We all know what happened when SEGA made Sonic 4, so I’m not going to talk about that 2.5D mess.
So, what if they actually made a fully sprite-based follow-up to Sonic 3 & Knuckles? I’m not going to count Mania as 4, because it isn’t fully original - and most fans would want a completely new Sonic game as Sonic 4, so let’s design it!
Let's Design.. Sonic 4
(a good one)
Sonic 4 releases on June 18th, 2021 - just shy of the 30th anniversary of Sonic. There is one DLC pack, releasing on September 2nd 2021. More information on that later, so let’s get into the game.
1. PLAYABLE CHARACTERS
Sonic & Tails
Sonic
Tails
Knuckles*
Amy*
Metal Sonic*
Mighty & Ray*
Blaze**
Sonic & Blaze**
*Unlockable characters.
Unlock Knuckles by beating Pumpkin Boneyard Zone with an A rank or higher.
Unlock Amy by beating Mini-Mega Zone with an A rank or higher.
Unlock Metal Sonic by beating Atomic Egg Zone with a B rank or higher.
Unlock Mighty and Ray by beating Atomic Egg Zone with an A rank or higher.
**DLC characters. More information later.
2. MODES
Story Mode - The default mode, where the game takes place.
Time Attack - A mode for speedrunners; they can choose any act of any zone to run through.
Competition Mode - The same as Competition Mode from Sonic Mania.
Remix Mode* - Similar to Story Mode, but every zone is harder and looks different.
Retro Mode* - In this mode, the screen has retro filters, as does the audio. The game also plays in 4:3 in Retro Mode.
Ring Mode* - This is like Ring Keep Mode from SEGA AGES Sonic 1 and 2, where ring values are changed. The player loses half of their rings when hit and the goal is to get a ring-total high score.
Custom Mode**
*Unlockable modes.
To unlock Retro Mode, the player must simply beat Story Mode once.
To unlock Remix Mode, the player must collect all chaos emeralds and beat the true final boss in Story Mode once.
Ring Mode is unlocked by beating Warped Woods Zone with an A rank or higher.
**DLC Mode. More information later.
3. RANKING
Beating any zone, besides Vortex Zone, unlocks the player a rank for the zone, all acts combined. The rank is based on time, coolness, rings collected and death count. The lowest rank is F and the highest is A+.
Getting specific ranks in specific zones can unlock Knuckles, Amy, Metal Sonic, Mighty & Ray and Ring Mode.
4. ZONES AND BOSSES
Warped Woods Zone
This first zone is set in a forest. Sonic runs in and out of groves in giant trees, through small puddles in the grass, and even uses falling leaves to climb.
Act 1 Boss: Woodchuck - Woodchuck cuts trees down in the background and throws (‘chucks’) them at the player.
Act 2 Boss: Egg Burner - Robotnik sets fire to the ground and, similarly to the Marble Zone boss from Sonic 1, the player has to avoid the fire and then hit him.
Remix Mode: Forest is partially burning, can burn Sonic.
Flooded Fort Zone
This zone is set in a ruined castle, which has been partially flooded. It plays like Aquatic Ruin Zone, where if Sonic is careful he can stay completely out of water. There are also traps laid around
Act 1 Boss: Tikibot - Tikibot is based on a totem pole and shoots arrows at the player until they destroy it.
Act 2 Boss: Egg King - Robotnik uses his new Egg King machine to fire spears down that damage the brick tiles beneath them. Two hits is enough to destroy a tile, which exposes a bottomless pit.
Remix Mode: Castle is less destroyed, water rises and lowers, more traps.
Cherry Village Zone
This zone is set in a village, inspired by rural Japanese villages, that is surrounded by blossom trees and climbable bamboo. Act 2 takes place inside a Japanese-style dojo.
Act 1 Boss: Sliceatron - Sliceatron is an upgraded Slicer (from Sonic 2’s Metropolis Zone) that faces Sonic in a bamboo-sword dual.
Act 2 Boss: Egg Ninja - Robotnik burrows underground and suddenly strikes upward. He takes a second before going back down, giving the player a chance to hit him.
Remix Mode: The village has been abandoned, there are traps.
Slush Desert Zone
This zone is a desert mixed with a swamp, where poisonous water and quicksand are plentiful. Act 2 takes place in a toxic sewer.
Act 1 Boss: Fang the Sniper - Fang is back! He shoots bouncy bullets at the player, who has to avoid the bullets and the quicksand.
Act 2 Boss: Egg Rotbot - Robotnik drills holes in the ceiling of the sewer, and the player needs to escape the rising toxic water by using falling rocks to climb up to Robotnik.
Remix Mode: The sewer looks nearly destroyed, poisonous and toxic waters now one-hit kill Sonic.
