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Sonic 3 Complete

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by Tiddles, Dec 25, 2009.

  1. Covarr

    Covarr

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    This is the sexiest thing I've seen all day. I am deeply satisfied.
     
  2. muteKi

    muteKi

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    A few thoughts:

    1. Any way to make the FBZ location context-sensitive? So that in S3 and S&K the original order is preserved but S3K has the new order? It messes with the pacing of the two individual games a little to have it the other way. I know there's a manual workaround for it, but it'd be nice to have.

    2. While I'm going on about pacing, one idea I'd had was that unless you hit the first giant rings in MHZ, the whole hidden palace thing doesn't happen at all, and the other rings after it stay gold (50 rings + super chance) -- this way players don't have to risk losing the super powers. I wouldn't even care for the most part but moving FBZ does mess with things, losing 4 of those super emerald opportunities. Well, that and I also like to sometimes play through the game as Super only sometimes, and grabbing 50 rings manually isn't as brokenly fun. :P

    3. Any chance of also putting the Knuckles cutscene at the start of S&K? Not a big deal because it's only an issue since I'm an anal-retentive nutjob, but it'd be nice to have, since it's the one thing that S&K has that this release doesn't maintain.

    4. What's the difference if I have Sonic 2 controls on, aside from no double-jump moves except for Knuckles? (And, I know I've bugged you about this before, but if there is a difference, can you make a way to set that for Tails but still let him have the flight?)




    But, of course, everything is simply delightful and it's pretty much impossible to say no to something like this; why, I'm astounded at the fact that you have the S&K Collection music implemented. Great work as always.
     
  3. Knucklez

    Knucklez

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    Good lord, Tiddles. All of the level transitions you made for the FBZ readjustment are THE SHIT. I love all the work you and the guys put into this release. I've waited over a year for this and boy, was it worth the wait.

    You deserve a Nobel Prize for this, because S3&K means more to me than you can possibly imagine. Please continue doing what you do and I'm gonna continue making suggestions and reporting bugs like I have been for the past 2 years with this.

    I LOVE THIS HACK!!!!!
     
  4. RetroKoH

    RetroKoH

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    I still remember when I first picked up this hack, many moons ago... I didn't think I could love it more...
    I <3 U Tiddles. Ina purely platonic way not unlike how Sonic <3's Tails.

    I seriously want to just skip work just to play this for a coma-inducing number of hours...
     
  5. LordOfSquad

    LordOfSquad

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    Loving the new features, but I'm perplexed. I noticed after changing some music options that the title screen played the classic Sonic theme. I was pretty thrilled, but then disappointed when the results theme wasn't similarly changed. Is it not in this build?
     
  6. Tiddles

    Tiddles

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    I did consider whether to do it that way around, but in the end, my desire to have a version of S3A with FBZ won over - "what might have been". That does totally screw the balance between the two halves, but if you use my favoured options, S&K is already the poor relation, having to take on Sonic 3's music and lose its cutscene as you mentioned. It's sort of partly revenge for what S3&K did to my beloved first half! But you can always flip it about in the menu.

    I don't really plan to change that at the moment, but I take your point and I will consider what the general feedback is on this. It was always something I thought about in the early days of S3C when I was having my first thoughts about how this should work. Hayate came up with a pretty neat scheme for getting Super Emeralds sooner, but it involved layout changes beyond what I'd want to do with S3C, and I don't want to spoil it in case he ends up doing something like it in Cz.

    Since then, though, I noticed the obscene numbers of giant rings in Mushroom Valley, and SOZ and LRZ have their fair share too. So I kinda like it the way it is, in a way... if you come from the perspective of a new player, you have ages to learn your art with the Chaos Emeralds, and then with the SEs it's like OK, bam, you know what to do now, sort this out. If you don't 100% your first ever run due to a bit of scarcity and having to review, that's probably a good thing IMO! And if you're a pro, it's time to learn an 8-ring route through MHZ. :)

    Would be nice, actually. I kinda tore it apart moving it to the S3 half, rather than using the dainty, twinkletoes approach I would use if I did it now on the current disassembly, so it'd be quite a bit of work making it work for both, but I may get to it at some point.

