For whatever reason, Origins 3K makes it impossible to use a spinning top to get Knuckles into Sonic's Marble Garden Act 2. There's an invisible trigger that forces you off the spinning top now. It's really disappointing, because it was a fun exploit in the original. And it's doubly confusing why they even made this change, because it's inconsistent with Knuckles in Sonic's Angel Island Act 2; in the original, it would have the incorrect water levels and the boss would spawn in the wrong location. If they could consciously fix those things in Origins, why lock out Marble Garden 2?
Maybe despite accommodating Sonic/Knuckles in each other's paths w/ debug mode, they wanted to make sure Knuckles couldn't spawn in a boss that triggers Tails to help him along the way? You can also mess with Debug Mode to have that boss spawn him in as a regular player 2, fwiw.
that knuckles can get into places he couldn't in the original in Origins implies that his properties/physics (or the games') is different from the original. I wonder then if that hard trigger is because the boss might now be unwinnable as Knuckles, got reported as a bug in testing as a result, and got fixed?
I don't quite understand why though. It's an obscure exploit, something that players certainly won't do by mistake. And the trigger being invisible and unavoidable breaks rules. It's heavy handed and totally pointless. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he can still into Sonic's MGZ2 in Origins with debug and there are no issues. The game merely blocks you from carefully navigating a spinning top into the room with the Relief that's outside Knuckles jumping range. You can also get Knuckles into Sonic's AIZ2 in the original game, but it's more difficult than in Origins because it requires a precisely timed item box glide bounce (which you only get to attempt once per life) or an even more precise climb and glide. The original game also spawns the Angel Island bosses in Knuckles' intended locations instead of Sonic's locations if you manage to take an alternative path and fails to add water to Act 2 for Knuckles in Sonic's path, unlike in Origins. I doubt there's a bug where the most reasonable solution was to seal Knuckles out of a specific portion of the level.
Taking a dumb stab in the dark, but perhaps it was intentionally done for the sake of continuity? Not that I agree with it, but from a continuity standpoint, Tails showing up to save Knuckles in Marble Garden Act 2 makes no sense since he left Angel Island with Sonic earlier. In the event that the player triggers it, then it becomes a bit odd that Tails helps Knuckles then screws off for the rest of his campaign. It also kinda hurts the 'reveal' of Sonic saving Knuckles last second in Sky Sanctuary. I could see them adjusting that because there wasn't really any easy replacement for a boss without Tails available. While this sounds very odd to say out loud, keep in mind Origins adjusted facing Knuckles' Final Boss as Sonic so Eggman no longer violently explodes/'dies' after a surprise attack from Mecha Sonic in the event the player uses Level Select/Edit Mode to face that boss as him. This theory seems a bit strengthened by the fact that the Angel Island exploit wasn't patched by like throwing some invisible collision in front of the trigger for Sonic's version of the Act 1 boss. There's nothing that really screws with the narrative if the player faces Sonic's version of the AIZ Act 1 boss. Again, I want to stress I don't personally agree with the decision, but it seems it might have been intentionally patched so you don't encounter this while still leaving it available for those screwing with Edit Mode?
The physics themselves and how collision works with them are different in Headcannon's Sonic 3. A noted issue is Sonic can't access one of the Special Stage rings he's supposed to be able to because of it.
That was patched some time last year, although only for that special stage entrance. There are loads of weird collision spots all throughout S3K. And ironically, it's purely due to the new Path Tracer system, and when 3K is just ran with Mania's collision system none of these issues exist, so to me it seems like they were trying to fix a problem that didn't exist and it broke more than it helped.
Origins Ultrafix uses a work around by using invisible blocks to fix most collision issues. However fully replacing Path Tracer with Mania's collision system is currently impossible.
There's a Disable Path Tracer option in Hedge Mod Mananger using Retro Engine collision, but apparently that was just made for fun and causes other collision bugs. Also not sure that would fix the speedier physics complained about?
A friend of mine's been working on getting 3K working in the standalone RSDK V5 decompilation. It's still pretty buggy, issues with sounds and the life icon if I recall, but without path tracer there aren't oddities like not being able to access the Hydrocity Act 2 special stage or getting unfairly crushed in Carnival Night.
