Well...here it is? The 2D sonic we've all been waiting for...according to Sega at least.

For those that have played it, what do you think?

I've beated the Spring zone and Casino zone as well as 3 special stages and I freekin love it. While it doesn't feel like older 2D sonic games when it comes to movements, gameplay is smooth as butter. I played an early version of the game 4 months ago that wasn't nearly as good or polished as this...

For those who may know, is the Wii version any different from the PS360 one? If so, is it any good?

All I can say after playing this is that all the huffin and puffin Sega is doing lately about setting sonic straight may not just be hot air.

Man Sonic 4 is a glorious return to the roots of the series and I'm so happy about it. 

Bought it on Wii as soon as the game was up, played the PS3 demo today, its the exact same game except not 200 megabytes lol

I practically beat it, just got to beat Robotnik (we need to return to this name!) on the 4th stage.  It starts off as easy as the original Sonic games but then it ramps up and you're dying by pits, being squished, or some BS enemy placement and it brought a tear to my eye, I agree they might be wanting to set Sonic back on course.

To me sonic never fell of course. Sonic Adventure, heroes, unleashed and a couple other 3d ones are fine to me.Anyway i found sonic 4 to be alright it just was not enough content imo you can beat it way to quickly which makes the price tag a bit to high. The gameplay is good though but the fact that most of the levels are do overs from sonic 1 and 2 i think which is sad as well. Im betting ill prefer sonic colors over this.

Sonic 4 is out?!?!?!

I better start keeping track of release dates.

I'll give my impressions about it as soon as I can.

im not a big sonic fan but im really enjoying this one the lock on makes the game a bit easy but more fun imo, hes not as fast as he was in the old ones which kind of looks funny

Still thinks he accelerates strangly.. it's an ok game.. 7,5.. 8.. a bit too easy..( except final boss, and some frustrating parts were you have to try like 5 times before you get the timing right, more trial and error then about skill) wish they had brought more the only the lock on system.. while it freshend up the gameplay a bit it left me the feeling there could be more in it for Sonic 4.. well it's only the first episode so I'll wait for the other episodes..

Yeah, it makes it pretty fun.

Thats a feature they borrowed from fan made 2D games. In the future, Sega needs to look more at some of these fan made sonic games for inspiration as some of them are mindblowing.

Look at these one...

It's interesting, because every level borrows heavily from previous 2D Sonic levels.

Splash Hill Zone (Green Hill Zone)
Casino Street Zone (Casino Night Zone)
Lost Labyrinth Zone (Mix of Hydropolis Zone, Labyrinth Zone, and Aquatic Ruin Zone. Easily the most diverse.)
Mad Gear Zone (Metropolis Zone through and through lol)

Physics take a while to get used to, since they're directional based and not momentum based (I've died plenty of times because I stopped pressing forward in the air, and then just stopped progressing and fell to my death haha.)

Music is... pretty mediocre. Probably my biggest disappointment with the game.

Lives out the wazoo! (Especially in Act 2 of Casino Street Zone, I went from 10 to 19 lives in that level haha)

But those lives are needed near the end of the game. Has anyone else noticed that near the end of each act, there's always a tough platforming section that leaves no room for mistakes? I've sped through an entire level (with over 200 rings) with little trouble, only to reach the final stretch and die because of some crazy platforming element.

Like the Zones, the Robotnik battles take heavily from previous Robotnik battles:

Splash Hill Zone (Green Hill Zone)
Casino Street Zone (Exactly like Casino Night, but with less pizazz.)
Lost Labyrinth Zone (Labyrinth Zone to a T)
Mad Gear Zone (Once again, Metropolis Zone)

I have to say, Sonic 4's heavy dependence on the previous Sonic games is both a blessing and a curse. I really appreciate seeing past influences and the nostalgia factor is totally awesome. But I also wanted to see a bit more... newness after 16 years. I appreciated the mine cart rides, the homing attack (kind of one note with the Bubbles badnicks, but it still kept things pretty fresh), and the other new stuff. I'd like to see Sonic Team expand for episode 2 and 3.

...

Lol, all that above stuff really makes it look like I didn't like this game at all... and that is not the case at all haha. Love the game, really having the blast with it. It feels like classic Sonic, and at the same time, still feels very fresh and fun. Bonus levels are pretty tough and unforgiving, but very satisfying.

Yeah, this game is very cool. Out of my 5 star ranking, the game is a solid 4. Good fun!

@smeags

Compared to what I played at the Xbox press event 2-3 months ago...the game turned out amazing.  I really thought this was going to be another fail by sega. But they delayed it for a reason...

Yeah, I remember reading that thread by you... and totally dismissed it (aka denial). Actually I was pretty bummed that a fellow Sonic fan was really disappointed by this game.

When I read this thread's title and saw you, I thought you were going to give the game a beat down. I read your first sentence and thought "Oh boy, here it comes!". But then I read the third sentence and all was right haha.

Glad to see that this delay (delayed for iPhone... good one Sega...) was actually meaningful to the deliverance of the quality. ^_^