Even a 6.5 is waaaaaay to generous for this disastrous pile of garbage.
As such, fans in their right mind were getting their hopes up for not only a decent 2D Sonic game, but also, quite possibly, the return of Classic Sonic himself. Why not? It would only make sense.
Well, the final product that is Sonic 4 was anything but. Instead, we got an abysmal copy/pasta of Sonic 1 and 2, complete with rehashed stages and enemies. It also featured broken gameplay that has nothing to do with a Sonic game, mediocre and forgettable music, and horrendously ugly characters, and even a stupid story. So, each section at a time, I will talk about everything wrong with Sonic 4.
[Gameplay]
My god, the gameplay of Sonic 4 is abysmal. First of all, how about the fact that the physics are completely broken? Sonic can literally stand, walk, and lie down on walls. It looks really stupid, and this glitch shouldn't be in ANY game, whatsoever. I am telling you, the physics of the game are completely broken. Just take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nDRsjiXiMo
Also, the game plays as if Sonic were made of steel, and there was a heavy magnet underground pulling him. If you let go of the d-pad while in mid air, BAM. It's like Sonic hit an invisible wall, and he falls straight down. This also means that you cannot hold DOWN on the d-pad so that you keep your momentum when you hit the ground. Plus, the uncurling was just a really dumb idea. It looks stupid, it cancels out your momentum, and leaves you vulnerable to all enemies. The only solution? The homing attack! Speaking of which…
The homing attack is also a very bad move. Not only does it teleport you to your enemies and kill them for you, but it can also be used to cheaply boost and gain speed at the push of a button, and the whole idea of "speed as a reward" vanishes. Also, since teleports you at a pre-set speed to your targets, it automatically cancels out any momentum that could have been gained in ball-form.
And before anyone goes, "You don't have to use it!1", think again. The homing attack is a convenient move that gets used whenever you press the jump button twice. If I have to discipline myself to not press A twice just to avoid a bad, game-breaking move, that's an OBVIOUS flaw. The homing attack sucks and it needs to go. And by the way, why does that crosshair appear whenever you're near something that can be attacked? Is Sonic a robot?
Next, spin-dash is overly powered. No matter how little you charge up, Sonic blasts across the screen like a Ferrari; you have no control of the velocity of the spin-dash whatsoever.
Finally, Sonic's acceleration is way too fast. In the Genesis games, Sonic's acceloration was slow, and this is what made his top speed so satisfying. In Sonic 4, the idea of "speed as a reward" once again disappears because you reach Sonic's top speed immediately, and thus, the gameplay is cheapened even more.
[Level Design]
As far as maps go, the level design almost looks somewhat decent… but as far as art goes, they were REALLY bad. They look exactly like fan art of already existing stages from Sonic 1 and 2, so they all feel rehashed. This just SCREAMS lazy, and it shows that Dimps or whoever shat out Sonic 4 took no time to imagine when they were laying them out. By the way, the enemies are also rehashed, as well as the bosses, and the game even has Sonic 1's ENDING. There is not ONE single amount of originality in this game, which is stupid, because Sonic 1, 2, and 3K always had NEW enemies and bosses (save for a few exceptions in Sonic 1).
[Music]
Completely forgettable tunes that like the developers were just trying to purposely sound primitive so in attempt to make it "nostalgic." There was no effort put into it whatsoever. Isn't it sad how even a 16-bit console made music that was light-years catchier, more memorable, and flat-out better than what they could've done with today's technology?
[Story]
Just like the level design, it SCREAMS lazy. "Eggman rehashes his "best creations" in order to try to stop Sonic." THAT'S IT. It almost feels like they did this on purpose so that they wouldn't have to take the time to imagine new worlds, enemies, etc.
Oh, and by the way, it's Robotnik. Eggman sounds stupid. You don't call a mad scientist who wants to take over the world by making ROBOTIC creations "Eggman", which just implies that he's obsessed with eating omelets. It's not "just" a name; it tarnishes his image, his character, and how we perceive him as a villain, a threat, and an antagonist. Robotnik is more appropriate for the character.
