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Sonic 2 CD Remix

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by Pacca, Oct 8, 2018.

  1. Sally Rose

    Sally Rose

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    No one has asked the biggest and single most important question ever. So please allow me.

    Will you be useing the same old sonic 2 bosses we have all faced time and time again?
    Or shall all the bosses be new exciting and challenging something fresh and new , to help long time sonic 2 player yave even more fun esp for the new playable pcs. You said they will play in the vein of knuckles in sonic 3 and knuckles. As such id expect there own unique routes and bosses. Sorry I am a huge fan of new bosses, to me bosses are the best part of any game. Nothing beats a good fight.

    I deeply hope it is the latter of the two paths here as I deeply love the boss battles in sonic games. A die hard sonic game player and fan gamer.

    Sally Rose.
     
  2. Pacca

    Pacca

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    I don't have any major plans to change them atm. I'm mostly trying to preserve the original experience; the primary goal is to add Sonic CD elements on top of the main game, rather then modifying the base game itself.

    That said, it's entirely possible for the bosses in the past and future to be changed. Some of them are already badly in need of a change (Oil Oceans' boss makes no sense without oil). I'll definitely look into modifying or replacing those when the time comes. Bosses in the present will always be the same as the vanilla ones, outside of minor bugfixes.
     
  3. Sally Rose

    Sally Rose

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    That sound great. Present bosses can be the same but deffenatly look into changeing the past and future bosses. That will add some great repeatability and incentive to go to both the past and the future in order to fight the new bosses. So if thats what you mean I am all for it, that sounds super cool.
     
  4. Pacca

    Pacca

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  5. Rudie Radio Waves

    Rudie Radio Waves

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    Many a game.
    Super cool update! I especially love the "store the time travel" idea! Great job!
     
  6. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    Supoib~ I love it!

    Would love to see some unique layouts though (I mean as in, on a whole, not just different timezones, it's still reminiscent to the original), it'd make it worth playing more upon release =o
     
  7. Pacca

    Pacca

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    Hm... I'm kind of conflicted on that honestly. It help fix some common community issues, but I personally tended to get annoyed when something claims to add something to a base game (Character in Sonic 1 hacks, for instance), only to also change the base game itself. Maybe I should add swappable level layouts to the options menu :3
     
  8. Pacca

    Pacca

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  9. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    Okay so, first of all, I highly encourage programming the shields from scratch, not because they are shields, but because the act of programming or reprogramming is extremely beneficial to you, you learn problems and how to solve them, then you go back later and learn newer methods, then you find the same solutions work for other problems in a modified way. Not to discredit porting, I am certainly not saying it's easy, and porting is an effort of its own. But generally the benefits of programming it yourself outweigh the efforts in the longest run possible, so do keep doing that! =)

    I love the little Sonic icon thought bubble that pops from Amy's head when you're playing as Tails, that's a cool touch!

    For the options screen and regarding the flicker, it's great that you have abolished the flicker, however, as you mentioned in the title screen you have been learning about plane graphics and manipulation, I highly recommend giving plane rendering and manipulation a good go for things like the options screen. Not asking you to undo all your efforts, you've already made the options screen and it looks lovely~ I mean if you should make another screen of sorts, give planes more trial and error (the save data transfer screen looks promising), the returns will be awesome for you!

    For chaotix music mode, I would encourage the use of Dual PCM, maybe in conjunction with AMPS, if you're willing to swap the sound drivers out, but I get the feeling the problem isn't an engine and is just the general lack of know-how in putting drum notes in correct? Not sure, but the suggestion is there. Having said that, the music in the hack in general sounds nice, the rendition of SSZ Bad Future is pretty good, nice use of an FM instrument to replicate the singing.

    Finally, with regards to your personal message; the past two years have been difficult for a lot of people, but don't let it be in vain, of course, don't push yourself too hard, but at the same time, make it worth the battle. I also encourage sharing Minecraft and tf2 stuff, it's important to step back sometimes and leave a project for a short while and come back with a clear mind and fresh eyes. Furthermore, no, don't rush it, polish is good, too many projects don't have polish and they get shoved to aside. There are many hacks which have loads of neat features, but it's always ruined because of poor polish.

    You are one of the more promising programmers that I look forward to seeing skills unfold with, you remind me of myself from the beginning (this isn't an egocentric thing by the way, just a mild observation), just a few things need to happen over the next few years and think we can expect some awesome and outstanding things from you, things that might even surprise your younger self ;)
     
  10. Pacca

    Pacca

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  11. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    Working on my art!
    Love the new features and all, but I'm sorry that ice shield hurts to look at...
     
