Sonic ERaZor 7

Sonic ERaZor 7 (2024)
(or, Sonic ERaZor – Seventh Public Release, if you prefer it old-school)



This is a complete overhaul of the classic, chaotic, explosion-filled Sonic the Hedgehog (16-bit) ROM hack, and it marks the first new release since 2016! Work on this update began in October 2023, and it took a full ten months to see its completion. Besides adding new stuff and fixing bugs, improving a ton about the poorly aged game design was just as important: if something wasn't fun, it got mercilessly rethought and reworked, or just straight up rewritten from scratch – with a few deliberate exceptions for nostalgia's sake.
In a way, this update was like finishing a beta after almost a decade.

If you aren't familiar with ERaZor yet, I suggest you take a brief look at the wiki page first.

Download
You need a Sega Genesis/Mega Drive emulator to play (or real hardware)!

Spoiler: Backstory (blame redhotsonic)

Stop me if you've heard this one before: "Final version of Sonic ERaZor." Yeah, we're beating that dead horse once again, though this time it's at least been a while – 8 years since the last release, to be precise. Don't get me wrong, I really do mean I originally had no plans to work on it again. Hell, I even made the source code public. But then something happened – that's right, redhotsonic happened. While I did spot the odd bug or design quirk here and there over the past few years already, it was his video – specifically the showcase of a massive, unavoidable hard crash if the game ran without SRAM – that finally made me break my oath. So, uh, thanks?

But after almost a decade of silence, I didn't want to release a new version only containing a single bugfix. One thing led to another, and suddenly this revival grew into its own beast. A lovely beast, though; I haven't been this excited about anything tech-related in actual ages. It is genuinely a great feeling to look at the clock and see it's already 3 a.m. because I got so lost in the zone while working on something I'm passionate about. I missed that feeling. If there's anything you might want to take away from this sappy ramble, it's this: don't worry about dusting off the ol' reliable. If working on it makes you happy, that's all that matters.

Ahem. Now that we're done with the lore recap, I'm delighted to talk about the update itself.

Highlights
Originally, I wanted to post the full changelog here. But, uh... it's easier to list the things that haven't been changed. So, for the sake of brevity, here is just the basic overview of some of the highlights in ERaZor 7:

• Introduced Casual/Frantic Mode (see below for more info, it's a big one)
• Reworked. Every. Single. Level. Some more and some less, but all in some significant way. For the most part it was to reduce awkwardness, but there's also a ton of new cool content. I won't spoil anything though~
• Massive engine overhauls courtesy of vladikcomper, including the implementation of his amazing MegaPCM 2 sound driver (along with a fancy Sound Test screen)!
• Added fancy new and improved cinematic Black Bars! So fancy, in fact, that they are so fancy they behave differently between emulators and real hardware, so it also comes with a custom configuration screen.
• Speaking of real hardware... full compatibility with real hardware! Yes, even without SRAM
• Rewrote every single custom screen mode from scratch (most notably, the story text screen – boy, that code was a mess).
• Oh yeah, regarding stories: everything text-related received a total rewrite. English hard.
• Completely overhauled Uberhub Place to hopefully feel more engaging now. But if it still isn't your thing...
• Added "Skip Uberhub Place" and "Skip Story Screens" options, for that authentic playthrough-in-one-sitting-without-interruptions experience (inspired by "Straight Version", for those who remember).
• Added "Photosensitive Mode" option to turn off all flashy lights and camera shakes. Furthermore, the intensity of flashy lights has been reduced a lot in general – no more epilepsy warning necessary, dear YouTubers.
• Added two new unlockable options and greatly overhauled the existing one, all in an effort to loosely connect them to the ERZ letters from the game's name.
• Added/reworked tons of easter eggs! Which means I can't tell you anything about them...
• And in general, just a plethora of bug fixes and general quality-of-life improvements!

Casual/Frantic Mode



In a nutshell, this is a difficulty selection screen, though quite a bit more involved than just the traditional "easy/hard". In fact, it might just be the single largest feature addition to ERaZor since... ever. It made the game much more accessible while also kinda giving it New Game+ on top. To understand what it's for, you need to understand why it was introduced in the first place.

See, my attempts at balancing ERaZor have always been a never-ending tug-of-war – too hard scared off the casual players, too easy bored the seasoned ones. But one day I realized something: the main culprit for many people seems to be pressure. A challenge doesn't even need to be hard, something like the ring counter starting to tick down on its own was already enough for many players to feel overwhelmed.

