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Sonic 3 Complete

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by Tiddles, Dec 25, 2009.

  1. Tiddles

    Tiddles

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    Not quite going to make that February release, but we're getting close.

    [Outdated video removed]

    I'm hoping to try and deal with a few favourite bugs from the original game before releasing the next version, but other than that, this is pretty representative of how it'll look.
     
  2. Puto

    Puto

    Shin'ichi Kudō, detective. Tech Member
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    Part of Team Megamix, but haven't done any actual work in ages.
    Zone card has no act number, yet "TAILS GOT THROUGH" does? A bit inconsistent there.
     
  3. Tiddles

    Tiddles

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    Agreed. The original Easy mode in Jam retained the numbers throughout; I thought of removing them throughout, but "Sonic got through..." without anything after it seems a little inconclusive somehow. The current compromise isn't great but is at least consistent with the original game's usage in Sky Sanctuary, for example.
     
  4. Fred

    Fred

    Taking a break Oldbie
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    I noticed that as soon as the FBZ2 boss starts, he goofs up and loses all his rings, which promptly go through the platform, never to be picked back up again. That's pretty fiendish. Granted, after playing the game dozens of times, it never happens to me, but I think that maybe it's an oversight (feature?) that warrants fixing.

    shhh that's the only place my act icons still show up in
     
  5. steveswede

    steveswede

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    Fighting against the Unitary State of Europe
    I Loved the touch where you used the title screen as a cut scene for Death Egg crashing back down.
     
  6. MastaSys

    MastaSys

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    The game select menu is wonderfull, so is the new result screens, and the ability to play Sonic 3 (alone) is actually very nice for me, you are making sure that I won't play the originals anymore XD.
    I own Jam but I confess I never played it with the essier options, I might peek them a little bit here.

    Will the stage cards now appear in act 2? Without a number it's a little redundant for them to appear again, it's kinda nice if they don't now, the level appears even more connected :P
    Also just for curiosity, are the new options saved on the "battery" or something?

    (PS. Don't remove the Sonic 3 Credits in Hidden Palace option if it's not something that bothers the patch work, it's kinda nice :P)
     
  7. Tiddles

    Tiddles

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    The title card changes only affect easy mode, because you only get to play one act per zone. The normal title cards are used in all other modes (albeit with Neo's new zone-specific icons by default).

    The Hidden Palace to S3 credits music swap is still possible with the external customiser/IPS patches, but isn't in the internal menus for this release. It may well turn up as a menu option later.

    Changes made in the options menus are saved to SRAM... unless you use Regen. I'm afraid I don't know why that is. It works on other emulators, and most importantly, on real hardware through flashcarts, so I don't think I'm doing anything massively wrong, but I'd love to be corrected on that if there's a way I can fix it. Normal savegames still work in Regen for both 3C and original S3 mode, and you can make changes in the menu and have them persist until you reset (IIRC even a soft reset will keep them active, but don't hold me to that.)
     
  8. MastaSys

    MastaSys

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    I didn't knew about the one-act thing, I reaaaally need to play the easier mode someday, just to know them better.
    Where and how I choose the HPZ music is not that important, it's just nice that I (and others) still have that option somewhere, I just wanted to make sure I still could do it (using a easy way), it's also nice to know that I just need to set some options in-game once :P.
    Thanks for the reply, once again.
     
  9. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    I just thought of something. Maybe it would make sense to add a save mode in Sonic & Knuckles alone. It's a short game yes but it always seemed strange that S&K can't save while Sonic 3 can. Unless this is not possible, which in that case just ignore me.

    But maybe easy mode could change the end of act tally to say Sonic got through the Zone instead of Act 1 and 2. While it makes sense, in Easy mode there isn't much point of saying Act 2 when there was no corresponding Act 1.
     
  10. dsrb

    dsrb

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    I thought single-act Zones were altered to include the icon somewhere; consider me whoops'ed.

    I kinda agree that they shouldn't have an act number, but things like this just complicate the question of what should be done instead.
     
  11. Josh

    Josh

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    [​IMG]

    I managed to trigger a freeze right here. Raced downward WAY before the water got here; may have had something to do with the physics of bouncing between the two bumpers underwater? Not sure.
     
