Really? Wow in all my time playing Sonic 3 and Knuckles I don't think I've ever encountered that glitch. Oh Sonic 3, fun game, but buggy :specialed: Sonic 3 Complete has spoiled me, but I'm loving this hack so far... Hey S3C team can you port these levels into a seperate DA Garden mode in the next release, it'd be beautiful
So I gave the hack a try and I'd say it was a pleasant experience. Level layouts are pretty good albeit feel a little bit claustrophobic. Got up to Launch Base and then entered special stage 3. The game froze.
I'm only on AIZ2 as Knuckles with 2 Emeralds. So far, this is great. Really, really happy to be playing through this. I'll agree that even at this early stage the levels feel a bit more "compacted" than S3K-vanilla is, but they're still great fun. The second Special Stage had me running in circles for God-knows how long trying to find the find 18 spheres. EDIT: Stopped playing at MGZ1. Personally, I thought HCZ was brilliant. It was nice to see the fans turned into a more common gimmick throughout the stage and dialling back on the rotating cylinders. It felt like a fresh take on an old stage, which I guess is exactly what you were going for with this entire hack. I love what I've played so far. There's a couple of little niggles (some cheap Blastoids and Jawz in HCZ), but all in all they are minor problems. Dude, this hack is wonderful. Do I wish it had new art? Kind of but not really. The meat is definitely in these well-designed, fun and original layouts. It's like a DLC-pack done right. Or S3K, but again. I really can't wait to go back and play it as Sonic and Tails, or even as Knuckles again and see what more depth there is to the stages. I've not explored much yet at all. EDIT 2: Just a random thought... considering what this hack is all about, it would be really good fun to play through it with Leila Wilson's Sonic 3 Alternate soundtrack. I'm sure it would fit. Might have to give it a go later on.
This is the second time I've heard of it freezing on someone on Special Stage 3, and yet I can't replicate the issue or know what's happening. Very strange. They couldn't all be easy, right? To be fair, as soon as you notice the right path, it's not too bad. I had MainMemory test the Special Stages for me, and he had no issues with it on his second attempt.
Yea 5th time I figured out the trick but that was the last Hyper Ring of the game I found. Speaking of which, I beat the game. Quite good sir, quite good. It was a nice twist on my favorite game of all time. Personally I would have liked some different palettes to break up the experience a bit more (Like the soft edits you did for Ice Cap Act 2 and Sandopolis Act 1, they were quite nice. I'm not talking about like purple Angel Island or something like that), but I still had a fun time playing this game. Thank you for wrapping this up and finishing it it's great.
I got caught in Robotnik's traps a few times playing this. Most easily repeatable was at the start of HCZ1 as Knuckles. Just hold left from moment the stage starts, and bingo! This happens. It happened at a few other points that I didn't screenshot, usually when rolling through the air and then landing on a platform. Also ICZ2 as Knuckles. I couldn't access the first loop (that exits into a tunnel) as Knuckles got blocked by a wall in front of it. No worries though, I took the upper route instead. But then the exact same thing happened again: I can't progress with the level. I've tried dying, but the layering is still off and I'm now blocked by the broken loop and a (seemingly unnecessary) ice wall that closes one you're past it.
RE: palettes I for one was really looking forward to that MGZ one, the pretty desaturated and miserable-looking one. Seemed to be in the spirit of your earlier hack, Sonic 1 Westside Island to remix the palettes as well as the layouts. Speaking of which, no remixed boss layouts? I coulda swore you did something with LRZ2 and had a nasty-looking spiked ceiling for the Knuckles fight.
Blue Blood: The monitor issue is easily fixable, although I don't know why the game pushes you behind it like that. The IceCap Zone issue, however, is something I can't seem to replicate. I have checked all path swappers lower path and can't see any issues, so I don't know how that happened. If I can figure out the issue, I will put path swappers in place to fix this. EDIT: I've looked into the IceCap issue, and have to wonder how you could get onto path 1 in the first place by this point. There's no path swappers that do so in Act 2 until after each of these loops, so I'm a little baffled. I can easily fix it, by adding another path swapper before these 2 loops that forces you onto path 0, however. Jayextee: Another reason for the palettes remaining the same was due to consistency. I could only edit a few without breaking things and felt it would be a bit odd having half of the levels with a changed palette, and the other half with the original. I changed all of them to the default, but forgot about Sandopolis 1, and IceCap 2 is as a result of changing the code for the boss being defeated.
I replayed Ice Cap (to beat it) and everything went fine. I think that when I first played the stage, I glided over the the area where one of those blue 'swings' breaks off it's chains. Maybe that had something do with it? Either way, I didn't come across it a second time and can't even be sure that that is what I did to cause it the first time. I also noticed an issue in LBZ2, again as Knuckles. This one's only cosmetic mind you, but if you climb the walls near the start of the stage by the first Big Ring you can clearly see the the supposedly underwater BG but of course there's no water at this point. Also, didn't screenshot it but the final checkpoint in Knuckles' LBZ1 was already activated before I even reached it. Didn't die at the boss though, so can't say where I'd have restarted from either. I'm now up to SZ1, looking for the final super Emerald entrance. These new special stages are generally more routed than the S3K originals. The difficulty comes from successfully mastering the more linear routes rather than getting lost and managing to find your way. The Silver and Light Blue Super Emeralds were particularly brutal for all the right reasons. Still absolutely loving this hack. It's delightful. Some of the ideas put into the stage are so well-done that they're really making me grin like an idiot. The looping maze in MGZ1 for example. It's simple and uses an existing mechanic from the original game, but this time around it's still a surprise and requires that little bit of thought. Also those black orb things in FBZ2. That was really, really fun.
