Sonic 3 & Knuckles; no-spindash?

Well, the closest I ever got to do this was playing Sonic 2 on Mega Collection for the Gamecube.
I accidently held down on my Wavebird before turning it on, which in turn meant that I couldn't spindash or roll.
It was quite fun and I might consider doing it again.
On the other hand, I haven't tried it with Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but if you say it's impossible due to level design, then that's a shame.
But it is a good idea and certainely gives the game a fresh new lease of life. A brand new challenge if you will.

I also tried to play Sonic 1 with the right direction always being held down (Changing the neutral position again), but that didn't go too well. I got stuck at GHZ2, the slope onto higher ground with the swinging platform overhead. Shame.

 

I always thought the Spin Dash was a bit cheap, because instead of building your momentum, you can just get a quick burst of speed with no challenge.

 

I personally love the Spin Dash and think its one heck of a challenge to play Sonic 2 without it let alone even trying S3&K!!

 

Sonic Rush, Sonic Rush Adventure, Sonic 06 and Sonic Unleashed all say hi.

So you mean playing the game without spindashing or rolling? Sounds like it could be annoying if you end up in one of those U shaped holes. I'm not sure you actually need to count those wheels in Marble Garden as use of the spin dash. They're just switchs, but you power them by spinning next to them instead of pressing them from above. It's not like you move anywhere (unless you stand on top and spin, that is) from doing that anyway.

 

The Spin Dash has spoiled me. I find myself using it whenever possible to build up quick speed to get around loops, to jump higher off sloped ground, to smash through groups of enemies very quickly, and overall to keep up the pace of the game. I know it makes me cheap, because I have this thing where I just have to keep moving as fast as possible, or the game gets boring for me. I have to be active; alive; constantly moving. That sort of thing. The Spin Dash helps me achieve this, especially in the games it allows. The one exception to this is Sonic CD, where using the Spin Dash is more of a chore than not.

I've tried challenges where I didn't use the Spin Dash before, but I found myself way too dependent on it. This kind of sucks, because Yasuhara's original design for Sonic made speed a reward for skilled players—if you knew how to play the game well enough and could get your away around, you'd be able to do it quickly, taking advantage of Sonic's real speed. The thing is, though, the Spin Dash gives you speed on demand, which totally breaks the cause-and-effect system originally in place. In this sense, the Spin Dash has actually broken the original Sonic formula to ridiculous extents. People have been spoiled with the Spin Dash, though, and can't find themselves playing without it. The formula was tarnished forever.

That said, the only way I can find myself playing without using the Spin Dash is if it were to be forcibly removed from the game. Thankfully, I'm able to do with for Sonic 2, and I'm sure it can't be incredibly difficult to do for Sonic 3 & Knuckles, either. It may be game-breaking, but so is the Spin Dash itself. It can't be that impossible.

So... S&K savvy dudes, I'm looking at you—Stealth, shobiz, Alriightyman, whoever—which of you are willing to take up the challenge of removing this game-breaking feature from the game? Who dares to fix the Sonic formula after years and years of corruption? Only you can prevent forest fires!

 

Huh...I never thought about the Spin-Dash as cheap.

But..thinking about it, It just might be possible to beat the game without it.

I might try this myself.

 

010F2C:6002 for Sonic, 014760:6002 for Tails, 0167F4:6002 for Knuckles.

 

I fall under the "spin-dash spoiled" category here as well. I would love to try to play the games without it though. I know that (and I have voiced this before) I have been S3&K the most of all the Genesis era games, second falling to Sonic 1, so I should be able to do this knowing the games like the back of my hand.

I'll give it a shot at some point and let you know how I do.

We're still allowed Super Sonic though, right? :-P I CAN do without it, but it was never mentioned, so I thought I would say something... considering Super Sonic breaks the game more than any spin-dash ever could.

 

I'm less "Spin dash" spoiled and more "Hyper Sonic" spoiled. I only use the spindash when I need to get a quick burst of speed to go off a loop or smash through breakable walls/floors. Otherwise I'm plowing through the stage with Hyper Sonic.

 

I don't think the spindash as cheap. I'm not spoiled on it either. Lot of a Sonic games use it or make it part of the game's level design.

 

I just tried. Same issue as Jayextee.

Sonic & Tails can't proceed past Hydrocity Act 2.

What I found different is how far I got with Knux.

I still got stuck In Marble Garden, but I got farther than you did. At the one part when you go up the 2 hills with the cables, hit the lamp post, then spiral down the 2 poles (you should know where I'm talking about), You need to jump off the 2nd pole to the right. This lets you avoid that wall requiring the wheel to be spun. You will be able this way to get all the way to the point where Knux's path branches off from Sonic & Tails near the end. From there you would go up, hit the robo ship, then thats it.

