[Trigahd]

Okay, I was playing Final Zone on Sonic 1. As always, I was beating the crud out of Robotnik and then I delivered the final blow. Now normally I would be fine and dandy, watching the pretty explosions on the screen, when suddenly, as Robotnik was coming down the chute he appeared in, I hit him a second time. A second time, I tell you. With this second hit I hit him in, the battle resumed and the explosions disappeared. Soon, after a couple more hits, I realized that this would be one battle I would never win. Has anyone ever had this problem before?

[Galvatron]

I managed to place another hit, and the chute Robotnik was in flashed white as if it was taking a hit but the explosions continued and the boss fight didn't repeat itself, it ended as normal.

This post has been edited by Galvatron: 01 July 2005 - 03:46 PM

[Mester Keel98]

I've had this before, except it was on the real mega drive. I was really annoyed since I got all my precious chaos emeralds and could finally see the good ending but that screwed me up.

[Tiberious]

This is a known bug. The problem is that while Robotnik remains hittable, under normal circumstances the speed of the pistons (for lack of a better term) prevent you from hitting him again. On the 8th hit, they slow down, and if you get #8 in quickly enough, you have time to get a 9th in after he stops flashing. This 'lowers' his hit counter to FF (255), and you're screwed outside of debug mode.

Someone made a hack that showed boss hits left. Try this bug there to see for yourself.

[SGR]

Tiberious, on Jul 1 2005, 09:09 PM, said:

Someone made a hack that showed boss hits left. Try this bug there to see for yourself.

Sonic 1 +, right?

[Mystical Ninja]

I've done this before, lots of times. A few months ago, I tried this glitch in Hivebrain's Sonic 1+ hack, and the number of boss hits gets glitched up, so it doesn't really tell you how much is left. From what I've heard before, it takes 200+ hits to kill Robotnik after pulling off this glitch.

[Mester Keel98]

255 to be exact.

[Trigahd]

This is known, huh? Well, you learn something new everyday ^_^ .

[Rika Chou]

This comes up at least once or twice a year.

[Mystical Ninja]

Also, just to add one more thing, it's best to use Debug Mode for this glitch if you're actually trying to have Robotnik killed. This is best, because there's no way you'll be able to defeat him within the normal nine minutes that're given to complete the stages. As you probably already know, you get unlimitted time in the Debug Mode, which gives you plenty of time to beat Robotnik.

[Weird Person]

Let me see if I understand.

Every time I hit, 1 is subtracted from a Byte,Word or (Longword?!) in RAM, If is a byte, after Reach 0, if 1 is Subtracted, the value will be -1 ($FF), But the game don't see difference between signed and unsigned values, so to defeat robotnik again I Have to give more 256 Hits?

I Always thinked the quantity of Hits of Last boss would be word.

[Aurochs]

That is, indeed, a byte. And that's correct. Seems the programming for that boss is messed up. :P

[LOst]

Weird Person, on Jul 2 2005, 11:28 PM, said:

Let me see if I understand.

Every time I hit, 1 is subtracted from a Byte,Word or (Longword?!) in RAM, If is a byte, after Reach 0, if 1 is Subtracted, the value will be -1 ($FF), But the game don't see difference between signed and unsigned values, so to defeat robotnik again I Have to give more 256 Hits?

I Always thinked the quantity of Hits of Last boss would be word.

You sound like a programmer now.

The only check the engine does is if the hitcount byte is zero. You can simply fix the problem by making the hitcount a signed value, and check if the byte value is zero or if it got a sign (negative 128 to 255). Since hitcounts never are higher than 12 (final boss in Sonic 2), a sign check wouldn't be that bad.

This bug may have been fixed in Sonic Jam's Sonic 1. I will check that someday.

This post has been edited by LOst: 02 July 2005 - 09:27 PM

[Weird Person]

I was thinking, and somewhere in the boss programming must have this code (compiled of course!):

cmp.b [offset where the byte is],0        ;Number of hits reached 0?
beq.l [offset to jump if boss is defeated];Yes, Now run Robotnik!

As far I can remeber, the first nybble to 2 byte Jump Instruction is $6, and the second nybble for Zero Flag Condition is $7. So, It's just find this instruction and change to $6D (BGE, Branch if Greater or Equal. This time, the Sign bit will make difference if the Number is negative or not.) , So, I'll jump if the Value is equal or Lower than 0 (This time , $FF [-1] is lower than 0) , even if you double hit Robotnik, that bug won't happen...

I don't know if it's a short jump (1 byte range), long jump (2 byte range) or absolute jump (4 Bytes, this time a Offset.). The Information above may be wrong if it's not a 2 bytes Jump. Or may be wrong if the programming is different, I don't know how Naka programmed Sonic 1.

It's might be easy to change, But I don't know where is the Final Boss programming, I'll search it and add this useful information to the SCHG and the Wiki. (nobody thinked in this before?)

and also, these are just suppositions.

(born a idea: A Bugfixes list to the SCHG and the Wiki?)

[Aurochs]

Weird Person, on Jul 2 2005, 10:58 PM, said:

(born a idea: A Bugfixes list to the SCHG and the Wiki?)

Hey, don't steal my idea! :P

Yeah, I'm trying to do something similar with my ASM hack of Sonic 2. Most of the bugs I'm trying to fix are related to Super Sonic now (including some that I introduced :P ), but I'll get to the Eggrobo collision bug and some of the weird collision stuff from Aquatic Ruin Zone at some point.