The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

Don't know if this has been found yet (I haven't seen anything about this), but I found this really interesting nonetheless. I've found three songs from which Hideki Naganuma had most likely borrowed samples from for the Sonic Rush soundtrack.

I'll let you figure out which Rush tracks used these samples.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r8-Q_Ow4V0...feature=related
Skip to 2:09 here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_ZtCpop0kM
And this one is obvious right from the start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvy7MWjfVPE
What you might also notice about this one is when "Turn it up!" gets mentioned; Naofumi Hataya might have also sampled from this track for Sonic CD's Stardust Speedway - Present.

 

Despite having it as my wallpaper, today was the first time I noticed that the Space Colony ARK diagram on the SA2 stage select has the conduits/grind rails only on the right side of the cannon, where Final Rush and Final Chase are. There aren't any on the other side, where Cosmic Fall and parts of Meteor Herd and Mad Space are.

 

I took a look at the code in IDA Pro. They added a single instruction right before the Press Start Button object is loaded.

Code (ASM):

1.         clr.b   ($FFFFD0A4).w

That seems to be coupled with some code changes in the object itself, but I didn't probe too far beyond noting that when that instruction is nop'ed out the big Sonic blinks in and out of existence.

 

Neat-o, thanks for analyzing it.

I'm still curious if there are other code changes within the rom as well - besides ones that are modified to fit the game with the rest of the games on the cart.

 

The word "Badnik" is based off "Robotnik", right?

 

Sonic
Robotnik
Badnik

I see a pattern :P

 

If I remember rightly, the game code is mostly untouched - it even had a vector table. It's just recompiled in its new location at the end of the ROM to make way for other games in the pack, with some circuitously-written multipack code at the beginning.

Finding out if they changed anything else would require me to make a full disassembly, which I'll leave to someone more experienced with IDA Pro than me.

 

I was playing through Sonic 3 this morning, and I was going for the Emeralds. As I played through each special stage, I noticed something about them that I'd noticed before, years ago, but forgotten about. Each one's colour scheme matches one of the zones from the game!

(I dunno if anyone has noticed this before; I couldn't find a mention.)

So here they are, side by side.

Angel Island:



Hydro City:



Marble Garden:



Carnival Night:



Flying Battery:



(of course, when I first noticed this, this totally threw me when I first noticed it as a kid. Of course, now I know that Flying Battery was planned to come between, and it all makes sense. Thanks, The Internet!)

Ice Cap:



Launch Base:



This has to be intentional. I wonder if it means that they were once toying with the idea of a 1 to 1 mapping of Emerald and Zone, like how Sonic Heroes and Rush (and others) do it.


They don't line up quite so good in S&K, though. They aren't impossible to match up, but it's not nearly so 100% positive as Sonic 3.

Mushroom Hill:



Sandopolis:



Lava Reef:



Lava Reef Act 2:



Hidden Palace:



Sky Sanctuary:



Death Egg:

 

Just noticed this.

But the Sonic NEXT demo on the 360 Market Place is gone. Not sure if it was announced, but I know it was up there for a while. Now the only way to get it is to download it via a computer or go to your download history if you've downloaded it before on your 360.

But speaking of Sonic NEXT.

I think someone mentioned this, but nobody cared - but I think someone said that the Japanese version of the game was cleaned up to get rid of the slow downs in the game. I do see speed runs on NicoVideo (sometimes with two players even - which would normally slow the game down to a crawl) and places where the game would normally slow down a lot on the US version, doesn't seem to on their version for some reason. Keep in mind that the Japanese version was released after the US version came out, so they must've had time to clean the game up just a tiny bit. But I doubt the load times were affected (I have both the PS3 and the 360 US version, and they both have the same load time).

While we're talking about possible performance differences - I think this might be the same for Sonic Unleashed as well. Not sure...

Can anyone confirm anything I just said about the performance between the two regions?

 

The demo hasn't been there since the game was added to games on demand. Xbox live also uses shots from that trailer that was not only pre rendered, but was also intended to be a PS3 tech demo.

 

I also noticed this.

The Hydrocity Zone icon in Sonic 3...



...still has the greenery in the bkg from the unfinished version.

You can see a shot of Hydrocity's original bkg in this scan.

I can't believe I never noticed this before.

 

Woah, nice catch! I had forgotten all about those screenshots.

If you'll notice, the numbers in the HUD are also gradient-shaded -- they're flat white in the final, but the numbers in the competition menu, as well as the lives counter, still have that effect.

 

Sharp eye, I never knew about the green stuff in old sonic 3 pictures. It looks a bit crap so no wonder they changed it.

 

Someone needs to make a hack that uses Sonic 2 sprites rather than Sonic 3's. But anyways, nice eye

 

Wow, that background looks interesting. Reminds me vaguely of Metallic Madness Good Future. I wonder how Hydrocity would've looked with the plantlife. Or even an outdoor Hydrocity.

 

In the icon it also looks like it has blue steps and mini-waterfalls in the background. It'd be cool to see the full thing in action.

 

Donate a few thousands dollars to drx and hope he can find obtain some Sonic 3 prototypes :v:

 

http://www.destructoid.com/sonic-the-polis...le-164889.phtml

Well this is just awesome right here I'll tell you that much

 

I don't know if anyone's pointed this out explicitly, but the logo on Wing Fortress' doors is a stylized E on top of a stylized G.