Sonic Zeta Overdrive

Ok, so I have given this a go and here are my initial thoughts.

I like how Quartz Valley works with the new background. The layout has been changed in a few areas and it's less sparce in places, although there are still areas that feel a little empty to me. Act 2's palette seemed a little jarring, with the purple, green, orange, blue and red making me seem unsure of what way it wants to go, colour-wise.
I like Aquatic Ruin 1's layout, although there are a few odd looking walls that just cut off and look a little strange.
I got to Aquatic Ruin 2 and had to turn the music off. I don't know what is with the music but it seems much louder than the rest and I couldn't stand to listen to it (Sorry).
I didn't find much else changed, apart from the music, though.

Anyway, to sum it up (As best as I can), I like what has been done in places, but at the same time I went away with a feeling of emptyness. I don't know how to explain it properly, except I was expecting maybe a little more. (That's what expectations do though). Some of the music was drastically different from other levels, which took me by suprise and the palettes seemed a bit sharp in some areas but mellow and soft in others. Don't take that at face value though; it has potential and I do enjoy it.

Oh, and I might as well bring it up, but I died a few times right at the start of Act 1, before the loop. I jumped down and went to spindash through the loop, but this happened:

I assume it's a path swapper being too close to the loop, so it doesn't get triggered while going to fast, but that's just a guess.

 

My feelings are kind of like D.A. Garden's, except replace that picture of a busted loop in the first act with the first corkscrew in the second act. It's still as good as it was the last time I played it, but it didn't feel like there was a whole lot more done save a couple of new areas tacked onto old Sonic 2 layouts. I can sympathize, though, since I've only done a sparse few layouts for my own hack in the last year. >_>

I'd really like to see you focus on layouts, especially if you can get another zone done before you put it on display at SAGE (and I might follow suit with this one with my own hack; I want to make it so there's more than one ROM hack at SAGE this year because I'm an original physics whore). With only two full zones, the hack seems to last for only a few minutes even though all of the altered art and music say this shouldn't be the case. I'm trying to find more to say about the hack, but I think "there needs to be more to it" sums it up, because the layouts you've done play well enough and the music works well except for the voices on the Aqua Planet tune.

Oh, and set the CPZ booster to have empty mappings in EHZ; what you have now is what I did in my first hack years ago.~

 

Played this hack today and really liked it. The background images give it a much more Sonic CD feel, also liked Sonic's added moves.

Not such a fan of Bean but whatever, good effort anyway.

Music is a little too Megaman at times, but some of it did make it feel like Game Gear.

overall good work!

 

Whilst in Casino Night 1, I got stuck forever in between one of those bouncy triangles and a vertical spring on the right side of a pinball table. There was no way out.

 

Somehow as I was fighting the boss in ARZ, he died without exploding and dropping his hammer, and all the animals at the end were replaced with the tiles from the explosion. Not sure if this has already been reported. I think it had something to do with the homing attack or sidekick Tails hitting the boss, because one of those two things happened.

 

First of all, the music is shockingly bad, it just has that whole annoying anime "power up GO GO GO!" vibe to it. However, it didn't stop me from enjoying this because you obviously have a talent for really good layouts and that's the main thing I guess.

Good work!

 

You should remove the water effects, they lag under Sonic and Tails mode.
Also, Robotnik's laughing animation is garbled at the Casino Night boss.

 

Thanks for showing the guide also works on Sonic 2. =)

Anyway, neat things you got there. But I really suggest you to find someone who can work with background deformation, because QV's background really looks boring when being this static.

 

A couple of bugs I noticed:

.The first speed booster has some glitchy sprites showing through the wall;
.The flipping platforms in Chemical Plant become invisible when they can be stepped on;

And yeah, Chemical Plant was lagging a lot with Sonic & Tails.

 

Not to be rude, but was this game even bug tested? Evertime I get to that part near the begging on the first stage with Sonic and Tails, the sprites disappear and I can't go any where. I haven't tried going there with any other characters but it seems odd this is even happening.