Sonic Delta 40Mb

This is so cool, I'm loving how much attention you're giving to making it feel like a complete experience. Also thanks for the exploit fix.

 

This is a great hack. One thing though: during water levels (especially in Sonic 1), when you lose rings, the framerate is crawling to a very low level. It slows down to barely playable level :/

 

Nice update! I just found a bug with Ice Cap Zone Act 1. When Sonic is on the snowboard, there are some glitched tiles as seen below.



So far I haven't found anything else, but I'll let you know if I do.

 

This is amazing, this is the first time this cutscene has been restored for an actual gameplay/story reason. Now Knuckles can't punch emeralds out of you that you never collected in the first place.

 

Found a near softlock: hyper dashing into a bonus stage ring sends you to the bonus stage that corresponds to your current ring count, regardless of which bonus stage it would normally send you to. While I haven't tested all 4 stages yet, I figured out that hitting the checkpoint with a ring count that won't take you to the Sonic 1 special stage, then hyper dashing at a ring count that would, sends you first to the original bonus stage, then warps you to the Sonic 1 special stage. Additionally, if the normal bonus stage would be S1 special stage and you hyper dash while your ring count wouldn't, it also glitches to the S1 special stage, and you will be softlocked. It does not occur if both the bonus stage and the ring count at the time of hyper dash would lead to S1 special stage. Once you complete said special stage, you warp to the original bonus stage again. After beating/losing THAT, you keep warping to the bonus stage and dying. It's a near softlock because you do run out of lives slowly, and then eventually you'll get a game over, but at the point I was at, I had 105 lives, and I would have had to wait for all that to drain in order to escape without a reset. I don't have good video capture on the devices available to me, but it should be easy to test.

Sorry if that was confusing, I'm unable to record video as all my emulation devices are using Retroarch on Android, and using a screen recorder recorded at 2 fps despite the game running at 60 fps.

 

In Hill Top Zone Act 1, once you reach a certain x-coordinate (independent of your height, tested with debug mode), the game locks up. Music continues playing, but the HUD and all animation freezes, and you have no control. Restarting once it's frozen wipes all your save files, so you should rewind before restarting. I've included a screenshot of the spot you'd normally encounter it in, the S-pipe right before that would take you straight to it, and the debug coordinates. I encountered it naturally as Knuckles + Tails, but it occurs with all characters. It doesn't go to a crash screen, it just freezes.


Also, Knuckles can reflect projectiles while gliding. Not sure if that's intended.

 

It works that way in S3&K too. Tails' tails while flying can also deflect certain projectiles.

 

I seem to be running into an issue where the game crashes to a black screen after completing S2 Hidden Palace Act 2 when playing as either Sonic, Tails, or both Sonic and Tails together.

Other than that, this build is super solid! Keep up the awesome work, Esrael!

 

edit: please trash.

 

Found an interesting bug. If you have activated the Blue Sphere code at the title screen and then leave using Start+A (from the Level Select code) then in the same play session go into an actual Big Ring in normal gameplay, upon completion/failure it will send you back to the Blue Sphere menu.
So if you decide to play around with the Blue Sphere Standalone game and then play normal Sonic Delta, entering a Big Ring will lock you inside the Blue Sphere menu which requires a reset to escape. The menu is also slightly different than the one you enter with the Blue Sphere code, I think it might be the version when you attach Sonic 1 to Sonic & Knuckles.
At a guess, I think the value @FFD5 that determines which version of Blue Sphere it should load doesn't get cleared when leaving the Blue Sphere Standalone menu, which causes the unintended behaviour during actual gameplay.

 

Great hack! I've been playing it a lot lately. A few bugs / oversights I noticed:


When playing as Knuckles, if you're gliding while the goal sign is spinning and you keep the button held down, he'll fall down when the sign stops spinning and end up partially stuck in the floor.


In Spring Yard Zone Act 3, Eggman's graphics overwrite some of the mountain tiles in the background. This happens in the base Sonic 1 too, but since you can play as Tails in this hack, you can actually see it in action. Suggestions would be to either move the mountain tiles to a different location (Maybe replacing the unused "Let's Go" sign) and redo the background chunks, or load Eggman's graphics to a different location.


At the end of Labyrinth Zone Act 3, if you're playing as Tails, you can fly up and wrap around to the "bottom" of the stage where the water is. If you fly / swim up high enough you'll trigger the underwater palette. This could be fixed by just adding a ceiling here.


You can see where the ceiling stops at the end of Scrap Brain Zone Act 2. You can do this in Sonic 1 too by looking up, it's just easier to see in this hack because of Tails and Knuckles.


There are a number of bugs with the end of Wood Zone Act 2. Some of the slope tiles are overwritten with the boss graphics, and the player can see this if they're playing as Tails or Knuckles.


Tails can also fly above the boss area and get stuck when the boss spawns.


If, as either Tails or Knuckles, you're flying / gliding high enough above the boss area while the totem poles are rising, the screen will not lock at the top. When you defeat the boss, if you're up high enough, you'll see a second set of flames on the left as Eggman is flying out.


If the screen isn't locked properly and you climb to the top of the boss area as Knuckles, you'll reach a point (X: 28C0, Y: 01EC) where you'll be able to climb up and walk to the right. If you go all the way to the right, the screen will lock and you'll be stuck until time runs out.

 

Also there seems to be a palette mix-up for completed games with just chaos emeralds, Sonic seems fine though

 

Minor bugs/suggestions:

• Speed shoes sometimes slows down the music instead of speeding it up.
• Music is unoptimized for PAL regions (to fix this, essentially make it so that on PAL regions, to run the sound driver again on frame 5).
• Change Winter Hill Zone's art; its background seems to have some palette issues and Sonic Triple Trouble's tiles don't fit well with the Genesis-style.
• Getting to Sonic 3 without all the Chaos Emeralds will still cause Sonic to flash upon being hit and Knuckles to grab nothing.
• Knuckles' Sonic 1 Bonus Stage extra-life icon has his pupils colored red.
• Sonic can insta shield upon jumping off Sky Fortress' hanging... things...
• For the first few frames of Sky Chase and Sky Fortress, Sonic/Tails' pilot sprites appear corrupted.
• Some of the sound driver from Sonic 1 are present (https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/various-bugfixes-for-the-sonic-1-sound-driver.34153/).
• Waterfalls from Hidden Palace disappear from above when on screen.
• As noted by Redhotsonic, the game will sometimes crash upon beating a Blue Spheres, or in Tails' credits on some Flashcarts (and possibly on an actual cartridge).

 

I'd just like to add that this occurs on emulator as well (Genesis Plus GX Retroarch core), and the Tails credits crash has happened every time for me. The Blue Spheres crash does seem random, however. If I remember correctly, the Blue Sphere crashes on emulator only happened during my Knuckles alone playthroughs, although I hadn't tested with Knux + Tails at all yet.