[Character design]
Back in the early 90s, Sonic was extremely stylish. He was small and round, like a hedgehog, and had many cartoony features. Examples are his connecting eyes, ball-shaped nose, white gloves, and patch of skin on his belly. He was just appealing and awesome.
Sadly, starting with Sonic Adventure, he was redesigned into a freak.
Nowadays, he isn't small and roundish anymore; he now has a small, jellybean-shaped torso (which is not normal for a hedgehog), and inanley long limbs, more than twice as long as they normaly were. This gives him a lankey, streatchy-looking appearence, an ungraceful look all around. His proporions are completely warped; he looks like he was streatched out on a taffy puller.
But if there's anything I find worse, it's his horrendous facial features. To start, that huge wrinkle in the middle of his forehead that extends all the way past his eyes (the model in the Sonic 4 logo comes to mind) looks like he has a buttcrack in his face. It's disgusting.
Also, his eyes are badly drawn. The white specs of light that are supposed to be drawn at the top are now at the bottom, making his eyes look upside down. Also, the way the color is drawn (green in Sonic's case) looks like he just has a plastic rim around his pupils, which are also sometimes too small, giving him a soul-less expression. So no, I'm NOT complaining that his eyes are green, it's because they're badly drawn.
Also, his mouth is put on the side of his head... on his 3D models!! It looks fine in art or 2D, but in 3D, it's a deformity.
By the way, Sonic's quils are so long and thick that he now appears to have bananas on the back of his head, rather than quills. It looks horrible.
Finally, now that the emphasis on Sonic's design is to make him all realistic and human-like, his cartoony features, mentioned above, are no longer appropriate, so they look bad on him now. It is also worth noting that this new design doesn't fit in with the colorful and cartoony atmosphere of the classic games. It's just inappropriate and out of place.
"But Sonic is still blue and has red shoes, white gloves, and spines!!"
That doesn't matter, the warped proportions and facial features make him look absolutely NOTHING like the Classic counterpart. Which is lightyears better, by the way.
"Well Mario changed too!"
Mario wasn't redesigned into a hideous freak like Sonic was. By the way, "change" is not the culprit here. It's making a bad design that is. Link is different in almost every Zelda game and looks great as well.
"Character design doesn't matter, it's the gamplay that counts!"
Provided that the gameplay in pretty much every recent Sonic game DOES suck, character design IS important too, as you're looking at the characters throughout the entire game, and it's also what gives the characters their overall feel. It is also worth noting that Sonic's current design reminds us of all the bad games he starred in.
"You just don't like the new design because Sonic has GREEN EYES!!"
That is completely false, and it was just made up by fantards that want to make a horrible attempt to discredit legitimate complaints. It's their way of saying, "Nuh-uh! He's not ugly because I say he's not, so shut up!!"
This is pretty much the gist of what's wrong with Sonic's current design.
Character design is something that all whiny fanboys will consider trivial, because they think only the gameplay matters, but it's anything but. Saying that "Gameplay is the most important thing in a game" is only as true as saying that "plot is the most important thing in a novel". It is, indeed, very important. But without considering other things (writing style, vocabulary, character development, environment description, and basically everything that contributes to creating an atmosphere and make you care about what's going on), a book can have the best plot ever, but it would still be pretty shallow and uninteresting. It's the same thing for games and their gameplay. Ugly characters are bad because you're forced to look at them throughout the entire game, which greatly dampens the experience.
Conclusion:
Sonic 4 is just a lazy pile of garbage in every way possible. Rehashed enemies and stages, mediocre music, an insanely stupid and lazy plot, broken gameplay… and the ugly-ass characters don't help either.
But what's really offensive is that the Classic fanbase was teased for 6 months with tunes and images that OBVIOUSLY hinted towards the return of Classic Sonic (even Classic Sonic's silhouette was in the original trailer) , and maybe a decent 2D Sonic game(though a well-made 3D Sonic game is much preferred.), and what did we get? That's right, anything but!
Sega must have made this "game" for pure intentional trolling of the Classic fans.
Overall Score: -10.