Sonic Mega Collection's bugs

Something else to keep in mind is that the emulation for N64 games isn't that great on the Wii anyway from my experience.

Mario Kart 64 is choppy, buggy, and has inconsistent speed in certain levels in certain gameplay modes.

 

Strange, because Zelda Ocarina of time and Super Mario 64 work perfectly from my experience with their N64 counterparts. (Though I haven't played those in years.) So perhaps it's just certain games?

 

But those were arguably the best games for the 64. Of course they would run perfectly; people would be making Wii bonfires if they didn't.

 

\Technically, false. If you dump the cartridge, the rom you have is LEGAL so long as you don't distribute if. From that FAQ they wrote, Id say Nintendo is more interested in their perverted idea of fair use (*coughharharcough*) then actual fact. Rom dumpers are not illegal, nor, if you don't bypass copy-protection, is dumping roms.




Metal Man88,

Sound emulation in the GC mega collection isn't perfect Not terrible, but imperfect. HPZ's music in S2 for example is off.

 

Really? Last I checked, it worked fine for me...

 

That's where the misconception that any ROM is legal for an evalutation purpose. Hah! That sounds so stupid; I can't believe some people believe it.

I also noticed sound emulation being off in Mega Collection all the time when I had it. Same thing with OOT Master Quest.

 

People say the Gamecube version is good, but I did all sorts of really weird glitchy things in Sonic 2. In Metropolis Zone, I managed to get stuck between two of the yellow bumpers, and had to wait until the game timed out while Sonic sproinged back and forth endlessly, unable to free myself.

When I got to Metal Sonic I managed to kill him so quickly that he just disappeared and I was stuck in that room waiting for the time to run out. Eventually the game just froze, as did the music, but I could exit back to the hud using the pop up menu.

The MC+ version is worse, though. Mostly due to input lag. I paid 5 dollars for it and felt ripped off. Even worse than those, though, is the XBOX360 arcade ports, which feature further input lag. The PS2 Sega Genesis Collection is just about as bad.

Someone in this thread said the VC versions weren't worth the money. I beg to differ. If you're going for official emulation on a console, they're probably your best bet. There's no input lag, or, at least to me it's imperceptible. For Sonic 1 and 2 anyway, I never tried 3. I also haven't experienced any glitches, though with emulation there's always chances of it.

As an aside, I have a litmus test for Sonic emulations: How easy is it to perform this trick?
http://www.wordpainter.net/stuff/Sonic/Son...ysics-Trick.avi

Hitting that all right takes timing, and if the input is off it just doesn't work.

 

The XBLA versions do?

 

All I noticed was on Sonic Mega Collection Plus for PlayStation 2(NTSC), I had a bitch of a time saving for some reason. That's why I want either the Xbox or PC version now. I'm thinking it doesn't have that problem on those platforms.

 

On the Gamecube version, I was screwing around with debug mode in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. The game started to lag due to the amount of extra objects I had spawned. So I decide to go to the main menu, and it sent me to the Sonic & Knuckles (alone) menu for some reason.

 

Same here. I have the original on the N64 too and the only difference I'm aware of is not being able to save ghost data on the Wii. (However, this is only due to the lack of memory card emulation)

 

I'm pretty sure that bug would happen on hardware too. Something like that happened to me once, only S3&K reset itself to the S&K title on its own, and then I quit (or shut off the Genesis, I can't remember whether I was playing on hardware or Mega Collection).

 

I don't know if the "bug" is in the original Genesis versions, but in Sonic Mega Collection. (BOTH Gamecube and PS2 versions):
In Sonic 3 and Knuckles, Angel Island Act 1, whenever you lose a life, the Act 2 music starts playing.

 

That also happens in the original, provided that when you die you're past the part where the miniboss comes and burns up the level. It happens because the burned-up part of the level actually is Act 2, but the programmers used some clever tricks to make the game think it was still in Act 1 until you get to the end sign. Unfortunately, they weren't quite clever enough, and the wrong music plays as a result.

 

Actually, the original game does play the Act 1 music when you die, it's when you return from the Special Stage that the Act 2 music keeps playing. The programmers included a special check for AIZ in the level music setting routine, but a technical detail prevented it from being called in the event of returning from a special stage:

Code (ASM):

1. ROM:00006204                 moveq   #0,d0
2. ROM:00006206                 move.w  (Current_Zone).w,d0
3. ROM:0000620A                 ror.b   #1,d0
4. ROM:0000620C                 lsr.w   #7,d0
5. ROM:0000620E                 lea     (MusicList).l,a1
6. ROM:00006214                 move.b  (a1,d0.w),d0
7. ROM:00006218                 cmpi.w  #1,(Current_Zone).w ; are we in AIZ 2?
8. ROM:0000621E                 bne.s   loc_622A        ; if not, branch
9. ROM:00006220                 cmpi.b  #3,(Last_star_pole_hit).w ; are we at starpost 3?
10. ROM:00006226                 bne.s   loc_622A        ; if not, branch
11. ROM:00006228                 ; funnily enough, the below line never gets called when returning from a Special Stage
12. ROM:00006228                 ; reason being the special stage result screen sets bit 7 of Last_star_pole_hit
13. ROM:00006228                 ; and it isn't cleared until later on, so the fix doesn't work
14. ROM:00006228                 moveq   #1,d0           ; force AIZ 1 music

Additionally,

They had the variable lying around, who knows why they didn't think of utilising it for this purpose.

 

The Music for Azure Lake sounds a bit different in Mega Collection as well. It sounds like a different midi instrument is being used for the main tune than in the original or even Sonic 1 Megamix.

I don't think it depends on region either, because Cowering's goodtools label any Sonic 3 rom as "Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (W) [!]" The W means that the rom was the same worldwide. Of course that might not be 100% true. Cowering could have been wrong when he made some of those tags.

He was wrong with many NES tags. I used goodNES to rename all the files at one point, then later I used an updated goodNES. After using that one, many of the roms that just had a normal label said that they were actually bad dumps or overdumps.


Now some of those in-game glitches people were talking about were in the original cartridges too. One time I defeated Silver Sonic in Sonic 2 and a spot on the wall caught on fire and I couldn't go forward to defeat Robotnik. I had to wait until time ran out. In Sonic 1, I hit Robotnik a 9th time in Final Zone and it caused him to keep attacking instead of running away. And after the 9th hit he was invincible so time ran out. I have been stuck inside walls in Sonic 3 many times as well, especially in Carnival Night Zone. One time I bumped my Sega Genesis while I was playing Sonic 3D Blast and it went right to the level select screen, which I hadn't seen before.

 

I thought I remembered that happening when you died, too. Oh well, that's what I get for trying to have a semblance of technical knowledge :P

 

That would be because the YM2612 core in Mega Collection is nowhere near as accurate as the sound on Gens, Fusion, or even the real hardware. Inaccurate emulation will lead to drastically different sounding instruments, in certain cases, as a result.