  12. Elratauru

    Elratauru

    Little Shiny Emurralds Member
    Oh god that filtered GIANT screenshot. Even while I have a 1080p monitor it bothers me like fuck.

    --

    On topic: Man, this is SO cool, the menu looks really nice, and the options are great! This is totally the best S3 version out there.
     
  13. Glaber

    Glaber

    Has Beaten Sonic Genesis for GBA Oldbie
    with everything you're doing, I have to wonder if sega ever looks her and thnks "Why didn't we think of that?"
     
  14. MastaSys

    MastaSys

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    Time-Cost? You can always make a game better, doesn't mean it's profitable.

    We got lucky to have S3&K at all, they took the time to create the lock-in system, it might sound bad as someone that hates marketing people and etc... , but if I were one of the suits I would just release S&K as a regular cartrige and call it a day.

    Perhaps they did it to play safe to avoid backlash as it was somewhat obvious that the game were broken into two, they even took MORE time to have Knuckles in S2 to help avoid more safely the same problem.
     
  15. FraGag

    FraGag

    Tech Member
    Sonic 2 is programmed to show "player GOT THROUGH ZONE" for levels with only one act (I.e. ZONE instead of ACT n). Of course, in the final game, it never appears because the one-act zones (Sky Chase, Wing Fortress and Death Egg) don't end with a signpost or a capsule.
     
  16. dsrb

    dsrb

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    Wait, yeah, just do that! It sounds very familiar now, so maybe I already saw it used somewhere else.
     
  17. Crappy Blue

    Crappy Blue

    Knuckles' Chaotix is a perfect game with no flaws Member
    Sonic CD called Acts Zones.

    [​IMG]

    This is probably what you're thinking of.
     
  18. Tiddles

    Tiddles

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    I did think about the S2-style "Got Through Zone", but it strikes me as a little Engrishy. Also, on a lazy note, it takes a bit more work to pull off than in S2, where there's already free ZONE text from the title cards in the same font, and it can just be pasted in place of "ACT n" without any centring issues. And of course, it'd contradict the (admittedly fairly iffy) status quo from Sky Sanctuary.

    For now, I've just changed the results screens to always report as "Act 1" in easy mode. That'll have to do for this release.
     
  19. Tiddles

    Tiddles

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    [​IMG]
    The new version 120304 is now available from the wiki (Sonic 3 Complete (hack)) or from the customiser.

    Most of the features, you've already seen; there's not much more to say about those. The one I've kept in the dark from most people is the selection of new "oldschool" patch options allowing you to make the game act and look more like Sonic 2 or Sonic 1. (I still need to keep some kind of surprise for release day!)

    This was something I'd been interested in having but never been inclined to do the work for whatsoever, certainly in terms of sprite work. So when That One Jig mentioned he'd done something similar, I asked if he'd be interested in contributing it. He was, and he continued to do a lot of splendid work to improve it at the same time.

    Let's be clear right away: these aren't a total revisit of the old games' style. The sprites are designed so that they'll still fit with the Sonic 3 look - they use the reduced S3 palette, and Tails in particular keeps his brighter orange look and lack of heavy outline. However, all the main sprites and animations for Sonic, and for Tails where they varied, have been made over with a Sonic 2 look for these patches. The Sonic 1 patch was a later addition and is mainly concerned with animations - Sonic retains his shading and larger eyes from the Sonic 2 sprites, but features Sonic's distinctive Sonic 1 walk for instance.

    I think That One Jig did a fantastic job with these and I hope you enjoy them too. And as always, if you don't like them, it's only a patch option, so feel free to quietly ignore it. :) That's not to say comments or criticism are unwelcome, of course, but please bear in mind that I'm not a spriter and That One Jig has pretty much moved on, so if you want changes made to these, you will probably have to put your money where your mouth and get stuck into some art/mapping/DPLC work.

    General comments are also welcome of course. I'm particularly interested in anything you think should be changed in Sonic 3 part one mode or the Jam modes to match the original sources of those features. My experience of Jam boils down to a few hours of testing to check what I'm doing for Complete, so if anyone more familiar with that release knows of something I'm missing I'd be interested to know about it.

