I believe it’s time for me to talk about a 2D Sonic game that isn’t from the 1990s or the 2000s, but the 2010s, and that game is Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2. I’m not reviewing Episode 1 first because I don’t give a shit about the order in which I play and review games.
This game’s look is heavily inspired by the modern 3D Sonic games, but its music is heavily inspired by the classic quadrilogy. Honestly, they’re both decent. Now, without further ado, it is time to talk about the gameplay.
Slyvania Castle Zone is actually a pretty good first zone. Act 1 acts as the tutorial on how to play this game. You zoom through this abandoned castle while learning about mechanics such as the ability to hold onto Tails and fly. One thing I like about this mechanic is that there is an entirely new button you can press to use it instead of just pressing the jump button over and over again. Anyway, Act 1 is honestly not bad. There are some water sections, but if you’re fast enough, you can skip them entirely. Speaking of being fast, this zone sure does have a large focus on speed. A prime example of this is Act 2. Even though it’s a water level, you can still go very fast, and I like that a lot. Act 3 is super fun. It has some fast platforming and a new mechanic, which is Sonic and Tails coming together to form one big ball that destroys anything in its path. It’s very cool. The boss battle is quite original, albeit stupidly easy. You can just fly into the sky, hit Eggman, go back down, dodge his tentacles and laser beam, and repeat the cycle until you beat him. It is kinda fun though.
After beating Slyvania Castle Zone, you unlock all of the zones, which I think is pretty weird. I’ll be covering White Park Zone first because I don’t give a shit.
White Park Zone is worse than Slyvania Castle Zone, but it’s still not bad. There are quite a few death pits in this zone, but they’re very easy to avoid. There are even signs that tell you that these death pits are death pits. If you somehow manage to fall into these death pits, I am ashamed. Act 1 is snow themed, Act 2 is casino themed and Act 3 is water themed. Now, let me just talk about White Park Zone Act 3 for a second. This act broke me. In one underwater segment, you have to be fast enough to get past these stupid seal Badniks. The aforementioned seal Badniks make frozen circles that you must go around. However, in the aforementioned underwater segment, it’s impossible to go around the frozen circles, so you must be fast enough to get past the seal Badniks before they completely stop you from finishing the act and, after some time, make you drown. To add insult to injury, you have to do this twice. Act 3 is the only reason why this zone is worse than its predecessor and I genuinely could not beat it. Thank God that you can play the zones in any order, because if that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t have finished this game. Well, I actually didn’t finish this game, but I’ll get to that later. Unfortunately, you must complete all 3 acts of a zone to unlock the boss battle, so I’m not gonna be talking about White Park Zone’s boss battle.
Oil Desert Zone is worse than White Park Zone. In Act 1, the sandstorm pushes you in random directions and the act in general just isn’t that fun. Sure, there are fast moments, but they don’t last very long and have a lot of slow ass platforming segments in-between them. Now, there’s something in Act 1 that genuinely made me scream. Basically, there is a part where you have to fly over dozens of death pits as fast as possible before Tails gets tired. This single segment is just as bad as, if not worse than the seal Badnik segment in White Park Zone. Luckily, Act 2 is much better. It has much more fast segments and much less death pits, although they still do appear. Now, Act 3 is where I finally lost it. Basically, there are parts where you have to go up a tunnel that are being filled with sand as you go up them. The goal is to exit the tunnel as quickly as possible without being crushed in-between an object and the sand. The first time I had to do this, it was pretty easy, but the second time was when I went insane. Basically, in the second occurrence of this gameplay motif, you have to jump on a spring and break a group of green walls as you’re flying upwards, but every single time I tried to reach the first green wall, I could only get around halfway there. I had to wait for the sand to bring me up so I could destroy the green walls. Then, you have to be as fast as fucking possible and do a Spindash towards another group of green walls. I tried to do this as quickly as I could, but no matter what I did, I just kept on dying. After some time, I gave up. Yes, I didn’t finish this game and I don’t plan to. I shall give Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 nothing more and nothing less than 2 stars.
