Producer dodges momentum question.
SEGA’s Takashi Iizuka has said that Sonic the Hedgehog 4’s physics were deliberately altered from those of the Mega Drive/Genesis originals for gameplay reasons.
Sonic 4: Episode I launched in October and Ellie loved it to bits, but some gamers complained about ropey physics, which saw the hedgehog losing momentum at a moment’s notice.
“In this title, we have not done a straight port of the gameplay, but rather updated it with actions which could not be done in the previous titles, like ceiling-running,” Iizuka explained to Nintendo Power magazine (thanks Aeropause), which had noted that the physics were not the same as those in the original 16-bit releases.