old, and thought "Hey, it's a Sonic game and it's on PC, it can't be that bad, as people say!" IT IS. AND EVEN WORSE

SONIC 4 is a major piece of slop that I won't recommend even to my worst enemy. It takes all the worst pieces from the original Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, gives it a modern Sonic look and a shitty physics. If you hated enemy placing and blind pits in DIMPS Sonic Games as well as bullshit gimmicks in Sonic 1 and 2 then you will hate this one as well if not even more.

I loves Sonic Advance 1-3, and even though they are stuck on a handheld with a small screen, they still feel much more fun and faithful to the franchise than this crap.

I really hope that Episode 2 will a major step in the right direction with something original instead of the rehash of the contect from the first two games (They did not even include anything from the third one, lol).

Someone decided to label this disgrace of a Sonic game as the 4th game in the main line and for that I am sad.

This is the first game I've ever felt inclined to review, it's so bad.

The graphics scream "this was made for mobile devices" and not in a good way, the textures of the different set pieces don't jive together, in the more tech-themed levels it's hard to tell what's supposed to be walkable and what belongs in the background, and some of the stage pieces, especially in the casino levels, don't look like they even belong in the game (like the gems on the pillars, and the casino chips on the ground as breakables honestly looked like a pile of gems until I stared at one for a good few moments).

The gameplay as well is horrid, with the physics just being plain old *weird*, and hard to manoeuvre Sonic, especially in the air. Traversing under water is also difficult, with how long it takes to build up momentum. The level design itself is incredibly lacking, with much of the levels being too similar to the original 16 bit games (which I've played very recently, so it was easy to spot), and many of the boss fights being very close to being copy-pastes of the original 16 bit bosses. The only new gimmick I could identify was the torches in the temple levels (which was honestly kind of clever, but that's about it).

And the final boss.... oh, the final boss. So far I've played the game for four hours (the other half hour of my playtime at the time of writing this was just troubleshooting trying to make my controller work with the game, which I was unable to do, so I ended up having to remap the keyboard controls to something passable), and just over 2 of those hours have just been fighting the final boss.

Overall, this game sucks, and I'm only going to try to beat the final boss later because I'm trying to beat all of the mainline Sonic games this year (this really isn't a mainline game, I don't know why I counted it as one). 0/10, do not recommend.

This mobile phone game isn't as awful as people on the internet would make it out to be, The main issue with this game is that it's trying to be a successor to the originals, and the people of 2010 did not like that. This game has some fun levels, unfortunately this game has zero personality as far as the art direction goes- there's just no character or soul in there. It was fun enough for the literal pennies I got this game for when it was on sale... The final stage was "No good!"

if I were scott the woz this would be my chibi robo zip lash

is this the best sonic game? absolutely not. but does this game get WAY too much hate? I think so
Yes the level design isn't the best and the physics are jank, but i do like the genesis style soundtrack a lot and the addition of the homing attack is fantastic in my opinion
the graphics are kinda terrible though why was Sonic covered in polish
I'd give it a 7/10; not the disaster people make it to be but not amazing either. worth checking out I think

(and yes episode 2 is better)

'Twas bad.
Weirdly nostalgic just cos it was my second ever Sonic game.
The nostalgia goes away after like a level, though and I remember why this game was so bad.
Regardless, yeag.
Twas bad.

I know understand why everyone hates this game
final boss fight put me in a sour mood
would not recommend

Yeah, that Backloggd review score is very telling, and there's a reason it took a grand total of 7 years for me to finally get around to 100%ing this game. Let's just jump in off the deep end and get into it.

Sonic 4 Episode 1 is a game that does not feel good to play. Really, it all comes down to the game feel of this one. Sonic is sluggish, he takes forever to get up to full speed, the animations give poor feedback and feel sluggish as well, and ultimately that was already the death nail for this game. You take a game like Sonic 3, a game known, in part, for its super intuitive, responsive controls, make a sequel to it where that is not the case, and you're asking for a bad time. Even the spindash feels slow as dirt. This is without mentioning that the game lacks the iconic gameplay element from the first three Sonic games of actual physics. In those games, Sonic could roll up and down hills naturally with real weight, it was such a huge part of what made those original games stand out, and continue to be known to this day. This game entirely lacks that, and in it's place we have that iconic image of Sonic standing sideways on a wall from this game. Sonic needed a few more passes through the basic movement department before any levels were designed around this guy, it's surprisingly rough. The only saving grace for this is, ironically, the fact that they've added the homing attack, originating from 'Sonic Adventure', to this title, which gives you an option to accelerate at a decent pace. Unfortunately, this homing attack is also arguably the aspect that ruins the game from a totally different angle.

