Sonic 2 Titanium Upgrade

I split the thread so this can stop happening. ThomasSpeedrunner now has another thread of his own that I had to split from a previous one.

Oh and TSR, what did I say about the word "fuck". Either say "fuck" or say nothing at all.

 

Please apply the filter, should be a good laugh.

Anyway, I will say that Winter Hill's palette looks much better. Good job.

 

Hello everyone. No video, sadly, but I have got a quick rain check for you today.

So, I've tried quite a few things with Tails' flight, and for some reason I can't get it to work properly. So (as long as people are okay with the change of plans), I'm going to port the move from S3K. I originally didn't want to port it from S3K (I wanted to figure out how it worked without porting it, as it would give me a sense of achievement), but given the fact that it's kind of screwing up on me, I may need to resort to porting Tails' flying from S3K. I'll post a video when I get it working.

 

Confirmed: ThomasSpeedrunner can't read.

 

Why didn't you port it from S3K in the first place?  You're just making things harder for yourself.  And like we've all said before, if you look how other disassemblies do things (like S3K's Tails code), you'll learn how these things work then be able to do more incredible stuff.

And please, do not post a video once you've done his flying.  A screenshot is okay, but not a video.  We all know how Tails flies, I've done it in my hack, and we've all played S3K.

 

That is the most wonderful thing I've seen you type so far, I like people who try writing their own unique code rather than porting, it shows a sense of major will power to learn and advance, it allows for experimentation and encourages you to try things completely out of the ordinary, I say ignore what everyone else thinks and hop to it.

What if the flying is somehow designed differently? i.e. flies faster or higher or with certain swishing (like Mario with the wingcap) or whatever? You can't show that in a screenshot!

 

Okay, guys. I have a big-ish update for you today, and I think I presented it very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUdsxkHtEB0

So...copy/paste powers...ACTIVATE! Yeah, list time (copypasted from the video description.

1. Finally got back to working on Tails' flying. It's now a lot easier to work with than before.

2. New Winter Hill Zone Act 1 layout. This layout goes for more of an exploration feel.

3. Proper DAC fixes on the following songs:

  - S3K Final Boss

  - Death Egg Zone Act 1

  - Death Egg Zone Act 2

  - Endless Mine Zone

  - Flying Battery Zone

3. You are no longer able to jump using the A button. This is because the A button will be used for various miscellaneous abilities later on.

4. A new song for the Watered Relic Zone boss. It's the Act 1 Boss music from Sonic & Knuckles, and I have applied the DAC fix to this song as well.

 

Ok, so here's some constructive criticism and feedback regarding this latest video:

Pros

• Object placement has improved, especially in Winter Hill Zone.
• Chunk (layout) placement is overall a lot smoother and connects properly (Winter Hill only).
• I like parts of the Creepy Cavern layout...

Cons

• There are "still" too many death pits which you yourself are now falling into. This has been mentioned several times and I feel you need to address this. You could use spike pits in some areas if you're so adamant with the prospect of hurting the player for missing  specific jumps
• Watered Relic's palette could do with some tweaking. It's still uses some wrong shading and the colours are a little jarring.
• Watered Relic's music has been edited in such a way that the music sounds broken. Parts of the music play at different speeds which is conflicting.
• You still insist on showing off Death Egg Zone in it's incomplete state with nothing changed. I don't understand why. You also still have those totally unfair spikes at 5:48.
• Creepy Caverns still suffers from blind jumps, misplaced chunks and it also appears very empty. It could be livened up in areas. There's also an incredibly weird background issue occurring which wasn't present in the original. It looks odd.

This is all my opinion by the way, but there you have it. If you don't understand any of my comments, just ask and I'll be happy to explain in more detail.

 

I was going to post this earlier today, but I was in a bit of a rush, so meh :U

Anyway...

Well, I guess it's about time I got around to fixing those death pits, isn't it? Yes, most of the ones in the early stages will not be there in the next video.

If you're referring to the way the background looks, I am well aware of this; it has been mentioned to me multiple times.

That was actually my work-in-progress Aquatic Ruin Zone Act 2 music which I forgot to take out when I made the video. Sorry about that. 

Mostly, the only reason I showed off Death Egg Zone was to help explain the DAC fixes, but that's about it.

I've been told of this on more than one occasion as well, which is why I'm redoing the layout over the next day or two.


Well, I think I've explained my to-do list for the next few days quite nicely and simply.

 

Hmmm... Looks like my palette work continues.

