Sonic 3 & Knuckles hidden graphics

While playing with the save file for Sonic & Knuckles Collection, I came across some graphics that we all know weren't used. But I found out how to get them by editing a save file. It appears that Tails and even Knuckles were designed to have their own "CLEAR" pic on the file screen. There's a value in the save file that changes when you clear a file in Sonic 3 & Knucles. There's only 1 pic that is shown when you beat the game (the one that has all 3 charaters. But it's possible by changing the variable to get more pics such as:

(Sonic)
Sonic 3 (without all emeralds)
Sonic 3 (Super Sonic pic)

(Tails)
unused (Tails pic)
unused (same as above but with thumbs up. Most likely the all emeralds ending pic)

2 for knuckles as well.

Here's a screenshot of one of them being displayed. Although these findings were found on the PC version, It's very likely that the ROM has the same graphics in it and more stuff that they forgot to clean up.

 

Here's pics. They're all as you see them (background colors and all). All of these pics can appear on the save file screen if you modify the save file .

 

Simple hex editor work. I'd make a save file but all I know is c++. I don't think a little stupid console program asking "how many lives do you want?" for each lives, continues, stage, etc option is going to be very bad for user friendliness. Since learning to program is pretty far away, I'm learning a more focused approach like PHP.

 

All of them are possible without cheating except for the 2 Tails (pun intended) and 2 Knuckles pics as far as I know. If you beat Sonic 3 without all the emeralds, you see the normal Sonic pic. If you beat it with all emeralds, you see the Super Sonic pic. That goes regardless of what character you beat it with. For Sonic 3 & Knuckles, you see the team pic regardless of who you beat it as and how many emeralds you have. When my save editor is done you'll be able to choose which ending pic you want for your character. It's still a bit make-believe since my host doesn't support php but I can atleast work with it offline. I'm wel aware that Visual Basics sucks because of all the unincluded runtime files that aren't built in so that's out. C++ doesn't seem to have buttons, scrollbars, title bars, windows close buttons, etc but I guess there's a way to make fake buttons by writing pixels to the screen (which is why Dev C++ looks like a Win9x program even in XP). There has to be a solution but it's not common knowledge. It's rumored that Delphi can make Windows programs but of course all those who work with it are naturally born snobs who are afraid of competition. Maybe I'll have better luck typing random stuff into my hex editor.

 

If what you say is true, then the pc version doesn't implement it. I'll try it on Gens. A tip for those using the sram modified S3k rom: I name my Sonic 3 rom Sonic3k.smd and my S3k rom Sonic3k.bin. Since their name is the same minus the extension, they share the same sram file. Just beware of save states going between games.