So, they've messed up the controls. That's half the battle with a 2D Sonic game, but they didn't leave the level design untouched as well. Because you now have a move that lets you chain together enemies, the level design is now built around this in large parts, with you just spamming the homing attack in chains of enemies. Riveting. If the game didn't feel so stiff already, these segments could be a brief power trip, and could be quite fun, but the rest of the level design doesn't really make up for it. In large part, this game follows the 'Super Mario' level design scheme. In short, this scheme means each level is centered around one gameplay mechanic that continually gets tested and tried throughout the level, and it is basically never seen in levels afterwards. This is a fantastic way to design a video game, that's why the Super Mario series is so acclaimed, but the application with it here brings a few problems. First off, being Sonic 4, it should follow the scheme of the previous games in the series that do not do this, but secondly, gimmicks like these in Sonic games tend to just slow the pace of the game down more than anything. I don't want to get stopped to use a cannon, or roll on balls, or use a torch in the dark, it just slows the pace down, which is contradictory to the main point of a speed-based platformer. They also lack depth with these mechanics, often failing to do anything fun with them rather than... use them over and over. When the game isn't doing this, it's generally just propelling you forward using dash pads and springs, which can be fun every once in a while, but quickly gets tiring here.

The actual level themes aren't any better, as ALL FOUR OF THEM are recycled from Sonic 1 or Sonic 2. They look like near carbon copies, and the bosses they bring alongside them are nearly identical as well. At that point, don't bother giving them new names, just call them what they are. It baffles me. On note of the bosses - they suck too, and now you have to wait for their intro animation to play to hurt them... lame! The game also only has four levels, which makes it have fewer areas than any of its predecessors... from the 90's. Really getting your bang for your buck here I guess.

"Well geez is there anything you like about this game?" No, and I will continue. The art style is probably the worst in the entire series. Sonic looks like he's from a totally different game than the environments, being cell shaded, while the backgrounds are fully 3D rendered (but still 2D, think Donkey Kong Country), and also just atrociously shiny. The backgrounds look more in line with a mid 2000s hidden object PC game (which I have a lot of experience with). It just doesn't look like a finished product, I'm so surprised they didn't just... make it not look like that.

The soundtrack is a little bit better, there's actually a lot of really nice tunes here. They're just unfortunately coated in this faux 16-bit soundfont that makes them sound not the greatest. Jun Senoue is a really talented composer, he should just be let nowhere around a synthesizer ever again (something Sonic Superstars was oh so happy to show us is still true to this very day).

Achievements here also suck, and include doing the final level damageless (sucks), replaying the entire game as Super Sonic, replaying the whole game in Time Attack, and the rest are pretty reasonable. It's just those three that really annoyed me.

To conclude, you should not play this game unless you are a die hard Sonic fan, and even then it's mostly just to understand why people constantly dunk on this game. It truly is shockingly bad, a fact that's only partly excused by the fact that this was originally supposed to be a spin-off mobile game. This explains a lot of the reused content and lower budget aspects, but alas this is not the game that we got. We got Sonic 4. A poor excuse for a Sonic 3 sequel, and one of the worst platformers in the entire series.

Playing this for the first time ever, I can honestly say this is one of the worst 2D Sonic games I've ever played. I have tried numerous times to finish the game but I cannot be bothered at this point because of how mind-numbing it all is. The soundtrack, while has like two or three decent songs, has a very terrible OST. The level themes are very uninspired and the level designs are extremely automated, probably due to the fact that the physics of the game are not good either. The gimmicks in concept are okay like in the Carnival stage for example, the cards are kind of cool but everything else is just boring, in my opinion. The special stages are decent and better than Sonic 1's in my opinion. The fact this is called Sonic 4 is a crime. The way the game looks is also off and the blur effect, while cool in concept, looks terrible here as well. If you are extremely curious like how I was, you can try the game but in general, I do not recommend this game in the slightest. The name "Sonic the Portable" and with it only being on phones could've been the safest bet, but that did not happen.. Not returning to this game anytime soon.
-
As of making this review, however, I have not tried Episode 2 yet and will try it soon.

This game feels like a college student tried to recreate sonic advance in blender

I like torturing myself so I play this game.

