[Jen]

Oooh, good stuff!

It's interesting that the light speed attack is so different in the AutoDemo; I, too, would like to see what else (if anything) changed with the other characters' attacks between the AutoDemo and the final.

Lost World and Egg Carrier were absolutely fascinating to watch! They seem to be quite incomplete in parts, which I wasn't expecting to be the case.

[MainJp]

evilhamwizard, on 22 November 2014 - 11:18 AM, said:

A few things that I haven't seen posted anywhere in the topic.

First, the light speed dash (attack?) works differently in the AutoDemo. Instead of having the shoes automatically target enemies and rings when fully charged up, you were meant to confirm every target in your radius with the action button. A blue sphere (which I think was shown before?) circles around the next target that you can attack. It even uses a different animation for Sonic too:



The voice data is all here in this build, so I'm curious if Tikal's instructions for the light speed shoes are completely different too. I would love to see the other character's attacks to see what might've changed...

JmTsHaW ported some of the AutoDemo set files over to SADX to see what changed. Some significant changes here and there for Lost World and Egg Carrier:

https://www.youtube....h?v=Kqxo-ZS2tNs

https://www.youtube....h?v=y-vLlCRtLa4

Haha, you actually linked to my video, I was going to post it here as soon as my laptop got fixed! I guess now is as good a time as any to post this video.



Sorry for the crap quality, I had to shoot it on my iPad since I can't use my laptop to do it. *Edit* Actually Morph, the object layout ports aren't mine, just the Light speed dash video, but I do know that there isn't a way to get them to load in the Autodemo simply because they're for an earlier version of the 1st_Read.bin.

This post has been edited by MainJp: 30 November 2014 - 04:26 AM

[Morph]

Very interesting stuff. MainJp, have you tried loading those levels in the actual autodemo? Particularly in the Egg Carrier, I'm curious to know if that room is on the other side with that door. And on the note of that last section of Lost World (with the (lack of) mirrors), in SADX PC at least, Knuckles' item layout for this area has similar ring placement and has those same enemies as well. It uses the standard doors though.

Also, I recall Arymond in #x-hax found those animations as well a while back. It's awesome seeing them ingame.

[Elston87]

Interesting changes here; thanks for sharing those videos. Always interesting to see all the changes this game in particular went through.

...and on another note, the PC version of SADX had a demo/trial version? This I did not know.

[JaxTH]

Elston87, on 22 November 2014 - 07:28 PM, said:

...and on another note, the PC version of SADX had a demo/trial version? This I did not know.

Guess I'll actually get to reply to something you've posted now. =P

Back in 2004 with the first PC release there were two Japanese demos that could be downloaded off the Sonic Team website (either that or just the SEGA JP website). I remember playing them all those years ago.

Not actually sure if this answers your question though.

[Elston87]

JaxTH, on 22 November 2014 - 07:53 PM, said:

Elston87, on 22 November 2014 - 07:28 PM, said:

...and on another note, the PC version of SADX had a demo/trial version? This I did not know.

Guess I'll actually get to reply to something you've posted now. =P

Back in 2004 with the first PC release there were two Japanese demos that could be downloaded off the Sonic Team website (either that or just the SEGA JP website). I remember playing them all those years ago.

Not actually sure if this answers your question though.

I didn't know you were here at Sonic Retro, and for a long time at that; hi there! =D

Yeah, it does answer my question. I did a quick Google search and found a demo off of FilePlanet. I'm gonna suppose that nothing different is present in any of the demo versions released for PC? They're just like the demo disc versions for consoles?

I would test myself but I'm on Linux at the moment; that and Wine doesn't like me.

[Morph]

Coincidentally, I just downloaded the demo a few days ago. All of the assets are the same as the retail release, but that doesn't include the executable. Could have some interesting stuff in there =P

[Woofmute]

Just as an update to something I said ages ago, the level select in this build doesn't load textures to ram properly. Don't know why. But loading the downtown section of Speed Highway from the section where you run down the building allows you to explore the downtown section with almost all the correct textures. Except for Sonic and the cars and enemies... It loads Knuckles' textures though.

This post has been edited by Jakeford: 23 November 2014 - 10:25 PM

[Woofmute]

Double posting because I've found the menu ID byte in the Autodemo. It works just like the TGS values in the initial Japanese release. Like in the final versions, I don't know how to get the game out of this demo mode.
Loading levels this way enables controls and the HUD by default. You start with 96 lives and 50 rings
The level select when loaded here seems to load levels with the correct textures.

These are RAM addresses. Replace the 8C with 2C for Demul and Cheat Engine.
If you're loading the character select, I recommend using 03 since this should load the textures.

