Sonic the Hedgehog 4 celebrates its 15-year anniversary today, October 7, 2025. Below we look back at the sega uneven attempt to revive the classic 2D franchise and how it ultimately escaped.
You can not deny the obvious shortcomings of Sonic the Hedgehog 4-step physics, egregious remix (or you can even say “paraphrasing”) of classic levels and bosses from the first two Sonic Games, and the soundtrack doubtfully and often poured Soundfont among them. But, despite my problems, even after 15 years, I still sometimes return to outplay both episodes. Not only that, but I dare to say, I like it.
The game, of course, had their shining places. I appreciate how, instead of each zone, scattered in danger and obstacles, each act of each zone had its own separate trick trick to help a person. For example, Casino Street Act 1 showed your standard tweezers for pinballs, bumpers and tricks of slot machines. Act 2 completely shifted the focus on new mechanics: a coup and participated in playing cards that act as platforms. The third act brings multi -colored guns that you can manually strive to shoot Sonic at all levels. The game was damn beautiful to watch, capturing the colorful aesthetics of classic games with modern brilliance. And although the long -standing sound composer Jun Senou became too hard with the Genesis/Mega Drive synthesizers for music, he was still memorable, as hell.
There were signs that the Sega accepted the feedback from the heart. Many of the shortcomings that tormented Episode 1 were significantly reduced for episode 2. Such zones as the White Park and the oil desert, offered more originality than in the first episode. Instead of being a meaningless assistant who simply monitors Sonic around and encounters everything, the tails received a new utility capable of carrying Sonic through the abyss, blowing water and snow at high speed and even destroy each enemy on the screen with a powerful command explosion. Players who owned both episodes 1 and 2 could reproduce episode 1 levels as a metal rival Sonic, Metal Sonic, complete with new plot elements that go parallel to the original game, returning to the technology of Sonic 3/Sonic & Knuckles blocking in the 90s.
The introduction of a metallic sound in an outstanding role was a rarity of the franchise, noting its chronological return to the series after destruction on CD Sonic. In addition to Sonic Heroes, the character was more or less attributed to insignificant appearance in almost all Sonic Game before or after, simply appearing in a battle with the boss with almost no fanfare, exploding and never saw again. In the second episode, its presence is felt throughout history, appearing at every handful of levels in order to rob him with Sonic in several meetings with bosses. While until this moment Sonic CD was a kind of emission among classic sound games, Sonic 4 coped with them a stronger connection with them. Similarly, returning a small planet, the situation in which the Sonic CD occurred, and its transformation into a power source the size of a planet for a new death egg was another unique reverse challenge that I cannot help but be studied further.
That is why Sonic 4 remains equal to parts and disappointing. This had several cool ideas to attract insufficiently used classic sound elements in a new one, but it took too much time to present them. Episode 1 seemed to be glorified by the remix Sonic 1 and 2 with a random turn. Episode 2 demonstrated more ambitions and originality, but by the time you were invested in what they tuned, the game was over. And episode 3 … well …
For many years there were no signs that episode 3 was in production. Most fans suggested that 2 episodes were simply not sold well enough to guarantee that the third episode is Greenlit. However, a few years after the release of episode 2, the former brand manager Sonic 4 Ken Baloro said in an interview that the game was planned for the trilogy, Only to be abbreviated for unsolved reasons. This statement was given further confidence this year, when beta was discovered -the 2nd episode, revealing Hook with a sequel Demonstrating an egg cited from the eggs with the help of a master of the emerald and joint.
In addition to the provision of tangible evidence of the planned episode 3 of existence, the scene implied that Nakles would play a noticeable role, probably, as a playable character. Will he be able to retroactively explore the levels of episodes 1 and 2 on his own, like Metal Sonic, or he would be an “assistant” with whom Sonic could unite during the gameplay, like tails? Will episode 3 contact episodes 1 and 2, effectively creating a “complete” Sonic 4, for example, how did Sonic 3 & Knuckles become a complete Sonic 3? All that we really can do is speculate.
And nothing shouts “missed potential” as a disclosure that there were conversations for episode 3 be developed by Christian WhiteheadThe leading developer of the later universal praise of Sonic Mania. Imagine episode 3 with perfect classical physics in combination with impeccable design of the mania team. Moreover, imagine if they turned on the adjustment of physics for episodes 1 and 2 to attract them to classic games. Of course, we got mania a few years later, but, hey, I like the idea that Sonic 4 Saga is allowed to go out to a high note.
Although I know that Sonic, Hedgehog 4, will never become a masterpiece for any stretching, no less worthy successor to one of the greatest gaming trilogs of all time, I cannot but be fascinated by great potential that it should have been something great if it was allowed to conclude that the Sega Produced Prodereed. In order to finish, the discourse around it remains more or less unchanged since it was first released 15 years ago. This is still pleasant, if not a boring Sonic Adventure, which could be much more.