 

For future updates instead of showing us Death Egg if its still not changed except for the music, play the music number in the Options or level select screen, it will save you a lot of time in your video since the music is about a minute and then loops. Other points made by DAGraden I agree with especially the part about WHZ, on how the layout and the way the chunks match nicely. Its improving keep it up. Yes Mike you could really help him with his palettes lol, no offense Thomas.

 

Pretty much everything DA said.  I am seeing some improvement, which is a good thing. Can I suggest something though?  If you are going to insist on having water during WRZ's boss, I would:

a)  have the water rise just below Robotnik/Eggman

b)  have the water level lower when you defeat the boss instead of after hitting the egg-prison.

c)  fix the water surface and bubbler art.  It's obvious that either the bosses art is overriding it or the egg-prison is.  If it is the egg-prison, have it load a little later.  This may require changing the PLC's a little.

And as far as your videos go, edit them just a bit; cut out the title screen and any retries on levels.  It looks better that way, and most will not be annoyed having to watch you go through the title screen, into level select, find the level and select it.

 

Tail's dropping like a stone is incredibly jarring. Could you just port the code from S3K?

There's no point trying to re-code something paid professionals did, especially when they did it perfectly. 

 

ThomasSpeedRunner!  You stole my idea for using water for that boss!



This video is quite old, btw.  In this video, (compared to now), the music doesn't fade when Eggman explodes, no centi-seconds and no pose from Sonic and Tails at the end, but you get the gist =P

 

I'm speechless RHS this is where I really wish I could make pixel art and was artistic, my hack sucks compared to this.


Edit: Was your hack supposed to be Sonic 2: Sonic Advance 3 Edition?

 

Yeah, but the difference between your Sonic 2 Recreation and my Sonic 2: Titanium Upgrade is that I don't have arrows coming out of the top of them poles, and I didn't make Egghead shoot out multiple arrows each time he hit the poles =P

And no, I did not steal the idea. Besides, I did something else: The whole arena fills up with water. Although with CPZ2 and ARZ's boss comes a bug, and I think it partially concerns the Sonic 2 Clone Driver, but meh...

When I get hit underwater (it usually only happens on the ARZ boss when playing as Sonic or Knuckles), the underwater palette for them and Eggman gets screwed up beyond repair, and it stays like that for the ENTIRE fight. It's only until Sonic gets out of the water that the palette is "fixed" (meaning he has a perfectly correct palette above water, but not below water). I replaced every underwater_palette with the correct thingy, but it still happens. Is there a workaround for this...?

EDIT: Forgot to say this. In response to TheJeli's post:

TheJeli, although you do have a valid point, I'm afraid porting it from S3K would be more difficult than just coding it myself. S3K and all code in it is quite fragile, from what I've heard, and the current disassembly isn't very well labeled (although I'm working to improve it), so it's not like I can just waltz on over to S3K's disassembly and take the code. So I'm trying to code it in a way that is not only original, but also far easier to work with.

I hope that cleared things up for you.

 

RAM overload when the rings scatter(since you already have enough objects loaded as it is), edit the number of rings you lose when getting hit underwater, it should fix the issue thats what I had to do.

 

Um, no?  One of my levels does contain Chaos Angel Zone from SA3, but that's about it.

Chill out, I know you didn't steal my idea, just saying a similar idea has been done already =P

As for the underwater problem, this is because during the fight in your video, you have Sonic, Tails, Eggman, the boss hammer, poles, arrows, bubbles, bubble creator (that gives you the big bubble for air), water line and the HUD (being in debug is worse).  You even have the boss exploding underwater, so thats even more objects.  Then when you get hurt then lose over 32 rings, you have sooooo many objects on screen at one time, that the object RAM over-spills onto the underwater palette RAM.  It's true.  Go underwater in any level in your hack with debug, then keep playing soooo many egg prisons in the same place.  After a couple of placements, the palette will start to fuck up and will continue to do so.

The water palette will remain like this because originally the underwater palette is loaded at the beginning of the level.  Once you've made the object data spill onto it, nothing going to get rid of it (make the water go back to normal) because it was loaded at the beginning, so it stays like this until a level restart.

To fix this, either:

a) Find a way to reduce objects (I make my game spill a max of 20 rings above water and only 8 underwater)

b) Move the palette RAM to a new location where it will not get over-written

 

Um, no?  One of my levels does contain Chaos Angel Zone from SA3, but that's about it.



Woo chill RHS =P I asked this because you made Robotnik use the voices he uses in Sonic Advance 3 when he gets hit.

Edit: Not to mention the explosion is from Sonic Advance, I wasnt talking about the music but I would see why you thought that =P

 

Oh yeah and that.  Sorry, bad day today.