У ошибки существует сиквел.

Полная рецензия: После успешного провала первого эпизода четвёртого Соника боссы Сеги и Соник Тим подумали, тщательно взвесили все за и против и приняли единственное верное решение в сложившейся ситуации: делать второй эпизод. Вся фанатская база была просто в АХУЕ от столь мудрого и рассудительного выбора и готовилась ждать очередные 1-2/10 после неплохих Калорсов и Джени.

Говорить что-то в целом про 2 эпизод мне нечего, все ключевые ошибки оригинала остались, абсолютно никаких изменений и исправлений в плане общего управления, лвл-дизайна и общего подхода к игре. Единственное, что могу отметить тут, что у меня она запустилась почему-то с х2 ускорением. Конечно, играть так было тяжко, но, сумев вернуться в оригинальный темп, стало только хуже aRolf.

Из нововведений: появился Тейлз, с которым можно взаимодействовать, и на этом строятся несколько механик в прохождениях определенных секций в игре. Но все это неинтересно и в лишний раз лишь раздражает, а не развлекает.

А вот главным камнем преткновения для меня стали местные боссы, которые твёрдо и четко сделали эту часть хуже прошлой. Ладно, в прошлой части были спизженные болванчики из классики, они хотя бы не раздражали, но тут босс-битвы превратились в какую-то пытку. Длятся по 5 минут, требуют выполнения повторных действий на протяжении этого времени и закидывают таким кол-вом проджектайлов, что 2-3 ошибки и тебе придётся все начинать сначала. Апогеем этого кошмара стала воздушная битва с Металл Соником, где после 3-4 минут унылых леталок в меня просто полетели ракеты, которые моментом вынесли меня за карту и я умер. Здесь нервы не выдержали и я дропнул. Не хотел тратить ни своё время, ни зрителей.

Episode II оказался для меня ещё хуже. Просто сборник говна и наплевательского отношения к игроку. Пошли они нахуй.

This is... honestly really fun!

The level design resembles the classic titles more, the character abilities are very fun, the special stages are some of the better ones in the series, and the level aesthetics are quite nice!

While I'd recommend skipping the first episode, this one is genuinely a treat! I quite like it a lot!

This barely gets a star, solely cause there's the makings of a good soundtrack (not in this state though) and Winter Park is kind of a neat theming for a classic Sonic zone.

Otherwise, this is absolutely one of the worst Sonic games I've ever played. Sonic 4 Episode 1 was definitely flawed, but here there's multiple instances of terrible level design decisions built on top of the initial ones, with the intention that they're improvements. It just makes for such a miserable experience. I tried to give Episode Metal a shot after out of curiosity but just felt too listless and dead inside to continue past the initial 10 minutes.

Honestly, it's not that good singleplayer, but I played through all the levels in multiplayer and had a good time. The multiplayer is absurdly unbalanced and chaotic, which just made it all the more fun for me. I found the level design to rely too heavily on summoning Tails to fly you around, which slows the gameplay down a little too much for my taste. I also found the music to be enjoyable enough, with some tracks that I liked, it definitely better than episode 1's, but not one of the best Sonic soundtracks out there. I didn't care for the special stages that much and only ended up getting 5 chaos emeralds because I just couldn't be bothered to play anymore of them. But overall, this is at least a fun co-op game, just not very fun singleplayer, I'd only recommend it if you have a friend who you can convince to play with you.

You might not believe it based on its reputation, but Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I sold and reviewed well when it released. It was fans, who at the time were critical of yet bound by a blood oath to Keep Buying This Shit, that really went in hard against Episode I, posting videos of its wonky physics and deriding it for failing to live up to the promise of its namesake. Glowing praise like "the differences between this and the old Sonic games are so few and far between that playing it involves existing in a constant state of deja vu," and "it takes a step back to a time when Sonic was awesome" started to fade, drowned out by videos of Sonic casually walking up walls in a world made of plastic. For Episode II to succeed, Sonic Team and Dimps needed to make some changes.

Episode I's development took it from a cheap mobile game to a supposed continuation of the Genesis series, and while it may have initially passed for such, key elements like Sonic's physics just weren't there. I mean, you might not know that if you read its Wiki page, which says it has "momentum-based gameplay," a straight up lie given Sonic's propensity to drop straight down out of the air when releasing the D-pad, or to roll more slowly down inclines if you aren't holding right. Episode II addresses this by giving Sonic more weight, and though it's not as close an approximation as the Retro Engine, it is acceptable. Platforming feels far better when your forward momentum isn't determined by how firmly you're keeping the D-pad depressed, and the design of Episode II's four-and-some-change levels feels more thoughtfully crafted around the way Sonic moves.

It even looks better, with sharper and more expressive character models, cleaner textures, and art direction that helps give Episode II an identity beyond being a soupy mess of borrowed levels. Sure, you could say Sylvania Castle is a riff on Aquatic Ruin, Oil Desert is just Oil Ocean, and Sky Fortress is a (better) Wing Fortress, but this is conveyed more in their tropes than it is in their visual design. About the only area where I feel Episode II plays to the audience's nostalgia a little too hard is its special stages, which are designed after Sonic 2's, and by including yet another Sonic CD style fight against Metal. These were less played out at the time, but going back in for a replay, they feel agonizingly tired.

