Yes. Act 2 of every zone in sonic 3, except for AIZ and ICZ, starts either the second the end-of-level text appears, or the second the transparent title card appears. Angel Island Zone Act 2 starts when the midway boss sets everything ablaze. Even though the title card says Angel Island Zone Act 1 until you defeat the Act 1 boss. Ice Cap Zone Act 2 starts when you go through the tunnel on the way to the Act 1 boss (for sonic and tails) as stated before. It happens as soon as that block of ice slams down behind sonic and tails.
If you need anymore proof, go start a special stage in Act 1 after everything is on fire. Act 2 music will play when you're done.
Since this is a supposed to be a topic for "other" discoveries, and because I can't think of anything else to post, I just feel the need to repost this Chaotix discovery from over a year ago. http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?sho...ic=6008&hl= From using that method, I ended up finding this unused Vector sprite: Also, there's a chance that those Charmy sprites in the topic weren't used, but it hasn't been confirmed yet (since they're miscolored and have the arms missing).
It's entirely possible that the PC version of this game didn't differentiate between the acts, which woul dlead one to believe that this is, indeed, very possible. Remember -- he's talking about the PC version, not the Genesis one. Perhaps someone should verify it? I wouldn't know where to start on finding S&K for the PC, though.
There's no reason it should be any different in the PC version. The PC version is nothing but an emulator and a modified S3K ROM. (Modified only so the computer plays the MIDI music).
I have a save state on another computer where, as Tails, you can move between the second half of AIZ act 1 and AIZ act 2. IIRC, it's plain Sonic 3. I'll try to upload it later.
^I remember that. I don't remember how it is done, but I've done it on a few occasions back on my old genesis. I belive it has sometign to do with going into the special stage and when you come back out, the screen lock is somehow gone. I could be wrong.
Really? Hm, I never thought about that before, but it makes sense. So that's probably why it's possible to break back into "Act 1," huh? Because it's really still part of Act 2?
Yeah - the levels work by changing layouts dynamically while the screen is still drawn. They make this unnoticable by taking the end of the first act's layout, and making it the very beginning of the second act's layout. It's a simple concept, but it works brilliantly.
Yeah, that is true. When the fire comes about, I think that's act 2 already started, though On level select, I think you start away from where you'd fight the miniboss, due to the continue-post.
Hmm, another little oddity in S3&K. Unlike monitors, rocks, and most other types of breakable scenery that I can think of, Tails is capable of smashing the little ice shells in Ice Cap Zone; the ones that are sometimes placed over monitors. If you have Sonic stand on top of an empty one and then have Tails break it, Sonic will stand in the air, and you can run left and right on a horizontal axis without losing any altitude. You can also roll and such. Jumping will make you fall and hit the ground again, but as soon as the ground shifts angle you'll find yourself walking on air again. Throw slopes into the equation and you can get some pretty crazy stuff - walking through walls, climbing invisible slopes skyward, and so forth. On a somewhat related but much less interesting note, it's possible to break the monitors inside those shells of ice without breaking the ice itself by using the little split-second shield attack that Sonic performs by pressing jump a second time in mid-air.
Now that's interesting; I would have thought the game would fix itself as soon as you jump. Why does it remember and then make you "float" again as soon as you hit a different piece of ground? BTW, this trick was used in the 35 minute TAS, to run through all the walls and wrap over the left edge of the act.
I remember doing a lot of this kind of stuff (like walking in the air in Ice Cap and so on) when I was a kid. I even had a notebook where I wrote it all up (it's still intact, back in Russia, lol). Well, there are still some things I remember, so here we go: In Sonic 2, in some levels if you put a lot of horizontal right-faced springs in the beginning of a level, I mean one after another, and then touch them, you'll warp to the end of a level, even behind the ending sign, so it won't even activate. Well, as you know you can alter RAM on a real console by swapping carts, you can get even debug mode in S&K alone doing this and use Hyper Sonic and Knuckles. I used Mortal Kombat II cart for the trick. You can play as Tails in S&K alone, and even as Sonic and Tails (Slots 00 and 02), although Tails won't have tiles. But you can fix it. Just lock on S&K and S3 with an ERASED header. The game won't lock on, but S&K will use Tails tiles from S3, because of pointers. There are even more "secret" characters besides Blue Knuckles. In the competition more there 3 more versions of Knuckles, all with different speed settings, wonder why it was implemented, probably for testing purposes. In Sonic 2, the slot 03 is messed up Tails, he uses Sonic's life icon and has a messed up collision. Well, everybody knows that in Sonic 2 if you jump in that speedy thing in OCZ and then get yourself out via debug you will have uber speed and jumps. And even more uber if you're Super Sonic. Also, if you place a lot of teleportation monitors and then smash 'em at once, the background will go crazy. If you use smash a teleportation monitor while you're Super Sonic the ability of super speed and invincibility will pass to Tails, and you will be just golden and your rings will be still sucked up. But if you get hurt and then hit a teleportation box again, the "cheap" Super ability will be yours. And the weirdest one. In S3K you can get your character to use ANY tiles. Just select an object from debug, then change back, find a special stage ring, jump in it and press B immediately so that object will be shown. When you'll come back from the special stage your character will be totally messed up, using tiles from whatever object it was. Well, that's all I can get from my head now. Thanks for reading.
Well, I don't know if anyone else has noticed this or if I'm just spouting useless information, but I've noticed that when playing Sonic 1 with a Game Genie, if you have the code for Skywalking operational, you can't go underwater in Labyrinth Zone or in Scrap Brain Zone Act 3. Though this does raise an interesting question I've often thought about since the mention of Scrap Brain Zone Act 3; is the purple water in the Zone supposed to be the same Mega Mack chemical we see in Sonic 2's Chemical Plant Zone, or is it perhaps just supposed to be water polluted by the run-off the Scrap Brain Zone?
I have the answer to both of your questions: Scrap Brain Zone Act 3/Labyrinth Zone Act 4 is actually the immense sewer system built for Robotnik, by Robotnik, and shrewdly covered up by placing a massive robot factory/base of operations over it.
That explains it. Thank you very much, Squints. And IceKnight, it seemed an interesting question to me.
I've actually tried this out not long ago, but forgot to mention about it. There's a neat trick where you get in a good spot (where you have enough time to crouch and spindash) on the S3K Final Boss, do a spindash, and you'll bounce off the lazer-shooter.