Current Events > Why did Sonic 4 fail?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Sega went back to the platforming roots and did away with the issues that the newer sonic games had.
---

So it could learn to get back up

Because they tried to do retro without understanding what made the retro games good.

Also all the levels were uninspired and aped aesthetics from older levels.

It didnt build on the classics the way MegaMan 9 did, and felt more like a worse version of the Advance series.

Which sucks because the Advance series was mostly great, and I had high hopes for a Dimps made console 2D platform we at the time lol
---

AlisLandale posted...

Because they tried to do retro without understanding what made the retro games good.

---

Sonic 4 is what happens when Sega farms out yet another title to fucking DIMPS instead of a competent team
---

p
---

I don't know why it failed. I thought Episode 1 was excellent, and Ep 2 was quite good fun, too. Sonic 4 felt a lot like the original games.
---

the physics sucked. you can't call it Sonic 4 and make it a completely different game. Mania is the real Sonic 4.
---

-Bad physics that result in the game playing nothing like the classics
-Zones & bossed copied & pasted from Sonic 1 & 2 (not really an issue in Episode 2)
-Unappealing graphics & music (mostly Episode 1)
---

All of the above.
---

The snow level and underground labyrinth level were cool. Rest of the game was trash. Plus horrible physics
---

While learning Unity I made a simple platformer with better Sonic-like physics than Sonic 4. They must have had quite the chain of stupid starting at the guys who wrote the physics to the ones who thought "yeah this is good" and approved it for release.

Rexdragon125 posted...

While learning Unity I made a simple platformer with better Sonic-like physics than Sonic 4. They must have had quite the chain of stupid starting at the guys who wrote the physics to the ones who thought "yeah this is good" and approved it for release.

its not that they were stupid. they were stubborn. throughout the entirety of its development they kept saying "this is sonic now, we're not going back to old sonic...deal with it". even after the game leaked and everyone saw it was bad they still doubled down. its why Mania even became a thing. they finally realized how much they fucked up.
---

VipaGTS posted...

the physics sucked. you can't call it Sonic 4 and make it a completely different game. Mania is the real Sonic 4.

---

Metua posted...

-Bad physics that result in the game playing nothing like the classics
-Zones & bossed copied & pasted from Sonic 1 & 2 (not really an issue in Episode 2)
-Unappealing graphics & music (mostly Episode 1)

Summed it up nicely. The physics were like running on ice and the jumping was off. They were improved in episode 2 but still weren't good.

The graphics were ugly but I could deal if it played alright.
---