Sonic:Before the Fourth Adventure is an Interquel fan game that takes place inbetween Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic the Hedgehog 4. This is the first game in the Sonic Crossover! (a.k.a. Sonic Anime!) trilogy.
This game is Sonic the Hedgehog, now with 100% more Anime!
This game provides examples of:
- Action Girl:Hilda and Ritsu.
- Badass Adorable:Tails, Rosa and Yui.
- Call-Back and Call-Forward:E.G.G. Station and Mad Gear are zones in the game, and from a game that hasn't chronologically happened yet no less!
- And in addition, the Sunset Savannah Zone takes place on the continent of Mazuri.
- Canon Immigrant:Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Naugus from Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) appear as bosses.
- Character Catchphrase:
- Sonic:Way past cool!Tails:Admittedly... Anime girls are awesome!Rosa:Find the Air Bubbles!Ritsu:Remember. Tomboyish drummers never say "Quit!"!Yui:Clear water is clear!Eggman:GET A LOAD OF THIS!
- Childhood Friends:Sonic & Tails, Hilda & Bianca and Ritsu & Mio as told in certain cutscenes.
- Continuity Cameo:
- Bianca and Sawako appear in the ending.
- And Clerk Trisha, an NPC from Pokémon Black and White appears in Emerald Hill Zone.
- Mio appears as the damsel in distress in a later zone.
- Spongebob Squarepants makes an appearance on a poster in the Southern Trench Zone.
- Crossover: With Pokémon and K-On!, but the game takes place in Sonic's world.
- Damsel in Distress: Mio Akiyama.
- Endgame+:Beating the game once unlocks Tails, Rosa and Yui as playable characters.
- Eternal Engine:Vertical Volley, Eggman's Fortress, E.G.G. Station and Mad Gear zones.
- Foreshadowing:E.G.G. Station from Sonic 4 appears as the last zone (in prototype form, duh!) and a prototype of Sonic 4's final boss is fought.
- The E.G.G. Station Zone music even plays during the zone as well.
- Genki Girl:Hilda and Ritsu are portrayed this way in the cutscenes, to Sonic's partial dismay.
- Green Hill Zone:Sunset Savannah Zone and Emerald Hill Zone.
- Hero of Another Story:You play through most of the zones as a different character, and none of the characters know of each others existence until Vertical Volley Zone Act 3.
- Interspecies Friendship: Sonic befriends Hilda and Ritsu in a cutscene before Eggman's Fortress Zone.
- Lava Pit: Magma Meadow Zone has some.
- Recycled Soundtrack:The soundtrack is composed of songs from various Sonic games, a few Mario songs, a couple of songs from Ys 4 (PC Engine CD), two M.U.S.H.A. songs are used (one of which is used in the ending cutscene), two Time Trax (Genesis) tunes, a Kirby song, the end credits uses the normal ending song from Ape Escape and the opening uses the K-On! song, "Cagayake! GIRLS".
- Secret Level: Emerald Hill, Spring Yard, Dragon Road and Mad Gear zones.
- Shout-Out: Plenty.
- Before the end credits start, a short jingle (The 1-up sound from Sonic 1 & 2 or the "Pokémon caught!" jingle from Pokémon Black and White.) plays, followed by a shout of "K-On!". A reference to the halfway point of each episode of K-On! where a short guitar rif plays, followed by one of the characters shouting "K-On!"
- Two of the Zones Hilda ventures through has a robot that looks suspiciously like the Punch-Out!! version of Mike Tyson for a boss...
- The final boss is fought the way Yoshi fights Big Baby Bowser in Yoshi's Island, but with large steel balls instead of giant eggs.
- The final boss song from Yoshi's Island even plays during the fight!
- Robotnik Ruins Zone is one huge shoutout to Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Act 2 of the same zone is a shoutout to the Youtube video Hilda vs. Robotnik:The Pokémon Battle!
", since Grounder is a sub-boss. - An alternate title screen is a shoutout to SegaSonic The Hedgehog.
- Story Arc:This is the first game in the Sonic Crossover!/Sonic Anime! trilogy.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak:Hilda & Ritsu.
