I played this a bit after mid 2021, from what I recall. It was patched well. SS4 is not bad. It looks pretty and it has its moments. Some areas are funner than others, but the open world aspect of it wasn't fun. It was boring, unfortunately. Open areas felt empty. Not much to do. It does feel soulless. Beginning maps were better than later maps. I didn't like the agenda they had to force upon us at one point when you get a sniper at a church. Sigh.. Disgusting and random. I was not expecting that in a game like this. Gunplay was great. Skill tree was great to have. But, overall gameplay and level design was not as fun as SS3, which I had played right before that. SS4 looks better, but isn't as fun. Still better than SS2. But, SS FE and SE are better than SS4 (not in every way but at least in fun factor, gameplay, and such). As for graphics and performance. I did have some issues but that was because of the settings I had chosen. The game has issues with which version of Graphics API you choose, and some other settings. The 1 star reviews for performance are uncalled for. They probably chose the wrong settings and had no idea that they needed to experiment (especially since Croteam always offers many settings and different API versions). You have to use what is best for your setup. I played this on my laptop with a 140w RTX 3070 and it was smooth around 90 avg FPS at near max settings. I reduced some settings and used the Graphics API relevant to my setup. There's one Graphics API that, even though would claim I was getting 140 avg FPS, it did not feel smooth. Something was wrong there. I think it was Vulkan. From what I recall, I might have stuck with DX11, but I unfortunately forgot. While the FPS was lower than Vulkan, it was smooth.
I played the original in the past 2 years and while it's somewhat easy, it was very fun and a blast to play. I bought the new one, this one, on Epic Games a few months ago because I couldn't find this on GOG :( as I want to replay this improved version. A bit disappointing that it's finally here on GOG but so late, as usual. Might buy this again here just to support the developers so that they keep developing fun and unique platformers like this one. This is one of those games that I feel like replaying over and over again, like A Hat In Time, Yooka Laylee 1 (3D version), Unbox, and some others. I actually prefer this game over Spyro Reignited Trilogy.
