The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

Here are some interesting things about Shiny Jewel Chao in Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. It's known already that most of the Shiny Jewel Chao in the 2004 PC version of Sonic Adventure DX have a different appearance from the ones in the GameCube version. None of the Shiny Jewel Chao in the PC version of SADX are transparent, so all of them resemble Shiny Two-Tone Chao, usually with completely different colors from the regular Shiny Chao. The only ones whose appearance is exactly the same as it was in the GameCube version are the Shiny Jewel Pink, Shiny Jewel Brown, and Shiny Jewel Normal Chao.

In the ports of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, there is a glitch known as the Bright Chao glitch that causes Shiny Two-Tone Chao and Shiny Jewel Chao to be incredibly bright because the Shiny texture isn't applied to those Chao properly. Jewel Chao normally can't be obtained in those versions, but they can be obtained by using Fusion's Chao Editor for the PC version and by other means for the other versions. The interesting thing is that in the PC version of SA2B, the Shiny Jewel Chao's base colors are exactly the same as they would be in the PC version, so they would have the same appearance if the Bright Chao glitch wasn't present. However, this isn't the case for the PS3 version. The base colors of the Shiny Jewel Chao in the PS3 version don't match the ones in the PC versions. Instead, the Shiny Jewel Chao seem to slightly resembles the ones in the GCN version. It is strange how the Shiny Jewel Chao have different appearances depending on the versions of the games. I wonder what causes this to happen and whether their appearance in the PC versions is the intended one.

 

Over the last few weeks I've played the PS3 and GCN versions of Sonic Adventure DX (after playing the GCN one since its release, of course), and I noticed a couple oddities. The hanging part under Gamma's rifle is missing its texture in the PS3 port, and the FMV of the Egg Carrier exploding is missing what I now assume are overlays of the characters escaping it in their respective stories. Others have probably noticed them, but this kinda stuff still makes for good conversation.

By the way, you can't make me believe that in the time it took Gamma, Tails, and Amy to leave the ship, Sonic and Knuckles separately encountered Chaos 6 and Big figured out how to get a crash-landed plane in the air.

Holy shit, Big probably just pushed it off the side of the Egg Carrier and it glided safely back to the jungle. This game has so many intentional little touches. I mean, Eggman had Roombas waaaay before they were common place, and his voice is grittier and more aggressive in Tails' story, as Tails is the youngest at this point in the series and is likely more scared of the Doc than Sonic. The game is no technical marvel nor a masterpiece in storytelling, but it weaves a hell of a tale if you pay close enough attention.

 

The Tornado 2's engine was activated, when Big was piloting it, though. Big figured out how to activate the plane, but he couldn't land it well.

Also, in Ice Cap's snowboarding section and Sand Hill, if you press the action button while you're on the board and without turning, then Sonic and Tails will have a different animation. As far as I can tell, this seems to not serve any purpose and the animation stops once they leave the ground or begin to turn.

 

I've always loved how if you go out of your way to talk to the people in Station Square in the final story, they're all acting as if everything's fixed and back to normal and peaceful. All the NPCs' side stories have reached their conclusion and there's a huge sense of 'calm before the storm' irony. Because I'm pretty sure everybody you talk to in that sequence is subsequently slaughtered or drowned.

 

Maybe those things you mention aren't that intentional, but plotholes and slip-ups they forgot to fix...

 

Up to this moment I haven't "mastered" whole Sonic Riders - I still have problems with successfully performing flying (to be honest, I don't even know how to perform it :P this in-game tutorial is not explaining a lot of things, for example even now I don't know why so often SI is landing faster on the ground after performing jump than me). But I totally agree, that it's worth to take this bitter pill at the beginning, because after all it's entertaining title. Plot is sometimes so bad, that it's (in some twisted way) amusing.

Spoiler

My personal favourite is the moment when Eggman is taking Amy out from the bushes to stop Sonic to do anything (well, just holding her). Amy is not tied or anything like this (so she could escape easily a moment earlier), what is more, afte whole scene she's chasing Sonic with Pico hammer for hitting Eggman from above when she was still in his clutches. And since Eggman was unarmed, you can easily guess what she should try to do, eqipped with her weapon, and yet she didn't. Not to mention that after hitting Eggman with this tornado Amy is floating in some indeterminate direction and Sonic doesn't give a toss about her after whole event... until she came back).

Overall, I really regret that I can't find someone to play in multiplayer mode (have more success in case of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing), but at least there is plenty of various modes to play. Can't wait to try Zero Gravity.

By the way - what was particullary wrong with Free Riders? Don't know too much about this one, except it was exclusively for XBox 360 with Kinect. Was it about control, or something else?

A bit like my experience with Sonic Riders :P Well, maybe not excactly, because I can't say that I hated Sonic Riders (at the beginning), but initially it was for me a bit complicated racing game, which didn't attract my attention (maybe because I was back there charmed with Sonic Heroes and wasn't too interested in anything else :P).

 

Oh yeah, I always thought it was a partially implemented crouching mechanic that didn't get fully realized until the next game.

 

It seems the Game Gear bundled with Sonic Triple Trouble was one of the prizes for the 1995 McDonald's Monopoly competition.
Found this commercial on an old VHS tape I had lying around and it didn't seem to be on Youtube yet.
http://youtu.be/714el88TPgY

If the embedded player isn't working, click here.

 

I assumed that Chaos somehow brought Angel Island back down to the ocean in order to get the Chaos Emeralds. I don't know how that was possible, though.

 

I figured the Chaos Emeralds were absorbing the Master Emerald's power and preventing it from causing Angel Island to float, though it took a little while to take effect since it's been on the island a lot longer than they have been. I also figured that's why the altar wasn't floating when it was near Megopolis (StC name, but I don't recall it having a name in the games): the Chaos Emeralds were absorbing the energy before it could do that and when the Chaos Emeralds were later hidden away, the land eventually built up enough energy from the Master Emerald to go airborne.

 

So I was doing some reading about interesting localization topics between Japan and the West, and I came across this article regarding the widespread use of the letter "W" to denote "double". I wonder if the "W" block in Sonic 1's specia stage has anything to do with this?

http://legendsoflocalization.com/the-legend-of-the-mysterious-letter-w/

 

... Never made that connection before. It would make sense (with 'UP' and 'DOWN' increasing/decreasing speed, perhaps 'W' would double it?).

 

I was going to say "x2" or "2x" would be more likely because there's some pinball heritage in there

But the game already uses x2 to denote two lives, so maybe!


Unless of course it was to restore the "W" in Clock ork Zone.

 

I posted something on the YouTubes that might be of interest to you people:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrXx00DGzgo[/youtube]

This technically isn't news, but it's so badly documented that it might as well be.

 

Yeah, I've been messing around with a disasm of S3A and I was pretty surprised at how those bosses 'just work'. The modularity of Naka's object-based engine really shines with this kind of stuff.

 

I vaguely remember back when I had my Genesis as a child in Sonic 2 if you get invincibility and then go Super Sonic then invincibility starts would float around you even though you were in a Super form until you run out of rings. That looked really cool cause it felt like I was Super Super Sonic.
But then when I replayed Sonic 2 on emulators I never managed to perform this trick again.
Did it really exist or my memory is just screwing with me? If it was then was it in all versions of the game?

 

Just so you know, we have a wiki.

 

From Super Postal, the Japanese version of the original Postal with two exclusive levels.