    Additional special thanks to Neo for the act icons in this release, and to flamewing for making massive strides in improving the ease of use of the S&K sound driver, the fruits of which are mostly invisible to the player for the moment, but have already made things a lot better for me.

    Have a fun time! And try to find all the (S3C-specific) bugs before about Wednesday; otherwise, they probably won't get fixed until I've finished Mass Effect 3.

    Here's the full changelog for this version:

    Bugfixes over previous S3C versions
    • Sonic would sometimes get a garbled head after a ring loss detransform when standing still
    • Very fast bubble bouncing using multiple buttons could bounce you through some floors and bridges
    Features
    • New master game selection screen
    • New "Sonic 3 Part One" mode containing original Sonic 3 release content and savegames.
    • Added Sonic Jam easy and normal layouts and modes. Special stages do not speed up in either mode, and you also visit fewer acts and defeat bosses more quickly in easy mode.
    • Additionally, unlike Sonic Jam, Easy mode now also removes the super emeralds.
    • Added per-zone act number icons, mostly by Neo. A patch option is available to revert to using the palm tree icon everywhere.
    • Better display of character selection in level select
    • Monitor collision is more solid, acting more like the Sonic 1 version.
    • Due to various options to make the subgames borrow from one another, the full S3&K credits list is now used regardless of subgame.
    • Slightly improved fonts for the credits and Blue Sphere screens, intended to be closer to the rounded title card style
    • Knuckles' underwater sock colour has now been changed to match the other palette improvements in 110706.
    • It is now possible for Knuckles to complete Death Egg act 1 when entered from the level select.
    Sonic 3-ification
    • Playing as Sonic and Tails, Tails now arrives slightly later at the start of AIZ and faces right, as in Sonic 3, and cannot move until Sonic can.
    • Emeralds on the save screen now use the Sonic 3-style flash cycle in all modes.
    Bugfixes over S3&K
    • Various issues with player art/mappings and reuse of Sonic 2 sprites fixed by That One Jig.
    • Super Tails' flickies no longer ruin the Sandopolis miniboss
    • Fixed duff palette cycle when retransforming into super/hyper form
    • Fixed Tails using the wrong sprite when hit by the boulder in Lava Reef.
    • The Death Egg no longer appears in the background of Lava Reef when playing as Knuckles.
    • Tails will drop out of flight mode if he is tired and hits a diagonal spring in Carnival Night, preventing him from getting stuck.
    • Insta-shield now deflects projectiles, as appears to have been intended all along
    • Tails' flight now only deflects projectiles if they hit his tails. (Previously he could deflect anywhere, but only if falling.)
    • Prevented super transformation during snowboard sequence
    • Fixed odd palette on HUD lives numbers in some levels
    • Fixed issue with continues not being saved unless a special stage is completed
    • Fixed Sonic incorrectly appearing as Hyper Sonic briefly during the ending when he shouldn't be able to.
    Additions and changes to patch options
    • New options for Sonic 1 and 2 inspired Sonic and Tails sprites, shields, monitors and gameplay. The artwork and mappings for these were produced by That One Jig.
    • Many of the patches relating to music and layouts have been made obsolete by the in-game menu. These are still distributed in the IPS pack for Regen users who cannot currently save their preferences on the menu, but are not listed in the online customiser. The IPS pack contains new patches for the Jam modes for Regen users.
      New patch option to revert per-zone act icons and use the palm tree everywhere.
    Known Issues
    • Menu options will not save or load in Regen. Game saves in both S3 Part 1 and S3 Complete work correctly. Menu saves work on all other tested emulators and on hardware through flashcarts.
     
  20. MastaSys

    MastaSys

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    I already peaked it a little, Neo congrats on the icons they really blend very well into the game.
    Also the Sonic 2 sprites was quite the suprise, I didn't expect it at least for some good time, I will play it for some time just to feel the early sreenshots vibe.

    I'm using the "pink" Knuckles sprite, you could, if you have the time, retouch the S&K tittle screen, there are areas with a strong red on Knuckles, and maybe the shoes.
    The Flying Battery picture options was a nice touch too.

    And you said back then that it was possible to peek the nighttime Flying Battery Zone, it's this possible in the end? and how I reach it? I'm quite curious on your progress :3

    Nice work, btw.