Why? You can't go any farther without hitting the wheel to raise the platforms to hit the face that shoots arrows. This opens the path above you. I tried many times to simply hit the face via gliding, but everytime the face leaves the screen, due to the knockback from the hit. Then it gets all its hits back, making it impossible to kill without the platform.

Thats as far as I got, so yes I deem it impossible to win S3&K without the Spin Dash.

..Unless someone edited that room to have a bouncer and no roof, AKA Rom Hack.

 

I love the spindash. In a way, the speed boost it gives you isn't that effective, it is, definitely, useful at the top of a hill or to pass a loop, but if you balls it up, you might end up rolling back to where you started or go back even further.

 

It's not the breakable walls that make Hydrocity Act 2 impossible if you're playing with Sonic and Tails together. You can make Tails smash them, not by using the second controller, but by getting him to copy your keypresses while not actually spindashing yourself.

You can then make your way up the next two curved slopes if you take a bubble shield through from Act 1 and use the bounce jump. However, the third one is too high. I guess it would be possible by getting Tails to airlift you up but I'm going to call that cheating!

 

Funfact! In Sonic and Knuckles alone (sadly, not Sonic 3), you can complete Knuckles's entire game without debug or spindashing or even shields! I kid you not! Well, there is one catch. You have to find a way to avoid those damned grabby vine things in Mushroom Hill Zone.

Actually using the disassembly of Sonic and Knuckles, I recently endeavored to remove the spindash, shields, and the damned grabby vines you have to spindash to escape from in Mushroom Hill Zone.

Well, the shield monitors are still there, they all just do nothing. Strategic placement of rts, for the win?
I removed the shields because A) it's challenging, and B) I wanted to do a Sonic 3: S1 edition (no spindash, only one kind of shield, and no super forms). However I got lazy and decided that rather than figuring out a way to give you a regular shield with no side benefits, I'd be an asshole and give you no shields. I even pretended that I removed the insta-shield. That is to say, I removed the part that makes it show up, but the sound effect still plays if you try to insta-shield and I'm pretty sure the effect still happens. Like I say, I got lazy =P.

One small note, when I was playing as sonic, for some reason the cutscene in Mushroom Hill Zone 2 where knuckles does the weird thing with the switch and the woosh and whatnot messed up and I had to wait for a time over to continue the zone. Also, I can't remember why but for some reason I couldn't get through Act 1 of Flying Battery Zone as Sonic. But I guarantee that you can complete the game as Knuckles. Guess that just proves how badass he is.

Poof, here it is! I call it Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic and Knuckles Hard Mode. Alternately, Hard Knuckles. Alternatley, one of you can think up a better title for what is essential a regular Sonic and Knuckles rom but without spindash or shields. Or those damned grabby vines from Mushroom Hill Zone goddammit who the hell thought those damned vines were a good idea honestly even with spindash they're a pain in the ass and break the flow of the zone and I can never remember where the hell the damned things are.

EDIT:
Anybody know how to lock Sonic 3 on at the ASM level? The only way I've seen mentioned involves tacking some data on post-assembly using a hex editor and also I could never get it to work right anywho. I'm sure I'll get it figured out soon enough, but it'd just be easier if I could have it done during assembly and save me the step of manually having to do it every time I assemble to examine the fruits of my labor.

 

For some reason, the link doesn't work.

Is it broken? Or is it something on my end?

 

Sonic and Knuckles has no water. If that's all you're concerned about, you could just make all the shields water shields and it wouldn't make a difference -- Knuckles can't use the bounce anyway.

 

Okay, now the link works, I forgot to fix permissions. And the idea was to make a version of Sonic 3 and Knuckles where all the characters can go without spindash and finish the game to completion. And then I'd have something that functions like the classic Sonic 1 shield for everybody. It basically makes things harder on everybody, especially Sonic. Because I think that Sonic is the ultimate badass who doesn't need some pansy ass elemental shields telling him he's not fast enough to avoid drowning, he's not agile enough to hit the rings, he's not smart enough to avoid fire, who doesn't need spindash going in his face and saying he isn't awesome enough to build and maintain his own momentum. Tail's is a baby who relies on flight, knuckles is a hard-head who needs to stop and climb to get where he's going. But Sonic? No, he's a badass, he can get wherever he wants to get with nothing more than his wits and his own two feet!
Well, that's the idea. In practice, I'm not a bad enough dude to make this rom. At least, not yet....