I'm playing with the SAGE 2019 build, so if these have already been fixed, then sorry. 1: I'm playing with the setting where Sonic uses his Peel-Out graphics when running at top speed. I also have "Original" sprite rotation. With the game set up like this, when hitting certain ramps, the Peel-Out graphics are tilted the wrong way. It doesn't affect gameplay, but it is odd to see Sonic speeding up a ramp by spinning his feet in the air and smashing his face into the dirt. 2: Not quite a bug exactly, but a bit of an inconsistency I noticed. I have the background blur set to 100 percent, I really like the sort of Depth of View look that it gives the game. However, I noticed that every time that the Death Egg appears in the background in Sky Sanctuary, it's not blurred even though it's supposed to be a background event. I get that it's most likely because the Death Egg graphics are not technically part of the background layer, but because it's a background object, it ought to be blurred just the same as the actual background layer. Finally, a bit of a suggestion/request. When the player is playing in "Single Act" mode, the Giant Rings should be set to give 50 Rings instead of going to the Special Stage. Chances are, if the player is playing "Single Act" mode, they probably aren't interested in collecting all of the Chaos Emeralds to get Super Sonic. I don't think there's a single act in the game that lets you get them all in that one act anyways. This occurred to me when trying to get the 300 Ring achievement. It changes up the plan when you've got the 50 Rings as a possibility in an act compared to them being Special Stage portals. This would also make the achievement for getting all the Giant Rings in Marble Garden Zone 1 less annoying to get. You're not giving the player much of an advantage in doing this, since the level select for beating the game with all the Emeralds would end up working the same way. It just lets players who haven't beaten the game with all the Emeralds yet not be at a disadvantage when working on achievements. I mean, I wanted to take a break from the normal game and do the achievements for a change of pace (killing time between college classes), and realized that since I didn't full-clear the story mode yet, I was going to have a harder time. I'd rather play the story mode at my own pace, not be rushed through it in order to get to try the other things. Besides, I'm going to need to do it anyways for the Longplay achievement.
Kept playing today and finished the game. Went to spam AIZ1's first Giant Ring to fill out my Emerald collection, and realized that I can't. I finished the game with only five of the normal Chaos Emeralds, and the game started sending me to Hidden Palace once I got to Mushroom Hill Zone. Turned all five of my Emeralds into Super Emeralds, and the game won't let me continue. I just end up getting sent to Hidden Palace with two empty shrines, and can't do anything other than take the portal to leave. As a Quality-of-Life suggestion, make it so that if you have empty shrines at Hidden Palace and all of the filled ones have already been powered up to Super Emeralds, jumping on an empty shrine takes you to a Chaos Emerald stage. I mean, you can easily spam the same Giant Ring once you clear the game, when you specifically can't prior to clearing it, so farming Emeralds was intentional. So, it should be possible to farm the remaining Chaos Emeralds if needed, but the game won't let you do that regardless of using a clear save file or not. The way it is now, I'm going to have to do another full playthrough from the beginning just to be able to start working on Achievements. Like I said before, I originally wanted to step back from playing the game normally and do some of the Achievements as a change of pace, since some of them leave you playing parts of the game completely differently than you would normally.
Why not do it like in the original, where you weren't allowed into Hidden Palace until you beat the first 7 special stages?
If this is added in, I think it'd be better if it was among the game's many options and tweaks rather than an overall change for everyone. I think the same of the Doomsday boss suggestion from earlier - the shortening of the first destruction phase could be a good option next to the AIZ bombing run tweak. That sounds like a pretty bad bug, or a nasty side effect of a design change. Angel Island Zone should not send you to Hidden Palace; in the original game, only rings in Mushroom Hill and beyond could do that (and the very first big ring was the only one to send you to Hidden Palace if you didn't have all the emeralds beforehand). Maybe they should retain the original behavior only until you have all the Chaos Emeralds, and then afterwards start putting you in Hidden Palace if you beat the game without all of the Super Emeralds. (Someone may need to further fact-check me about the way the big rings worked in the original. I think I got it, though.)
I apologize in advance for the nitpick. It's not a huge deal, so I can live with it, but what was the logic behind replacing the background on the Extras screen with the S2 options/level select BG in the latest version? I think it looks awfully out of place in Sonic 3. Yeah, the original S3K MD used it for the level select, but I always saw it as a leftover from Sonic 2 (just like the S2 level icons in the S3 alone level select), rather than a conscious choice to put it in the game on the devs' part. I thought it looked out of place there as well.
