Sonic 1 and 2

Congratulations! This is very, very impressive! You keep making something better each year - keep it up!

I've encountered a few bugs, but they've all been mentioned. It seems I'm more of a perfectionist than you are, because you're happy to release working, if slightly buggy, code in time for the Hacking Contest. I'll eagerly await Revision 1, and then I'll have no need to play vanilla Sonic 1 or 2 ever again.

Also, you should team up with Captain Bozo and Ranger and make Sonic 1 and 2 XL. :v:

 

The only way I can imaging you topping this is getting the entire Death Egg saga (Sonic 2 - Sonic & Knuckles) into one game. Destroy the Death Egg in Sonic 2, ending cutscene, BAM, Sonic 3 starts. If you don't have all 7 Emeralds, you surf, and Knuckles knocks out the emeralds you have. If you do, it's the same old Super Sonic intro cutscene.

 

I just beat this, with all the emeralds, of course.
One thing that disappointed me is that the score was reseted after I resumed my game from SRAM. Then again this happens also in Sonic 3 & Knuckles...

 

This would be perfect. =P

 

I have been getting the same freeze issue in Regen though, nothing working but the sound driver. It sometimes happens when I am jumping.


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Either way, nice work ColinC10.

 

I wonder if it would even be possible to fit all the data of S1, 2, 3, and S&K into 1 rom. If you remove literally every bit of unused data in all 4 games, and got rid of all 2 player data in them how small would that get them?

 

It must be possible. Especially if Bankswitching is used.

Edit: Not to mention, aren't all games padded?

 

What is the max rom size that you can have for a game?

 

Holy fuck this is amazing.

Definitely doing a Sonic 1 & 2 play through followed by a Sonic 3 & Knuckles play through as soon as I get the time to pull it off in one sitting.

 

I believe it is 4 MB. Unless my brain is failing me. But you can get more if you use bankswitching.

 

Better idea: lock ColinC10, Alriightyman, and Sonic Hachelle-Bee in a room, until they've finished working on Sonic 1&2 featuring the extra levels from Sonic 2 Long Version and the Sonic 3K makeover/features from Sonic 2: S3 Version. When finished, it would be the perfect companion to Tiddles' Sonic 3 Complete. No need to cram everything into one ROM. =P

Anyway, this hack is awesome stuff. You never fail to impress us, ColinC10! Great job!

 

This would be a dream come true. A streamlined Sonic 2 through Sonic and Knuckles. I've wanted this for years

 

I would want this, using Sonic 3's engine.

 

This is what people like to call a "dream hack."

I suppose if Sega had gone through with releasing Sonic 3 Special Edition that they could have considered doing something like this, but I guess Sonic 1 and 2 in cart form would have had a high price tag.

 

Theoretically how far could you push the bank switching? Looking at that MD pro cart it has 64Mb. Could all that be allocated for a single rom so a full complete Sonic series can be played continually? Or is that something difficult or not possible to do?

 

64Mb = 8MB. 32MB > 8MB.

Your answer is "yes".

 

wow.
this is truly Sonic 1 and 2 how I imagined it.

no debug mode though.
unless I'm missing something.

 

Okay, so. Between all the ridiculous amounts of praise and requests for an equally ridiculous amount of games stringed together forming a difficulty curve as smooth as a fucking saw, there's one thing that's bugging me.

Now, don't get me wrong, this is a ridiculous amount of awesome condensed into a single binary file, but it doesn't really go far in terms of being a game. The first six zones are basically "Sonic 1 stages in Sonic 2", which while a cool concept, there's really not that much new to see, other than the novelty of having Tails follow you through all the stages (and lagging the game to hell in the process), and being able to play as Super Sonic in, well, at least some of the stages. Because you need to collect all 13 emeralds (uh-oh), you can only get Super as early as SYZ3, almost half a game in. And that's if you DON'T majorly suck at the special stages (personal record: CPZ2). And even if you get the emeralds, once you beat Final Zone Scrap Brain Zone 3, the game turns into "Sonic 2 stages in Sonic 2", which is what we've been playing since 1992. If you didn't get the Sonic 1 emeralds you get the novelty of seeing big rings in Sonic 2, but that's about it.

I did play this hack all the way to the end, so I guess that counts as beating Sonic 1 and 2 yet again, but in terms of entertainment, there's not a lot of new stuff to do. Super Sonic drains all the challenge so I hate him, the Sonic 2 physics seem to do more harm than good since the Sonic 1 levels aren't meant for them, and while playing special stages with two completely different styles intertwined is a major mindfuck at first, at the end of the day I realize that essentially what I played was just, well, Sonic 1 and 2.

I am, however, far more interested (and impressed) on how you did it. Not so much the whole "convert Sonic 1 levels to 128x128 format, fix everything from collision mappings to path switching, port all the objects" thing which is what I assume you did (feel free to correct me, and even if I'm right feel free to describe the whole process, I guarantee that at least one person will read it), but how the hell you managed to do what Sega (and Stealth, I guess) failed to do and effectively use more colors in a stage than you're supposed to. You know, so you can run around with Sonic AND Tails in their Sonic 2 palette and still have everything else looking right with their original Sonic 1 colors, save for the occasional exception here and there. At first I was scrambling to figure out how you crammed everything in 64 colors, up until the point I got to Marble Zone and figured that it was impossible. Then I thought you pulled a S3&K and had objects change the palette when they come on-screen, effectively accounting for some conflicts later on like a bobbin in SYZ turning purple. But then I noticed Yadorin/Caterkiller and Buzz Bombers on the screen at the same time and each in their correct colors, and it finally hit me. And then I asked "well why didn't I think about this!?"

Honestly, I'd love to hear your thoughts and how you came to have the idea of making this, as well as all the problems you encountered and how you decided to fix them.