Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II

Sonic 4 Episode II is coming to Steam on 5/15/12. So, who's getting it? I hope there won't be any nasty viruses as we saw in Sonic 2 HD. (Note: Sonic 2 HD is a fan remake, not endorsed by SEGA. That could be why...)

Will it be better than Episode 1? (I haven't finished Ep 1 yet, as I found the controls to be rather clunky , at least on Steam anyway.) It appears that Tails will be following you this time, ala Sonic 2 rather than Sonic going solo. I already see a level reminiscent of Oil Ocean from the trailer.

Any comments about Sonic 4 Ep. II are welcome here.

The controls were not much better on the 360. In all honesty, the game felt like it was still lacking a few things although the visuals are amazing. Sonic didn't seem to have that certain speed and inertia that he had in S3&K or similar games. I'm looking forward to how Tails will be. It seems from the teaser trailer that he and Sonic will be able to do combination attacks or something.

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I can't wait to get this game. I'm buying it the first day it comes out on PS3. I had a great time with Episode I.

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Sonic 2 HD did not contain a real virus.

Just another shitload of drama that is keeping the Sonic community underwater.

@SilverDragon: I did see Sonic & Tails do a spin dash technique together. I don't know whether how it's different than Sonic's solo spindash.

And I just played Ep 1 for a bit and noticed that Sonic decelerates on a dime. Even while he's jumping in mid-air, when you stop moving the directional keys, he stops moving in the X-Coordinate (left & right) entirely, which can get quite annoying sometimes. I kinda wished that Sonic 4 were a TRUE sequel (with original zones & bosses), rather than an HD remake of certain Sonic 1 & 2 zones. I bet Ep 2 will be more of the same, but with Tails.

And does anybody know why the developers decided to leave the Homing Attack in? Because the homing attack wasn't introduced until Sonic Adventure for Dreamcast.

That's the inertia problem I mentioned earlier. They need to fix it so it's like the old school Sonic games or like Sonic Generations. As for the Homing Attack, I guess they left it in because it's part of the series now. the only thing I can think of is that maybe Sonic learned it in the time between Sonic 3 and Sonic 4. In SG, classic Sonic actually learned how to do it albeit not very well. Maybe that had something to do with, I don't know.

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If anybody has the Steam port of this game, can you tell me if your Gamepad setting works? Because mine won't register. I can only play both this and Ep. 1 on the crappy keyboard. And they seemed to of fixed some of the inertia issues in Ep.2, from what i've played so far. Sonic at least moves slightly forward and backwards while in mid-air now. And I also ran the Xbox 360 controller emulator (x360ce.exe), didn't work. My controller is a USB plug-n-play with a typical PS2 layout. It worked for Sonic Generations, so why not on Eps. 1 & 2?

It does seem a little improved on the 360 version as far as I can see. I can see a very obvious pattern in their stages and I have mixed feelings about it but it seems really cool overall.

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@Silverdragon: How does the 360 port look, graphically speaking?

On Steam the edges are jagged, as I don't think there's any anti-aliasing, even at 1920x1080, which is odd. I bet the console ports look better, but I don't own a 360 or PS3, and it's kinda sad that they're not releasing it on Wii (the only current-gen system I own).

It looks really crisp and clean. I don't see any jagged edges or pixelation of any kind. I wish I could record some footage but I don't have the resources to do so but it looks really nice and vivid.

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There will probably be YouTube footage of the game soon enough, if not already. Okay, back to playing.

Yeah, I've seen footage of this on Youtube, so just do some searching.
The graphics in this game are like a mix of Episode 1 and Sonic Generations.

I bought and completed the game today.
It's hard to explain how I feel about this game, but it's an improvement over Episode 1 for sure.
Although if anyone really hated Episode 1, this is not for you. It's not gonna change your mind about Sonic 4.

The fact that they recycled, cleaned up and added a few things to what are basically Sonic 2's levels, kind of bothers me. It's cool but it says something about sega.

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I feel that this is worlds better than Ep I. There is much more original material and it isn't just a nostalgia fest.

It's hard though. I can't beat the final boss...

I like White Park (Act 1) the best so far. And I had a hard enough time defeating the Sylvania Castle boss on the crap keyboard. At first, I thought the boss was gonna be an Aquatic Ruin rehash, but after the statues were destroyed, it turned into more of the Lava Reef Act 1-type mini-boss, but with tentacles instead of robotic hands smashing down on Sonic.

White Park does have some original aspects to it and isn't just a re-hash of Ice Cap (not to mention Act 2 is completely different than Act 1. It's like they're completely separate zones.) The Sonic/Tails combo spin-dash was a nice touch IMO.

Considering all the Sonic 2 influence, I should've seen the special stages coming.

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Bump, I know, but I made a little animation and thought this was an appropriate place to share it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzDzzga6JSM

I kind of got the idea for it after seeing the Sylvania Castle boss knock down the pillars at the beginning of the fight.

You...made this? That's neat.