What exactly is path tracer, and what benefits does it have? I ask because I'm not a techie and genuinely don't know.
That's all well and good and all, but radically changing the basic movement physics of a whole game whose levels were not designed for this new behaviour is a fuckin' amateur-hour gamedev error and explains why Origins S3K plays like absolute shit, I guess.
That's extremely harsh. I'd prefer to think that it was a well intentioned although misguided attempt at improving the game's collision. We do know that 3K was rushed, so I'm sure that if it had more playtesting this could've been fixed. So while Path Tracer is the cause of 3K's collision issues, we shouldn't start calling Headcannon "amateur-hour gamedev".
Let's not forget that Sonic 3's manual refers to "Dr. Robotnik's diabolical traps" to mean that the collision isn't perfect.
yeah, S3&K's collision sucks and we're just used to it, so it's jarring when it sucks in a completely different set of ways. (let's not even get into the numerous, numerous collision shenanigans you can get into with 2P tails lol)
I'm late to the whole Knuckles in Sonic's AIZ2 thing, but he's able to access it because Knuckles's jumps higher in Origins than he does on Genesis. Hyper Knuckles can access Sonic's MGZ2 path due to the additional jump height. I can't give the exact jump height numbers as I don't have them on hand, but this incorrect value does allow Knuckles to access some of Sonic's paths. Yes, this does allow you to have a Knuckles and Tails duo for the end of MGZ2, just for the boss though. Edit: The value is bigger by a single pixel. A single pixel is what allows Knuckles to access a few of Sonic's paths. Funny how that works. Here's a video of the MGZ2 sequence break.
So, I finally put my money where my mouth is last week, and bought the Origins Plus edition while stocking up on misc groceries in town; I was worried I might run out of chances to get it physically. After all these post-release patches and "anti-aliasing" being turned off by default, this collection overall feels very pleasant on Switch. And of course, I'm playing as Amy. I was originally disappointed that her GBA move set isn't represented here, but this classic take on her hammer attacks works very well, too. This might be my preferred way to play Sonic 1 now, even! I immediately found myself loving the coin system, especially; the special stages in Sonic 1 have no variable jump height, so they can be very unforgiving in the original game. Lives being relegated to the Special Stages, instead of the normal stages, is a fantastic QoL thing for me. (If not plays more into the arcade nature of many games from that time.) Sonic CD and 2 will be fantastic with this coin system once I get to them; collecting all the time stones successfully in one run can be very stressful, even in Taxman's remaster. (I had to resort to save backup/restore spam on Steam ) The only thing that stands out to me so far, is how Amy's sprites don't blend in with player sprites for other characters in Sonic 3. Sonic 3 has very distinctly line-less style for its shading, while Amy's sprites are still stylized with thick lines; a simple palette tweak like with Tails might have done the trick. But, having one consistent sprite sheet for a character in every game is kind of nice, so I'm overlooking that, personally. A friend and I were talking about that paragraph from the manual last night. I still think it's a cute, tongue-in-cheek inclusion that's unique to the decade; it's not possible to lampshade known bugs like that anymore. The age of a good manual overall feels like a lost art; I miss reading them. Teenage me always thought the collision bugs was an emulator problem on Mega Collection and the like, so it funny (and validating) to realize the game is just like that. I do hope to have the pleasure of playing Sonic 3 on a real Genesis one day; it's the one Sonic game I missed out obtaining on real hardware as a kid. At least I have a real Genesis controller + USB adapter for Switch and PC in the meantime. Sonic Origins is tempting me to finally get the Switch Online Genesis controller with my next paycheck, as well. As Knuckles once said, "Oh no!" Wouldn't you agree there's a night and day difference between these two sentences? A) "I disagree, this is not how an accurate remaster should be done." B) "I will discredit and discount Stealth's enviable decades-long resume on a public forum because my nostalgia pussy hurts!!!" There's always a better way to disagree. B is a disturbing conclusion to have, when Stealth only wanted to fix one of Sonic 3's most fundamental problems, which is something consumers expect with a remaster. (i.e, more things being fixed and working better!) Maybe if more time for patches were allowed, the path-tracing system would be in a fantastic place, but it's frankly a miracle we got any post-release support for this collection. It might be interesting if modders take a closer look at the system, and see where the edge cases are.
