[Sodaholic]

At some point I came across a pretty beat up copy of Sonic 2 that looks like it used to belong to an independently owned video rental store. They glued a card in the case with their own overview of the game to replace the manual. They got so many things wrong. I thought the hints section was hilariously stupid, especially the part about Tails. Here's the transcript.



SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2
Stop rubbing your eyes! You're seeing right! It's Sonic and he's back
ready for another adventure! It seems that the world is being threatened
again and now it's up to Sonic to save it. That shouldn't be a problem
with you guiding him! Travel the countryside knocking off bad guys as you
go. Discover the secret of super-"Sonic"-speed as you zip across hill and
dale. Fly around in loops and straight up the side of cliffs. Bounce off of
plungers and fly through the air at incredible speeds and heights! Collect
enough rings and you'll get a chance at a bonus stage too! Once you start,
you won't ever want to stop! Good luck!!!

START - Use the Start Button to begin each new game and to pause and restart
games already in progress.

DIRECTIONAL PAD - Use the Directional Pad to move throughout each scene
while avoiding and their attacks as well as other hazards. Press Up
when jumping to increase your altitude. Press Down when moving to spin and
knock out some of your enemies.

A BUTTON - Use the A Button to jump over obstacles, onto ledges and to avoid
your enemies and their attacks.

B BUTTON - Use the B Button to jump over obstacles, onto ledges and to avoid
your enemies and their attacks.

C BUTTON - Use the C Button to jump over obstacles, onto ledges and to avoid
your enemies and their attacks.

HINTS - Collect all of the coins that you can as you go. Just be careful
not to run into any enemies or you will drop them all. The best way to
attack an enemy is to spin jump and hit him on the head. Look for flashing
boxes. These contain power-ups when you spin jump on them. Don't be
afraid of the little fox that follows you around. He's your friend and he's
helping you collect more coins. Take it a little bit slow at first so that
you can get a good feeling for what's involved. Once you get to the
chemical plant, you can bounce on the top of a tube to break the seal and
get inside. Then who knows where you'll end up?! Be careful if you fall in
the chemical water. It's only a matter of time before you will drown, so
you'd better find a way out of it fast! Be careful not to get in between
the moving blocks and the walls or you'll get smashed and lose a life.

This post has been edited by Sodaholic: 23 November 2011 - 01:22 PM

[Shadow Hog]

Well, listing A, B and C separately is certainly redundant, holding up when jumping doesn't do jack, "coins" instead of rings and "plungers" instead of springs, but the rest of that's fairly accurate.

The "don't be afraid of Tails" part is pretty funny, but admittedly, not many games of this genre featured a sidekick who followed you around at all times before Sonic 2 - at least, none come to mind.

[HarrisonJ]

Well, I don't remember the Start button ever allowing you to restart the game (without debug mode anyway, and I'm not even sure if pressing A while paused to restart is in Sonic 2, since I only remember ever using it in S3&K).

Otherwise, aside from a few typos (which I shall assume were yours as there are no [sic] tags or anything similar to denote they were copied from the card itself) and what Shadow Hog mentioned it seems to be okay.

[Mykonos]

Sodaholic, on 23 November 2011 - 10:46 AM, said:

B BUTTON - Use the B Button to jump over obstacles, onto ledges and to avoid
your enemies and their attacks.

C BUTTON - Use the B Button to jump over obstacles, onto ledges and to avoid
your enemies and their attacks.

That's pretty awesome if it wasn't a typo on your end. =P

This post has been edited by Mykonos: 23 November 2011 - 11:45 AM

[Shadow Hog]

HarrisonJ, on 23 November 2011 - 11:32 AM, said:

Well, I don't remember the Start button ever allowing you to restart the game (without debug mode anyway, and I'm not even sure if pressing A while paused to restart is in Sonic 2, since I only remember ever using it in S3&K).

I kind of assumed they meant "restart" as in "start again from where you paused", not "start again from the beginning". I dunno, I've seen people who aren't very into video games misuse terminology like that.

[Sik]

HarrisonJ, on 23 November 2011 - 11:32 AM, said:

Well, I don't remember the Start button ever allowing you to restart the game (without debug mode anyway, and I'm not even sure if pressing A while paused to restart is in Sonic 2, since I only remember ever using it in S3&K).

Yes, pressing A while paused resets the game (B for slow down, C for frame step). You don't need to enable debug mode, level select is enough, same goes for S3K. It's S1 the one that needs debug mode to be enabled.

Funny enough, Phantasy Star II also has those debug controls (except they're always available, no need to enter any code).

This post has been edited by Sik: 23 November 2011 - 11:57 AM

[Uberham]

why the hell do the coins have holes in them?

[Jayextee]

Uberham, on 23 November 2011 - 01:23 PM, said:

why the hell do the coins have holes in them?

Because of the recession.

Not sure this deserves an entire topic to itself, but what do I know?

[Spitfire]

Honestly this is no worse than the shit we got in our official instruction manuals back in the day. Half the time it felt like the people writing them barely knew what the game was about.

[gold lightning]

HarrisonJ, on 23 November 2011 - 11:32 AM, said:

Well, I don't remember the Start button ever allowing you to restart the game (without debug mode anyway, and I'm not even sure if pressing A while paused to restart is in Sonic 2, since I only remember ever using it in S3&K).

IIRC that is a feature of debug mode that is present in every single one of the games in the classic series including CD.

Jayextee, on 23 November 2011 - 01:26 PM, said:

Uberham, on 23 November 2011 - 01:23 PM, said:

why the hell do the coins have holes in them?

Because of the recession.

No they're obviously Japanese.

[Josh]

Surprised nobody's commented on the hilarity of "press up to jump higher". Still, I used to see stuff like this ALL THE TIME when I was a kid.

[Krigo]

Although it's pretty funny, nothing will beat Robotnik's traps in Sonic 3.

[Shadow Hog]

Josh, on 23 November 2011 - 03:05 PM, said:

Surprised nobody's commented on the hilarity of "press up to jump higher".

Shadow Hog, on 23 November 2011 - 11:22 AM, said:

holding up when jumping doesn't do jack

It's been noted.

Not even sure where they got that from.

[HarrisonJ]

Given that it only goes up to Chemical Plant, I'm thinking they probably only played for like 5 minutes and then wrote that based on their discoveries. The "up to increase altitude" thing probably comes from them trying that but not realizing they were also holding the jump button or something like that.

I don't know why I forgot about the restart level thing before. I used frame skip all the time in Sonic 2...

[Sik]

gold lightning, on 23 November 2011 - 02:13 PM, said:

No they're obviously Japanese.

They're Chinese, and there's a good reason for it - you could put a thread through them and carry the coins around that way =P