As some of you are aware, I have started again on Sonic 2 Recreation. I've updated SSRG for some time, but I haven't re-announced it here. So I thought I'd better do that now. I'm not sure when I will release this, but it will probably be shortly after the hacking contest 2012 as I plan to enter it first time this year. Anyway, the levels. This is the portal Zone. This is where you come to change/access levels, change characters or options. The first level, West Bay Zone. Dashhoops are in the game. End level screen. This is Great Gate Zone. StephenUK provided the art for this one so thanks to him. Instead of showing you pictures, here is a video that might interest you. It shows you what the level looks like, the new layer deformation, how the background changes when underwater, and how the sound system changes underwater (underwater sound driver by ValleyBell) Sorry for the crap quality You may recognise this from Sonic Advance 3. New shield. Does the same as the ordinary one, except it attracts rings. New badnik alert. He just stands there. But when you get close… He starts rolling towards you! Tails is hurt! And so are you! To destroy him, just jump or roll into him. The CAZ block. Push down on it and the block will move down slowly Let go of down, then the block will move back to it's original position fast; shooting you into the air! Another new badnik. Just don't hit the sides of him, and you'll be fine. He doesn't move. The platform can move in certain directs to reveal paths. Gem Runway. The level where you can test your speed. See them little orbs in the foreground? They are all animated and pulse slowly. Yes, that's right, I've created my own boss, and it took a lot of work. He's almost perfect, just one slight bug which rarely happens. He fires red balls at you. They can hurt you unless you're jumping or rolling. Jump at them, and they turn yellow. If the yellow ball hits Eggman… It hurts him! After a few hits and it goes into pinch mode, things get harder. He shoots a lot more at a time, and starts throwing spiked balls, that hurt you no matter what! Other levels in progress: http://rhs.sonicresearch.org/s2built_273.png http://rhs.sonicresearch.org/s2built_270.png http://rhs.sonicresearch.org/s2built_242.png Yes, the lightning is animated Here is another video! This shows you how the bosses work in S2R. That they have pinch mode, and that all bosses have changed in some way! This demonstrates EHZ (showing you act1, 2 and 3, and ARZ act 3). Also shows you that the bosses explode differently Video is here, I cannot post another media: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGada1Ni5sI Again, sorry for the crap quality And one more video. Showing off how Sonic's burst works. Because of the crap quality again (sorry), you don't see his burst to his full potential, but you get the idea: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d68PQiLPero Other facts S3K object manager (with the help of Module) S3K touch_response (Module) Optimised objectmove, objectmoveandfall, and animate_sprite, bringing even more performance. Fade in and out properly (instead of fading all red, all blue, all green, it does it all at the same time) (MarkeyJester) You can go back to the portal by hitting the back logo in any level in any act Sonic and Tails, Sonic alone, Tails alone, Knuckles alone, Knuckles and Tails, Sonic and Knuckles, redhotsonic When Sonic and Knuckles, if you lose Knuckles, instead of him gliding back in for his respawn, he just drops in (look at the burst video link above and you'll see what I mean) Time over = on or off When you die, instead of the level restarting, the camera zooms to the beginning (or checkpoint) and spawns you there instead New music and SFX (thanks, ValleyBell). Some other music is done by SOTI. Sonic (only) has a burst mode (keep running fast for a long time) Tails can fly (and swim) and can carry others. When Tails is flying, press B and he will do a quick drop Knuckles can glide and climb Attract-ring sheild (as well as normal shield) Sonic does his celebration pose at the end of the act, rather than run off the screen New badniks and obects, including barriers, doorways, platforms and even a speedboat! When standing not pressing anything, before Sonic goes into his waiting animation, he will blink and tap his foot. Knuckles will also blink and shake his fists. Tails originally blinked in S2 anyway. Brand new layer deformations When Sonic jumps, press jump again and he will do a mid-air dash (beats the over-used homing-attack) ? ring monitor. Hit it and you'll randomly get either 1, 5, 10, 20 or 40 rings. Dashhoops Anything else I may of forgotten Also, a lot of you may recognise this splash screen, but mine has been slightly modified to use redhotsonic instead, thanks to Markeyjester. Questions, comments, criticism is welcome. And thanks to people who have helped me get this far. Thanks, redhotsonic
Unless I'm mistaken, the previous version of this had Mighty and RHS. Will this have them also? EDIT: Disregard that question, I failed... What I meant to ask was, will a future build see Mighty brought back?
