I haven't got past Cascade Valley 1. I'm a completionist and I cannot bring myself to skip to the next act before I complete all the missions, and I cannot complete all the missions. The level I played was pretty awesome, if not a bit annoying. Backtracking can be difficult or otherwise seemingly impossible which, when going for the emeralds, is as much annoying as going for the special rings was in Sonic Advance 2. You have to collect them all in one go and you have to do it in order! You could probably pick up one before or after another once in a while, but in general you're fucked if you get to the end of the stage and you're missing some. Speaking of which, when I got to the end, the bonus plate was a glitchy mess. Time had reached 9:59 and frozen for a good long while, which might be related. Also, on the ledge just to the left of the last emerald, there are some invisible rings. I'm guessing you're still having issues with object limits? The stage is way too big, anyway, I still had to play for a good 20 seconds after getting the last emerald, so that's about how much it is overboard. Controls for wall jumping are a bit weird. I just hold A before jumping at the wall, and then keep holding it until I make my final leap, but I can't imagine doing this in hardware using my thumb to jump. Let's see, more complaints. You REALLY need an emerald counter like there was in Advance 2. I almost went to the end thinking I had them all and not knowing if there was a different sound cue or not. I just stumbled on the last emerald by accident. Mission-based gameplay absolutely requires an easier, faster way to restart a mission without having to pause, press A, waiting for the title card to go away, jumping in the ring, waiting for the mission list to pop up, pressing a button, waiting for the title card to go away, and finally trying to meet the objective again. I'd recommend a pause menu similar to the Adventure games. Searching for the emeralds/monitors was fun, but time attack really should not be an integral part of the game. And if you're going to include it, please present some time limits humans can actually beat. I mean, a single minute? Are you serious? At least give it 10 more seconds, and even then it's nearly impossible for non-speedrunners to achieve. ( + - The music changing to Isolated Island when I dropped into the cave was really weird and unfitting. At first I thought it was a glitch, since it happened right after I picked up an emerald, so it started playing after the jingle finished. Is the cave really that noteworthy to arbitrarily change the music? It doesn't look any different from the rest of the level. ) Also, EASY THERE ON THE AUTOSEQUENCES. You wouldn't believe the amount of times I sweared at the game for accidentally making me hit a spring which launched me into a spring which launched me into a loop which sent me to a zipline which made me accidentally travel 10,000 miles in a direction I didn't want to because I'm trying to get the fucking emeralds fffffffffffffff And this was all from a single act! Hack of the year, etc
This is a massive improvement over the last release. I'm so glad that FPZ and CNZ finally have two zones. The things that I miss are the original, or last pieces of music that you used on the mission screen and the clear level Ristar music. I sure hope people will agree with me in that they could do with a return. The FPZ art is incredible. The CNZ beta art is a great addition, though I thought you would have left the official art in for one of the acts. This is definitely alot easier that the last release. It's only taken a few minutes to get to CNZ. Which is good for people who don't want to spend to much time doing missions. I've yet to find ARZ at the moment so that should keep me busy for a little bit. Overall it's just amazing. To me it's the best hack I've ever played. It even pains me playing the original classics after I've played this because I find this more fun to play than them.
Getting to Metropolis Zone isn't all that hard, merely time consuming. From there however, even clearing the level is incredibly painful, with many "Fun Units" (or FUs for short) forcing you to take damage, and have to backtrack if you fail. I've cleared all the Emerald Gates that I know about, it's just getting through Metropolis that's ruining the game experience.
Really? Metropolis is one of my favourites. My only gripe with it is that it could have been divided into two. It's just a little bit too long. In fact it would be better if Metropolis did do that and have an overworld.
I found the time limits fairly easy to beat, especially in the Cascade Valley stages, and I'm nowhere near as fast as some people. I'd just say you're crap. :v:
I'll play this soon, as I am currently very busy. As for your SRAM initialisation problem, do what I do: set the first few bytes to something specific each time, like a string such as "S2RR", and check for this every time. If it isn't set, then assume it's new SRAM and reinitialise it.
So I guess I need to hit certain emerald monitors to be able to access certain emeralds? That's quite annoying. >_> I hope the final version completely redo's act 3's boss so it's more original and personally, I seriously the name gets changed someday. The only thing that makes the first zone remind me of Sonic 2 is the boss and Sonic's sprite. Edit- My bad. I didn't realize collecting the seven monitor gave you one emerald. I hate the mandatory emerald gathering.
