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[Master System] Marble Zone music found in Sonic 1!

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by Kroc, Nov 23, 2013.

  1. steveswede

    steveswede

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    Has this been ripped from an EU rom at 60hz, it sounds rapid.
     
  2. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    Wow, this is really cool. Does the GG version have a stereo version of it?
     
  3. Mastered Realm

    Mastered Realm

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    I doubt it because the rest of the Soundtrack is mono and Valleybell already said the music data is the same between versions.
     
  4. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    EDIT: Wait a minute, the GG music is mono? News to me. =(
     
  5. Sonic Hachelle-Bee

    Sonic Hachelle-Bee

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    You know, 3 levels out of 6 are: Green Hill zone, Labyrinth zone and Scrap Brain zone. Half the game uses the same zones as the MD counterpart :) The Marble zone music is an awesome find, yet, not so surprising in the end.
     
  6. ArrYaReadyKids

    ArrYaReadyKids

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    Didn't they use some Star Light graphics in Sky Base Act 1? You can see the traffic cone right at the beginning of the level. It sounds like once they cut the game down they took what they had and made some new zones from the leftover graphics.
     
  7. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    I think they might have just given up on recreating the Mega Drive levels after realizing that the Sonic Team would keep changing their appearance whenever they felt like it...

    Also, the Special Stage has some elements that could have originally been made for the Sparkling Zone.
     
  8. Blastfrog

    Blastfrog

    See ya starside. Member
    Oh, of course. But GHZ had the caves, and SBZ was more of a puzzle/maze than the MD's more linear zone. LZ didn't really do anything different, but still. I'm just saying that those 3 new unique zones make it worthwhile even today.

    I wonder why SEGA had Aspect do the rest... S2, while faster, was a serious drop in quality. It didn't feel much like a Sonic game in the art style. Chaos was an immediate improvement, however.
     
  9. Mastered Realm

    Mastered Realm

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    Sorry buth the lack of loops and slow pace of the game puts this game in the same level as Sonic 2.

    Sonic Chaos sprites are disgusting, though.
     
  10. Flygon

    Flygon

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    I used the ROM supplied on a PAL Mega Drive set to 60Hz. For all intents and purposes, it was acting as an American Genesis.

    I was assuming the ROM was an NTSC ROM, due to that being the precedent for games being hacked/disassembled in the past. If Kroc can confirm I've boned up this recording, I'll happily rerip.
     
  11. LockOnRommy11

    LockOnRommy11

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    Sorry, but this game is far better than Sonic 2 SMS.

    I'm fascinated by this game, given that it's basically Sonic in his earliest and most basic form. The fact we're still learning new stuff is amazing, and I always wondered if the game was to originally follow the same level style as the MD version. I found it quite coincidental that Bridge Zone held the Marble Zone spiked enemies and that later levels shared other similarities. The bonus stages may have been the left overs of Spring Yard, if they ever got as far to start creating that.

    All in all though, I'm glad the game is different, for it makes it unique. We also may never have gotten Bridge Zone's fantastic soundtrack otherwise.
     
  12. Jimmy Hedgehog

    Jimmy Hedgehog

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    This is really amazing. An all out 8-bit version of the same levels 16-bit had would've been interesting, but I love what we got. Bridge Zone and Jungle Zone are my favourite tracks in the game. Labyrinth was a great level in this version compared to the 16-bit one, to me anyway, from level to music and the boss too.
     
  13. Blastfrog

    Blastfrog

    See ya starside. Member
    I think we'll have to agree to disagree on all of those points.

    Lack of loops aren't such a big deal. The loops in later games were just shitty animations anyway, and you couldn't go back through the other way.

    As for slow pace, yeah, it's slower, but mostly because of performance issues (that I would hope can be eliminated by overclocking). I'd say that the GG version is exactly at the MD version's pace. He moved at 3 pixels per frame (at 60hz), and the GG screen was 160 pixels wide. Exactly half of MD's 320 width at 6 pixels per frame. His shrunken sprite makes him the same size as he is on the MD version as well on the lower screen size.

    The MS version does have him going far too slow, but the GG version rectified that via screensize and player scale, despite nothing mechanically changing. It's the only 8-bit game I'd say is better on the GG than MS (stereo sound and better colors aside). The GG version also revised the graphics in quite a few places to be much better than its MS counterpart.


    As for the Chaos sprites, I don't entirely like them either, but I think they're closer to the MD versions than 1/2's were. TT's player sprites were kind of ugly to me, though.
     
  14. Mastered Realm

    Mastered Realm

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    You could go back in every game except for Sonic 2 but Green Hills is so BIG. If it were the 1st zone it wouldn't have all those horrible spikes. The level design on S2 SMS isn't the best but the engine is. Sky High Act 2 is impressive even today, that rain is very nice too. The best 8-bit looking sprites were from Pocket Adventure (even though the NeoGeoPocket is a 16bit machine).
     
  15. Blastfrog

    Blastfrog

    See ya starside. Member
    You know how they allegedly slowed Sonic down after one of the builds? I wonder if that was just his acceleration speed. Notice how he takes about half the time to reach top speed in the 8 bit games, a precedent set by 1. Perhaps that was based on the original behavior of the MD game?
     
  16. H Hog

    H Hog

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    On the topic of 8-bit Sonic music...
    Looking over that Sonic 2 list, I also notice that the Speed Shoes music isn't listed (or possibly listed as one of the "unused" themes?).
    I think that tune's been overlooked by most people, since the item can only be found once in the game, and at a fairly hidden location -- not to mention that the Game Gear version omitted the Speed Shoes entirely, replacing it with a 10-Ring box instead.
     
  17. nineko

    nineko

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    You know, on 26th October 2011 I swore I wasn't going to ever come back to Sonic Retro. That was 2 years and 1 month ago.

    Then THIS happened. How can I possibly avoid to come back and say HOLY CRAP THIS IS AWESOME? :O
     
  18. Ravenfreak

    Ravenfreak

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    Oh wow this one topic brought back nineko! o_o So are you sticking around this time? xP Anyway I hope one day someone will make a hack replacing one of the levels in the game with Marble Zone. I'm no artist so there's no way I'd even attempt something like that... :v: I can't wait to see your level editor finished Kroc. :)
     
  19. RetroKoH

    RetroKoH

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  20. Kroc

    Kroc

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    MaSS1VE: The Master System Sonic 1 Visual Editor
    I'm surprised people are so surprised by this find?!

    At the moment my editor is just focusing on changing the floor layout and object layout (essentially modifying levels in-place), but if I can get this disassembly done (working out variable names is the hardest task, ever) then everything becomes open to us -- I'm aiming to allow creating a new game from scratch with any number of levels (well, 256).

    In the least, I will be porting the ROM to 512K to free up tons of space to allow the content to expand as it is currently too tight to edit most things.

    We can also hopefully optimise the speed of the game, and add in spin-dash! :)