Proof of Concept: Homing Attack in Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Aerolite · Dec 25, 2008

Hey all,
Since I joined here, I've been tinkering a fair bit with the Sonic disassemblies. In fact, one of the first things I did was, after getting a few helpful pointers from showbiz here (thanks heaps man, I owe ya ), write a (unreleased) Homing Attack for Sonic 2 that was as close as possible in style to SA2's HA as I could manage. When I finished it, I kinda forgot about Sonic hacking for quite a while, before it occurred to me randomly: why not try and get this into Sonic 3 & Knuckles?
To cut a long story short: I succeeded.

Stealth was definitely right about one thing: S3K is NOT ideal for hacking. There are countless whiny little attention-whore bitch functions that like to make their own exceptions for everything, which means an annoying amount of code-hunting. Add to that some pithy crashes and audio issues (that actually aren't too hard to fix if you know what you're looking for), and you've got the reason most people shy away from hacking this game. [/slight rant]

Well anyway, I wanted to get a somewhat better post down, but I'm leaving very soon for a 2 week holiday and I'll have no internet access while I'm there (I don't think).

So, without further delay, this download awaits you.

To use the Homing Attack, simply jump and press A in mid-air. If a target is within range, Sonic will home-in on it. If not, he will dash forward. When he hits a target, Sonic will bounce up much like in SA2, allowing you to chain HAs together. Hint: Dashing into the ground will get you going about as fast as a fully charged spin-dash.
I don't think there are any bugs (fairly rigorous testing), but if you find one, post it here are I'll deal with it asap.

Well, have fun! I know it's fairly simple, but it took me a fair while to get right due to not being arsed not having much time to work on it.

PS: Either when I get back, or when I get internet, I intend to post several small fixes for the S&K Disassembly that deal with several audio issues and a game-crash or two. I meant to do this alongside this post, but I'm really running late now, so it'll have to wait.

Super · Dec 25, 2008

Very nice. Very, very, nice. I enjoy it, it's fun, it's not horridly broken like a Jump Dash... this is indeed one of the best homing attacks I've ever seen in a 2D Sonic game. Very impressive.

Makes bosses a tad easy, though.

Dude · Dec 25, 2008

This is awesome... its awesome how well the homing attack translates to 2d when its well written... Keep up the awesome work. Maybe a 1-button light dash would work well too? Who knows I'm just blabbing. I like it though.

Iapetus · Dec 25, 2008

I dig it. Makes the game easier, but definitely cool.

Would be nice if a graphical representation would occur (like a blue stream or something) but that is besides the point. Nice job, Aerolite.

Tweaker · Dec 25, 2008

Holy shit, this is fantastic! I might even like this better than the homing attack in Megamix—the sheer amount of things you can target and ability to attack bosses is awesome (albeit cheap), and I never thought of homing on springs. Your jump dash in and of itself is a bit choppy in terms of handling, and you could do with removing the hard collision on springs so they can be easily dashed to, but outside of that, this is great!

Awesome work!

muteKi · Dec 25, 2008

Eh, I'd say just get rid of that jump dash move altogether, and just use the standard insta-shield in the first place.

Aquaslash · Dec 25, 2008

I like it. It feels pretty authentic. I can actually envision the homing SFX there too.

Nice work.

MoDule · Dec 25, 2008

I think it would feel a lot more natural, if you bounced off at an angle after hitting a boss rather than straight up. For enemies it's OK, though. Springs should probably make you go straight up, too.

jman2050 · Dec 25, 2008

Aerolite said:

Stealth was definitely right about one thing: S3K is NOT ideal for hacking. There are countless whiny little attention-whore bitch functions that like to make their own exceptions for everything, which means an annoying amount of code-hunting. Add to that some pithy crashes and audio issues (that actually aren't too hard to fix if you know what you're looking for), and you've got the reason most people shy away from hacking this game. [/slight rant]
Click to expand...

I especially love how every single level in the game has its own seperate routine for drawing. Which also happens to be the same section of code that handles layer deformation. It's certainly "flexible" at least :/

Puto · Dec 25, 2008

Am I the only one who finds this homing attack to be really stiff? :/ Also, the air dash is weird. Quoting myself from IRC:

<Puto> it's like
<Puto> it's really fast at the beginning then it slows down out of batshit nowhere after a bit

shobiz · Dec 26, 2008

Awesome work on this, it fits so well in the game. Though I agree with what Puto said about the jump dash, the sudden deceleration is a bit weird.

PC2 · Dec 26, 2008

This is interesting, now. The Megamix jump dash/homing attacked seemed more like the one from the Sonic Adventure games where it arched and gave you a slight speed boost, while this one reminds me of the more recent Sonic Unleashed-style jump dash, where it uses a different button and doesn't arch, and doesn't push you as much once you hit the ground. I would kind of prefer an arched jump dash, as it felt good to be able to have that kind of boost in Sonic Megamix, but this one's pretty neat, too. It does fit pretty well. Nice job. It seems that S3K has always been one of the more rarely-hacked games, I guess because it's so large and tougher to crack than S1 and S2. I can't wait to see more in-depth modding of the game like this. Has anyone ever tried porting the peelout?

Galaxia · Dec 26, 2008

Puto said:

Also, the air dash is weird. Quoting myself from IRC:

<Puto> it's like
<Puto> it's really fast at the beginning then it slows down out of batshit nowhere after a bit
Click to expand...

I agree here... Sonic seems to just float, it doesn't feel like it does in SA...

Nonetheless, this is pretty awesome indeed, considering it's in Sonic 3 and Knuckles too.

Overlord · Dec 26, 2008

Very nice work, well done - though I would say the deceleration thing on the dash actually fits in somewhat with how the SA2 one worked.

Here's to more S3&K stuff =P

Oerg866 · Dec 26, 2008

You did this by editing S&K via disassembly and then locking the hacked ROM to S3?

Epic, man, epic.

SMTP · Dec 26, 2008

PC2 said:

This is interesting, now. The Megamix jump dash/homing attacked seemed more like the one from the Sonic Adventure games where it arched and gave you a slight speed boost, while this one reminds me of the more recent Sonic Unleashed-style jump dash, where it uses a different button and doesn't arch, and doesn't push you as much once you hit the ground. I would kind of prefer an arched jump dash, as it felt good to be able to have that kind of boost in Sonic Megamix, but this one's pretty neat, too. It does fit pretty well. Nice job. It seems that S3K has always been one of the more rarely-hacked games, I guess because it's so large and tougher to crack than S1 and S2. I can't wait to see more in-depth modding of the game like this. Has anyone ever tried porting the peelout?
Click to expand...

You must have not seen this:

http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=13119

RGamer2009 · Dec 27, 2008

I heard that hacking S3&K is one of the hardest things to do, so amazing job!

Hitaxas · Dec 27, 2008

For one: Awesome.

#2: It would be more awesome if you didn't let it home one to almost every object. Trying to jumpdash and accidentally homing onto a spring or a rock is not too desirable.

Namagem · Dec 27, 2008

I noticed that doublejumping with B allows you to do the normal instashield/shield effect. That's a nice touch. Perhaps one thing you could do is make a jump dash minus the homing and set it to jump and C...
but I don't know how hard it is to hack that in.

jman2050 · Dec 27, 2008

After finally trying this out myself, it seems really annoying to use and somewhat buggy and incomplete. It's an okay start, I just hope you have something a bit more substantial planned for hacking SK. I don't expect Sonic 3 Megamix or anything, but when someone intrigues me with their work it's disappointing when they don't follow through beyond the mindlessly simple stuff

Proof of Concept: Homing Attack in Sonic 3 & Knuckles

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