Sonic 3 (Nov 3, 1993 prototype) - Technical Analysis & Research thread

Maybe but the fact that the way to activate the Proto Drop Dash is extremely situational and awkward to use does not do any favors. Like the code shows, and actual experience playing it, you need to be pressing UP+Jump and only that. Not being able to press UP-LEFT or UP-RIGHT plus Jump is extremely frustrating. It takes away the awesomeness that is the Drop Dash as it appeared in Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces into a really bad gimmick. I wonder why did they decide to implement the Drop Dash that way or was it just a bug that was never fixed due to deciding to do something different for Sonic's move.

 

If it worked on up+right it would trigger by accident causing cheap deaths. That's probably why they made it so awkward

 

cross-post from SSRG:
Sonic 3 prototype 1993-11-03 SMPS rip, for playback with SMPSPlay
The definition files mostly work with the last SMPSPlay release (v2.20). However, I had to add 3 new commands, so building from GitHub might be a good idea. I've only seen one of them used (and that by the Game Over theme), so it might just work with the command list from S3 final as well.

Alternatively, if you prefer something easier to play, you can download the VGM rip.

 

The only animals you ever seem to rescue are Flicky and Ricky. Do others exist?

 

I know that the art for other animals exist in the ROM.

 

That depends on how many people are going to play Sonic & Knuckles Collection in the future.

 

So, comparing the prototype FBZ1's disassembled music with the final FBZ1 disassembled music, there are a few header differences, and Voice 5 has a different Coarse Frequency and Total Level when compared to the final, but it is otherwise identical.

The only other difference I noticed was that the first value of smpsVcTotalLevel was set to $81 for Voices $00-$02 and $04, $86 for Voice $03, and $85 for Voice $05. Pretty sure that it's functionally identical to values $01, $06 and $05, respectively, though.

 

Idk if this has been found yet (looked around couldn't find any info on it) so I guess i'll post anyway, you can fix Knuckles' collision by setting FFB046 to 0x0C.
Seems the Knuckles object (or what is of Knuckles in this prototype) never sets the collision plane when created.

 

The game's animal zone table is located at 2391C in the ROM. It's unchanged from Sonic 2's animal table, with the exception of a partial second copy of the table being appended afterwards to take up the remaining level slots:

Code (Text):

1. AIZ: 06 05 (Ricky, Flicky)
2. HCZ: 06 05 (Ricky, Flicky)
3. MGZ: 06 05 (Ricky, Flicky)
4. CNZ: 06 05 (Ricky, Flicky)
5. FBZ: 09 07 (Wocky, Locky)
6. ICZ: 09 07 (Wocky, Locky)
7. LBZ: 09 07 (Wocky, Locky)
8. MHZ: 09 07 (Wocky, Locky)
9. SOZ: 08 03 (Micky, Rocky)
10. LRZ: 08 03 (Micky, Rocky)
11. SSZ: 02 03 (Pecky, Rocky)
12. DEZ: 08 01 (Micky, Cucky)
13. DDZ: 0B 05 (Becky, Flicky)
14. END: 00 07 (Pocky, Locky)
15. ALZ: 04 01 (Picky, Cucky)
16. BPZ: 02 05 (Pecky, Flicky)
17. DPZ: 0A 01 (Tocky, Cucky)
18. CGZ: 06 05 (Ricky, Flicky)
19. EMZ: 06 05 (Ricky, Flicky)
20. GUM: 06 05 (Ricky, Flicky)
21. PAC: 06 05 (Ricky, Flicky)
22. SLT: 09 07 (Wocky, Locky)
23. LRB: 09 07 (Wocky, Locky)
24. DEB: 09 07 (Wocky, Locky)

I was going to point out that there's residual code from the Sonic 2-only animal friends (Data on whether to fly or hop, and how high) that was deleted from the final game, until I realized that the code wasn't actually deleted. So even in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Animal Friend 0A will plod along on the ground.

 

Have you guys found the sprite of Sonic's Render from the proto title screen?

Also, some BGMs of the Proto OST give me some Phantasy Star II & IV vibes, given they're from a similar time.

 

Sprite of Sonic's render? What do you mean?

 

The one you have on those videos you've just uploaded on YouTube.

 

I have a feeling that Knuckles "Talk to the hand" was originally going to be Knuckles stopping Sonic from going forward which would play the Sonic hurt animation, and then he would collect the chaos emeralds and do the hand swivel and taunt hand animation before going away.

 

That's the render itself. It's not a separate layer or something. The ring is part of the image.

 

Also did anyone notice that Knuckles's running sprite is different? It's more like Sonic Advance 2 as in Knuckles completely facing front instead of like the final sprite

 

It was mentioned in the thread in the general forum.

drx was right, we could've done with splitting off the speculation from the original thread :/

 

That's right, that's the image I was asking about.
Spriters Resource only has the unpolished version from the prototype.
The one on your videos looks quite polished. Hence me asking about it.

 

It's actually handmade for the OST album cover I put together. A PNG is available when downloading the tracks.

 

Well Taxman's and Stealth's team implementation of holding the jump button serve a similar purpose to what I said, it is simply a way to do the Drop Dash while you are running which the implementation on the prototype does not allow to do. I wonder if we can ask them what was their design process on implementing the Drop Dash because as we can see if done incorrectly it is quite an annoying thing to do.