Here is a thought: how about only Sonic or a super character being able to do the peel-out? That way, Sonic has another unique move and the peel-out graphics for Knuckles don't get wasted.
The new update is good, but I froze at the Aquatic Ruin Act 2 logo again - and this time I recorded it too, but I don't think that will help, so I'll just report my stats. If you'd like to see the recording, just ask. I had two chaos emeralds, failed to get one, all got in Emerald Hill act 1. At the end of the boss fight, Knuckles had a bubble shield and 144 rings. I don't know if any of that is helpful, mind you, but who knows.
Consider yourself asked :-) More seriously, since I have as yet no idea what is happening, I need as much information as I can get to try to reproduce it. Please also post the emulator you use, and any non-default settings you use (if any) on the emulator core/game region.
Oh, using vanilla Gens v2.1.4.0, double video scale, with a gamepad, region is default order which I think is USA>EU>JP. It may be an old version, I haven't checked in awhile. As for the video: Here you go. Ignore my rather silly comment at the beginning though.
Your peel-out idea is not a bad solution. It really does sound quite fitting to restrict it to the Supers yet to give it to normal Sonic as well. More ahhh factor for him, shows him to be kind of elite if the other characters can get it, but not until they're Super. However 3 things: 1. I think you shouldn't be afraid to waste the sprite if it isn't a sure benefit to the game. Sprite first, purpose for sprite second... it's kinda shoehorning. Meanwhile it's not common for something that doesn't change to attract complaints. 2. I know you don't need to be told this but I'm saying it just to show that at least someone cares about it. I think you gotta go slow with anything that affects balance. Megamix is dominated by the homing attack. In one of the early Retro Sonics the peel-out and fire shield just overpowered everything. It would be a shame for one slip up to do the same thing to this hack because it is such a good one. Always keep the original feel of the game in plain view, in my opinion heh, lest you end up with something that plays bigger than the worlds and the game already built. However your idea is worth considering because I think its effects on the game wouldn't be drastic. But then what happens when people ask "Well why doesn't SuperSonic get another move?" If it then starts catering to that request, the slope suddenly becomes more slippery. [/patronising] 3. Giving the peel-out to any other character, ever, is kind of stepping on sacred ground hehe. Unrelated; I think the original carrying sprites look better. =/ Knuckles especially looks a bit strange now. The original sprites had a good sense of keeping the feet up, sucking that gut in, etc, as well as the point that any new sprite is going to catch extra scrutiny from retro players. Well, see what the impressions of other players are, but in the meantime, are there any other approaches to the carrying-near-wall/alignment issue you have in mind? Oh, and I noticed that when Tails carries someone, his sprite has a big chunk of white that shouldn't be there. Directly under his chin. All white where we should see background.
Yeah, that may be it. The other time the game froze on the level name was when I had died with a bubble shield. Maybe we should experiment more with the other shields. For example, instantly dying with the other shields, or completing a zone with the other shields. This may just be a "red herring"; maybe these bugs are random, but it's frozen up twice for me, each time I had the bubble shield.
Let me correct you: the bubble shield is the culprit. Now to find out why. Edit: I say this because I had tried in several stages, and the only shield I had never grabbed was the bubble shield. The one time I tried with the bubble shield after you said this -- bang.
Wait, now that you mentioned it, I DID have the bubble shield at the end of CPZ Act 2...I just went into Super with it still on, so I had it when reverting after the boss fight. EDIT: Yup, I just tried it out again. Fire Shield worked fine, it would load the next zone like normal. But when I grabbed the Bubble Shield and finished the zone, it would freeze.
It was the bubble shield, indeed -- there was a line -- whose origin is beyond me, it was not in the original S3&K version -- that was causing the crash whenever a level was being loaded if you had ever used a bubble shield bounce. This caused the crash on exit from special stages and the crash on loading new levels. On Regen, the crash happened as soon as the screen went dark, and it was an address error crash; the invalid locations pointed to likely caused a hang in the other emulators. I will make a new update tomorrow, after I fix the ordering of Tails' tails and add the peelout to Sonic. FYI, the reason for so many revisions in such a short timespan is because I want to get it really good for when I submit to the hacking contest. After that, it will slow down again, as I start adding cool new stuff again instead of mostly performing bug fixes.
So... I'm playing the brand new version of Sonic 2 Heroes. I have encountered two problems: One, swimming with Tails in the water in Chemical Plant Zone... When I jump off of the moving blocks to swim, Tails reacts incorrectly. I think it is some kind of collision error. Tails will do his animation, almost inside the block, and wont gain elevation. Secondly... I was playing ARZ. and got to the boss, (flying high into the boss fight as Tails) and no boss ever appeared. I had Tails with Sonic as a sidekick... if it helps to know. I think it could've been cuz I flew into the area from up high... I'll test it in the future... and get back to you on this.
To respond to my previous post, The ARZ bug must be something else... I tried it flying and not flying, (to note, this time with all 3 characters) The boss worked just fine. But that ARZ bug does exist... it happened once, it could happen again. Just to throw it out there.
That option menu glitch happened to me too. I did the sound test code, restarted by pushing A+Start, got back in the menu and then the same thing as above. Using Gens and the keyboard.
New revision is out. Revision v0.06c: download it here. Changelog: Enhancements over previous revision: Display 9:59:999 on time over. Sonic now has the peel-out. Works exactly like spindash, but holding 'up' instead of 'down'. Tails and Knuckles can charge a spindash by holding either 'up' or 'down' and pressing jump buttons. This is mostly to help the AI. Bugs fixed from previous revision: Exiting a special stage resets the minutes count on the clock to zero, but seconds remain intact. 1-Up monitor was not being correctly refreshed when swapping leaders/reverting back from super status. Having ever used a bubble shield bounce caused crashes when getting back for special stages or when switching levels. Options screen graphics were corrupted if you entered the options screen again after pressing start on the Sega screen. Super Sonic had wrong mappings for looking up frame.
Sorry to ALREADY report a bug, but... I think an old one has returned from the grave. The one where background scenery becomes solid. I wasn't recording this time, but here's a screenshot. All I can report that's not obvious from the screenshot is that I had just come out of a special stage from the first post on that floating island, walked off of it with Sonic, and fell through a curve in the ground. I switched to Knuckles and latched on to the wall to make it apparent that the wall is now solid. EDIT: Interestingly enough, I tried to replicate the bug, and this happened. That same part of the level that became solid before wasn't affected.
It's always been 9:59 from Sonic 1 to Sonic & Knuckles, none of those games actually displayed 10:00, so I agree with Flamewing's choice.
Well, this game looks pretty solid and I have no complaints (nor did I find any bugs yet), but one thing I suggest is to up the reaction time on the AI for the special stages, seeing that all 3 are in the special stage now (GREAT job by the way), and losing rings is a lot more easy now. Overall though, quality hack.