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  12. ArmonteSalvato

    ArmonteSalvato

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    I'm absolutely loving the new shield features. Out of curiosity, does the spike shield protect players from blade-based hazards? I was thinking the blades in WFZ or the Slicer in Metropolis, maybe more but I don't remember. How would the chemical and ice shields play out in OOZ - maybe walk on oil without sinking, or via holding B or C?

    The animations for these shields have a common problem though - they flicker too much! In the chemical shield, can you make it so the orbs don't flicker but keep the circular animation, similar to Elizabeth's flame orbs in Castlevania? Even main circle's flicker is kind of annoying to look at, but if you could fix the orbs it would be a significant improvement I believe. For the ice shield, it seems like you're using very different sprites in quick succession. Could you perhaps look at the Sonic 3D Blast (Genesis/MegaDrive) emerald animation? It doesn't look like an ice cube at all, but you could take inspiration from their "rotation" animation frames and recreate some sort of rotating ice cube. The spike shield is the best looking one - it could probably be improved in some way, but I don't know how at the moment.

    Very nice work on the contextual sidegrading of shields. These small quality of life improvements when compounded make for a much better experience and I wish more hackers had this kind of attention to detail. Like Markey said, many hacks lack polish because they add a bunch of features that look cool on the surface but ultimately lack implementation details or don't blend well with the game design or level design of the hack.

    Keep up the good work but don't push yourself too hard because there is the risk of burnout. Take frequent breaks but don't doubt yourself, because what you've shown here and in the last video is quite promising.
     
  13. Pacca

    Pacca

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    The spike shield will work with those! It already has support for the MTZ Slicers even. I was considering giving the Ice and Chemical shields special functionality in OOZ; perhaps the chemical shield should prevent you from dieing in oil? I haven't tested any of that yet; I'm worried that would make the cheesy "run underneath the level" strategy for getting through OOZ too easy and risk free. I guess I'll get to it when I get there.

    I see where your coming from with the shield animations. I've already changed the ice shield, since multiple people found it difficult to look at. You can see what it's like now here; it's a lot simpler, and a lot easier on the eyes, and while I still think it looks really ugly, I think it's an improvement at least. Was kind of stuck on how to improve it; there isn't a lot of Ice artwork to reuse in the classic genesis games. I'll keep your idea for it in mind; I'm not the best at making art, but I might be able to assemble something kinda geometric like the 3D Blast chaos emeralds. I really like your idea for the chemical shield being less flickery too, I'll get right on that!

    Sorry for taking so long to reply; I don't check Sonic Retro very often. Really appreciate the feedback and the kind words <3
     
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2021
  14. ArmonteSalvato

    ArmonteSalvato

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    Perhaps you could implement hidden rooms or branching paths only accessible via the chemical shield? I'm not sure if it makes sense but something like this:
    [​IMG]
    EDIT: this is obviously a rough mockup, but I think it shows how the general idea could work
    The ice shield is better now.
     
  15. Pacca

    Pacca

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    Now that is an interesting idea! That'd certainly be cool. I'm not sure how to convey the under-oil layout to the player though; the perspective in the mockup is kind of confused, and messing with the animated Oil graphics would be tricky business, especially for me. Perhaps some kind of overlay or layout change that pops in when your fully submerged, like the indoor areas in Launch Base Zone? It'll definitely take a lot of work to implement, but that would be a great thing to do. Heck, maybe I could even make the bubble shield prevent drowning in oil and use the same feature, it could certainly use any buff it can get, and it kinda makes sense here.

    Also, I can't thank you enough for convincing me to revisit the Chemical Shields' animation. I was perfectly fine with how it initially looked, but your suggestion encouraged me to completely overhaul how it works. The orbs have 4 extra rotation frames now (so they look much smoother as they animate), and the main shield itself is slightly smaller and broken into two parts, like the original Sonic 2 shield. The result makes the original look like complete garbage! I'm very happy with it ^w^

     
  16. Xiao Hayes

    Xiao Hayes

    Classic Eggman art Member
    I think this kind of shield (poison/toxic/chemical) should protect you from some kind of poison, like the toxic gas from Toxomisters in Lava Reef zone or the environmental effect in Mania OOZ2.

    Alternatively, you could just deal with oil just by cancelling the quicksand effect just like flame shield prevents lava from hurting you but lava itself is still solid to walk on (which doesn't make sense but it's been like that since Marble zone).
     
  17. Pacca

    Pacca

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    Some people wanted Metal Knuckles have more of a unique fight, so I made a small little first phase for him. It's not much (i didn't want it to be too difficult since many people struggle here already), but I think it's pretty neat :3