mslurr

It's certainly an improvement over the atrocious Episode 1, that's for sure. It's actually playable. But besides the jump physics and uncurling, as well as new graphics and a pretty cool tails coop gimmick, nothing has changed. Music still ****, the level design is average, and overall it's just an average platformer. That's not to say I didn't have fun, though.

The gameplay itself is fun, engaging, and an absolute blast to play. The only problems - The F2P Elements, while implemented way better than most F2P, is annoying, and some of the servers are downright terrible with not helping the team and using an every man for himself style. If you get the right server, you'll be spending most of your time on the computer on TF2.

While the gameplay is near-solid and the branching storyline is impressive, there are so many things wrong with this game I can't imagine how any self-respecting Sonic fan would like this. If you don't do the missions, the levels and game itself is short and forgettable. Not even the level with the Shadow androids is that remarkable. Like Heroes, the enemies have health, but they made it worse by giving the enemies more health and Shadow a god-awful homing attack. This is to try to urge you to use the guns and vehicles, but they're still hard to control. The control itself is more slippery than Heroes, and the music is mediocre at best, save for the theme "All Hail Shadow" which is arguably one of the best character themes I've heard. And the dark theme has "I'm trying to hard" all over it. The overuse of damn, the unnecessary guns, and the extremely dark levels are just screaming that it's trying to attract the preteen who thinks guns = cool. There are few games that I dislike in Sonic, and this is one of them.

Let's start with the good: The story is one of the most detailed yet, and it's the one to top in a Sonic game. The Chao Garden's Chao stats are a LOT better than the Dreamcast's "clever" use of the VMU. The Sonic gameplay is nowhere near as slippery as in the original Adventure. If you like the Sonic gameplay, you'll love this, and with the hub world removed, you can get right to the level. Now, this isn't what the fans would call "The Greatest Sonic game Ever". The Mech and treasure hunting stages are absolute crap compared to the original Adventure (or at least DX, but DX is supposedly worse than the original so I'm pretty sure it still goes). Aside from glitches that carried over from Adventure, this is the only problem, but it's so bad it ruined the fun for me. The emerald radar was nerfed, and is inconvenient when you're on a timed level, like the one Rouge Level. The clues were absolutely useless, and in Mad Space, they would even flat out lie to you. The worst part? Without the Character select, you're forced to play these levels to get to the next Mech or Sonic stage. The mech stages aren't as bad, but they're definitely a step down from Gamma. It's nowhere near as engaging. Overall, it's an above average 3D platformer, but it certainly isn't the best.

The original game on the Sega CD was great, and absolutely a blast to play. Yeah, the whole "Go back in time to destroy the boxes" was annoying, but you could always get the time stones. This port takes a good game and absolutely **** the expectations with new features galore. A playable Tails, improves special stages, leaderboards, BOTH soundtracks, multiple saves games, and the most obvious, widescreen support. Christian "Taxman" Whitehead's Retro engine is indistinguishable with the Genesis engine, and the widescreen support really helps out. So why isn't this a 10? Well, the port has two problems: One, the widescreen support helps out in giving you the ability to defeat bosses easier because you can use space that wasn't usable in 1993, and there is a glitch in the leaderboards where you can use the time from your last checkpoint to the goalpost as your leaderboard score rather than your actual time. But, this is one of the BEST classic ports yet. If a 2D Sonic game was released on the new engine, it would be a day one buy for me.

It's a fun game at times, but the problems are very apparent. Physics problems are apparent, enemy placement is poor, the bosses are rehashed, and the music synths are like dying cats and dogs. It's not worth the name Sonic 4. Though if you get past it, you're in for an average platformer. Its rehashed themes are taken in original ways, it's fast, and blazing through the levels is fun. Even though it can be fun to play, the physics will ruin your fun.

While this is a solid port, I can say that this is the weakest of the 16 bit games. Ignoring the lack of the spindash (considering it wasn't even in the series until a year later), the speed advertised wasn't there except in a few parts of Green Hill, spike glitches, and the frustrating Marble Zone is really hard to get through without a continue, especially with the touch controls. However, the level design is nice, the music is great, the gameplay is solid, and overall it's a great platformer. Not the best 2D Sonic game, but it's a great platformer.

Let's get this out right now: this game is hard. It will frustrate you at times. Getting that out of the way, this game is glorious. The soundtrack is amazing and fitting, the visuals are beautiful, and the gameplay is downright fun. It's a must-have for any SHMUP fan with a 3DS, as well as Xevious on the eShop.

The game is short, the story is crap, and the missions aren't engaging at all. I admit that. What we do have, though, is fun. Sonic Team has taken everything fun about the Genesis games and puts it into the Classic stages, as well as successfully taking the good parts of the Adventure games and Unleashed and combining them. By far one of the best current-gen platformers I've played.

While the hub worlds are annoying, the medal collecting tedious, and the Werehog stages plain frustrating, the daytime stages are well worth the frustration. While it's nowhere near as good as the recently released Generations, for $10-$20, it's well worth it.

While the game has potential with Adventure-like gameplay, an... interesting story, engaging boss battles, and awesome music, it is riddled with bugs, frequent and long loading times, and poor hit detection, to name a few. Unless you're a die-hard Sonic fan or can ignore the loading times, avoid this one.