A curious Sonic 1 bug/quirk/idk?

Discussion in 'Discussion & Q&A' started by Pacca, Dec 15, 2017.

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  1. Pacca

    Pacca Having an online identity crisis since 2019 Member

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    There is a minor oddity in Sonic 1 that I stumbled across that, once you know how to trigger it, is surprisingly easy to pull off. I discovered it whilest playing the 3DS rerelease about a year or two ago, but have since tested it on a relatively unmodded rom. I was recently reminded of it when I stumbled across this amateur video of someone who had also stumbled upon it (who amusingly doesn't seem to know what debug mode is :Y).



    The oddity is that you can activate debug mode without entering the cheat. Just beat the final boss, go all the way to the left, and crouch while holding A. When the offscreen Robotnik "cutscene" ends, and your sent to the end game cutscene area, debug mode is active.

    I have no idea why or how this works, but it almost seems intentional. Doing such an odd specific thing, and getting such a specific result back out, it just doesn't seem like a typical bug. That said, I have no idea why this occurs or if it's even been discovered yet, so feel free to tell me if you know anything about this. I'd really like to know the exact reason why this occurs. I've yet to find anything about this online other then the one video.
     
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  2. LuigiXHero

    LuigiXHero Well-Known Member Member

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    This has been well known for a while, Sonic team just forgot to add the usual check to make sure if the debug cheat is enabled on the ending screen.
     
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  3. nineko

    nineko I am the Holy Cat Member

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    Here is a post from 2009 about it. And even then, it was old'd.

    It is weird, I'll give that to you. Nobody seems to know if it was a leftover or what.
     
  4. Soldaten

    Soldaten The Coilgun Root Admin

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    Someone is a tad late to the party on this :p
     
  5. redhotsonic

    redhotsonic Also known as RHS Member

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    Heh, I've never noticed this bug.

    Why would you even want to put a check there for debug for the ending cut scene but not any other level? I mean, if debug is already enabled, there's no need to ask if the cheat is active between, say, SYZ and LZ. So why between Final Zone and the ending cut scene?

    I don't think it's meant to be there... at all.
     
  6. Clownacy

    Clownacy Retired Staff lolololo Member

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    ...It's got nothing to do with level-to-level transitions. The ending has its own gameloop, complete with its own initialisation routine. The ending's gameloop just happens to not check if the debug code was entered.

    That said, the whole 'go to the left of the screen and duck' thing is meaningless. You just have to hold A during the fade, as you would when using the level select.

    There's been a guide for fixing this bug since 2015.
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2017
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  7. AURORA☆FIELDS

    AURORA☆FIELDS so uh yes Exiled

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    Only 2015? For this simple bug, I would have expected something like... 2007 maybe. Also, the use of "scene" instead of "game mode" makes much more sense if I am honest.
     
  8. FireRat

    FireRat Do Not Interact With This User, Anywhere!!! Exiled

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    The ending simply looks to be an optimized* copy-paste of an old version of the original init/loop. Judging by the prototype footage, it's possible that cheat requirement wasn't yet implemented until "last minute", because X/Y pos display do appear enabled. Then there's another oddity, the HUD appears with zero rings and keeps stuck at 0:00 time; you may think "perhaps it was made on purpose so the player knows its final game score?" Rendering every other Sonic games' endings inconsistent though.

    *no other major changes than setting certain variables directly instead of doing subroutine calls
     
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