Pumpkin Boneyard Zone
Set in a standard graveyard, this zone features many fake walls and floors, similar to the New Super Mario Bros. series. Sonic can use this fake tiles to explore graves for secrets. Act 2 takes place inside a haunted mansion. Ghosts can also suddenly appear to scare the player, like in Sonic Adventure 2.
Act 1 Boss: Big Boo - Big Boo is a bigger version of Boos from Sonic Adventure 2. It attacks by sending out ghosts to hurt the player. The player can only hit Big Boo after stunning it with light.
Act 2 Boss: Egg Vac - Robotnik sucks ghosts up with a vacuum and uses them to shield himself from Sonic, like in Metropolis Zone’s boss from Sonic 2.
Remix Mode: The graveyard is foggier, vicious purple ghosts appear in Act 2.
Skyline City Zone
This zone takes place above, and in, a city. In Act 1, Sonic can grind on rails like in Sonic Advance, and can use Homing Springs - springs that let him use the homing attack when bounced off of. In Act 2 Sonic is on the city streets and can use Boost Springs - springs that make him use a Sonic Rush-style boost.
Act 1 Boss: GUN Truck - A re-imagining of Sonic Adventure 2’s GUN Truck chase sequence, now in 2D.
Act 2 Boss: Egg Gun - Robotnik fires homing missiles that the player can redirect to hit him, like the Doomsday boss from Sonic & Knuckles.
Remix Mode: The GUN Truck appears throughout all of Act 1, the city's in ruins in Act 2.
Crystal Cave Zone
A standard cave level, but Sonic can stand on special platforms that tunnel through the ground, taking him to smaller, self-contained areas. This zone is more platforming-focused than many others.
Act 1 Boss: Crushion - A robot that looks like a cushion, but can easily crush the player.
Act 2 Boss: Egg Hotbot - An upgraded version of the Egg Rotbot, the fight is similar to the Mystic Cave boss from Sonic 2, but Robotnik can appear from anywhere and lava also occasionally spills out.
Remix Mode: The cave looks unstable, lava pockets appear.
Mini-Mega Zone
A grassy zone, featuring Metallic Madness-style shrink rays, along with tiny enemies and giant enemies.
Act 1 Boss: Giant Motobug - A... giant Motobug.
Act 2 Boss: Egg Micro - A three-phase boss, where Robotnik mimics previous bosses, but mini. Phase 1 is the S1 Green Hill boss, Phase 2 is the S2 Chemical Plant boss and Phase 3 is the S3 Angel Island Act 2 boss. Each phase takes four hits to destroy.
Remix Mode: All resized enemies swap positions with opposite resized enemies.
Frostburn Glacier Zone
This zone takes place on an icy glacier, surrounded by lava. Act 1 is a snowy landscape, featuring frozen elements, whereas Act 2 takes place inside an active volcano that strangely still has ice inside.
Act 1 Boss: Cold Clasher - Cold Clasher smashes ice under Sonic, giving the player small opportunities to hit it.
Act 2 Boss: Egg Sandwich - Robotnik traps Sonic in a large hole, and uses the Egg Sandwich to spin the ice like a blender. If the player does not crouch or spindash, they will be hurt. If they do, they will knock ice into Robotnik.
Remix Mode: The volcano erupts in Act 1, causing deadly rocks to rain down, volcano is collapsing in Act 2.
Atomic Egg Zone
The final standard zone takes place in Robotnik’s base, an underground factory. The zone takes elements from Scrap Brain Zone, Metropolis Zone, Metallic Madness Zone, Death Egg Zone and Titanic Monarch Zone and combines them.
In Act 2, Sonic enters a nuclear weapons storage facility. Act 3 takes place inside a nuclear missile, and consists entirely of a boss battle.
Act 1 Boss: King Robo - King of the Egg Robos! King Robo will blast lots of lasers at the player, who has to direct them into bouncers to bounce them back and hit King Robo.
Act 2 Boss: Egg Missile - Robotnik fires missiles at the player, who has to avoid them and stop them from hitting nuclear devices.
Act 3 Boss: Final Showdown - Robotnik has combined the best aspects of the previous encounters, and challenges Sonic with a five phase final boss. The phases are: Egg Burner, Egg King, Egg Hotbot, Egg Missile and Egg Destroyer, the final phase.
Remix Mode: One of the bombs explodes, causing a Nuclear Meltdown. Sonic only has 200 seconds to beat each act.
Vortex Zone
The Super Sonic exclusive zone, unlocked after the player gets all Chaos Emeralds, in which Robotnik and Super Sonic brawl in a timeless area. The zone is split into two acts, Act 1 being a normal level, and Act 2 being the true final boss.
