I only just found out about the Sonic Classic Heroes hacks wow just wow what an amazing version of the game. Just looking on the sonic retro site and seen some of the furture plans for new teams and really excited to the play them all. Are there any plans for a Team 'Metal' using all three of the Metal Sonics from Sonic CD, Sonic 2 & Sonic 3?
Aside from the usual "Teams", would the following be possible? I know that they would be, albeit with possible concessions and a metric fuckton of willingness to commit to creating new art. * Team Sega - Ristar, Alex Kidd, NiGHTS * Team Mario - Mario, Luigi, Peach * Team PlayStation - Crash, Spyro, TBA * Team Disney - Mickey, Donald, Goofy * Team SatAM - Sally, TBA, Bunnie I can dream, can't I?
This was covered a few pages back already, that any team is possible, it just relies on people providing the labor to create it. In fact I think this exact subject comes up every ten pages. (I should know, this topic is one of the few reasons I still visit the site) I have considered contributing sprites but I am busy with so many personal projects and my experience in animation is extremely limited, even if I aim to change that.
Some time ago I posted this in the pixel art topic: I was thinking: if I drop the super transformations for most teams, or implement it without palette rotations (say, stars orbiting the characters, or a special shield), then I could have most characters in a palette line and allow mix and matching of characters. So, it is poll time: do you: (a) prefer super transformations and slightly better art, but predefined teams; or (b) mix and matching characters, with some restrictions, and slightly worse art?
Special shield? Eh, I'm fine with removing some visual quirks. Tails and Super Sonic are the only characters that legitimately look worse in my opinion, and even then, it's still tolerable. I also find the shades of Rouge's eyeshadow on both palettes interesting :3 I prefer B. What do you mean by restrictions? I'm assuming that some characters can't be paired. As long as super/hyper transformations are kept.
Couldn't you potentially do both? If you use a pre-determined team, you get the better transformation graphics. If you use the custom-made option, the game automatically swaps to the low-end version.
I infinitely prefer A, and even more so if it means no more (or no more proper if only color rotations are removed) Hyper Sonic. Any type or form of super removal would instantly remove a lot of emerald incentive for me, although that's mainly in the case of the main three. Although I think I'm misunderstanding this, given your "most teams" word choice. What kinds of restrictions do you have in mind?
First, I'm guessing "only predefined teams get HQ art/super form animations, every other combo gets shared palette line art" isn't an option, right? I like the idea of mix and match teams, which also sounds like it opens the door for adding characters that don't fit in a team. As for super forms, could you simply animate the entire palette in a more generic but still invincible way? Or, instead of stars/a shield graphic, what if you gave Sonic Heroes style gold aura sprites, with the sort of firey effect going upward? Or, can you do a mix? Keep the global palette and simpler art, have Sonic switch to the Super Sonic sprite seen in the example(isn't he the only one with notable visual change?) and give everyone else gold aura sprites, plus palette brightness flickering?
I actually prefer Super Sonic's B palette in some ways, it looks more golden than yellow. But if I had to pick one I'd say B. Maybe grant a nerfed super ability and give them gold shields like in Sonic Heroes (except for Super Sonic since that's iconic). I mean the actual Sonic Heroes is more fun when you can mix and match characters, Sonic, Tails, and Big? Absolutely. But if you could do a combined A and B as has been suggested, by only giving preset rosters unique palettes for Super/Hyper, that'd be wonderful. But definitely B. Mix and match is more fun than seizure patterns.
By "special shield" I meant some sort of aura, yes. I should have said that. Hm. The whole-palette cycle looks better than I thought it would; so change the options to: (a) slightly better art and predefined teams; (b) slightly worse art and nearly freeform teams. No idea about hyper, though; I think it would require another art file for Hyper Sonic. Or maybe make Sonic's blues off-limits to other characters, which would allow "normal" Super and Hyper Sonic. As for the restrictions: Cream and Tikal look awful in this palette; I didn't try Big, but I imagine he doesn't look good either. Changing a couple of palette entries per character might be feasible, as long as the characters end up looking OK; but characters using those same palette entries would not work together. And no, dynamic recoloring of art is not an option: not only there is nowhere near enough free RAM for it, it would slow the game down to a crawl (particularly with worst-case selection of 3 characters that need recoloring). The reason why I am presenting this as "either-or" is size; with all the art for all these characters, it may well happen that SCH breaks the 4MB barrier. That is, without having duplicate versions of each character's art for both options. And that would hamper some plans of mine. And while I can solve this with the SSF2 mapper, emulators and Everdrives have weird restrictions on maximum ROM size with SSF2 mapper: 5MB for Kega, 6MB for everything else (except Gens/GSII, which probably will allow the full 32MB, and Exodus, which does not support SSF2 mapper at present).
I like the palette flashing proposed by Dinner Sonic. You could keep palette cycling for transformations and avoid stars and stuff that could make the game laggy. What I would do, is darkening the two reds by one tone, Knuckles looks better (at least to me) with that, and I don't care shoes being a bit darker. I would prefer having locked teams for a better palette, but I do know that I will regret later. I mean, who doesn't like to mix stuff. So, I also vote for option B. EDIT (flamewing's post appeared now for me): hehehe, I remember when I asked if those things were possible. Also, Kega Fusion doesn't allow ROMs bigger than 4MB. I know because it doesn't let me play Ultimate Mortal Kombat Trilogy.
UMKT does not use the SSF2 mapper; it uses a modified cartridge that supplies its own /DTACK signal for ROM data between 4 and 10MB (and will not work on real hardware with SCD and/or 32x). Sonic VR and SSF2 are both larger than 4MB and work on Kega (and both use the SSF2 mapper).
I say B. Make Sonic's blues off-limits to other characters so Super and Hyper Sonic can be used. Super Shadow should also gain a golden palette.
I think the combined palette looks awful in most spots because of the sacrifices to color variety needed to fit everyone into it. In particular, the yellow skin tones are pretty off-putting, and the lessened/lower-contrast shading on some characters but not others stands out too much.
I definitely would go with B. some sprites may need a bit of editing to for the style, but it would overall make the addition of characters much easier since there would no longer be a need for everyone to be in specific teams. If you had predefined teams in addition they'd have the bonuses already covered, but having any character would be much more fun. (And I might be able to put time aside to contribute someone if that was the case...)
Do you suppose it would be possible for characters to use their "true" palettes if you play with them solo and use the B scenario specifically for teams? Otherwise, I wouldn't have any qualms about the hack switching up the Super graphics for the sake of ensuring good palette selection, be it stars, shield graphic, etc.
That would require duplicated (well, not exactly since one of them will be high quality) art files, making a huge file size increase.
