Up Up Down Down Up Up Up Up

Ok but

How many of you mastered it on Sonic Classic Collection on the DS?

Granted, I can do it on basically any port on any system, but something about having that unfinished level select in portable fashion is unreal to me.

 

You know, until I read this comment, I had totally forgotten I did the same thing as a child. For years afterwards I assumed I had done it wrong. What a strange memory to "unlock".

 

In the time it takes you to master the bastard cheat, you could've played all the way to Launch Base 2 and cabbaged Big Arm.

 

I've had an edited copy of Sonic 3 on my computer where pressing a single Up is sufficient. I don't need it to enjoy the game, but it's nice to have it quickly if I need to check something out, because fuck pressing that combination perfect all the time...

I've done the cart swap trick a few times in the past on hardware, it's also interesting hearing the DAC sounds being produced. A side thing to do on hardware (not really to go off topic too much, but...), if you switch the console on and time your reset press right, you can skip the TMSS screen. I've only done it twice but, it's really hard and probably not good for the hardware. ...mind you, the cart swapping isn't good either hahahaha

I'm wondering if the up up down down up up up up... was actually supposed to be for the menu on the title screen. It's very close to the Tails/Miles name swap trick in Sonic 2.

 

But there's a Restart Game option right in the menu bar.

 

So... why did nobody just give up and use Angle Island code?
I sure as hell did, once I've learned about it later on.

Funny thing as a kid I had some kind of corrupted version of Sonic 3 so when I did manage to do the title screen code and access level select, when I went to any of the stages, it would have some sort of crazy glitch happen to it. From corrupted graphics to somehow spawning me out of bounds, etc. That was really fun.

Edit: Does the AIZ code only work on S3K?

 

From my memory it does only work in S3K

 

Oh, in that case it makes sense. I myself probably only used it on emulators too.

 

I recall the Sonic and Knuckles code not being a well known fact until the late 90s. Does anyone else know if they were discovered at the time of release?

 

I use a Game Genie for the level select (AA6T-AAXC) if I really need to access it. Easier on the hardware (no cart swapping) and a time saver (no repeatedly trying over and over again).

I've done the cart swap trick a few times. Makes me uneasy doing it.

I've also managed to do the Level Select code successfully a few times after trying repeatedly over and over.

 

I think putting in cheat codes on the title screen was the most common method (think Konami code), so I don't think a lot people would've thought to hang in-game and then put in a cheat. Was S(3)&K's level select listed in Sonic Jam? That's how I assume a lot of those cheats got out there. (Like, did people know to put Yuji Naka's birthday into Sonic 2's sound test before that?)

 

In my case, I think my friends got the cheats through gaming magazines way before Sonic JAM came to be ^^"

We usually played only S1 or S2 (they didn't have S3). Another friend, later, got S&K but not S3.
Only by the 2000s did I and my brother manage to play S3K in all its glorious quality.
Both S3 and S&K's cheats, only after that did we find them throughout the net.

 

Yes and the Genesis also had a reset button on it. It's not how you're supposed to go back to the title and get to the level select. The original cheat would unlock a soft reset function while you're paused but S&K Collection only had a weird overlay thing for a pause screen IIRC.

 

Yeah, I've always wondered about why the S&K level select cheat didn’t appear in the magazines. I used to read Official Sega Magazine UK, which was later superseded by Official Mean Machines Sega. Both these publications would get cheats directly from Sega, but they never got the S&K cheat. I'm 90% sure that even after Sonic 3D came out, the S&K cheat still wasn't known to them. I think they even answered a readers' letter where they said it looked like S&K had no level select cheat.

I am also 90% sure that the S&K cheat wasn't in Sonic Jam. It's almost like Sega forgot about the code, and then it somehow made its way to the internet.

 

It is how you're supposed to do it in S&KC. "Restart Game" acts as a soft reset like pressing A while paused did on MD.

 

Well I guess I was just a dumb kid because I swear I remember trying that and it not working. Might've just messed up the inputs. Weird too cause I also remember how relieved I felt when it just worked the first time I tried it with a Genesis rom. Whatever.

 

I've always had a half-baked theory that they made the S3 code difficult to enter on purpose so we had less chance of hearing the S&K music/seeing the zone names and realising the game wasn't actually finished

 

I've always thought this too, alongside the fact that the level select screen is very glitchy on its own if you press A+Start to return to it after hitting a checkpoint, or try to enter a VS stage, or Special Stage 1; the entire thing just feels unfinished. I do remember seeing a magazine scan with the cheat listed though, and IIRC they claimed that SEGA sent them the code and they were unable to get it to work themselves, so that kinda shuts that theory down. On a related topic, though, it is strange that the level select code also enables debug by default despite there also being a sound test code (1, 3 ,5, 7) that also does so.