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Chaotix 1207 discussion

Discussion in 'Prototype Discussion' started by drx, Feb 24, 2008.

  1. Quexinos

    Quexinos

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    LOL, Rob was walking by and I read that post to him and he thought it was a real story at first XD
     
  2. Sister Miyagi

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    This thread is like when mommy and daddy drink their grown-ups only juice and start yelling :(

    To get back on topic: is all of the text in Chaotix stored as images? I never got much farther in rom hacking than text tables, but I'd like to help somehow :)

    Right, like drx couldn't do that in five minutes in his head...
     
  3. Indeed I was referring to the date. For those of you who are really into this prototype stuff (I am not; they are a mere curiousity to me), something like the April 1st date and whether it's a joke or not shouldn't matter and shouldn't take up so much time when there is a pile of other stuff to look at. And Quexinos made a good point; while they have April Fools Day in Japan, it doesn't seem to be as big a thing as elsewhere in the world. So I don't know if Ping Pong and Yaka Waka would bother using that date as a gag for the American programmers who would only see it months later, and most likely nowhere near April 1.

    It's a trivial issue at best and doesn't affect the game in any way :)
     
  4. Has the thought ever occurred to you guys that the title screen (if it is indeed hacked in) might be the "joke"? Maybe it's all a roose to make you all believe Sonic Crackers isn't real?

    Obviously the game is 100% legit. We just can't prove the title screen is real or not. Only thing we know is the date of 4/1 is in the title screen, not the rest of the game, correct? Logic dictates that the title screen may be the joke part of it, but the game itself is real.
     
  5. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    Seriously guys, if the title screen of that specific Sonic prototype would have been made specifically as a "joke" for us Sonic nuts to discuss its true meaning and worldwide conspiracy in the future, you'd think they would have just changed its title to something funny. But Sonic Crackers was indeed its official name, so there's no joke at all in there. It might look quite rudimentary just because, well, it's the "1st ROM".



    With that said, anybody could have edited the date before releasing the ROM, but this wouldn't necessarily mean that this somebody made its own title screen.
     
  6. Snake

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    Well if you want to put it like that, it's also possible that somebody simply changed the date to make people think it's a joke. Seems a bit unlikely though.

    There's another possible explanation. What if this 'game' wasn't developed by Sega at all, but by a couple of guys as a 'tech demo' in order to try to get a job at Sega? What if it worked, and they were then given the job working on Chaotix? I've seen similar things before - some guy made his own NES devkit and wrote a very extensive NES game using art from some game or other and new art, in order to get a job at a place I once worked. There were plenty of ways of doing 'homebrew' on a Genesis back then, and it would explain several oddities - why the Sonic art seems to be based on Sonic 1, and yet Tails is in it (maybe they modified the sonic sprites before Sonic 2 came out?) and why the code doesn't seem to be based on any previous Sonic game (if that is indeed true - I'm sure someone here can confirm.)

    Just something to think about. I'd love to finally know the whole truth behind this damn game. Somebody must know...

    - EDIT - another thing that does my head in is all the people who claim "No, Sonic Stadium is not the name". It's entirely likely that whatever this was WAS referred to as "Sonic Stadium/Studium" before it was known as "Sonic Crackers".
     
  7. Ok, you have a good and valid point there Steve. I wonder what drx and some others knows about this prototype exactly.
     
  8. McAleeCh

    McAleeCh

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    This topic seems to have got more into the history of the "Crackers" ROM than looking into the 1207 build of Chaotix. =P

    To get things back on track; thanks to Snake's corrected fix for Kega, I've been able to play this without it crashing, so here's some odd things I found, complete with pictures. I haven't played the final Chaotix much, so there might be more different in some pics than I've realised. Some of them are also either incredibly obvious or already mentioned, but I snapped 'em anyway since I was already taking pictures.

    [​IMG]
    Background for the Data Select screen isn't in yet. Controls are also reversed - up is down and down is up. Needlessly annoying.

    [​IMG]
    Introduction displays Botanic Base's title card (couldn't remember if there'd been a pic of this yet, but I know it's been mentioned). Also, the Knuckles' Ring Star / Heaby etc. differences.

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
    Left = World Entrance 1, Right = World Entrance 0
    Selecting World Entrance 1 brings you to an almost exact copy of the World Entrance - everything's identical except for the music, which plays the Combi Select BGM, and the layer priorities on doorways, which don't overlap Knuckles and co. in the copy. Neither the copy nor the World Entrance have the "EXIT" or "PLAY" signs, and you can't walk off to the left to exit to the title screen.

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
    The pallette change in Speed Slider between the lower and upper background occurs too high, with the result that you can see some of the tents appear green instead of red until a certain height.

    [​IMG]
    You can walk from the platform on the left straight through onto the slope on the right, as illustrated here with Mighty and Knuckles showing the "before" and "after" positions. =P This seems to work on all slopes like this.

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
    Loops! Lots of loops in this Zone. None of them work though - you get three-quarters of the way around and just fall off. You also can't climb on the 'solid' side of the loop - Knuckles just spazzes out before falling to the ground.

