Sonic 1 Side Story

Just played through all of the first zone - I am really liking what I see!

The pallets are very easy on the eyes, especially Gloomy Plain's. Something about the lava in Magma Ruin seems off, though.

The layouts are awesome, IMO. I still haven't found all the paths in some of the levels.


One thing I did notice - The music in GPZ3 sounds a bit slower than it did in S2. Other than that, this is a great start!

 

I do not accept submissions through file exchange services. Put the Rom on Hotshare, and I'll take it.

 

I love your hack!
Seriously, it looks really cool, and the only thing I want to ask you, How did you put Sonic 2's level select in Sonic 1?

 

Throughout what I've played so far, I've encountered a great number of complete dick moves. Bottomless pit immediately after the beginning of the level? Check. Random pop-up waterfall spikes? Check. More bottomless pits? Check Dick fireballs? Check. EVEN MORE BOTTOMLESS PITS? FUCKING CHECKAMUNDO. I understand the difficulty aspect of this hack, and I don't hate it, I just think that a little more polish would go a long way. And as a positive note, I enjoyed the boss of GPZ 3, at least after I cleared the robotnik boxes with invincibilty. It was clever, though, and I don't think it's been done yet.

There's a lot of potential here, you are pretty good at level design. I fucking loved the broken bridge gimmick, brilliance. I think a spit shine would make it much better though. The floating leve segments, for example, could be cleaned up. And as much as I gripe about it, the difficulty isn't that bad, I just didn't know what to expect coming in.

Keep working, and this could become a really good hack.

 

Hmm, a broken bridge, pitfalls, and surprise Badnik encounters makes this hack a challenge, good show. Now, the demo is good in terms of gameplay. Your perspective, however, leaves a lot to be desired. Anyway, here are your grades:
Core Development (Important):
Level Design: A
ASM Programming: A+

Electives (Cosmetic):
Music: C+ (If you come across anything original, I will make it a B)
Challenge Comprehension: B+

 

Ok, so I have played through and here are my initial thoughts. (Be warned, wall of text approaching)

• Object placement could do with some work. I saw several misplaced objects not aligned properly, as well as wrongly placed and mis-used solid GHZ specific wall objects (This is a common problem though, happens a lot in level layout edits of GHZ). The sub id 02 of this object is for shadowed walls and works the same way as 00 and 01, and sub id 10, 11 and 12 are non solid variants, for making walls look like... well, walls. It's to ensure cut-off isn't evident, which very rarely occurs in the original layout. If you are unsure how to use them, refer to the original layout and see how they were intended to be used.
• Chunk placement was a bit odd in places. Cut-off with chunks is quite frequent here and it looks bad (in my opinion). In GHZ, you can get away with this by using the wall pieces, but in levels like Marble Zone and Spring Yard, it's recommended to use chunks that fit together properly. Especially when the cut off results in death due to collision not being present.
• Boss ideas work well, though you are limited with a layout change (I should know, I made my bosses in S1:WI way too hard compared to the rest of the game, due to limitations.) If you can edit the bosses in anyway, then I'd highly endorse the idea.
• Music works, which isn't really anything good or bad to say. I like the Chaotix ports, but the rest is all tried-and-true stuff which I've heard for a long time and doesn't peak my interest. Sorry.
• Palettes are a bit odd and seem to have some mis-matching colours(But then again, I'm not that good at them myself.) GPZ looks good for the modd you are setting, but the original shading seems to have been lost somewhere. MRZ looks a bit strange with the pink-ish lava but I do like the grass colours. Looks more natural. BPZ looks good with the dark colours, but the clouds look a bit off.

I think that covers everything. All in all, it's coming along nicely. I have a few gripes with a few things I have already mentioned, but it's a good start. With a bit of polish and work, it could definitely be a fun hack to play through once completed.

 

Right, firstly I absolutely loved the hack and to me it seems very good for a beginner, the layout of the first zone (GPZ) was super fun and well made, at times it was difficult and at times it was just plain fun to play, I really loved the idea of the broken bridge as well.