Metropolis owns, you all are crazy. It perfectly encapsulates what the original zone was about and puts its own unique spin on some of its gimmicks. And it's actually difficult to play through, unlike the rest of the hack where most all of the difficulty is in emerald hunting. lern2sonic :P
omfg I've been trying really hard to get 13 emeralds in the first zone not realizing I had access to the second zone. >_<
Okay, I'm back from work! Why, no, Best Buy, I don't mind working 8 1/4 hours without a break at all! I'm sure the state was just kidding with the whole labor law thing. Anyway, glad to see it's mostly one universal complaint and a few little ones, but I'll address the little ones anyway. I only have a week until this thing hits SAGE to patch it up (and if anybody's making a promo video for this SAGE like there was last year, add this game because it is awesome plz). To specific users: I never did find out how to fix that. >_> I tried "check first byte of underwater palette; if wrong, load again", but that doesn't cut it. That would require me to actually design bonus content.~ The biggest thing that concerns me here is "why is this okay in Super Mario 64 / Sunshine / Galaxy / Galaxy 2"? There's many right answers to this question, I'm sure, but I have yet to hear one. "It's not Sonic" doesn't cut it for me. I tried to keep it the same system: vaguely descriptive mission title followed by in-level cues (lines of rings, arrow signs) to direct people around. If there's more I could do to aid in this manner, please let me know, but I have no plans to remove the hack's defining feature or treat it as an extra. Well, stop doing that. No, seriously. The requirement for the final level is 18 of 63 available emeralds. If you do what you're doing, you'll get six in the first three acts and the two from its overworld and end up with 20 -- more than enough to win -- before even leaving the first level. Hm. Last release, a lot of people thought that was cool. I'm not sure what to do now. @steveswede: Three things. 1. The music removals were to shift everything over to Sonic Team or just-plain-Sonic music. Notice that only one non-Sonic track remains, and it's the overworld music for Frosty Peak... I couldn't get a better track together in time. 2. "Emeralds" has an "a" in it. Fix your profile. 3. + - It's behind the 13 gate next to Cascade Valley 3's entrance. Thank you. About time you pussies manned up. ... To everybody: Quite a few time attack complaints. From Chemical Plant 2 onwards, it's tough. The first zone's acts have about 25% leeway -- Cascade Valley 1 is a 45 second act at best on a 1:00 limit, Act 2 is a 40 second act on 1:00, and Act 3 is the toughest at 1:45 on 2:00, but the boss should be easy to you guys by now. If you were hoping for an emerald just for beating levels, I already do that in every boss act -- you'll see it right after the boss. Given this, to get out of the first zone, all you need to do is beat the Act 3 boss and pick up the not-so-hidden emerald in the overworld (and if you can't find that, you at least must've seen the one above the tube exit in Act 2). Funny, the people touting "Hacking Contest winner right here" also have ties to Sonic Boom. I smell dirty lies! >:O /me flee Before SAGE, I might just add a "Classic Mode" (or is it Easy Mode?) to quell some of the complaints. I thought about this before and ended up deciding against it, because it kind of removes the main incentive of the mission mode: playing new layouts. What I'll definitely be doing within a couple of days is putting a full playthrough on YouTube. Now that videos can be 15 minutes long, I can fit an entire playthrough into one video, I think. My last run was 15 minutes and 54 seconds with major screw-ups.
I thought that the 13 emerald gate was for the second world. Whenever I went off the platform near that gate, I ended up falling down to near the beginning of the area. >_> You can see why I originally hated the mandatory emerald thing. <_< YouTube raised their 11 minute limit? Thank god. I fucking hate that limit.
1. Fair enough if that's your plan to have all Sonic music. It will be truly missed by me. 2. LOL thanks for spotting that. My keyboard must have not entered that key when I pressed it. 3. Ya know for some reason I thought passed there was going to be nothing but a wall due to + - Cascade Speedwaybeing taken out . I was looking in all other worlds apart from + - Cascade Valley . By the way. Are you and DNXDelta have any plans to make ARZ a proper overworld and zones?
^ Of course. DNX is still finalizing the Aquatic Ruin art, but that boss battle was designed back in 2008 and went unused, so I decided to use it instead of letting it stagnate. The same goes for the Mystic Cave boss that Tweaker mentioned, except the art hasn't even been started yet -- I took the palette from an unused level in Sonic Turbo because it fit the icy theme.
Excellent. Aw man I don't know if I could wait till next year for that. I've got the Sonic 2 Retro Remix bug and it's gonna be hard to shake off. Also I've got a few ideas, suggestions if you want to hear them?
1) Actually with how things are going to be for the rest of the year and 2011, I'll be able to work on things more than the breaks Thorn and I get off (and they're long). So another release won't be that far off. 2) Sure, why not? ^SonicVaan: Each zone will have 3 acts but right now there are some vram issues that need some tuning unless we sacrifice a few zones.
I found a bug in Metropolis. You.. eh, can't finish the act—thus not the game either. I got to the signpost, but it is glitched up and it shows me graphics used from spikes and Slicer. And when I pass it, nothing happens. My time was at 9:59 if you want to know.
@DNXDelta Well I was thinking about an update for the shield to being a proper power up. Much like the fire shield in Sonic 3. But instead it enhances Sonics Retro Remixes abilities as well as having a slightly wider hit area and being able to use it under water. But also I was thinking that it could be a power up to break into walls/floors that Sonic wouldn't be able to do normally. Like this wall here.... You could try all you want to break through here with the spindash and the normal homing attack but it will do nothing. Instead you would have to find this new shield in the overworld to break through using the homing attack move to access a secret section. Also, you would be able to use this new, more powerful ability when propelled from a spring and holding down and pressing A to break through harder floors. This new shield could then be used to get new paths and emeralds hidden in the normal zones. It could deflect the objects that Badnilks fire like the shields do in Sonic 3. But that's up to you if you wanted to do that. If you do decide to do this. Maybe it could do with some new art seeing as it's a new type of shield. Maybe a mix of blue/green, blue/purple would look good and different from the other shields. these pictures might help of the idea that I'm trying to get across. I would say these are more of the look for when you use the special attack. As for when it's in a normal ball mode. Maybe a combined look of the shield from Sonic 1 with a more solid look with the fire shield form Sonic 3. I'm not saying do it like that. But something along the lines like that for added flare. Anyway hope you like the idea.