This zone features a space-like area, but with props and gimmicks from Sonic’s past flying around, like Green Hill loops, Final Zone crushers, the Master Emerald room, and even the Mirage Saloon train.
At the end of Act 1, Sonic reaches the Timeless Diamond’s remains, and fights the boss. In Act 2, everything is sucked into a black hole when the diamond implodes, resulting in the true final boss taking place inside a space vacuum.
Act 1 Boss: Metal Sonic - Basically just Metal Sonic
Act 2 Boss: True Final Boss - Dr Robotnik uses the Chaos Emeralds to mech his mech go super, and grow to a massive size! More information later.
Remix Mode: No changes.
Atomic Rush Zone
Atomic Rush is exclusive to Time Trial mode, and is a boss rush, set in Atomic Egg Act 2. The only change is the Final Showdown, which only features the Egg Destroyer. The Vortex Zone boss is not fought.
Nuclear Rush Zone*
*DLC exclusive.
Taking place in Vortex Zone, this is a harder version of the boss rush, also including the Vortex Zone bosses.
5. STORY AND LEVEL TRANSITIONS
Robotnik has returned after his previous defeat on Angel Island. He has gathered all of the Time Stones, and combined them with the Master Emerald to create the Timeless Diamond.
The game begins with Sonic relaxing under a tree in Warped Woods Zone, on Quartz Island. A portal suddenly opens and a fleet of robots fly out, followed by Robotnik. After Act 2, Sonic walks to the right and trips, falling into a hole that leads to Flooded Fort Zone.
After defeating the Egg King, the background wall collapses, showing the village in the background, which Sonic runs to. Beating Act 2 of Cherry Village Zone causes another portal to open, sucking Sonic in and dropping him at Slush Desert Zone.
The climbing done in the Act 2 boss brings Sonic to the exit of the sewer, taking him to the next zone. After beating Act 2 of Pumpkin Boneyard, the mansion vanishes, and Sonic is suddenly in the city.
The Egg Gun explodes after Sonic destroys it, destroying the road in Skyline City and making Sonic fall down to Crystal Cave Zone. After beating that zone, Sonic uses a drill machine to drill to the surface, now in Mini-Mega Zone. When Sonic beats Egg Micro, an iceberg collides with the Mini-Mega Island, creating a glacier, and taking Sonic to Frostburn Glacier Zone.
After Act 1, the volcano sinks into the ice, taking Sonic with it and into Act 2. After defeating Egg Sandwich, Sonic follows Robotnik through an entrance in the ice, taking him to Atomic Egg Zone. After beating Egg Missile, Robotnik prepares a giant nuclear missile and flies inside, Sonic quickly following.
If Sonic has no chaos emeralds after winning The Final Showdown, Robotnik’s mech exploding causes the nuclear missile to explode in the base, obliterating Atomic Egg, the volcano, the glacier and Mini-Mega Island. Sonic escapes through a portal, but the damage done by the explosion is great enough to be a Bad Ending.
If Sonic has 1-6 emeralds after winning, he attempts to go super but fails, and the missile explodes anyway. If Sonic has all seven emeralds, a portal sucks in the nuke, leaving the two behind. Sonic chases Robotnik into a big room, containing the Timeless Diamond.
Robotnik suddenly fires a giant laser at the diamond, and it explodes. The explosion destroys all of the tiles, and the background, leaving everything floating around. Vortex Zone begins to form around the two, and Robotnik takes off in a giant mech.
Beating Metal Sonic in Act 1 brings Sonic to the Eye of Time. The eye turns into a black hole, sucking everything in and bringing about the final battle - which features Sonic, in his super form, climbing random, damaged objects from his past as he avoids massive hits from Robotnik, who sits in a giant mech in the background - the mech is so big it takes up the entire screen, and hits hard enough to destroy anything in its path.
Once Super Sonic reaches the top, he can directly hit and destroy the mech, sending it into the vortex. It can be seen breaking apart in the background, as Super Sonic flies at top speed to try and escape. He does not succeed, being sucked in, along with everything else.
A giant vortex portal opens over Quartz Island, dropping Sonic - now in his normal state, the Chaos Emeralds, the Time Stones, pieces of Robotnik’s mech, and the nuclear missile. The missile falls into the ocean but does not explode, instead resting peacefully on the ocean floor. Robotnik is nowhere to be found, and much like Sonic 2, Sonic is miraculously saved from falling by Tails in the Tornado.
Sonic and Tails land the tornado on the beach, and the credits play as Sonic runs along the coast and through parts of the following zones, as debris rains down from the slowly closing portal: Warped Woods Zone, Cherry Village Zone, Pumpkin Boneyard Zone, Skyline City Zone, Mini-Mega Zone and Frostburn Glacier Zone. The credits end with Sonic arriving at the volcano, and finding the Chaos Emeralds and Time Stones in the snow.
