Sonic 4 (Ep1&2) - As You Truly Imagined It

[KobaBeach]

as an adventure 1&2 and heroes fan, the concept of a sonic level being very 'fine if you know what's going on and what to do' hits so hard for me you won't believe it, except you might since you played them two years ago or whatever

most painless way to do the special stages would be to get a 100% save file

If I wasn't so lazy on working on most of my Windows and DOS games I'd have provided that but alas I'm still at Casino Street because I'm playing [Insert Other Game Here]

EDIT: i forgot about egg station but also WOW this stage legit shipped like that huh. i like how im an adventure era fan and yet im just constantly flabbergasted by dimps

[Lord Ruby]

Oh, I never realized that this released just around one month before Colors, I always thought this was the later title by, like, around a year. Given that Colors presumably was a major title from the start, this implies that Dimps' A-team must have been busy when Dimps was instructed to make 4 too, since a low budget is usually associated with shorter development cycles. Not only did this game have said low budget, it also probably only had a C-team, and some people may even have been completely new, as I believe this is Dimps' first mobile game.

EDIT: i forgot about egg station but also WOW this stage legit shipped like that huh. i like how im an adventure era fan and yet im just constantly flabbergasted by dimps

I mean, whether something is ready or needs more development time would ultimately be a SEGA decision. A more accurate picture of Dimps decisions would be Advance 3 and Rush Adventure, for which they would've had time to refine the formulae for the respective series.

[KobaBeach]

EDIT: i forgot about egg station but also WOW this stage legit shipped like that huh. i like how im an adventure era fan and yet im just constantly flabbergasted by dimps

I mean, whether something is ready or needs more development time would ultimately be a SEGA decision. A more accurate picture of Dimps decisions would be Advance 3 and Rush Adventure, for which they would've had time to refine the formulae for the respective series.

True, just. Man the level design here sucks

[CleanBittyDrawn]

Imagine being the guy who made it to the end of stage 6, only to discover that he didn't have enough rings and fail.

[Bean]

That's why you try to collect the majority of rings as you go. Definitely seems a lot more manageable here than some of the other games' requirements for the later Chaos Emeralds. Good work, Sonic 4: Episode I. Giving you credit for doing that well.

[BobisOnlyBob]

Genuinely more impressed by this take on Revolving Maze than I thought I would be.

[Grounder]

one of the games of all time

sonic 4 is dead, long live sonic 4

[KobaBeach]

meow mix is dead, long live disco duck

EDIT: i'll try to make a write up for ep2 soon before ronco uploads the first vid next evening my time (circa 10:30 pm). if i fail then eh, i'll give it another go eventually. it's not like the zwei!! and fragile dreams lps where i kinda dropped off halfway through. gomenasorry lmao

[helucard]

Is it just me, or do the arrow spitting face statues look a little like...

[Bean]

Sonic and Tails are having a friendly competition in the special stages. Whoever is ahead in rings at the checkpoints will lightly taunt the other. Don't know how many people played this one in co-op, but you never know! This is the Sonic 4 episode we did play here, so some of it's still fresh in the memory banks even though it's been more than a decade now. Go figure.

[BobisOnlyBob]

And here's what that special stage could have felt like, with one simple change:


or alternatively

[KobaBeach]

Sylvania Castle looks super lovely yeah, but I feel like a dude in the comments is right when they say that the later levels all have one specific shitty act each.

I think

White Park 2 is a terrible autoscroller

and

Oil Desert 2 is just the DIMPS standard, "level construct above an endless pit" type act, speaking as a Rush "trilogy" fan

. The fourth level

Sky Fortress is legit just Sky Chase + Wing Fortress (+ Flying Battery?) so expect Sky Chase boresville with Wing Fortress bullshit and DIMPS bottomless pits

.

Spoilers for all of those, ronco stay away from the summoner minefield.

[Crow]

i know there's

a level in white park where enemies can spawn iceblocks that block off the only way forward forcing you to drown and restart from checkpoint and i'm excited to see if rao falls victim to this

[KobaBeach]

i know there's

a level in white park where enemies can spawn iceblocks that block off the only way forward forcing you to drown and restart from checkpoint and i'm excited to see if rao falls victim to this

jesus fucking christ

but also yeah that's dimp™

[Grounder]

boss theme is way too short

[KobaBeach]

boss theme is way too short

i beat a japan only jrpg on the saturn sometime ago where every single battle theme, random, boss, final boss, all were like 30 second redbook audio loops

and i feel like if someone makes these super short loops for a boss theme and they're not like actually fun to listen to, to the point that you actually feel it looping every single time. that person should be ripped limb from limb alive like that one fatality from thrill kill on psx

[Grounder]

harsh but fair

[KobaBeach]

admittedly i just wanted to be aggressively edgy for no reason as a joke. being incredibly mad over Literally Nothing is like one of my top 10 humor moves

[helucard]

I'm just being silly at this point...

[Bean]

I'm just being silly at this point...

Bamboo Pandamonium! *Upbeat electric guitar for three notes*

Edit: Oh, and collecting all the rings in one of those bonus challenge parts of a special stage gives you a modest ring bonus on top of that, perfect for when you need that extra little boost to get over the top!

[Grounder]

And so, the spirit of poor Sonic, who froze to death at the 'Lypmic Winter Games, was finally free of his frosty torment, and could rest in peace.

[Lord Ruby]

It's unfortunate how much this game is forcing the tag action mechanic, compared to Sonic Advance 3, where they either just enabled shortcuts or were general speed boosts if used appropriately. But at least they nailed the aesthetic - the boss fight in particular highlighted just how magical the background is for this world.

[Bean]

Ah, the ice-ball creating walrus, the natural indirect predator of the hedgehog. But yeah, it's not a fun mechanic since there's no way to break that ice, giving you your Dimps design specialty of having the most dangerous section right at the end of a stage even though it's not a bottomless pit this time.

[Grounder]

the hedgehog's natural predator: the dung beetle

[Bean]

The duality of Dimps on display there. Here's your bottomless pit right at the end of the level, but we'll give you the chance to get fifty rings before the goal anyway because why not?