Do we - as fans - expect too much?

[Hyper-Sonic]

I bought the game on the iPhone earlier today and can appreciate the good and bad points with it. I won't go into these in great detail here but the music, later level design, graphics are all, even the air dash (but not the homing attack), for me, plus points of the game.

I also understand that the games being brought into the 21st century in the era of High Definition and so Sonic's physical and graphical evolution I can accept. But, in a game thats really genuinely frustrating to physically control and quite annoying to look at when I stop pressing forward (and come to a halt instantly), I was quite shocked to find a review average of 4.5 stars on the iTunes Store.

I don't HATE the game at all. I am absolutely routing for Sonic 4 to be the best game it could be purely because the originals evoke so much memory for me. But I don't particualrly like it so far - at least in its iOS incarnation - which leads me to the conclusion that maybe 'classic'/'retro' fans (such as myself) expect too much?

I don't actually think I'm being whiney or a troll or even a hater - I can accept change if it's for the better but think some things just haven't been improved for progression.

I didn't mean to write an essay - but any thoughts on the above?

[sloth]

Dude you really should have waited for the console release.

[molul]

No, we don't expect too much. We expect what Sonic deserves: a game that you can tell (almost) nothing bad about.

Uncurling, bad physics and controls, no new levels, no insta-shield, no old shields, just Sonic playable... If it wasn't a Sonic game, I wouldn't mind, but it's 2010 and I can't understand how this is the best Sonic 4 SEGA could figure out. Nintendo has proved to care much more about Mario. I don't know what happens to SEGA.

The people who developed this have no idea of what made the classics great, they're not fans (at least I doubt it). Then this can't be Sonic 4 as I truly imagined, as I would have changed a lot of things.

[The Rug]

No, we didn't expect too much. It shouldn't be beyond the abilities of an established team to create a game like this which lives up to fan's standards.I am at a loss to understand how a game so incomplete, untested and bug-ridden could have taken a year from announcement to release.

They had a tried and tested formula, honed over the course of 3 classic Sonic games that were widely accepted as the peak of Sonic's career. Near-perfect and well-established physics, a remarkably small number of glitches (most of which would be remedied by modern processing power) and the perfect balance of in-game maneuvers and abilities. Why did they throw all that out and replace it with such a stripped down, physically inconsistent, incomplete game?

They marketed this as a game of momentum, and there is none. Sonic is now a game of timing- the homing attack is essentially a quicktime event. The ballistic element, the judgement, it's all gone. The game was put slightly out of balance by the homing attack, and the attempt to redress it (i.e. uncurling) is frustrating, unnecessary and overkill.

The controls on iPod are god-awful, which is unforgivable since they are the same as the iPod's Sonic1+2 controls which have frequently been slated. The framerate is an inconsistent joke on lower systems and there is no demo for people to try it out.

And they have the audacity to ask £6 for this?

I'm not usually this caustic, after all it's my choice whether I buy the game or not- but this is really disappointing.

[SonicSALES]

Waited 16 years for this moment. So no.

[sloth]

If you were expecting something such as physics resembling that of the genesis days, no uncurling, and new level themes than no.

[OldShoolSF]

yes people on here expect too much. As with every game series that has sequels. All fanbases are like this

[molul]

And do you think it's the fans' fault to be disappointed? Honestly, if you go to a restaurant and have an incredible dinner, and the second night a better one, and then a even better third dinner with a wonderful dessert, if the next time you go there you have a dish with different ingredients that don't mix well, hard to digest, and the chef tells you that this is the dinner you've always enjoyed, but improved... Wouldn't you call him a liar? Or would you apologize to him and have the dinner saying "It's not that bad"?

When you've been given the best, something less than it is a fail. That happens in music, cinema, sports... everything.

[speedduelist]

i am not expecting this game (sonic 4 episode 1) to be the true successor to the classic games, the iphone version (from the videos) seems like a bit better than sonic advance 3 (and i i played sa3, it is a great game, thought not as good as the classics),

how ever i think the console versions has a better chance of proving me wrong.

[SEGAAAA]

I think you rushed too much.