    Even more annoying to lose Tails flying you about now, eh. You've nailed the main difference, of course; consequentially, it also affects the method of Super transformation, such that the normal "multi-button" option actually just means double-jump, and the "original" mode works like Sonic 2 where you transform at the apex of a jump. Two more changes (unless I've forgotten any others) are introduced with this update: you can no longer duck and spindash at low speed or from balancing pose, and more obviously, if you set "speed caps" to "match control option", you get an air speed cap. In the default build, the optional speed cap is the only difference compared to Sonic 1 mode (which also gets a ground speed cap), unless you use the hardcode no-spindash patch.

    The main thing to learn from the speed caps option is that speed caps suck and Sonic 3 would be a hateful experience if they hadn't been removed. But you still have to run the experiment to be sure. :)

    Sonic CD mode is more fun though. If you ever wanted a hard mode, well, HCZ2 wall chase with SCD93 controls. That camera mode was a nightmare, too, so check that out sometime.

    If you mean level results, it's a separate option - top of the bottom group in here:
    [​IMG]
    That should be working, and it also changes the music timing a little to be more like the older games. If you mean Competition Results, no, I didn't include the Sonic 2 version, because that feels to me more like an S2-specific theme than an extension of the classic set, same way I wouldn't replace the ending tune with Sweet Dreams.

    And now, a much delayed response because I am a bad person and apparently missed these edited-in questions in March:

    Mmm, I remember this one from the ORKAL videos. Will try to sort it some day, thanks for the reminder.

    Relayout is out of scope I'm afraid - dunno why they blocked them, but they did! (Yes, I appreciate that is a funny thing to say given all the things we do change.) I'm more intrigued by the DEZ1 room that has item boxes in it but no usable entrance.

    Certainly considered it, but... much as we know it to be true now, until/unless Sega themselves officially retcon their own credits, it'll probably stay as is.

    Thanks for the feedback so far, folks. :)
     
  7. DustArma

    DustArma

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    The new super sprites for Super/Hyper Sonic were a nice touch, though I noticed that for all of the original super animations his spines would move back and forth slightly, while they are static on the new anims, for consistency's sake it would be better for the spines to move on all of the new animations.
     
  8. That One Jig

    That One Jig

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    Most of the new animations added for Super/Hyper Sonic involve things such as sluggish rotation, swinging/hanging from stuff, or scripted running styles. There are reasons why the few animations that do have spine movement have it. For walking/running, it is because fast animation speeds allow the movement of spines to feel real. Standing/balancing is because it's easy enough to overwrite other existing sprites to create the extra ones needed to create a fast movement of spines. Other animations, particularly those exclusive to S3K, are too slow or limited for fast spine movement. To do that, we'd have to add a lot of extra sprites to each animation and recode how they're handled, which would not only be awful to work out, but it would also inflate the sizes of the Super/Hyper art files.

    It's not like the vanilla S3 had it consistent, either. If you notice, Super/Hyper Sonic's spines don't move while crouching. Also, while pushing objects they move awfully slowly. Think of it this way: Super/Hyper Sonic's static spines in those animations are akin to Tails's static tails in many sprites.
     
  9. Lapper

    Lapper

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    If I had to really nitpick this, the frames in Sonic 1's walk animation are noticeably not in the correct places.
    But that's stupid to complain about, this is fantastic.
     
  10. Josh

    Josh

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    [​IMG]

    I don't know if I've ever been so flattered. :P Thanks a ton, to Tiddles and to everyone else who've made this game even more wonderful than it already was.

    I think I've found a bug, having played for a bit now. I got killed as Hyper Sonic in Flying Battery act 2, by getting squashed by one of the magnetic levers. I have my options set to continually play music. When I respawned, the fast Super/Hyper music continued playing.
     
  11. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    Just a bug in the original game that I've never seen fixed, but if you beat the mushroom hill act 1 boss in the middle of a chase sequence and don't run all the way to the right before the result screen loads, you get loaded into the middle of a hill when act 2 loads. If you're in the right spot you don't die, but Knuckles doesn't show up at the switch to lift you up to the top layer and you're kinda stuck there.

    I love this hack though, so much fun. Nice touch with the PC music, it was a fun bit of nostalgia for me. I love the new options for the Sonic 1 and 2 themes and Sonic 2 sprites ftw.
     