Come on you guys.
And no, the guys i am talking about are NOT the devs. I'm talking about the reviewers. I've made it quite clear on my reviews for Origins and Superstars that these games get a lot of undeserved hate... but this has to be the worst. 45% positive reviews for a $10 game that, while flawed, is absolutely a solid experience. Despite the levels being unoriginal, the actual level mechanics are VERY original. Just take the swinging vines in Splash Hill Act 2 or the card mechanics in Casino Street Act 2, the orbs that can chase you or be ridden in Lost Labyrinth Act 1, or literally all of Lost Labyrinth Act 2- but Mad Gear Act 3 has to be my favorite, running from a massive crushing wall... it's just great. Heck, the ziplines in Splash Hill Act 3 even made it into Green Hill Act 2 in Sonic Mania! Fans should stop treating sonic games like hating on them cures cancer or something. 7.5/10.

terrible, i have no clue what drove sega to thinking this was a good continuation of... the classics.

its SOOO UGLY the game just looks horrendous, why is sonic only kind of cell shaded. The special stages fucking suck AND LET YOU RETRY THEM IN THE PAUSE MENU BUT NOT WHEN YOU FAIL ???? The homing attack feels so awful WHY DO YOU BOUNCE OFF SHIT

You can't even say the music saves it like other sonic games, it all sounds the same...

that final boss drove me to sui

i don't get why people hate this game so much. don't get me wrong on a technical side it isn't great. gotta get a mod launcher to do stuff like get the resolution up. and sure u do need some mods to make the graphics look better (ipad graphics are way better there's a mod which replaces these with that) and one with better cell shading

but like. it's not a bad game. honestly i would say it's BETTER then the originals imo. just because of the homing dash. i was never a fan of old sonic just cuz of how unfair it is and how everything puts u to a stop. unless ur good/really good at old sonic u'll never feel that speed rush. which is why i never really got the craze. but with 2 additions in this game being homing attack and not restarting the entire game when u lose lives i honestly enjoy it more. my opinion of this might change but not my overall thoughts on this game. don't listen to the hard critics and get this.

Before I get into the review itself, I just wanna preface this by completely nullifying my credibility saying that I love this game. As someone who used to play this game religiously on my Xbox as a kid, I can't bring myself to hate this game despite its problems, and to this day I can still have fun playing this game (even if I find it a bit too easy).

THAT BEING SAID HOWEVER, I in NO way believe that this is an objectively good game. Far from it in fact; I may have a nostalgic bias towards this game, but even I can acknowledge that, from an objective standpoint, Sonic 4 Episode 1 suuuucks! The visuals in this game are very sloppy and rely on heavily recycling old level themes/ideas, the music's instrumentation is rightfully criticised due to it's poor and shallow attempt at replicating the Mega Drive's sound-font (I personally think Jun Senoue's work with this soundtrack in particular holds up better that all of his subsequent Genesis-style scores, however that may just be my nostalgia rearing it's ugly head), the physics are completely screwed up and lack any decent sense of flow or momentum, the level design is painfully dull and over-reliant on stuff like springs, boost pads and arbitrary homing attack chains, the special stages are copy-paste from Sonic 1 but with worse controls, the bosses are uninspired and simple with the exception of the final stage's bizarre difficulty spike with the Death Egg Robo, it is WAY too easy to rack up lives in this game (rendering game overs essentially obsolete), and it ultimately fails to act as a satisfying follow-up to Sonic 3 & Knuckles despite advertising itself as Sonic 4.

You can tell that this game started out as a mobile-exclusive spin-off, because it feels like not much effort was put into making this game anything special and that it only exists to (unsuccessfully) piggyback off of people's nostalgia. It may always have a special place in my heart due to how much I played it when I was a kid, but that's just because I'm dumb as rocks. Don't play this game. There's no real point to spending time with this game, especially since there are much better 2D Sonic games being readily available on Steam, most of which being FAR more competent than THIS fiasco.

Completed as of writing this review: All Achievements

Look, I get the reaction by the fans at the time. It's one of the worst things the publisher may have done in the franchise - mark some okay game as a true sequel and make developers get the blame for that. But to be honest I don't think this game is that bad. It's just... there. Sure if I count it as Sonic 4 it's awful but it wasn't even planned that way. So on it's own it's fine. The level design is fine and the music is okay. Each act has it's own gimmick, making the stages interesting to play the first time around. The bosses are hit and miss however. The special stages don't feel good to control, even though they are easier than their original form in Sonic 1. The only part that can get tough is the "Untouchable" achievement. The game is just okay, even if mediocre by the series' standards. But considering it's low price I can't say that it's not worth it. It's worth to at least beat it once and forget about it.