    [​IMG]
    The Zone has no end-sign - you simply run across the flat section and reach this wall. On the other side is a small piece of land, and then blank void.

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
    Collision in Marina Madness is sorta screwed when dealing with the boats that bob up and down. The non-bobbing boats don't seem to glitch out, however - I neglected to get a screen of this.

    [​IMG]
    This stingray enemy's pallette is incorrect.

    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]
    The clouds and some other background details don't appear until after the title card has cleared.

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
    Left = Proto 1207, Right = Final
    The invincibility stars are very different - there's less of them (only two at a time, it seems), and they're small, gold, five-pointed stars. The stars also only surround the first player, unlike in the final when both players are surrounded. Also of note is that icons for your current powerup don't display at the bottom of the screen yet as in the final. Finally, in the final, this area contains a Speed Shoes in addition to the Invincibility.

    EDIT: One more thing I forgot to screenshot / mention - in Amazing Arena 5, the cutscene for the boss entrance is in and fully functional. However, the boss itself never appeared, leaving the level incompletable. = /

    ..Whew, that's all. Hopefully not too much of this was already pointed out. =P

    Also, random question - do we actually have any programs at all that can view Chaotix level layouts? It'd be incredibly handy for comparison of these protos with the final, as well as with Sonic Crackers in case any similarity remains with its' the level layouts.
     
  9. Vlcice

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    Judging from the final Chaotix, I might guess it's because the creators favoured the Sonic CD art style. Sonic CD used sprites with the Sonic 1-style shading rather than Sonic 2-style.
     
  10. Shoemanbundy

    Shoemanbundy

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    You can go through the loops if you hold the other character with you, in case you guys didn't notice.
     
  11. Kushami

    Kushami

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    I'm a nobody here, but I need to mention this:

    If Naka disallowed use of the original Sonic characters, it seems to me that Dr. Eggman probably would've been disallowed as well. His inception was even earlier than Sonic's. As mentioned, Sonic was 'lent out' to so many other badly designed games that I honestly doubt that Naka had much control over where Sonic went. In the end, he belonged to Sega, not him. I think it's far more likely that upper management decided to try to capitalize on Knuckles' current popularity (EVERYONE wanted to play as Knuckles when Sonic 3 came out, so they were probably following the popularity of S&K), and decided a concept that varied so highly from the original formula probably shouldn't star Sonic himself but use some kind of relation to it to score sales.

    This is the exact line of thinking that lead to the inception of the Shadow May Cry spinoff.

    There's actually a really ironic introduction in a Sega Visions I have on a spread outlining Chaotix which goes like "ME AND MY SHADOW."

    Now, I could see Naka making a fuss about using 'his engine' and such, if that is indeed the case. I wasn't lurking around or read anywhere that the engine to Chaotix wasn't based on another prior Sonic game, so if someone could link me to that revelation that would be interesting to read. I have admittedly not been able to read all of the threads on these new prototypes; it's quite a lot to take in.
     
  12. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    I doubt Naka would have any say on where can and cannot go Sonic in a game.

    Those weren't his characters, and it wasn't his game.
     
  13. Quexinos

    Quexinos

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    I still fall out 3/4ths of the way through...
     
  14. drx

    drx

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    :rolleyes:
    You're both wrong and right.

    Technically, Naka had no say over anything, all code and copyright belonged (and belongs) to SEGA, so what you're saying would be true, right?

    No. Naka was held in very high esteem in the company. His word meant a lot to people. IIRC he was the one who disallowed the usage of the NiGHTS engine for X-Treme (hxc would probably know more here). He would definitely have a say in whether some other team could use Sonic & Tails in their game or not. It's clear that Sonic and Tails _were_ in the game at some point in the 32x development, and were cut. Naka going in and saying 'No way' is one of the most logical explanations on why they were canned. Another would be that they just wanted to push more characters (like Espio), but it's rather implausible.
     
  15. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    I'd understand him not allowing his code (Sonic and NiGHTS engines) not being in another game that's not supervised by him (even Sonic CD's engine was just simulating his code, if I remember correctly), but I think preventing SEGA's mascots to appear in a game would be something different...
     
  16. drx

    drx

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    :rolleyes:
    Um... care to tell why? I mean, how is it different at all?
     
  17. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    Well, I mean, he did create the code but not the characters.

    It just makes more sense not allowing something you actually created to be used by somebody else, rather than something that was never yours to begin with.
     
  18. JoseTB

    JoseTB

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    I guess Naka would still act as Sonic being his creation even if that wasn't technically the case; and as drx points, at that time it was easy to him to just whine if he wasn't happy with the decisions of the company in overall. IIRC Naka already left before Sonic 2 was finished, they wouldn't risk to let that happen again; and he probably knew it.
     
  19. Snake

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    I thought it had already been established that that was complete crap?
     
  20. drx

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    :rolleyes:
    I thought the thing that was crap was that X-Treme used the engine at some point, not that it was being talked about.