Thank you all for the warm welcome! This wasn't a necessity from my side either. But I found this section to be just a bit too long and boring, so why not apply a small level change.
That's fair, that section was a bit weird originally tbh. I loved your new routes for LBZ Act 2 and DEZ Act 1 btw. They feel just like those little layout additions from Sonic 1 and 2 mobile.
There's another thing I wanted to post here, as it feels like a good place to do so. It's about all the members of the Sonic Retro community who I want to thank, as their work was used directly or had a strong influence on Sonic 3 A.I.R. I mentioned them all in the game's manual, but 1) let's face it, nobody reads the manual, and 2) I can go a bit into detail now. First I want to thank Saxman and especially his ProSonic project, which was in many ways the spark that started what would finally become AIR. Not only gave it to me some first insights into how Sonic games even work. But with its mix of 86K code execution and scripting, it also inspired the technical architecture of AIR, which itself used a mix of custom scripts and emulated code to get the base engine running. Next is Neo, whose Sonic 3 Unlocked blog has been a very interesting read in the past two years, especially as he regularly goes into the details of the implementation. Many of his posts led to bug fixes and improvements in AIR that wouldn't be there without him. things like the unnecessary invisibility of Sonic in those Hydrocity tubes. Some more great people have to be mentioned as well, as I used some of their code and/or documentation during development: AIR's audio emulation uses a C++ version of the really well documented S&K sound driver disassembly that lists MarkeyJester, Linncaki and Flamewing as contributors. MainMemory's documentation was used for the recreation of the Drop Dash; plus his "Drop Dash in Sonic 3" ROM hack was a superb resource as well. Representative of DJ Spindash, who made the remastered music tracks in AIR, I'd also like to thank ValleyBell for all of his research and software on the details of Sega Mega Drive / Genesis music. All contributors to the documentations in the info sections, especially on Sonic 3 / Sonic & Knuckles. The one resource that always was most helpful is the S3&K RAM documentation - something I hope I can myself contribute a bit more to. Last but not least, some folks not mentioned in the game's credits. These are the obvious ones, as they all created fantastic versions of already great Sonic games, which all had an undenyable strong influence on AIR: Taxman and Stealth, for the remasters of Sonic CD, 1, 2 and of course, for Sonic Mania Tiddles and everyone involved in making Sonic 3 Complete! Phew, that was something I really wanted to get out.
Very awesome and kind of you to give out those thank you notes. Most of those guys are members here so I think they'll really appreciate it. One thing I wanted to note is that though Sonic A.I.R. is fucking amazing and everyone thinks that - if you could consider eventually adding features from Sonic 3 Complete (prototype Flying Battery placement for example) A.I.R. could be even better than it already is. And it's very fantastic and a huge technical achievement at the moment. It'd be amazing if this could become the defacto definitive version of Sonic 3 and Knuckles. It's so nearly almost there and superior to Sonic 3 Complete in many ways - but there are aspects that could see it improve even further and make it become the ultimate version of the game. Also though you've probably already seen this, feedback is equally glowing on ResetERA. Everyone loves your project. So great you intend to continue to support it.
Thanks for popping by Eukaryot, I'm like basically nowhere else on the internet but I wanted to thank you personally for putting in all the dedication, time, and hard work towards making this happen. Obviously you know how special Sonic 3K is and I really appreciate the hell out of this project being A Thing. I'm eagerly awaiting the chance to tear into it.
It's been a while since I've been on Retro, but I gotta say, this game (mod? expansion? whatever you wanna call it) is a beauty! I've been waiting for something like this for so long, and it is so, SO nice to see it finally materialize. Great job, Eukaryot! However, for the life of me, I can't figure out how to do the "Squirrels on a Plane" achievement. I swear there aren't even 40 animals in the level, but I gotta be wrong, right? It's the last one I haven't done and it's bothering the shit out of me :v:
@Eukaryot I'd like to report some bugs that will may need fixing. BUG #1 CLICK HERE FOR BIN FILE. This takes place in Hydrocity Zone Act 1. The bug relates to the loop-de-loop area before entering the mini-boss. The problem is about not being able to enter the loop-de-loop when the viewing area locks at a certain point. The character becomes stuck outside and cannot enter in. BUG #2 (?) I noticed that you get extra lives after 200 rings. Was it intentional to keep rewarding lives at 300 rings, 400, 500, etc.? BUG #3 (Link edited on April 13, 2019 @ 12:17pm EST) CLICK HERE FOR BIN FILE. This takes place in Angel Island Act 2. The bug relates to the act results after the main boss. Sonic does not pose for the player while the score is tallied. BUG #4 CLICK HERE FOR BIN FILE. This takes place in Carnival Night Act 1. The bug relates to mini-boss not lowering itself when a complete layer of blocks is destroyed. It makes it more difficult to reach the machine situated at the higher level when getting towards the last level of blocks.
Spoiler Kill every enemy, open every capsule. That includes the miniboss; I only got the achievement after beating him.
Other bugs. These exist in the original so I'm not surprised they're here as well: - Knuckles can get into Sonic's path in Lava Reef 1 without glitching, but then the Death Egg is revealed to still be visible in the background. Ooops! - At this point (after the first rising sand area), there should be a little corner sprite that helps cover up the discontinuity in the level art. This is also a flaw in the original game's logic. I set debug mode on so you can see roughly the specific coordinates of where I am. I believe this glitch is related to the unlocked vertical scrolling for the level.
