Sonic the Hedgehog 4 – Episode I

I love this game. Here's my extensive review on it.
Introduction
I went into this game aware of all the hate and negativity around it. People treat this game like the hell spawn of this franchise and as one of the worst Sonic games. After actually playing it, I got an experience that I really enjoyed. I believe the hate is immensely overblown by bandwagons of people repeating (usually) youtuber opinions without actually playing the game. However, I appreciate this game for what it is trying to do and what it accomplished. It is called "Sonic the Hedgehog 4" but its true identity is that of "Sonic the Portable", which you can still see in the background of Casino Street Zone. While Sega renamed it for the sake of a marketing, this game was clearly designed with the mentality of "Sonic the Portable", which is why this game is more like an HD reimagining of Sonic 1+2. While the level AESTHETICS are rehashes of past ideas given the context of what this game originally was, the actual GAMEPLAY of them feels unique, from the vines of Splash Hill, to the cards and cannons of Casino Street, to the rolling rocks or minecart in Lost Labyrinth, the chase segment and gizmos of Mad Gear, etc. Even the special stages based on Sonic 1 now run on a timer and have a new focus on collecting rings, giving a new level of depth to them as well.
Level Design
The level design is especially satisfying to master, with top paths feeling super rewarding to consistently get which is a design philosophy that started with Sonic 2. and is one that many people enjoy and heavily appreciate as well since it rewards good gameplay with faster paths for faster times which is why I'm surprised on how overlooked this game really is in that regard. Splash Hill is a great introduction zone, with it visually changing each act. Act 1 is a great introduction level with a surprising amount of depth that isn't just braindead easy to instantly blitz through but still beginner friendly. Then, it immediately shifts to a new satisfying gimmick with the swinging vines in Act 2 which once you master, lets you breeze through the stage, with your momentum and speed influencing your push on your swings. Act 3 then greets you with a scenery reminiscent of Sunset Hill from Advance 3 along with zip lines returning and feeling satisfying to use because your speed and momentum also transfers to how fast you can zip with them. I honestly prefer it much over what it was based on, that being Green Hill as it offers much more depth and variety that makes it way more fun to play and master. Casino Night is a great adaptation of the casino aesthetic that the Sonic Franchise loves to return to, with Act 1 introducing you to its mechanics and giving you an actual freedom with the pinball and other gizmos that launch you around, with you again being rewarded for skillful gameplay and control over Sonic. Act 2 has an interesting focus on cards where you constantly flip cards to getting rewards while also platforming across flipping cards to get across. You can even make a trail or cards to initiate a cool automated segment that can skip past parts of the level if you platform well and don’t fall lower. Act 3 introduces a cannon mechanic that you have full control over unlike the ones from Sonic 3. Gameplay mastery is again rewarded here for having control and you can zip past all these levels with good gameplay that feels rewarding to achieve. Lost Labyrinth is a much more fun adaptation then its original counterpart with the levels not feeling as confined or claustrophobic. Act 1 barely even has water and explores more of the lost ruins aesthetic with rolling rock segments and fast satisfying platforming still being present. Act 3 introduces more water segments but they don’t slow down the pace and still feels fun to play through. Mad Gear is an amazing reimagining of Metropolis, one of the worst zones in classic sonic in my opinion. It is much faster paced, the enemies don’t feel unfair hitbox wise, and the gimmicks are much more fun. It is still a dangerous stage (without those tedious slow paced metal nuts thankfully) filled with crushing pistons, moving gears, and other things like steam pushing you around, but none of this stops you from blitzing through the stage with good gameplay. Act 3 even has an entire past paced chase segment of a giant wall trying to crush you. Lastly, while the bosses are rather basic, the boss rush in Egg Station Zone is a cool nod to the Sonic Advance series, and the DE Robot is a decently challenging final boss. Overall, I legitimately think every zone and act except Lost Labyrinth Act 2 is great. The only reason I think Lost Labyrinth Act 2 falls flat is because it is a darkness level, which usually just aren't fun in platformers, especially for one like Sonic. The rest I felt was a ton of fun, and I’ve spent a bunch of hours optimizing my times on them and still have so much more to optimize even now. While I mentioned skill gameplay and time trial a lot, these levels are still very much fun on casual runs even when I wasn’t as good. Replaying them just made me realize how fun it is to truly optimize this game and reach the best paths every time.
The Physics
Yeah, it's not the genesis games, though once you accept this, the game will open up to you more. I agree that it could be polished up and better, but I feel like Sonic's moveset immensely helps mitigate its flaws by giving you almost full freedom and control over his speed and momentum with his most notable and infamous new move for this game: The Homing Attack. The homing attack functions not just as an attack but as a tool of mobility, kind of like the jump dash from Sonic Advance but on crack. You can manipulate not only your momentum but rapidly gain speed upon using it. This lets you maintain your momentum and full speed. Where you use it and your timing of it matters, with slopes being the most notable for quickly gaining speed, and there's even satisfying to learn and utilize tech that lets you ignore the “homing” aspect on enemies by performing the “dash” version of the technique that allows you to blitz through them with a single usage and gain height without having to stop and manually homing attack each enemy one by one. While the spindash has been nerfed, it still functions as a very useful tool of verticality. When spindashing and jumping while on a slope, you gain insane vertical height which can be immensely useful in several situations. Combining the spindash and homing attack dash also lets you instantly go at rapid speed at a stand still. Overall, while the physics are different from the classics, so are many other Sonic games, and once you get the hang of Sonic's moveset and how the physics do work, it feels just as satisfying to play with.
The Presentation
Probably the most controversial and weaker aspect of the game, but I still appreciate what it was going for considering the context of its origin and its true identity being that of “Sonic the Portable”. It has an cool cell shaded style and many 3d reimaginings of older enemies in 3d that I like. While its nothing crazy, I do like how they reimagined the aesthetics of the stages to fit for the game. Lastly, while the music could have been better, the compositions are actually pretty good, and I enjoy some of its songs such as from Mad Gear and Lost Labyrinth. The game could have benefitted from better instrumentation though as you can better see in remixes. Jun Senoue struggles with using proper instrumentation for genesis-esque songs and this issue continues to be present even in Sonic Superstars. You can also just play the game with outside music in the back to enhance the experience.
Conclusion
Overall, I feel like Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 is a really underrated game. While it isn’t the best Sonic game to ever exist (though continues to be one of my favorites), there is much good to be found here, and to that I say give it a chance.