Overall scoring for hack so far (As in how far into the game I got):

Music: Good choice of music for the GPZ 1, 3, it really goes with the level, not too sure about act 2 though.

Level layout/design: The level layout was fun and smart at times, like the broken bridge, the color palette was interesting and a change from all the other sonic hacks out there.

Gameplay in general: The gameplay wasn't glitchy or buggy, except from were you would expect it to be buggy (spike bug?/falling through walls)

Characters/sprites: The sonic sprite from the hack has a strange shade of blue for the darkest shade in his palette for some reason or is it just my eyes?

Thanks.

Sonic Joe

 

Being a lover of layout hacks, I downloaded this eagerly.

It's ok. Some levels (I think GHZ 2 was the prime example) had a lot of routes that split depending on if you failed a jump / got hit, which was a good idea. The problem was, in some areas, there actually was a bottomless pit there, or a badnik, or other hazard that you couldn't see before, which makes people very wary of exploration. GHZ overall was pretty good for me, and seeing as you are a beginner, passed off things like misaligned objects and unfitting chunks. Reminds me I need to actually do it in my hack.

Marble Zone didn't even get a play I'm sorry. After the section with the continual spitting fireballs, I fell into a pit, and then meant to push a block through a cramped area, which I then realised was completely impossible anyway, as the spikes killed you when they sprung out. At that point, I quit and level selected to Spring Yard.

Again, similar gripes to the ones in GHZ, and still ok. A couple of cheap shots here and there, and then a couple of really bad areas (the section before the boss being the biggy for me) but nothing to cry over.

The palletes were obscure, but given my previous experience with palletes, I am certainly not someone that can give you advice of how to correct them. The other changes have been done before, but still nice to see done. Carrying the rings over is always good, as is extra hits on a boss, it breaks the mould a little bit.

Overall, it's not a bad start, there have been hacks released that are far, far, far worse. In time, I am sure you will progress and get better. Just keep at it, and I am sure anybody will provide assistance when requested

 

I look forward to the update, remember to use lots of rings so the gamers no whether their going into a trap or not, in other words use the rings to point people in the right way.

 

To be quite honest, I think you should just carry on, and only release it when it's finished. Because if the next version was up to Star Light Zone, the next version would only have Scrap Brain, which would make it a little bit pointless. Just my opinion.

Of course, get some beta testers to play and check it before it is released.

 

I spent some time playing this hack today, and so far I'm loving it. I've noticed one major glitch in MRZ act 2 though. Just past the swinging platforms when taking the lower route, there is a switch to move one of the columns blocking your path. If you roll to the left while on that switch, you'll get stuck in the little compartment behind that switch and have to wait for a time over (or load a save state) to continue



EDIT: slightly better quality image

 

I'm liking what I see so far, I'll have to give this a go in the next day or two. Something about that last screenshot with the two lava sprouts seems really cool and I'm not sure why.

 

Good deal, just thought you should know about it.

 

I just "finished" the hack. Up until Hidden Ruin zone 2, it plays pretty much flawlessly other than the one layout hiccup I described before. When I got to Hidden Ruin zone 2, I was able to play for about a minute. Albeit with some severe palette glitches and scrambled sprites (I'll have some screenshots up later to show what I'm talking about), it played alright up until the game froze with an Illegal Instruction error, making it impossible to continue beyond that point. I know the hack is incomplete and you probably already know about it, but it's still worth mentioning. Up to that point, I really enjoyed it, keep it up!

 

Screenshots inbound:

http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/1047/s1...letteglitch.jpg

The switch has a very strange palette.

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/3722/s1ssjumbledsprite.jpg

This huge jumble replaces the animals that pop out of enemies, oddly enough, it only seems to occur once the wierd-palette switches start appearing.

And last but not least:

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/4421/s1ss...yzerogoboom.jpg

The ROM will randomly go boom during the level, giving an illegal instruction error. (I'm not 100% sure, but it seems to happen whenever one of the jumbled sprites touches the ground)

Wish I could do more to help than report the bugs as I see them, but there you are. Aside from this, the hack is totally awesome and I hope to see more from it in the future.