DJ Spindash uploaded this preview a few days back for their remastered soundtrack. Figured I'd post it here for those not subscribed.
Suggestion: Have the Time Attack menu, and maybe the Extras menu with achievements and such, use the music and background from the Competition menu. Due to the exclusion of Competition mode, those aren't used anywhere in S3AIR AFAIK, so I think this would be a good place to put them in. Edit: If you feel like further varying it up, you could also add the beta Competition theme (which is basically a whole different theme) from the Nov 3 1993 proto. I would advice assigning them like this: Time attack menu = beta theme, as it sounds especially geared toward something like a race or a time attack Extras/achievements menu = final theme, as it sounds like it could apply to any kind of challenge
So long as they are optional. Personally, I prefer the console versions myself (though they're still cool nonetheless). While we're at it, how about the 'ring attack' as a fun unlockable? :specialed:
Hey guys, I just wanted to stop by and say hello and leave a proof of life after a longer period of absence. I hid some time away recently and concentrated on the project - but of course also took notes on your suggestions and bug report meanwhile. Thank you all! So first of all, let's talk about the recent Sonic 3 Nov 1993 prototype. What a surprise that was! New old music tracks, some sort of early drop dash, and unseen (and imho kind of weird) level layouts in some places. But does it mean all that much for S3AIR at all? I'm not sure actually. The music tracks are something to possibly include into the game. But there is already an S3AIR mod on Gamebanana that adds them in, so this does not seem "urgent" in any way to me. Other things in the prototype may or may not be interesting, though I wouldn't want to decide yet what to do with them regarding an inclusion or reference in S3AIR. Time will tell. Speaking of time, the next update is still going to take a while. That's mainly because I'm right in the middle of implementing a bunch of new features. Oh, and a larger overhaul of the core game engine driving S3AIR. At the moment, all that is in a half-finished state, and there's not going to be an update in the next weeks. Also, that means that S3AIR is not taking part in SHC, if anyone was speculating.
Well, I would certainly like to see the prototype/pc music included. Totally just because prototype/pc Carnival Night is a bop
Damn right. I hated the shitty MIDI version, but this authentic Genesis version is right up there with the final Genesis track for me. And take your time, Eukaryot. Whatever you need to make it work.
Hi, I just wanted to say that A.I.R. is really freaking cool. I just have one really tiny suggestion: if you do decide to add the proto content in, I think you should also add ValleyBell's S3C ports of the PC version music, at least if that's okay with everyone involved.
Well, since Sonic 3 A.I.R. is modable, I belive everyone eventually is going to do it anyway (both beta and ValleyBell's version. Also, I'm expecting too see Sonic 2 sprites mods as well (I still prefer Sonic 3 ones tho').
I'd personally love to see the proto tracks included as an option, because then they'd likely also be included in the remastered soundtrack that's being worked on - would be great to hear them with proper levelling and cleaner percussion samples. Plus, as mentioned above, including the proto tracks adds another potential menu track for use on the Time Attack or Achievements menus, and a rather jammin' one at that.
One hope I have for the larger overhaul is getting Tails on a unique palette line so Super/Hyper Tails won't impact the item and robotnik colors.
So @ICEknight made some interesting observations in the Sonic 3 prototype thread regarding art for the slot machine bonus stage: It seems the prototype version of the stage had better-looking art for the slot graphics - however, in the proto version they forgot to account for the fact that the colours for rings would still be needed in this stage, so the art was later modified to use only 11 colours from the appropriate palette line in order to make room for these. It seems, though, that the dev team did a bit of a botched job at redrawing the art - as shown in the post below, with careful colour replacement choices it's possible to get results much closer to the original art while still only using the 11 colours used by the final game: It's not just these three faces that could benefit, either - though the final Ring, Bar and Jackpot icons are probably as good as they can be, the Robotnik and unused Super Sonic icon both also have details that are obscured in the final due to poor colour reassignment. For example, in the original art Robotnik actually has two defined eyes, rather than a strange mono-eye as in the final version! My question is - would replacing the slots with 'fixed' versions with better colour choices, per the example above, be something you'd be interested in doing in Sonic 3 A.I.R.? In my opinion, this small tweak would greatly improve the look of this stage.
Even after the (excelent, btw) remastering I prefer the proto versions now. It's funny because I didn't like the SK Collection MIDI renditions before.