  12. Tiddles

    Tiddles

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    Couldn't reproduce this readily on my vanilla build - if you see it again, could you get me a ROM and SRAM, and ideally a savestate where it's about to happen? It shouldn't be able to do that, since we log every music request and only skip playout if the last logged track matches the one we intend to play, but there could be subtle issues in there somewhere. Hopefully nothing too complex, and hopefully nothing too frequent...
     
  13. RetroKoH

    RetroKoH

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    I have found me a couple of bugs.

    1. As regular Sonic, I managed to spin dash out of the barrier in the FBZ 2 boss. I just fully charged and spindashed to the left, next thing I knew I was out. I will try to replicate it again and give an SRAM & ROM for this...
    2. In CNZ act 2, the part where you are on those triangle bumpers and the water is lowering (shortly after Knuckles cuts the electricity to the zone)... It is easy for the character to get stuck at the water level's position while spinning, or rotating. The splash sound will play constantly, sounding like a buzzing sound, AND the splash sprite will flicker. This is in vanilla s3k/s3 and should be resolved.
    3. The aforementioned LBZ bug with the cylinders still needs a fixin... Yes I'll pester you about this. :)
     
  14. redhotsonic

    redhotsonic

    Also known as RHS Tech Member
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    Haven't tried it in Tiddles hack, but in S3K, this bug exists and Knuckles won't show, BUT, if you run all the way back to the left then go back to Knuckles should be, he should be there and the game carries on from normal. This bug shouldn't be too hard to fix.

    EDIT: Just tried it in Tiddles hack; just go all the way to the left and back to Knuckles and he'll be there to resume gameplay.
     
  15. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    I imagine a fix like with the Marble Garden Act 1 miniboss could be used, where the screen forces you to go all the way to the right once the boss is destroyed to prevent loading issues.
     
  16. Tiddles

    Tiddles

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    This is an original game bug too, like the others; don't worry too much about getting any files as I pretty much understand what the deal is with spindash/flame dash/hyper dash collision issues. I have some ideas to mitigate these issues that I'll try out in the future. On the plus side, you can't run ahead of that boss any more if you escape to the right; you just have to wait and then enjoy some glitchy legs (meant to change that fix a bit! Oh well.)

    This is probably more or less the way to go, yeah. RHS's workaround should usually work for the time being.
     
  17. Knucklez

    Knucklez

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    Might I suggest one annoying thing:

    When Hyper Sonic travels through the LBZ2 water pipes, he's obviously not visible, but his hyper stars still are; flashing about through and out of the pipes.

    It's understandable why this is happening, but could the stars be triggered off while going through pipes, then back on right as you come out? It would only make more sense.
     
  18. Josh

    Josh

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    This is something that's always bugged me about Ice Cap:

    [​IMG]

    I always seem to come to a dead stop when I roll at full-speed into this ramp. This is in the vanilla game, I'm sure of it. I'd be happy to make a video if you need the exact location/events that lead to it. Any idea what causes this, and what could be done about it?
     
  19. Tiddles

    Tiddles

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    I've just released a minor update 130601 to resolve the issue Josh pointed out - thanks for that. Did all that clever stuff checking against the last played music track, and forgot to cater for speed! That is the only real change in this update, so if you don't use the continue music option, you don't need it, it's no different. If you use continue music with one of the alternate super music options, you probably should still get this: it won't affect you for super, but it will mess the tempo up if you die with sneakers on.

    It looks worse on the bubble shield than on those stars, IMO, but that's the same issue. I'll try to have a look sometime at how practical it would be to do that.

    Grr, yeah, it's the age old issue where you're going fast enough that it misses the slope check, I believe; one frame you're in front of flat-ish ground, the next it's a solid wall, so you get stopped. It can happen in many places in the classic games, but Sonic 3, and Icecap in particular, seems to be the worst offender by far. I have no idea how one would totally resolve that, but I did have the idea of having a plane switcher like object before those sorts of ramps to limit your speed just enough to get through unmolested, although I'm not sure if even that would solve it (since I expect it's really a factor of position and speed, rather than just speed).
     
  20. Josh

    Josh

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    Yeah, I figured it was something tough like that. I'll just try to remember to jump in the loop and uncurl; that seems to keep it from happening.

    Alas, I think I broke something else, haha:

    [​IMG]

    This now results if you climb up the tube and fight the CNZ2 boss as Knuckles with Flying Battery in its Sonic 3 position. I had debug mode on (though I checked to make sure I could still climb the tube without it), so that may be affecting the new transition scene.