Sonic 3C Delta

I'm getting serious graphical corruptions trying to play this on real hardware, particularly once Knuckles appears at the start of a new game:



And it only gets worse from there once I start doing things like the Spin Dash and Insta-shield:



The hardware I tested this hack on is a Model 1 US Genesis running at 60Hz, with the game running off a Mega Everdrive Pro. I checked the hack again in BlastEm and the issues don't happen in there.

 

It's happened every time I try to play it on the particular flashcart, and I've made sure things like cheats and the in-game menu were disabled.

 

I’ve played all the way up to Carnival Night Act 2 and I’ve reached the part of the level after Knuckles hits his button.. while proceeding I just go through the Metropolis springs/bumpers to reach the 2 barrels that are blocking me from going down but I just die after passing them (the camera doesn’t continue going down)

Is this supposed to happen? Or am I missing a hidden path or something?

EDIT: Just watched someone else’s playthrough and yeah it’s not supposed to happen.. looks like a camera lock or something

 

I really enjoyed this and all the little references here. One of my favorites is the Hydrocity Zone - Act 1 theme. I was not expecting that!

I'm looking forward to future builds!

 

Gotta say, I absolutely love this hack! Really neat to have a fully playable version of the older concepts. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but I’m sure that can all be ironed out over time, and what’s accomplished already is incredible.

Some feedback:
1. Dunno if the title screen should really take place at night. I know this is probably a reference to the proto title having a black background, but it doesn’t seem appropriate to keep it that way. The Sonic art could use a little cleanup, too. I could tweak it if you’re interested.

2. I feel like the direction signs should be removed from MGZ, seems like one of those things added last minute to make it easier, but they’re not actually necessary (or in any other zones for that matter) and are absent in the proto.

3. I encountered a strange bug in AIZ 2 just before the boss. After leaving the tube leading to the air raid, I was permanently stuck in rolling mode (IIRC I was holding down as I exited and when hitting the ground). I was unable to jump, and Tails was stuck like this as well. I was only able to defeat the boss after Tails fell and died, came back normal, and was able to hit the boss and pop open the capsule using Tails. Once the victory pose and following cutscene triggered, Sonic acted normal.

4. The water level in HCZ 2 didn’t match the 3D water background in the boss arena until the water lowered to its height. I’m wondering if there’s some way the 3D water background could actually change its height, though it would require shifting the vertical position of the chunks themselves (probably need some kind of dynamic layout stuff like S1 uses for LZ3’s passage, but on the background instead of the foreground).

5. I’m wondering if it might not be a bad idea to use 3D water in the other zones/areas that lack it, such as CNZ 2 and Knuckles’ beginning in LBZ 2.

6. Perhaps the water level should already start lower in the start of CNZ 2? It lowers partway through that section anyhow, and it’s odd that they have the electric enemies and an electric shield. I suspect it wasn’t originally designed for the final’s water height.

 

What? I can assure you that the direction signs are indeed in the prototype, and you can encounter one just a few seconds into Act 1 (coordinates 0668 x, 0720y for debug mode).

 

I’ve been blasting through this hack via Everdrive X5 on my PAL model 1 MegaDrive the last two days and I have to say that it’s pretty great.

I did stumble upon a few glitches, like getting stuck in the floor in CNZ, the aforementioned screen lock and, at the same section, both getting stuck in the bouncy triangle bit and then restarting the level via start + A to find that it stopped the water ever descending this dooming me to a guaranteed drowning until I died and it reset the level parameters. Other than that it’s a solid hack and I love the attention to detail. If one wants to play through the 3C proto then I can’t recommend this enough.

Another thing I found was that if you turn super, start drowning and then exit the water the music turns to the alternative unused Super music, which is probably not intentional but pretty awesome.

If you were looking for feedback:

1) The first encounter with Knuckles needs his music adding as that’s clearly what they were going to do but hadn’t implemented it in the prototype.

2) The Super Sonic theme could maybe just use the prototype theme, unless that’s what you intended anyway.

3) CNZ is a bit of a pain in the ass generally. It was always the level where glitches were more easily encountered in the final, and where objects could easily kill Sonic unfairly (bloody barrels), so I feel this could do with some extra attention.

4) the spinning Sonic sprite’s front facing animation just seems a bit out of place. I’m not sure if it’s the symmetry of it, or if he just looks too wide, but something’s a bit off.

Other than those points however I love this thing and will be replaying my it with all characters. I’m really looking forward to updates on this.

 

Well... if you do activate debug mode (you'll most likely need a PAR code), there's actually something waiting for you in Hydrocity's Debug list that I think you could find interesting regarding this.

 

I’ve been playing through this again with all characters and all emerald states, which reminded me to look into this. Debug mode (01, 03, 05, 07) has an S monitor that transforms into Hyper Sonic, which is really cool. Is there a reason why this is in Hydrocity only?

Your mention of PAR codes is interesting, where can I find these? I’d like a code to change the super music permanently as it’s far superior!