FBZ2 has been the high point thus far. I've had to give my Sonic playthrough a break after game-over (FOR REAL, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I've GAME OVER'D IN A SONIC GAME FOR A LONG TIME AND I THINK THE LAST ONE WAS D.A. GARDEN'S OTHER HACK) on Death Egg 2 -- to play through as Knuckles. There be some evil in these layouts. Love it though; fringe moments of layout-genius dotted here and there. I should expect nothing less. <3 Only gripe I have is that my PSP battery only lasts two hours or so these days. Incidentally, this hack works fine on PicoDrive.
Oh and as far as compatibility is concerned, this works just fine on hardware, save for that little S3K native glitch I experienced earlier.
Not sure why it won't work on any of the three Genesis emulators I have on my Raspberry Pi set-up then, especially considering one of them is PicoDrive. Hmm. This hack still rules even when I'm forced to play it on a laptop instead. I'll be back with more thoughts once I finish.
I've been looking into the cause of a game freeze in Special Stage 3, that a few people have informed me of. While I don't quite know the cause yet, I do know that, for some unknown reason, the blue sphere-to-ring algorithm is being triggered when it shouldn't. This only affects one blue sphere in the stage, and touching said sphere from one particular direction. While I'm trying to figure out how to fix this particular issue, I would ask that anyone playing Special Stage 3 take the following measures to ensure they are unaffected by it. When you approach 3 lines of rings in front of you separated by bumpers, you can do one of 2 things: 1) Take the left line first when presented with the three lines like so: This is the easiest solution and will ensure that the special stage will not freeze. 2) Take the middle or right line. When you get to the end and have to come back, do not take the initial left line back; take the middle or right line instead. If you are in a situation like this after your first line of blue spheres is cleared (in the screenshot's instance, the middle line), touching the blue sphere in front of you will freeze the stage. (Only this one, and from this direction.) Sorry that I can't be of more help, but this is the best I can do for now.
Wow, thanks for giving S3K a new lease of life :D I had an absolute blast playing this. So refreshing to play a hack where the level design was challenging, but fair. And simply the novelty of it being an S3K hack! Didn't even bother me about the lack of new palettes, music, just meant it felt like an expansion/mission pack for the original game, or something. Great stuff
As I promised in Twitch chat. I'm here. I was about to show these bugs before, but I preferred finish the game first, and I just it today (with Sonic). Well, let's start; There is an area in Ice Cap act 1, that after a ice column "crush" me, I got stuck between the ground: I presume you haven't placed the GTGT (invisible block) here, or that are in wrong place. In Launch Base act 1 there is a random object out in path: Perhaps, you just have added this accidentally in SonED2 / SonLVL. In Sky Sanctuary, there is something wrong with that Robo Egg: Must be another object causing this, I don't sure, although, this happens just in seconds, after that, it returns to normal. Now, a bug that probably aren't related with this hack, but I still found interesting to post: Did S3&K even had a bug related? I don't know if this is part of the hack, or from original game, and I don't know if anyone has found this already. I think now I can tell a bit about the hack itself. Man, man, these layouts... You really did a nice job making them, the paths you've made is really genially; Angel Island, hydrocity Flying Battery, Lava Reef and Death were most enjoyable layouts, specially Angel Island 2. I'm saying this because know, how would be HARD fit that complex chunks in Angel Island 2, and I would say Death Egg wasn't anything easy to edit as well. Sometimes I really feel I'm replaying the session from original S3&K, but in a different way, and I kinda agree with Sparks, the layout sounds more or less an "act 3" or "act 4" of the game. Too bad the palettes edit isn't there, I really liked somes. It shows all your six years you've been working on this hack, paid off. Exceptional work, D.A Garden. Okay, before finish my post, I realized the Knuckles cutscene with Sonic in Hydrocity act 2 isn't there. Well, that was because of Ice Cap act 2 cutscene? Both are really similar, I think you used the same (or half) code to. Edit: Now I need finish game with Knuckles.
NeoFusionBox: The Icecap issue is an odd one. There's no GTGT block (Invisible solid object) in this area, as the block should kill you when it crushes you into the floor. I might have to add an invisible instant-kill object if I can recreate it. Launch Base Zone's object placement is intentional. I have used those spiked pillars in the open in quite a few places. Some people say they don't work, and are out of place, but I think they work just fine, so I'm leaving them alone. In Sky Sanctuary, I have removed the EggRobo object that launches up and off the screen from the area, as it was conflicting with the EggRobo badnik. The art is no longer being affected. The Carnival Night issue is just Tails being Tails. It seems he jumped onto the barrel and then barrel was unloaded due to distance, so Tails is just stuck there. This can happen on quite a few objects with Tails as a sidekick. Thanks for all of these issues; I have implemented fixes and they will be in the bug-fix release to be released in the future.
It took 6 years to develop this hack, and I have to say, it is well worth the wait. I can't remember how long I've wanted a complete Sonic 3 hack, and I just now realized that we now have one. I agree, the levels do feel like additional acts of each zone, and swapping the Sonic and Knuckles bosses in MGZ2 is a nice touch.