Honestly, this game is overhated. Not amazing by any means, but it shouldn't have gotten the title Sonic 4. If it were named something differently, maybe people would've held it in a better light.

This game is definitely a bit jank, but it's not unplayable, nor is it *almost* impossible to 100% like Sonic Generations (Not Sonic X Shadow Generations) or as broken as Rise of Lyric. Which are low bars to pass, sure. But, I think it's worth a go. There's actually a WiiWare version of this game, believe it or not.

But all in all, I give it a 6/10. Not bad, not great, but nothing to hate on.

decent 2d sonic game better then gamegear games

One of the worst iterations of Sonic.

The game itself doesn't even want to start. It tries to force java on you, just because the options menu is outside of the game and uses that, but without entering the settings first, you can't start the game.

So there exists a custom fix, you can change the starting exe with it and get it to work, but you will not be able to change any settings.

So after having to go through that dilemma to finally get the game to even start, you get a game that isn't even any good.
It is a 2d Sonic game, with the worst controls of any 2d Sonic game ever. The only way you can get even through the game, is because you got a homing attack for the 2d Sonic. Jumping on anything without that, would be impossible. The physics are a complete mess, you can barely move the way you want and the level design wants you to constantly do things, that the physics simply do not support. If it was made to compliment the physics somehow, the movement itself would actually work. Just not as a Sonic game.

There are many places in which you would have gotten through a lot more easier, if you just had the real classic sonic controls and physics. This games level design isn't good, but having these abysmal controls just makes it so much worse!

I don't like the special stages either, they're soooo slow and you still feel like you can't control Sonic at all.. I tried collecting all the emeralds, but gave up in the end. I just couldn't bear it.

I did the very most basic thing of a playthrough here and am happy to never touch it again.

This game is garbage. Don't waste you're money on it.

This game fucking sucks

hey Sega, why don't you fix this instead of re-releasing Generation which already ran good on here? The time it took you all to edit and censor those cut scenes could have easily been time used to get this and Sonic 4 episode 2 in a more ideal state

No controller support for ps5 controllers. Waste of money.

Hot garbage. Some of the worst physics in any Sonic game.

Everything in life has come to this.
This is the pinnacle of existence.
The pure source of life, the pure juices of imagination and fantasy.
This, everybody, is a work of art.

bad game lol, idk why i bought it

ignore my 250 hours this game wont stop playing send help pls

I hate this game

A missed opportunity. I can't recommend it.

shitty ass final boss and terrible late game

I love the overall design of the characters and worlds. The design is similar to that one the original Sonic the Hedgehog 1. Also the controls are simple and fun to use. The emerald zones are tough, but not enough to become annoying once a tutorial is played.

The most fun part about this game is doing something else while it installs, everything after is just misery

I'm pretty sure this game itself was made for DarkSydePhil and game journalists.

This game made me contract depression. I lost my job because of this game and I will blame it for my personal shortcomings too. Love you Sega!!! <3<3<3

no, just no.

trying to 100% this game is hell

i had this on wiiware

Requires Java. I'll just leave it at that.

this game sucks my left nutsack

this game is so bad i love it

I forgot how much I Ϝµ¢ķ¡ŋ⅁ hate this game. Still worth the rebuy tho

I sill hate this game (2 hours in)

It's a nice game, but please, make it run on steam deck. Actually is broken (correct compatibility - unsupported :/ ).

Even my computer wants nothing to do with this game, because no matter what I do, I can't open this game up. I've tried pressing the play button, downloading external files and importing them into the game's files, and and tried troubleshooting it, but no matter what I do, I literally can't play this game.

penis

this game is bad

this game is fucking awful dude

This game is fun, the levels are great and the music isn't bad, though the one and only thing that makes this game suck, is the final/boss. It's not fun, it's barely playable, and the fact there's a near impossible achievement attached to it shows the devs had no clue what the fuck to do in or with this game. Don't waste your money or time with this garbage. Watch a review video and say you've played the game, it's a lot more enjoyable and less time consuming and NOBODY would blame you.

i like sonic

its boring and trash

Honestly, I don't see how people hate this game so much.
Yes, the lock-on mechanic is not necessary
Yes, some of the bosses can be a bit annoying
However, the game IS fun.
The soundtrack (despite what some people say) is very enjoyable, even if its not "Sonic 3/Mania quality"
And overall I feel like this game is just over-hated.

It's not a perfect game
It's definitely not the best sonic game out there
But it's definitely NOT the worst, and it's not even close.

I heavily recommend you play it, instead of looking at all the negative reviews of people being butt-hurt cause they didn't get what they wanted.