In 2010, Selbi created a hack that ported Green Hill Zone to Sonic Crackers. This was a simple proof of concept level port of Green Hill Zone Act 1 from Sonic the Hedgehog. These days, I dabbled around in level porting and wanted to see if I could get something in Crackers. Green Hill's been done, so why not a more complex level? Sonic 1 to Ristar shall wait until more is known about the Star compression format. Here is Chemical Plant Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, with the main layout of Act 1 ported to Sonic Crackers. Navigation in the level will be challenging thanks to how Crackers handles collision planes, so be sure to debug around! Provided are two ROMs, one without Combi, and one with Combi. Have fun! Source Code 10/29 Update: Fixed Combi build not chaining the characters together properly.
I'll be using this thread as a general update thread to things I add here. "Clackers" is a hack where I basically play around with what Crackers has to offer. Fix things, add things, whatever I'd like. In this progress update, I'll show what I've done in this hack so far, though this list will certainly be incomplete. Ports of Chaotix music for new songs Sound effects! Ported the SDK fading routine (used in the classics, looks like a blue fade) A bit more advanced title screen graphic Replaced the Crackers SEGA screen with the standard SDK SEGA screen to save on ROM space Actual title card text! Chaotix control scheme ported: C to jump B to grab the partner, or hold the partner in place A to summon partner to the player's position Fixed jump code Jumping off of slopes when facing left now acts the same as jumping off of slopes when facing right. Added rings (and a counter) Added monitors that explode upon contact with the top, with a ring popping out of it Added a goal object to touch at the end of a level instead of being hard-coded to a certain point. Level ports of Isolated Island from Chaotix and Planet Flora from Ristar And many more smaller things that may not be worth noting yet. As for now, I'll provide another progress update in video form. For this project, you can always download the most up to date version as it is open source on GitHub, and is constantly updated as I work on it. Do note, it may be a little unstable as of writing this. It's all an experiment, after all
This looks really cool! I love the concept of giving this prototype a sort of second chance on the Genesis.
As it turns out, Crackers has support for 6 extra character slots. They're, of course, all null data. I've taken use of one of these slots to add in a new character, which can be displayed alongside both existing characters in the game. Currently, there's no animation or arm sprite data for the new character, but I should get onto those soon.
I haven't worked on this for a bit, so I'll release a pre-compiled version of this project in its current state. Enjoy! The "Combi" build plays more like Chaotix, where you're tethered together with your partner. You can only play as Sonic, but can control Tails with the second controller in 2P mode. The "NoCombi" build has you play with a single character, not assisted by any partner character. You can play as either Sonic or Tails. Last build: November 15, 2023