8C794C90 Menu ID
8C794CAC Title Timeout Timer

00 Dev Level Select
01 Autodemo Title
02 Fades, then Now Loading
03 White Loading to Character Select
04 White Loading to Title
05 White Loading to Tutorial 1
06 White Loading to Tutorial 2
07 Title fades to Tutorial 1
08 Now Loading (Speed Highway)
09 Character Select (Can be textureless if you don't set the byte to 03)
0A TGS Title (Can press Start, loads Speed Highway. Title only has one texture block, level select can be accessed with X and Y)
0B Now Loading (Speed Highway)
0C Now Loading (Chao Garden SS)
0D Goes to 00
0E Now Loading title demos
0F Tutorial 1
10 Tutorial 2
11 Goes to 00
12 Goes to 00
FF Goes to 00

This post has been edited by Jakeford: 26 November 2014 - 08:15 PM

[MainJp]

In light of Jakefords discovery of the menu ID byte in both the Autodemo and initial Japanese release; another discovery was made! Enabling the TGS mode in this version works more like it should, selecting a character takes you to the tutorial screens and drops you in a playable level with everything enabled, everything functions as they should ,however; one character is very interesting.

Much earlier in the thread a friend of user ashthedragon, DaGuAr, made a discovery of playable tutorial textures for Knuckles. As it turns out, selecting Knuckles gives you this:



An in-level tutorial! As the level begins an invisible barrier surrounds the starting area, the objective is to glide against the barrier until it disappears, clearing the tutorial.
Looking through the stg00.bin there's apparently strings for a similar in-game tutorial for Sonic, this suggests that the characters each had an in-game tutorial that triggered in different stages, and considering that only textures for Knuckles's in-game tutorials still exist, there isn't a way to trigger anyone else's at this time.
There's still more interesting things in this build, (as well as the final), that needs to be unearthed so Jakeford and I'll keep an eye on these addresses, we're really getting close to pulling every thing out of this game!

*EDIT* Small thing to note, the pause menu still needs to be activated manually via the LoadThing cheat, but when in TGS mode the continue option actually works and uses the correct sound.

This post has been edited by MainJp: 29 November 2014 - 09:12 PM

[ultima espio]

Interesting, so that must be where the "instruction" images come from. Meaning Sonic should have one in Emerald Coast and Windy Valley/Red Mountain.

[Woofmute]

There was a crash I can't replicate with Sonic in Emerald Coast. Not sure if that was tutorial related or not though.

This post has been edited by Woofmute: 06 January 2015 - 06:35 PM

[Lanzer]

So we were supposed to have in-game tutorials as well? Thats some awesome findings.

[evilhamwizard]

Time to bring this thread back from the dead once again.

I attempted to extract all the sound effects from the AutoDemo. The game keeps it's sound effects in the .MLT files, which you can extract and convert to dsfmini/dsflib files. The MLT files themselves hold multiple banks which seem to correlate to their use, although not every MLT file uses all banks:

Bank 0x0 - General player action sound effects (ring sfx, jump sfx, etc - this is duplicated a lot)
Bank 0x1 - Area specific sound effects (objects mostly)
Bank 0x2 - More general player action sounds (seem to be meant for general objects the player interacts with and other things, like item boxes and brushing up against bushes)
Bank 0x3 - Player action sound effects (the P_* files)
Bank 0x4 - Enemy sfx
Bank 0x5 - Ambient/Environmental sound effects
Bank 0x6 - Cutscene specific sound effects, used by the E_#### files. Also contains player action voices.

I extracted the MLT files using dsfmake (for extracting), dsftime for timing/fade correction, and dsfsndext for figuring out how many banks each MLT had. For some reason, the script doesn't like the AutoDemo's MANATEE.DRV, so I used the final's MANATEE.DRV instead and I was able to get most of the sound effects out. There are still some that can't be played for some reason, but a good chunk of them play at least.

Some interesting things to note:
1.) Even though the AutoDemo uses the ring sound effect when rescuing an animal, the sound effect for collecting one exists but isn't used (it seems different too).
2.) The classic bubble collect sfx is present! But there are no air bubbles at all in SA1...
3.) Likewise, the classic drowning sfx is also present! In the final they just use voice acting. (Does anyone know what happens when a character drowns in the AutoDemo? Can they drown?)
4.) The classic sound effect for losing a shield (the generic hit sound that doesn't involve losing rings) is present but not used.
5.) The Chao voices are all in ALIFE Bank 1. There are some Chao voices for actions the Chao can't seem to do in the AutoDemo. The bank also includes all the animal sound effects plus some other weird mysterious stuff.
6.) Even though most of the level assets aren't present the sound effect files for Sky Deck, and Chaos 0/2/4 still exist. TARGET.MLT is Sky Chase I think?

That's pretty much all I could see from going through everything once. You can download the dsfmini/mp3/mlt files here. Some of the sound effects might not be playing at the right rate, but some of them sound fine. Now we just need to directly compare these with the final version to see how many really are different...

[Clownacy]

evilhamwizard, on 01 March 2015 - 02:01 AM, said:

2.) The classic bubble collect sfx is present! But there are no air bubbles at all in SA1...

What about those in Big's Emerald Coast?