6. SPECIAL STAGES
In order to collect the Chaos Emeralds, the player must find Secret Portals - which are like Giant Rings from Sonic 3 - hidden throughout the levels. Each act has three portals hidden away, apart from in Atomic Egg Zone, which has two per act, and Vortex Zone, which has none.
The special stages themselves are challenges set in Vortex Zone, consisting of time-based platforming puzzles. Collecting an emerald opens a portal and takes Sonic to where he entered.
7. MULTIPLAYER
There is multiplayer functionality in Sonic 4, that being Competition Mode and also an option to play Story Mode in split-screen multiplayer, either with SegaShare friends or locally, with up to 4 players.
8. DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT
As I stated before, there is one DLC pack, released on September 2nd 2021. The DLC includes one new zone, one new mode, and one new character.
DLC additions:
• Blaze the Cat - New character, similar to her appearance in Sonic Rush.
• Sonic & Blaze - Similar to Sonic & Tails and Mighty & Ray, but Blaze is Sonic’s companion.
• Nuclear Rush Zone - Taking place in Vortex Zone, this is a harder version of the boss rush, also including the Vortex Zone bosses - exclusive to Time Trials Mode.
• Custom Mode - A mode in which the player can customise many features of their playthrough, and save up to 10 custom mode presets. The options:
- Aesthetic: Day, Night and Evening settings. Changes the zone similarly to Sonic Mania Plus’ Encore Mode
- Bounce: Bounce, Bouncier, Bounciest. Bounce is normal, bouncier adds lots of bumpers and springs. Bounciest makes every tile bouncy.
- Difficulty: Easy, Normal, Hard, Hardcore. Changes enemy and trap volume and placement.
- Rings: Ringless, Normal, Midas. Ringless removes all rings, Normal is standard, and Midas puts rings everywhere.
- Music: Gives the player the option to choose between music from Sonic 1, 2, 3, Knuckles, CD, Mania and 4.
9. PRICE
The price of a game is very important. The digital release of Sonic 4 would retail for $25/£19, with the retail release costing $30/£22. The DLC would cost $8/£6, and the Fire Edition - which includes the DLC - costing $35/£26.
10. ONLINE PLAY
The following online features are included:
• Sharing Time Trials leaderboards online
• Sharing screenshots and clips through SegaShare
• Online Manual
11. SEGASHARE
SegaShare is a service that includes a friends system, chats, leaderboards, and the ability to share clips and screenshots from certain games - including Sonic 4 and Sonic Maker.
SegaShare launches alongside Sonic 4 on June 18th 2021, and has functionality with select previous games - including Team Sonic Racing, Sonic Mania, Sonic Forces, the 2013 mobile ports of Sonic 1, 2 and CD, and the SEGA AGES versions of Sonic 1 and 2.
With SegaShare, users can make usernames that can’t be taken by anyone else, as well as having nicknames. They also have levels, based off of XP earned from in-game achievements. For example:
Nickname: Jakus
Username: SpinSplash
Level: Level 14
12. ACHIEVEMENTS
In Sonic 4, the following achievements can be unlocked:
Finally, Sonic 4! - Open the game once
Sonic Four - Open the game 4 times
Sonic 40 - Open the game 40 times
400 Gang - Open the game 400 times
Atomic Egg - Beat Atomic Egg Zone
Super Sonic - Collect all emeralds and turn super
Black Hole - Beat Vortex Zone
Knucklehead - Unlock Knuckles
Sweet Roses - Unlock Amy
Forgotten Duo - Unlock Mighty & Ray
Oiled Up - Unlock Metal Sonic
Betrayal - Beat Metal Sonic.. as Metal Sonic
Heated Up - Beat the game as Blaze
Fired Up - Beat Vortex Zone with Blaze
Timey Wimey - Beat any zone act in 60 seconds or less (Time Trial Mode only)
Button Masher - Beat any zone act in 30 seconds or less (Time Trial Mode only)
Speedy Superstar - Beat any zone act in 20 seconds or less (Time Trial Mode only)
Nuclear Egg - Beat any boss rush stage
Day and Night - Beat the game with the night setting (Custom Mode only)
Bounce Pad! - Beat the game with the Bounciest setting (Custom Mode only)
CONCLUSION
Well, that’s everything. This is the ideal Sonic 4, at least for me. There are a few more things, of course, like what devices it would be on and if there would be mod support. PC would, of course, have mod support and it would be on Xbox One/Series X, PS4/5, PC and Switch. No mobile version, sorry.
See you next time!
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