Ok... so I'm playing the shit out of any hack and rom I can find of Sonic on GENS... and am now playing Sonic 3 Complete. (aka the Real Sonic 3, the way it should have been released in the first place.) I just thought to do a post in General Sonic Discussion since I didnt wanna bump the hack's topic just to say something about playing the game... I think it is so funny that people like to say how hard it is to get the Emeralds after Mushroom Hill Zone... I hear it all the time. I was playing through today, and, starting at Sandopolis Act 1, I got all 7 emeralds and ALSO 1 Super Emerald before Hidden Palace... and NO, I'm not Save Stating or using maps... I'm just that good... or I've played a bit too much. LOL Anyway, I wanted to start a new topic on retro playing, and didnt feel like bumping old topics, so here's one... I hope it's not trash, but somehow I can just imagine an admin posting below me, telling me to keep hoping or something... it is general Sonic discussion though, so I should be ok. Anyone else wanted to share any thoughts on this or Sonic 1 OR 2?
I do want to share some thoughts on Sonic CD++. I absolutely raped the shit out of it and time attacked the fucker in under 013'39'52... which is quite depressing. As a child I got Sonic CD thinking it would be an absolutely huge game, it said "over 70 levels" on the back, which I took to mean 70 zones. Anyway fuck it, it's still a great game. Anyway, regarding the big rings in the Sonic and Knuckles levels. I've never had any desire to really look for them after Mushroom Hill, because the levels are too depressing
Finding big rings in Sonic & Knuckles is about as joyous as watching your children die. If you didn't get EVERY emerald in Mushroom Hill then you better start over.
I dunno. Couple in FBZ are easy enough to find once you know to try pushing every isolated quartet of spikes, and it's not too hard to stumble upon one or two in Sandopolis. Wait, what? LRZ has a tonne of rings. I think y'all are just lightweights.
What are you guys talking about? I've always loved finding the big rings in Sonic & Knuckles. For a while I didn't think there were any in FBZ until I saw a video of some guy pushing spikes out of the way and damn. Now that's some replayable level design: you find secrets even after several playthroughs.
THIS THIS THIS. I finished Metallic Madness and thought it was only the beginning. SEVERELY DISAPPOINTED. That was what I thought the future of gaming was going to be like. 16 bit, but LOTS AND LOTS OF LEVELS. Like mind boggling mass of levels. That was what I bought Sonic CD for. (for the PC mind you) In a way, if you took all the past, good future, and bad future level slots and made a new zone with its own layout and gimmicks, complete with a boss at the end, you would have that game. Now for a modern Sonic game it is a 7 zone cap. WHERE ARE MY ENDLESS LEVELS SEGA?
You could do that in Mushroom Hill Zone easily. I think they're 4 rings in act 1 and 4 in act 2 (5 for both if you play as Knuckles though). You got lots of chances to get your emeralds there. Personally I like getting all the emeralds as early as possible in any Sonic game, simply because I've played them so much that at this point they're a chore, so I'm going to get those out of the way to get to the fun part of the game (I.e. NOT Emerald hunting). Oh and S3 > S&K
Big rings in S&K? Yes, they're pretty hard to find. I admit I've used save states to get super emeralds and what not so I can't complain at all. When I'm just fucking around in the game to pass the time I never really bother to look for the big rings. I've only memorized a small count(1 in MHZ, 2 in FBZ, 3 in Sandopolis).
By my reckoning that would only be 28 zones. But come to think of it, I'd have preferred it to be that way (as nice as the time travel was). I don't suppose as a kid you ever stop to think of the logistics of them making a Sonic game with 70 3-act zones. At that age you think everything can be done by magic. Fuck me though! I would trade everything I have, I would even personally deliver my friends and family into the evil clutches of Satan if I could ever get hold of a Sonic game with 70 3-act zones.
Remember guys, this is Sonic CD we're talking about here. There are 70 zones. 3 per round, 2/3 of which have 4 variations, and the remaining 1/3 has 2. 3 zones per round makes 21 zones, and with past, present, and good/bad future versions of them that brings the total count to 70 zones. Spoiler trollface.jpg Also there are 4 variations of 2/3 of them. No lies were told.
This is something that Super Mario World got very very right. 72 levels, 96 total exits. If we think of each Sonic CD zone as a level and each time variation as an exit, it has 21 levels and 70 exits. If you're looking for sheer quantity of game, Sonic CD doesn't even almost compare. If you include the special stages it's slightly better off, but still pretty far behind.
Yeah, but there wasn't a lot of variation between levels in SMW. It was definitely a much longer game, though, unless you knew where to find the shortcuts. It also had the benefit of non-linear gameplay with map travel and backtracking being optional. A truly brilliant sidescroller that to this day is pretty much unparalleled. CD, however, I felt was well on it's way to achieving that kind of scope, with all of it's huge levels and the time travel mechanic changing up certain details and overall look. KC was closer to it, but not quite there either.
I always look back and wish that the old Sonic games could implement an island/world map of some kind... basically level select with nice looking images and appeal... (or to put it simply... More like SMW) This is something I want to put in my fangame... a level select that is more than a bland looking backdrop, and text lines thrown in your face. It's not gonna be an overworld map (not trying to completely rip off SMW) or anything like that... but an images of the islands and the world, (also airships, Death Egg and the like...) with dots for where each zone is... and a new level icon for each one. Just something that looks nice, and adds to the fun, in that you can freely move about zones, and have a nice looking level select feature. As a kid, I could care less... but looking back... if you pick a level, you start the ENTIRE game from that point... and the menus look shitty. Just a couple things I wanna change in my project.
I actually had the Sonic 1 Game Gear map in mind more than Sonic 4... but yes... same kind of concept. I always asked myself... Sonic 1 GG did it, it looked great IMO. Why did no other Sonic games of this time do it? Have a nice little graphic of an island, and dots that your cursor can follow to bring you to different zones and stages. I REALLY wanna see this kind of thing appear in someone's hack... but it wont, so I'm putting one in my game instead.
PLUS... Sonic 4's map idea was severly flawed in the sense that you could start from anywhere right from the beginning. I want to have a starting point in the game, and as you progress... then you unlock the other places and can choose to play them later... I also have a couple other ideas to implement to make level selections more convenient... won't get into that now though.
How about... a station arena that acts as a data select of sorts. It would have transportation pods for each zone before a giant map screen, which become operational when you complete the zone.
We could call it Station Square :v: But yeah seriously, I liked the way Sonic Adventure did it, honestly (adventure fields and all that). It works really well for the 3D games, and I was always sad that the only 3D game that really revisited the idea was Sonic 06. For the 2D games, though, it doesn't work nearly as well (Sonic Advance 3, for example). An overworld map similar to SA2 would be cool, though. Maybe with branching paths? Could make for some really nice replay value (as long as it's not as hurrdurr as Shadow the Hedgehog). Also, on the topic of "70 zones", I think the reason why they don't do more is due to how repetitive it'd get. They can only stuff so many zones into one game before it gets really dull. Then again, had Sonic 2 had the full amount of zones it was intended, it'd have been pretty long and awesome(er), without being all that repetitive.