The solution came in the form of what started as a simple experiment: I did some research by watching a ton of YouTube playthroughs, identified the pain points causing the players the most trouble due to pressure, and made those optional. Originally, I had low expectations for this to make any difference at all, but it didn't take long before it became apparent that this fixed everything and then some! No longer did I have to worry about a one-size-fits-all approach to game balance, I could simply make both modes equally fun in their own right. Let's take a closer look:

• Casual:
  The main focus is the absence of pressure, allowing you to get comfortable with the game at your own pace.
  As a result, playing ERaZor becomes a much more relaxed experience and won't patronize you if you fail too many times (well, within reason).
  Plus, some of the tougher challenges are toned down a little.
  
  
• Frantic:
  If Casual is the mode that reduces pressure, Frantic is its antithesis. It can be summarized as "removing the concept of taking-it-easy itself".
  For example, rings barely matter in Casual – in Frantic they often are uniquely tied to challenges as your literal life insurance.
  Furthermore, Frantic is ruthless, as it's specifically designed to be like a very strict but fair teacher to make you truly master the game.
  And while death might feel like an ever-present threat, there are some interesting twists exclusive to this mode to keep you going~

Casual is the new baseline difficulty and is recommended for new players, but this is explicitely not a requirement: do you want to take your time or do you want to be constantly pushed forward? The choice is no longer mine, it's yours!

Credits
I want to give my most sincere appreciation to everyone in the ERaZor 7 squad and everyone else who helped along the way! Without you guys, this update would've been impossible to complete:

• vladikcomper: The master of blast processing! He helped me out when I hit a severe technical roadblock that almost put the whole project into jeopardy (the black bars... long story). Furhermore, he optimized a tooon about the engine and implemented MegaPCM 2!
• Chaotic SoFa: Doing a tooon of hardware testing and providing great feedback for almost any wild idea I had. In fact, he was my sanity check for whenever I went a bit too crazy.
• fuzzy: A long-time fan-turned-friend who joined with the unique skillset of a programmer while also being very familiar with the base game. She made ERaZor even more ERaZor-y!
• ajcox: Doing extensive video playtesting, uncovering the most bizarre bugs by doing stuff I would've never thought of. Also super helpful with ideas and feedback!
• MarkeyJester: He's been helping with ERaZor for as long as it has existed, and he continued to be an amazing support for this update as well.
• neonsynth aka. SonicVaan: The guy who made the original six versions playable returned to beta test this update as well.
• Peanut Noceda: Helped during the early stages of the update project.
• Give, Craze, and DeltaW: Additional one-time playtesting to get input from fresh perspectives.

And a special bonus shout-out to amphobius aka. DalekSam! While we lost contact years ago, his amazing music ports are the DNA of ERaZor to this day. It wouldn't be the same game without him!

Screenshots
Do note that these deliberately avoid spoilers, so don't be fooled by thinking they tell you the full story. You have to play the game yourself!

 

@Razor-ua: Thanks for the video! While I think I will probably do a video myself, it would pretty much look like your's, because you play excactly like I do. Is this happening to be a TAS?

@dsrb: I tried it, seriously, but there's one major problem: The Sonic on the title screen doesn't have legs and I really didn't want to get somebody draw them for a 2 seconds sequence.

 

Oh crap, almost forgot to put this here:



It's a mix between speed run, walkthrough and just pure demonstration. :v:

 

*Shameless bump...*

So, here we are, over one month since the release. I decided to create a very small bugfix with minor modifications. I did all of these fixes today, not within the last month. I just felt like doing it again today.

These fixes include:

• Fixed Eggman having no face after defeating him.
• Removed some of the non-working GOAL blocks in the Special Stage.
• Made sure you will see all screens in the credits.
• Fixed fighting two crabmeat bosses at the same time.
• Fixed some issues with the Inhuman Mode in Green Hill Place.
• Minor modification on the Press Start Button text and Sonic on the title screen.

Thanks to everyone who reported these bugs and suggestions.

However, I wasn't able to fix all bugs. The reason for this is, that I wasn't able to re-create some of the reported bugs, thus making it impossible for me to fix them.


Downloadlink is the same: http://selbi.hapisan.com/erazor


PS: You could say that this is a somehow a frustrated attempt to get more attention. Two years of hard work for two pages of replies wasn't really what I was looking for and it made me sad. It makes you feel like you just wasted your time, and we are talking about over 300 hours here. It just saddens me, that many people only care about modern hacking these days. Makes me feel like I joined the scene way too late.