Sonic the Hedgehog 4 aims to be the game that fans have been wanting for years. The operative word in that sentence is "years." Knowing that the diehard Sonic fanbase has been asking for a game like Sonic 4 for so long, why has Sega only now decided to create it? While at E3, I asked brand manager Ken Balough this very question.
"I think it's a combination of things," explains Balough. "I think yes, fans have been demanding this game for a long long time and obviously we're in the business of giving fans what they want.
"The other thing is we had the right team in place at the right time. We have a group of people that have an incredible passion for Sonic that goes back years. We on the team grew up with Sonic on the Genesis and this is a project that we've been wanting to make so we just thought 'yes, our new project is Sonic 4.'
"... Sonic's a lot of different things to a lot of different people," he added. "We're gonna try and hit the broadest audience possible with this game, but at the same time we know who we're really making the game for, and that's people who love digital stuff, loved Sonic in the classic days, on the Megadrive and Genesis. We want to make you feel like you're a kid again, in your parents living room, playing that hardware."
I also asked Ken how Sega has been answering the cynics who think Sonic can never be good, and how the publisher is dealing with the poor reputation that has been earned by their blue hedgehog over the years. His answer was as curt as it was smirksome:
"We're making Sonic 4."
Contest:
1:20 PM on 06.21.2010 | 
"We're making Sonic 4."
And lo, the fanboys reacted.
Cannot wait for this game although I am a little sceptical of the episodic content but I suppose change is required to meet the market conditions, lets just hope the first episode is a success.
Why buy Kirby's Epic Yarn or DKC Returns when you can own all three?
To say that you are a Sonic fan and expect a totally different group of people to make it just as "perfect", is like saying you loved Castlevania, but it would be much better if they throw Igarashi and his crew and replace them with Kojima.
Oh and BTW very interesting interview with this guy, Jim, you're asking the questions I want the answers to.
Sega just doesn't understand what maked Sonic good to begin with, and now they have to pull a really big one for me to actually care, and forget 15 years of "attempts"
More specifically, Sonic 4, episode 1 for the iPhone from the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
Lets put it this way: You know how many games have Sonic in it? 75 since 1991 (that is almost 4 per year). Ask the people around here how many of those were really good, and you are lucky to get 10. Yet they can't wait to give the blue hedgehog yet another chance. Thats nostalgia for you...
I'm not even saying Sonic 4 will be that game that does everything it promises and fans are hoping for, but it's asinine to write it off merely because the original team is not working on it.
Now Sonic Colors on the other hand looks fun because they took a gameplay style for Sonic that actually sort of worked in 3D and expanded upon it, as well as use all those fun surreal environments that I've craved to see in my 3D Sonic games since Sonic Heroes... sorta (This game goes way beyond Heroes in surreal awesomeness).
I don't think ONLY the original team would pull it of. I am just saying that the old-school attitude is not new at all coming from Sonic (they say that every single time); and that the game should be compared with recent entries of the series more than the original ones, since those are the people that are actually involved in it.
I don't think ONLY the original team would pull it of. I am just saying that the old-school attitude is not new at all coming from Sonic (they say that every single time); and that the game should be compared with recent entries of the series more than the original ones, since those are the people that are actually involved in it.
BC:R was a great remake of Bionic Commando, and that wasn't done by the original team.
The new big-time version of Castlevania IS headed up by Kojima Productions.
Really, is that argument supposed to be valid in any way, or is your inner fanboy spouting utter nonsense again?
The only thing you should be basing anything on is the factual data at hand. They could definitely (and quite easily) end up screwing this up, but there's nothing to suggest they have yet.
So why are they complete failures at giving anyone what they want? A good Sonic game.
"we had the right team in place at the right time."
So why does the game look like uninspired garbage.
"I also asked Ken how Sega has been answering the cynics who think Sonic can never be good, and how the publisher is dealing with the poor reputation that has been earned by their blue hedgehog over the years. His answer was as curt as it was smirksome:
'We're making Sonic 4."
And proved the cynics right once they saw how absolutely crappy and uninspired Sonic 4 was going to be.
"To say that you are a Sonic fan and expect a totally different group of people to make it just as "perfect", is like saying you loved Castlevania, but it would be much better if they throw Igarashi and his crew and replace them with Kojima."
Iga wasn't the original creator of Castlevania. He only got on board with Rondo of Blood and got into the driver's seat with Symphony of the Night. As solid as the Metroidvania style is, it's not the same as the original. Guess what? The original games were fantastic without his help. Impressions of Lords of Shadow are pretty positive and he's not involved with that either.
So no, the original team is not necessary to make a game just as good. In fact, I've played some Sonic fan games that match or exceed the Genesis originals. "Original blood" not required, even though it's a plus.
And I'm not saying Shadow the Hedgehog was a very good game.
But I do think of all the 3D Sonics from Adventure to Sonic 2006, Shadow the Hedgehog is probably the best. Sonic's attacks were fundamentally broken before they released shadow; the Homing attack was contantly sending me off cliffs and into enemy bullets, and that was Sonic's best attack. Guns fixed that. And Shadow had absolutely NO annoying friends you had to play as (Though I really wish everyone would stop telling me what to do in that game).
I defend the game for one other reason - it is the only third person shooter with that much speed. It baffles me to no end why no one copies the Sonic speed formula, even moreso why there isn't a third person shooter centered around a character with Sonic's speed. Even if it fails as a Sonic game, I have no alternatives in this industry full of copy-paste FPS's for a run-and-gun style game. The absolute last thing I want to hear is a fan complaining Shadow the Hedgehog 2 out of existance, as then I'm stuck with mediocre old Shadow the Hedgehog for run-and-gun.
I would love to see Sega make a huge comeback by remaking their classics, after all Nintendo has been doing just that for years and works out pretty good for them.
Sega has a legion of followers out there just waiting for Sega to get their act straight and/or waiting for Sega to feed on their nostalgia.
Time will tell.