If you're after some bugs, here's a couple: 1 - Softlock - Carnival Night act 2. If you airlift Sonic on top of the cannon and have Tails fall into it, you're stuck there forever. 2 - When reverting from Super while boss or miniboss music would otherwise be playing, it just stays with super music rather than playing the boss or miniboss themes.
Sepaking of bugs, the game had no music speedup effects at all when I played it . Is it really a bug or did I turn something on/off in the configs?
That feature hasn't been implemented yet. Pretty sure that's on his to do list. Also just a random thought/suggestion. Since this port doesn't have multiplayer the competition mode menu music goes unused. Maybe that could be the music used on the menu/options screen instead of the data select music? Other suggestion. Maybe Angel Island's music should transition from Act 1 to Act 2's music as soon as Act 1 is set on fire? It always felt weird that that music played for the rest of the act.
Hello. While Sonic 3 A.I.R. has been amazing, these nasty errors have been popping everytime I want to play it. First it popped in Free Roam mode at the end of Lava Reef Zone 1 with Sonic, before the miniboss appeared, and now with Knuckles in Normal Mode on Angel island act 1, before the miniboss appears to burn the zone. When this error appears, I have to forcefully close the program because neither the Abort or Retry buttons do something useful. Currently I have "modded" custom music on the game. Maybe is that the reason of the errors? [media]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/557210013886840842/565595745382825995/s3airerror.PNG[/media] Many thanks for your reply.
Thank you all for the bug reports so far! I've added all of them into my to-do list, so at least some of them can get fixed for the next updates. It's a missing feature. But I'd like to add that in with an update. Or Time Attack maybe? At least that would be the closest thing to competition mode, so I'd find that fitting. Not sure here. Because the music generally refers to the Act, not the visual look of the stage. Also, in case of doubt, I'd stick with how the original game worked. To be honest, I haven't seen this kind of error yet. Because of this and because of the message content I'd say it's indeed related to the music. Can you tell which music pack you're using (if it can be publicly downloaded somewhere)? I could try myself this way.
Not taking a position on this either way, but will note this - if you go boot up the S3&K ROM, start a new game, get past the cutscene with burning and go into the Gold Ring that's immediately afterwards (go down the hole and left, then spring upwards), when you come back out it'll still be AIZ1 but the music is now Act 2's.
Just wanted to chip in and say Sonic 3 AIR is amazing and thank you for all your hard work, Eukaryot. The one thing I wanted more than anything was to be able play Sonic 3K with proper 16:9 widescreen and thanks to your efforts we can finally do this. The achievements are a nice addition (I notice you didn't take up my suggestion of a "collect 999 rings in an act achievement" :v. I like the rewards for unlocking them: Knuckles &Tails mode (being able use Tails to help Knuckles reach all those Sonic & Tails routes he normally can't get to due to his smaller jump height is very cool indeed - I've uploaded a playthrough of Sonic 3 AIR today which I did with Knuckles &Tails which is linked in my signature). Since it's introduction in Mania none of the classic Sonic game feels right without the drop-dash, so thanks for including it. Unlocking debug mode in Sonic 3 and S&k is cumbersome, so making it easily accessible-being able to turn it on or off via the menu is so much better. As for glitches, yeah I've encountered a fair few. The most annoy ones are that the special stage giant ring near the end of Hydrocity act1 sometimes doesn't appear and when you run into the yellow wall at the end of Knuckles Launch Base act1 route, if you run too fast Knuckles sometimes gets trapped in a small area to the right and can't escape. Also. Knuckles doesn't always grip walls correctly and starts to fall-meaning I feel the need to press the jump button quite firm to make sure he sticks to the wall. Oh and Tails doesn't join Knuckles in the final-fight against Mecha Sonic
First of all, thanks for your quick reply! Second, I don't use any public music packs at all. I took songs from my library of electronic dance music (Avicii, Tiesto and the likes of), converted it to ogg 48000 KHz sample with Audacity, and following the steps on your guide to put them in the data folder and mod those into the game. The three times the game crashed with this error, have been in the miniboss area in LRZ1, and AIZ1. The song I replaced for the miniboss is a mashup song I use in a DDLC mod, which is not publicy available. The thing that bothered me is that I had to change the frequency of the songs from 44100 to 48000, is it really neccesary? Edit: disregard that, I think I noticed what the problem was! I changed the game to use the Sonic 3 songs, but in the json file, I didn't wrote the ".ogg" part at the end of the name of the music file, that was the worst stupid mistake ever.
I think these bug reports are super useful given Eukaryot's in bug fixing mode for the moment and prioritising it - so I think you guys are helping him and the game a lot. Good work. Very much looking forward to future releases! If you don't me asking Eukaryot, will Sonic A.I.R. be supported for a while/long time? Or do you have an end date in mind?
On this note, the reason for the Act 2 music in Act 1 is because it is technically Act 2 that you are in. In Sonic 3 alone, when coming out of a Star post, you get the Act 2 music there, but in Sonic 3 & Knuckles they fixed that. The big ring thing still giving you Act 2 music is a leftover side-effect / bug, if that previous thing is anything to go by. I personally think the music situation as AIR currently presents it is correct and should be the way it stays, though perhaps the early Act 2 music could become an option like the alternative bombing run.