It has redhotsonic in it (with no special moves as yet). As for Mighty, I am unsure. I have his coding in the game like his wall-jump (all commented out though, so his coding is not in the ROM), I just haven't implemented his art yet. I am unsure whether I will bring him back or not.
To some casual gaming person with little experience in hacking and only some fundamental knowledge in Mega Drive graphics, this is looking quite stunning visually. Loving them little, seamless incorporations of modern stuff in classic. Quite a nice job so far, far as I can tell. (: Although, I do have to wonder why it's called "Recreation."
It all looks very messy and inconsistent to be honest, and that kiddy font has to go. Great Gate looks fantastic though, and you're very good with level designs, bravo also for making new bosses.
I share this opinion. You have art inconsistency all over the place. You have a knack for level design and coding, play your strengths. Maybe see if someone else would want to help with your art, because as it stands right now you're just throwing stuff together from Sonic Advance 3 and other sources. It just looks messy.
As others have said, it looks like it requires a layer of polish to fix things up, but honestly I actually like what you've got going here. Code-wise, and layout-wise, things are looking really good, but art-wise you want to buck things up a bit. As Dark Sonic suggested, find someone to help you with it, and I'd also suggest replacing things like stock-objects (Star Posts, etc.) with their original art/mappings again. While it's fun to replace them with something different, if that something different already exists for some other purpose it just ends up confusing the player. That said, I love the concept of a different set of voices used underwater. It's something I'd never even thought of before as a possible idea, and I may look into it myself for my own projects. Unless, of course, this is applicable. :P I'd suggest with it, personally, for it not to affect sound effects, if you can isolate it.
Thanks for the comments, guys. Yes, I've been told about the art before, but my art skills is not as good. Great gate looks awesome because that's StephenUK's art. The rest is fro other games or my own crappy drawing. If anyone would want to help with level art, that would be fantastic. Cinossu, as for this, it would be nice for it only to be in my hack as then it has something unique, so the code won't be shared out (obviously), but I can't really stop people putting it in their own hacks if they figure it out how it's done themselves. Also, ValleyBell did it for me, so it's actually up to him =P I do have plans for this hack, including some more new bosses, badniks, objects, etc. Then any other original boss that stays in the game will all have a pinch-mode of some kind.
I feel like if you replaced the sprites with Advance-style sprites, they'd fit in a lot better with your level art.
Just feels like there's a huge style clash. The stages from the Advance games are in Advance style—they don't fit with the Genesis art. The stages look great but, the styles don't go great together.
I'd like that underwater effect to be S2 Recreation only as long as S2R is still in development. But after its final release I'm willing to talk about it. I planned to make it possible to apply the underwater effect on music or SFX or both, btw.
It looks really good so far. The artwork is great and I really love the nice touch of making Music sound different underwater. I can't wait to see this finished!
Oh, don't get me wrong, I wasn't going to ask for code and/or reverse engineer it myself, I meant more work with the concept to see what could be done myself.
But if you're using it for the level art, you may as well be consistent. There's nothing wrong with the Advance sprites.
awesome, I can't wait to check this out when finished. I like that you're going the extra mile and adding little things like the underwater music and changing background and other visual effects in the back & fore ground. I'm really curious as to how hard your new boss is going to be though. I hope really really hard!
Okay, most people didn't like the font in the new title cards of mine. So, I've put Sonic 3D's font in as I thought that might work. What do you prefer, A or B? A Before: B Now: Also, people are disliking the advance art. Okay, fair comments. So I have ditched the advance levels (except Chaos Angel Zone). Here is a new level I am working on, but let me explain. I suck at art, I can't draw for shit. So what I did, is cycled through some other MegaDrive games and used recycled art from their games and put it together. Here is something I am working on (early work-in-progress): Comments/criticism as usual are welcome. redhotsonic
While B does looks more fitted for a Sonic game, I actually prefer the other title card font because it looks more creative. And it seems to fit your art style already, whereas the Sonic 3D font kind of sticks out. Just my 2 cents though.