Sonic the Hedgehog Review (Braden)
I barely recommend this. It's better than episode 1 but still isn't very fun IMO. I got to (but not past) the final boss (the heart machine) and then quit and uninstalled the game even though I still had 15 lives left because I just lost interest at that point. I might have stuck through to the boss' defeat if only you didn't have to sit through the damn unskippable boss cutscene EVERY SINGLE TIME you fight them. Not to mention there's a whole mini-stage before the boss you have to get through, which makes it extra annoying to even put in an attempt. I almost quit at the metal sonic sky zone fight because of that. Not because it's hard, but because dying, no matter how cheap, means having to sit through the cutscene again and deal with the first phase which requires extremely awkward and uncomfortable movement to get past. Seriously, they should have made the cutscene only play once or be skippable. The more time you have to wait between attempts, the more aggravating it is to die. Why do you think the number of people who have beaten Metroid (NES) are so few in number? Because dying to mother brain means 20-40 minutes of missile and health grinding.
There's also an episode metal that unlocks for owning episode 1. I'm not sure how it detects that, like whether you have to have it in your library, whether it needs to be installed, or whether you need to have beaten episode 1 prior to launching episode 2. It unlocked on my second launch of the game. Episode metal was okay.
This game stands on its own which is why I'm giving it the thumbs up. If you had to play episode 1 prior to this for any reason, I would not be recommending it. Overall very mid sonic game unless you want to get into it for speedrunning. But what game *isn't* different in speedruns?
Overall Sonic 4 (both episode 1 and 2) are not as bad as people make them out to be, I can totally see how people would find them fun, but I personally did not like either of them.