that's interesting. I did not know that cancelled "beta". Maybe because I was never interested in Sonic 4 at all, especially when it was released (I basically was not playing many games by then. A roommate and friend of mine was, so I remember him saying to me it was a nice game).
That Lost Labyrinth Act 2 with that Wagon all the time, and the gameplay system to use it... seems HORRIBLE, horrible. I mean, from what I can see in youtube videos, thank god they reworked that zone act. My god. It's an interesting idea for a smartphone game, but it feels so painful to watch every time the player fails to do a jump...
In the case of the other level act, the "remake" of Sonic 2 Casino zone is too exaggerated... the final version is just much better and nice.
We exist, is just the general audience take one look at Episode 1 and be like "nope, only purist pixelart Sonic for me".
Yep, basically.
Sonic 4 had other problems though: like the time when it was released, the huge fail Sonic 06 was few years before (it was even broken as a game), and the debatable moment to release an official "2D Sonic" after all those years since the classic MD games, in an era when 2D games were seen as "cheap", or just for "indie" developers. And 2D games made with 3D assets, were seen
even more as a cheap excuse for a game.
The timing is important, and Sonic 4, as a successor of 3 and S&K, in the form it got, was very condemned in 2010.
But yeah, the fact a new entry in that classic series was not made in pixels... was not good for its success.
Although I don't really know how well a 2D pixelart Sonic in 2010 would had sell... Megaman 9 was very successful in 2008, even when it was a huge step down compared to Megaman 7 and 8 in graphics, or maybe precisely because that: the NES graphics were more appealing for the original fans from the 8bit era.
I always thought that "Megaman 9" was just like a little joke from Capcom, a nice reward to the classic fans.... but they had so success... they decided to invest in the classic series again, even when they abandoned the sprite based graphics in 11.
But Sonic 4 in 2010, for its graphics, being an episode-based game from day 1... (being finally just 2,
but you could have expected to be many more perfectly, and that was seen as a cheap and BAD idea) had that strong feeling of being just "another smartphone game", when that market was already saturated of many other interesting games, and few people considered "a serious platform" to play on "action" games seriously (because... not having physical buttons in many "action" games, sucks).
Yeah, it appeared also "on consoles" with controllers, but like many other mobile games also did, as digital downloads.
You can tell Sonic Advance series and its successors, Sonic Rush games. continued and developed those original MD experiences, so... it was surprising to got a "Sonic 4" from nowhere... but being just the "typical" 2D game made with 3D models. The use of that name for that was disappointing.
I would be sincere: Never tried to play it.
