Weekly Releases (10/1) +

[WarpRattler]

Anti-grinding systems in RPGs are a good thing. Anything that tells the player, "hey, stop wasting your time with grinding and advance the story already" is good design, as is making stats matter less than skill in action RPGs. (Including fifty different experience systems like with some RPGs nowadays, not so much.)

[Turtlekid1]

I know, and I agree.  Except in Oblivion, which quickly becomes incredibly difficult to play if you don't grind just so.  It doesn't discourage grinding, it encourages specific, tedious, painstaking grinding so that you don't waste a single stat bonus.  It's really more like EVs in a Pokemon title.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door did it right.  So did Final Fantasy XIII up to a point, and then it was whole-hog on the grinding so much that I never finished it.

[Weegee]

Even worse, the game offers you an EXP-doubling accessory fairly early on. Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity. It's odd that this anti-grinding measure doesn't apply to bosses: Towards the end, I was two-hitting the big baddies but barely surviving the game's Goombas.

[Lizard Dude]

Sonic 4 is not something that should be called Sonic 4. It should be called Sonic 1 Again. The game is a slavish imitation of Sonic 1, using the same sound effects, bonus stage, and very similar stage design and enemies. It is however worse than Sonic 1 in every way that matters. The 2.5D graphics are butt fugly and the physics are seriously whack. I often find myself standing totally still on near 90 degree straight up slopes. The only thing that sort of lives up to the name is the music.

Not recommended.

[Chupperson Weird]

Welp, Sega's still living up to itself then, I guess.

[WarpRattler]

Letting the Ferrari license expire and killing off PSN/XBLA OutRun, not localizing their properly-fun games, new Sonic game is crap...yep, sounds like Sega to me.

[CrossEyed7]

The only thing that sort of lives up to the name is the music.

You like the music?

I haven't gotten too far in it yet, but I don't see how anyone could possibly defend the boss music. Hell, I'd argue whether it could even be considered music. Jun Senoue has disappointed me greatly. I don't care how good the rest of the music is (from what I remember, it's at least passable if not better, albeit a bit too "nyow"-y); if he didn't put any effort into the boss music, he gets no points from me.

The game, on the other hand, is pretty fun. Not as worthy of the Sonic 4 moniker as Sonic Advance, or Sonic Advance 2, or Sonic Advance 3, or Sonic Rush, or Sonic Rush Adventure, but decent enough. As long as Episode II has Tails and Knuckles and actually does something original for a change.

[Lizard Dude]

Sega has major problems, but they let The House of the Dead: Overkill exist, which is one of the best things ever, so some spark of good lives on. They are also Platinum's publisher, which means technically Sega published the best game of 2010...

[Lizard Dude]

Not as worthy of the Sonic 4 moniker as Sonic Advance, or Sonic Advance 2, or Sonic Advance 3, or Sonic Rush, or Sonic Rush Adventure

CE7 has it right here. Of all the post-S3&K 2D Sonics, Sonic 4 is the absolute worst choice to be called such.

[CrossEyed7]

See, the Rushes and Advances are the Star Trek TNG movies -- they did different, new, often weird stuff, but only people who were already fans noticed them -- and Sonic 4 is Star Trek 09 -- just rehashing the stuff everyone remembers, not treading any new ground, to sell it to a mass audience on nostalgia. The difference, of course, being that the Rushes and Advances don't suck and Sonic 4 isn't awesome.

Similar analogies can be drawn with many various media franchises in the last few years, such as the SML and WL series vs. NSMB. Everything's getting a mass-appeal reboot, and some of them suck less than others.

[WarpRattler]

[stuff about Sega]

Okay, let me rephrase this: Sega of America sucks.

Basically I'm just bitter about not being able to buy Puyo Puyo 7 or Project Diva 2nd in English.

[ShadowBrain]

Yeah, I got all the Sonic Advances and Rush, and though I now generally avoid on Sonic games based on their presumed repetitiveness more than their presumed overall quality, I thought those were all pretty respectable.

[Lizard Dude]

I haven't gotten too far in it yet, but I don't see how anyone could possibly defend the boss music.

So you're not a fan of Russian carnival music? :P

I like Sonic 4 a lot more than when I originally posted about it. Besides the odd sticky walls and midair left-to-right inertial dampener physics weirdness, it contains some real Sonic 2D goodness. Mad Gear Zone Act 3 is legit stuff and the final boss is a humdinger that took me many tries. Good luck n00bs.

I also started to appreciate what they DIDN'T put in Sonic 4. No story, no cutscenes, no voice acting, no BS. Admirable restraint.

I don't really get the Episode I thing. Sonic 4 is the same size as Sonic 1 and it's not like there's a continuing story or anything. If they planned to make more, why couldn't the next one be Sonic 5?

[CrossEyed7]

I was thinking more that it's the length of Sonic 3, and therefore the future episodes will be like Sonic & Knuckles.

Ideally, I would have liked a bit more story -- maybe a little below S3&K-level -- but too little story is much safer than too much.

Someone pointed out to me that the boss music is an unused track from Sonic 3D Blast. I guess you can either look at that as a nice nod to the past, or a cowardly move to shield them from old-schooler criticism. All I really have to say about it is that there was a reason it was unused back then. Still, all the music has been growing on me a bit.

The physics seem really bad when you're watching that comparison video on YouTube, but when you're actually playing, they're not that bad. Instantly stopping in midair when you're not holding a direction feels a bit off, and the short shrift that the spin attack gets is a pretty big problem (it was acceptable when this engine was used in Sonic Rush, because the spin attack was basically replaced by the super tension boost or whatever the heck it was called), but other than that, they're pretty okay.

[TEM]

Tonight's the night!

Starting an evil run in Fallout 3 to celebrate (and to get the Evil achievements).