I gave this a go and what a fun time it was. Everything flowed so well. Sure I beat the main game via the egg shuttle in a little over an hour, but it was a pretty enjoyable hour. Turns out I'm a bit more rusty at that game than I thought I died like 5 or 6 times. The game definitely should have been laid out like this with the other 3 acts being bonus acts, it'd of flowed a lot better
Apologies for the topic bump, was wondering if the tool you used to repack Colors that doesn't break Starlight Carnival is available for others to use. Edit: Disregard, it's apparently called "Cri Packed File Maker"
I'm gonna be trying this hack soon! Curious timing for release 2.0. I tried playing Sonic Colors a few months ago and I couldn't bring myself to 100% it like I did the first time. Eventually I figured out one of the problems - some of the acts play out just like the terrible mini-missions from Sonic Generations, featuring previous sections but with worse object placement. From what I've seen in the video, the game is now a lot more streamlined and the good qualities of the original are more pronounced. Despite all the criticism towards the original, some of its design is based on an early (and good) foundation of the sonic series - branching paths. This makes the levels more replayable and allows for multiple S-Rank strategies. Instead of just beating the level as fast as possible, one could obtain more rings/special rings, use terrain techniques like drifting or sidestepping, destroy more objects/robots or wait until later in the game after all the wisps are available (it might be the only 3D Sonic that offers these multiple rank strategies, but correct me if I'm wrong). Your hack improves this aspect, because you only play the "better" versions of the acts with all the wisps unlocked - it allows players to try different strategies on these expanded acts and not burn out on the "bonus" ones. The Egg Shuttle doesn't seem to tell you which rank you would get, but from the video it seems that it's possible to get 3,1 or 0 extra lives at the end, this could signify which rank you would get, or it could be pre-programmed to give you a fixed amount, I have no clue. Super Sonic is also not available through the shuttle, but it's honestly not a big deal because the Simulator levels are very tedious to complete. Unfortunately your hack still contains the worst segment in the entire game. It completely breaks the flow of the level with terrible platforming and it's one of the levels i refused to 100%. The issue is beyond the project's scope so I can't really fault you for it. Omitting the extra levels does make the game even shorter, but honestly who cares? Give me a shorter but well designed game any day over some padded-out nonsense. Regarding the transition between halves of the new Act 1, if you could somehow enable Super Sonic from the shuttle, implement the transition and build a full level, it could address the issue of certain halves not having enough rings for Super Sonic, like Blue Spikeball mentioned. This last bit is really stretching it though; what you did here is an amazing job already. Congrats.
