A thing about Sonic 4 that I don't really understand...why is it here?

[Alienrun]

Anyone here tired of taking shots at Sonic 4?

Me neither...

This was brought up to my attention some time ago...

Some of you might know that "Sonic 4" was originally not going to be called Sonic 4 but rather "Sonic the Portable"

If that's the case well...you might notice that you can see the words "Sonic the Portable" on the ferris wheel in the backround of this picture here, leaving me to ask the painfully obvious question...why?

Why was this left in the final game? I can understand cutting corners to save money, I get why the game feels more at home on a mobile phone and that the iPad rotation makes more sense to use stiff physics, I get what this game was going for despite whatever radical changes (if any) had to be made to fit the bill of Sonic 4...but why would they leave this in? What logical reason is there to hint at the fact that this game was not  meant to be Sonic 4? Did they not think that someone would be curious enough to Google "Sonic the Portable", find out what really happened and thus spread negative word of mouth across the internet to get people not to take this game seriously? I don't see any reason as to why they left this in, it doesn't make any sense in context, and I don't think any person on the planet would object to the ferris wheel saying "Sonic the Hedgehog 4" or just "Sonic the Hedgehog" (or even just sonic). (Sonic Mania makes reference to itself and noone cares...)

I know this seems like such a little thing but, I don't get it. Did they just not care? Whoever was in charge of this just didn't notice? What actually happened? Secret Rings doesn't make reference to Wild Fire, Boom doesn't make reference to Synergy. Unleashed doesn't make reference to World Adventure! Does this further confirm that the title "Sonic 4" was nothing short of just a marketing gimmick that backfired? Or am I looking way too much into this?

First time I heard of this and I want to know what you all think, even if its just a short 1 sentence thought, the more feedback the better!

[Tara]

20 minutes ago, Alienrun said:

Did they just not care?

That's basically it.  Why bother changing such an insignificant and barely noticeable background detail?  At best, it would just be dismissed as an Easter Egg as opposed to an oversight.  If I were in the dev's shoes, I wouldn't care either.

It's not too dissimilar to the Casino Night Zone stages saying MILES instead of TAILS.  It's technically not untrue, but seems like a weird choice when all the in-game text and manuals still refer to him by his nickname.  But it's such an unnecessary detail that doesn't interfere with anything in terms of story or gameplay that it's not even worth fixing.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

The sad/funny thing is, if this game had been only known as Sonic Portable from the beginning instead of it's current name, it probably would have had an overall better reputation even if it didn't have the hype of being Sonic 4. Yeah it would still be at best mediocre, but at least it would have been it's own mediocre thing.

[JezMM]

Definitely looking too much into it lol.  Hell it's engrishy enough that the developers probably didn't even think about it once the background art was complete.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Random Fact: back when the psn had it's old store layout you could search for a game called "Sonic DL" which many believed was the console name for Sonic 4. "Sonic Download."

[Blue Wisp]

SEGA learned the hard way that a name for a game matters a lot. 

I enjoyed both Sonic the Hedgehog 4 episodes, were they good games no absolutely not. But by naming it Sonic the Hedgehog 4 it had a name, a series and a franchise to live up to. Which it failed. Terribly. 

It's a shame. But a necessary failure to make SEGA open their eyes. 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

18 minutes ago, Hard-Boiled Wisp said:

SEGA learned the hard way that a name for a game matters a lot. 

I enjoyed both Sonic the Hedgehog 4 episodes, were they good games no absolutely not. But by naming it Sonic the Hedgehog 4 it had a name, a series and a franchise to live up to. Which it failed. Terribly. 

It's a shame. But a necessary failure to make SEGA open their eyes. 

Y'know you say that, but the first episode sold really well and did ok with critics. It was only with the second episode (ironically, the better of the two by far) that people outside the fanbase were like "nah fuck this".

[Celestia]

I know there's no super solid evidence or confirmation, but the idea that Sonic 4 started as just a random Dimps Sonic game on mobile does kinda make sense. This was a time when stuff like the newer Classic Mega Man games were a thing so everyone knows they were clearly trying to cash in on that, the only question is who made the decision to do that (and when, I guess).

[Blue Wisp]

1 minute ago, Celestia said:

I know there's no super solid evidence or confirmation, but the idea that Sonic 4 started as just a random Dimps Sonic game on mobile does kinda make sense. This was a time when stuff like the newer Classic Mega Man games were a thing so everyone knows they were clearly trying to cash in on that, the only question is who made the decision to do that (and when, I guess).

Ken Balough.

As you truly imagined it. 

[Tara]

43 minutes ago, Shaddy the guy said:

Y'know you say that, but the first episode sold really well and did ok with critics. It was only with the second episode (ironically, the better of the two by far) that people outside the fanbase were like "nah fuck this".

That's the problem, though.  The game that was supposed to bring Sonic back to his roots (their words, not mine) and return Sonic to his former glory only did "okay" at best.  Not good, just okay.  Despite the high sales, it means their marketing was a failure because it failed to do what it set out to do.  That is, make Sonic (the series, not just one game) great again.

The reason the first game sold well is because of the title hype and because it was developed by a studio that had a good reputation.  But once the second game came out, naturally people were more aware that the first one wasn't what it promised to be and thus were more disillusioned to the idea.  Not too dissimilar to the struggles the series currently faces when working on an ambitious new title.  Apathy and skepticism quickly settles in as a result of their less than stellar past performance.

[Alienrun]

4 hours ago, Hard-Boiled Wisp said:

SEGA learned the hard way that a name for a game matters a lot. 

I enjoyed both Sonic the Hedgehog 4 episodes, were they good games no absolutely not. But by naming it Sonic the Hedgehog 4 it had a name, a series and a franchise to live up to. Which it failed. Terribly. 

It's a shame. But a necessary failure to make SEGA open their eyes. 

Pretty on point, I think subconciously back when I knew very little about sonic and was trying to do research it, I naturally got more attention towards this game and just thought "This sucks...this isn't what a sonic 4 should be...they ruined it!"

Case in point...not even nintendo did this. It's called "New Super Mario Bros." not "Super Mario Bros. 4". Nintendo can be overly innovative/ambitious from time to time, but they defenetely aren't cocky. Making a direct sequel/reboot with a lot of hype is how franchises end up dying. As I recall 06 initially wasn't getting that much attention, but that name and...welp we know how that turned out.

[StaticMania]

53 minutes ago, Alienrun said:

Case in point...not even nintendo did this. It's called "New Super Mario Bros." not "Super Mario Bros. 4". Nintendo can be overly innovative/ambitious from time to time, but they defenetely aren't cocky. Making a direct sequel/reboot with a lot of hype is how franchises end up dying. As I recall 06 initially wasn't getting that much attention, but that name and...welp we know how that turned out.

Well it would've wrong to call it that anyway, because SMW is basically SMB4.