Are you sure? I'll defer to you since you've hacked Sonic 1 and I haven't, but I could have sworn the water is explicitly turned off for the two wrapping segments in LZ3 (the intro slide, and the climb right before the boss).
It's turned off for the former, but it rises steadily during the climb to the boss - however, there are some special hardcoded checks in that area that would presumably also need to be done in the case of HPZ's elevator. I don't know the details myself either.
A thought but this thing is just still using a Megadrive emulator, so maybe it means less programming capacity and more just things according to the Switch's gimmicks. This likely puts said Hidden Palace stuff off the list, though 2 player might still be a thing to consider (even if they can't enhance split screen they can just make it work off of two separate Switches). Also, didn't the beta have an option to do the one player co-op split screen (or at least TRIED to)? Giving Tails his own screen would enhance that experience.
It's heart-breaking: M2 have so much passion and pour so much effort into these re-releases, but because it's emulation, there's limits on what they can do. Why can't Sega let them work on the Taxman/Stealth versions? M2's efforts would go a lot further. They could probably port over some of the features from Mania such as Ray, Mighty, Buddy mode, Super Sonic flight and maybe even Encore mode (They could at least switch around the power ups and enemies, even if they didn't change the pallets). And on 3DS, they could have improved the 3D effect considerably. Instead Sega have given the Taxman/Stealth versions to Sega Forever who just sloppily add more bugs and fill the game with ads. How can one company be so stupid? It would be neat if they could improve the co-op, as that's something even the mighty Mania didn't tackle. I'd also like to see 2P VS on every stage. Perhaps they could fake it by having two 1P instances of the emulator running with the game detecting who reaches the goal first to declare them the winner.
Sonic 1's Time Attack shown how they can spruce up the old emulation with their own separate bells and whistles, but on the other hand it shows it can still work on a limit since for whatever reason it was for ONE ACT.
OutRun is out in Japan, but not worldwide until next month at the earliest. Loving the new music added to the game.
Everybody, let's play more OutRun. It is very fascinating. I already have it for 3DS and play it a lot in Yakuza 0. I even bought the Super Hang-On Soundtrack.
Phantasy Star won't be out until the middle of this month either, almost two months behind Japan's release date. I see the worldwide releases have fizzled quickly, though I guess it's an improvement over the Saturn/PS2 Sega Ages lines where the west rarely got the games EVER.
It's my favorite game ever. You can bet I will get my hands on it...need a switch first. I bought a 3DS for the same reason lol.
Since it's going to be released in 2019 elsewhere, I can't believe they're not taking the opportunity of doing something about it.
I'd been wanting an arcade remix of Step on Beat since like....forever now. Glad they finally did it for this release!
Outrun is now out in the West, with Gain Ground out in Japan. Apparently we should get the latter in February, along with the arcade version of Puyo Puyo: https://www.destructoid.com/sega-ages-gain-ground-and-puyo-puyo-will-be-hitting-switch-next-month-538628.phtml This is seemingly the arcade version, so unlikely to be a Mean Bean Machine conversion. It will also have online versus and leaderboards. Wonder if they'll use the obscure (and laughable) English translation.
SEGA AGES Japanese site updated with new screenies of Virtua Racing: Features a two player online multiplayer, plus an EIGHT PLAYER split screen local multiplayer: Also a replay save and playback feature has been added: Also SEGA AGES Puyo Puyo page has been updated as well, with a title screen screenie plus details revealing it does indeed have the English translation. The game is placed before Virtua Racing on the site list implying that one might come first. By the way has anyone noticed the SEGA AGES page actually seems to have loads of preview shots for unannounced titles on its banner? They might just be mock-ups for decoration but it's very curious. If we abide by them, we can also expect Shinobi, Fantasy Zone, G-Loc: Air Battle and Puzzle and Action: Tant-R. http://archives.sega.jp/segaages/
Virtua Racing, can't wait! As much as I have played and sunk hundreds of hours over the genesis and 32x versions I have never played the ps2, saturn or even the arcade original, well ok I tried to emulate the arcade verson long ago but could never get the controls correctly working as I had no steering wheel.
Gain Ground and Alex Kidd are in fact getting a duo release this week. Puyo Puyo however still isn't released in Japan, some claims are because M2 want to fine-tune the net play. EDIT: Whoop. Skip that. JUST as I say that, Puyo Puyo has been stated for a Japan release on the same day as the two western releases above. https://gonintendo.com/stories/331566-sega-ages-puyo-puyo-launches-for-switch-in-japan-on-march-28th