this is a hot take but i think that this might be a bit overhatted now before you put up your pitchforks up and burn me.
It's not as bad as people make it out to be sure it might be pretty mid but a mostly negative is a bit too much what should be hated is team sonic racing that game is garbage.
sure sonic 4 ep1 might have bad level layouts but if you know them it's not really that bad but i gotta admit there are some sucky stuff in this game but i just believe its not as bad as people make it out to be when you get into the zone then you just can't put it down well at least for me.
good game just overhatted

7/10
Contrary to the popular opinion, I actually like the art style of this game. I like weird 3D games and 2000s/2010s jank, so the sharp contrast and crunchy graphics bring a certain charm to me, even though it is a bit reminiscent of the infamous Sonic Blast. Also, as someone who generally struggles with the 2D Sonic platformers, I appreciated this one's lower skill requirement. I'm aware that may be a deterrent for some people, but this is just my experience. With all that said, this game is VERY unpolished. The homing move, while a nice inclusion, is very busted and often times just led to more frustration than anything. Setting up the game also requires you to download Java, which was just slightly annoying, and the menus and UI are not very good, even considering this episode is 15 years old now.
Casino Street Zone, the second zone in the game, is easily the worst of the bunch, so fair warning about that. That section definitely knocked my rating for this game down a bit. The aesthetics of it are nice, though, but poorly constructed levels kinda ruin it. Overall, I do think people are a bit too harsh on this game, and I think that's just largely due to how it was marketed. They should not have named it Sonic the Hedgehog 4, as it does not hold up against the classic trilogy. But, on its own merits, it's pretty inoffensive, and definitely far from the worst game to come out of the Sonic franchise, by a LONG shot.
Lost Labyrinth Zone, on the other hand, was a very welcome surprise. Now, it was far from my favorite zone, or even necessarily the best, but my heart absolutely SANK when I saw the phrase Labyrinth (Sonic 1 trauma never dies), so the fact that it was actually solid and not completely infuriating was very nice. Absolute props to whoever designed that level. It's a MUCH better concept (puzzle level) when the whole thing isn't underwater.
Now, to talk about difficulty once more, while the majority of the game is very accessible, the final boss is WAY harder in a way that does not felt properly built up to. I do wish either the build-up was better executed to ease the difficulty curve or EGG Station Zone was easier. I wasted so many hours trying and failing to beat Berserk Eggman that, even though I'm marking this as completed on HLTB, I didn't technically ACTUALLY beat the game, since I could not for the life of me get past Berserk Eggman.
Overall, though, I feel like this episode, while a bit janky (and WOW that final boss was way too difficult), gets a lot of unfair hate, and I generally found it enjoyable.

This game is wonderful, I got this for my birthday and it makes feel way better about myself because no matter what I will never be as bad as this.

i really like this game tho i tried evrything to get it to run and i mean run the game like if u have to play this game to get it worked u have to install direct x and distributable c++ 2010 32 bit x86 and i think u need java i think...btw uhm direct x its on the official microsoft page while c++ 2010 is on techpowerup.com and install also java for it wich is on the official java page. btw i love this game is so beautiful to me i also like episode 2 but i like episode 1 a bit more its bc its like simple maded.

Maybe not the best game, however just now i kinda realized it is a game that bringed me core memories form childhood because i played the mobile port lol

I don't care what over people say. This is a great game to just pick up and play.