This game’s look is heavily inspired by the modern 3D Sonic games, but its music is heavily inspired by the classic quadrilogy. Honestly, they’re both decent. Now, without further ado, it is time to talk about the gameplay.
Slyvania Castle Zone is actually a pretty good first zone. Act 1 acts as the tutorial on how to play this game. You zoom through this abandoned castle while learning about mechanics such as the ability to hold onto Tails and fly. One thing I like about this mechanic is that there is an entirely new button you can press to use it instead of just pressing the jump button over and over again. Anyway, Act 1 is honestly not bad. There are some water sections, but if you’re fast enough, you can skip them entirely. Speaking of being fast, this zone sure does have a large focus on speed. A prime example of this is Act 2. Even though it’s a water level, you can still go very fast, and I like that a lot. Act 3 is super fun. It has some fast platforming and a new mechanic, which is Sonic and Tails coming together to form one big ball that destroys anything in its path. It’s very cool. The boss battle is quite original, albeit stupidly easy. You can just fly into the sky, hit Eggman, go back down, dodge his tentacles and laser beam, and repeat the cycle until you beat him. It is kinda fun though.
After beating Slyvania Castle Zone, you unlock all of the zones, which I think is pretty weird. I’ll be covering White Park Zone first because I don’t give a shit.
White Park Zone is worse than Slyvania Castle Zone, but it’s still not bad. There are quite a few death pits in this zone, but they’re very easy to avoid. There are even signs that tell you that these death pits are death pits. If you somehow manage to fall into these death pits, I am ashamed. Act 1 is snow themed, Act 2 is casino themed and Act 3 is water themed. Now, let me just talk about White Park Zone Act 3 for a second. This act broke me. In one underwater segment, you have to be fast enough to get past these stupid seal Badniks. The aforementioned seal Badniks make frozen circles that you must go around. However, in the aforementioned underwater segment, it’s impossible to go around the frozen circles, so you must be fast enough to get past the seal Badniks before they completely stop you from finishing the act and, after some time, make you drown. To add insult to injury, you have to do this twice. Act 3 is the only reason why this zone is worse than its predecessor and I genuinely could not beat it. Thank God that you can play the zones in any order, because if that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t have finished this game. Well, I actually didn’t finish this game, but I’ll get to that later. Unfortunately, you must complete all 3 acts of a zone to unlock the boss battle, so I’m not gonna be talking about White Park Zone’s boss battle.
Oil Desert Zone is worse than White Park Zone. In Act 1, the sandstorm pushes you in random directions and the act in general just isn’t that fun. Sure, there are fast moments, but they don’t last very long and have a lot of slow ass platforming segments in-between them. Now, there’s something in Act 1 that genuinely made me scream. Basically, there is a part where you have to fly over dozens of death pits as fast as possible before Tails gets tired. This single segment is just as bad as, if not worse than the seal Badnik segment in White Park Zone. Luckily, Act 2 is much better. It has much more fast segments and much less death pits, although they still do appear. Now, Act 3 is where I finally lost it. Basically, there are parts where you have to go up a tunnel that are being filled with sand as you go up them. The goal is to exit the tunnel as quickly as possible without being crushed in-between an object and the sand. The first time I had to do this, it was pretty easy, but the second time was when I went insane. Basically, in the second occurrence of this gameplay motif, you have to jump on a spring and break a group of green walls as you’re flying upwards, but every single time I tried to reach the first green wall, I could only get around halfway there. I had to wait for the sand to bring me up so I could destroy the green walls. Then, you have to be as fast as fucking possible and do a Spindash towards another group of green walls. I tried to do this as quickly as I could, but no matter what I did, I just kept on dying. After some time, I gave up. Yes, I didn’t finish this game and I don’t plan to. I shall give Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 nothing more and nothing less than 2 stars.