My stomach is starting to hurt really bad, which means it's time to talk about Jun Senoue again. I'm replaying Sonic Adventure (DX, unfortunately. Gotta stay humble.), and I think it's incredible that this man is both capable of composing the best soundtrack in the entire series and also this. Admittedly, he has some good melodies here, but his choice of instrumentation steps all over the good he's doing. It could be worse, but it's far from perfect, and he's still turning in some incredibly short, nasty loops that play during long gameplay sequences.

Like during boss fights! Superstars has caught a lot of shit (deservedly so) for having bosses that are unreasonably long, but Episode II wades into very similar territory, giving most of its bosses protracted attack phases before opening up to allow a modest amount of damage. I've been sharing this observation elsewhere, but it seems appropriate to make a point of it here, too: bosses with set attack and vulnerability phases are antithetical to Classic Sonic's design.

In the Genesis games, your pace was often influenced by the design of the level itself - set pieces being broken up by platforming, for example - but the player still had agency, and the speed in which they finished a level was largely up to how well they played. Likewise, the length of a boss fight was mostly determined by how the payer engaged with the boss' attack patterns rather than having set periods of attack and vulnerability. It was sometimes the case that a fight was rigidly paced out, but even Lava Reef Act 2's boss fight doesn't feel quite as protracted and dull as Oil Desert's.

The best Sonic bosses are the ones where you can bash Robotnik on the head eight times before he gets one attack out, is what I'm saying.

So, yeah, I think Episode II feels good to play and that the improvements Sonic Team and Dimps made worked out in the end. But if you pull back and look at the duology of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 as a single game, which ostensibly is what it's meant to be, it's hard not to feel like you're left with an inconsistent and unfinished mess. Because, you know, it is.

Sonic 4's episodic model was popular at the time, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles had established its own weird precedent within the series itself. But if you tried to evaluate it like S3&K, as one whole piece of media that was merely divided into two, it just doesn't work. Each episode looks, feels, and is designed differently, they have their own endings and though their overarching story is connected, the narrative is so threadbare in Episode I that it feels wholly unimportant to Episode II. Hell, most of the setup exists in a four-level side story that only unlocks if you own both games in the same library.

It ends on a real down note, too. Sonic and Tails stop Eggman, but they fail to prevent the Death Egg from being completed and essentially doom Little Planet. This was supposed to be the "dark middle chapter," and presumably they would return (with Knuckles in tow) for a much happier ending in Episode III. Supposedly, Christian Whitehead was also set to collaborate on the third episode, meaning it likely would've resulted in the game feeling even more different than the previous episode. The promise of making Sonic 4 even less cohesive than it already is doesn't sound great to me, but at the same time, I really wish they just stuck to the project and finished the damn thing. Knowing there is a Sonic 4 and it's this half-finished nightmare that fails to continue the Genesis games and is wildly uneven in presentation and design, but which has that name on fucking lock is just depressing.

I guess I just find the larger story of Sonic 4 to be fascinating, because it exists at this sort of post 2006 inflection point where Sega and Sonic Team were still recalibrating, turning the nob and looking over their shoulder trying to figure out what the hell people wanted from them. Starting with a clear conception in mind, changing course when fans vocally rejected it, only to end up cancelled and abandoned as Sonic Team veered towards other projects... a perfect encapsulation of where Sonic was at. As a game, an episode, I don't think Sonic 4: Episode II is bad, but it's also not great. It tows the line between mediocrity and fun. It's a Sonic-ass Sonic game.

Oyun sıradan bir oyun, ne iyi ne kötü. Öyle yokluktaysanız ne oynayacağım diye düşünüyorsanız, kafanızda bir şey yoksa alıp oynayabilirsiniz.

-Bölümleri az.
+Grafik iyi.
-Yeni mekanikler biraz yavaş.
+Bölüm tasarımları güzel.
-Metal Sonic çok az oynanılıyor.
+Bonus bölümleri en iyi remasteredı alan oyunlara aday.

This shouldn’t be called Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2, but for different reasons: it’s actually a good game. I’m going to call this one “Sonic & Tails”, as it revolves heavily on using Tails’ abilities to navigate the levels.

The graphics in Sonic & Tails are much more consistent, using 3D models for everything, and the consistent style not only works well, but also looks amazing, with beautiful backgrounds and scenery, and some surprisingly nice lighting effects. Physics also feel much better, with Sonic actually moving at a fun speed and jumping is precise, it never felt like a death was due to the game being at fault.

The levels are technically remixes, but they remix multiple stages together in a way where they feel like new stages instead of re-hashed content. The level gimmicks are also fluid and keep up the flow of the gameplay. There are only four (and a bit) zones, so it’s quite short, but each has three acts and a boss, and each act feels very different. I especially loved the rollercoaster level.

Tails follows you along this time, and seems to have some level of AI as he’ll occasionally grab a few rings for you or navigate platforms. Together, Sonic and Tails have two abilities: flying and a rolling attack. Flying seems to be limited to a certain height of where you start, and can be used for shortcuts or is needed to navigate some sections. Rolling is very fast, and allows for digging through some sections. Both are fun to use, although the game hand-holds them a bit as a screen is in the background showing you which ability to use. It’s a shame there’s no way to turn these off.

The bosses are also all new, with some fun fights (although some do last quite a while). The first boss actually mocks Sonic Blast 2 by setting up a stage from an old boss fight before smashing it up.

If you skipped this because of Episode 1, it’s worth giving it a go. Sonic & Tails is a fun, albeit short, Sonic game.