Sonic 1 Back in time / hack of Lishay_th & Jk.fox

Today we present new hack "Sonic 1 Back in time"!

It is a first release - Demo 1!

List of changes:

1. Sonic physics

2. Green heel zone

3. Objects design

4. New music of Jk.fox (home page: https://vk.com/jk.fox.music)

5. Code changes (Lead programmer - Lishay_th)

 

Download link: https://yadi.sk/d/5P9QgN4IgZNMj

 

I played this recently and i must say you did great work. 

But really, a pink background?

 

Ok, first off I'm just going to assume you're colour blind and ignore how completely awful the palette is, and review the rest of the hack...

Well, the first two acts are mostly competently put together, flow nicely, but are perhaps a tad short and easy. Act 3 is practically nonexistent, and I couldn't beat the boss.

Looking through the level select that's all you've done changed. I'm thinking maybe you could have waited a little bit longer before releasing this, made a few more new zones. It's promising though, and I wish you the best of luck with your hack! 

e: tried playing it again and game over-ed in the first act falling into the same pit every life. also i don't think the end of act 2 is a very good idea, you'll die if you finish with less than 50 rings and can't enter the special stage. You need to do some balancing between routes in your acts, I think

 

Just gave this a go myself and I have to agree with crash as well. The first two acts in terms of how the layouts were made was pretty decent, though some parts of them definitely needs some work. The 3rd act as crash stated about, I couldn't even beat the boss as well. The way you placed everything on it, especially with no platforms at the bottom, it's practically impossible to beat him like that so might be something else you may want to fix. Lastly my only other nitpick to this is the pallet. Now I can understand trying to be creative and all, but the choices in colors for this you made doesn't really go together at all. If anything the only thing I will say that I liked about part of it was how you made the flowers red, but other than that, the rest of it didn't really catch on to my liking's much. Sorry if most of this may not have been what you expected it to be but this is just my own opinion.

 

The color palette is just...wow. Definitely awkward, as people have already pointed out. I didn't have a problem with the Green Hill boss though. I just took it slow. The end of Act 2 is rather unfair as well. You basically lose a life without a special stage. When you beat the level that should be it. Still I see quite a lot of potential in this hack and look forward to any improvements.

 

Had a playthrough of your game and I have to say... Job well done. This hack is quite good for a beginner hack and was pretty fun playing through. There were some issues of course but overall you did quite well creating this 3 act demo.

I really found act 2's layout very interesting and the music was quite good as well. Did you make it yourself jkfox?

I'm not a fan of the motobug at the beginning of act 1, due to the fact you can get killed if you don't move and if you wait a while you'll get hit. Say you started a game and looked away from the screen distracted, boom, you're dead. I Know there was a motobug at the beginning of the original Sonic 1 but it was a good distance away and didn't move around until It came on screen. This issue may come off as nitpicking, so I apologize if it does.

Some people are complaining about the palette. but to be honest, it's not that bad. Sure it can be tweaked a bit to be less bright, but I've seen way worse before.

The boss in act 3 was a bit harsh, but I enjoyed it as I like a challenge from ROM hacks once in a while. Just make sure not too make it too unfair. Maybe lessen the amount of hits the boss can take or give sonic an insta-shield.

I'd love to see this hack continued to be worked on and wish you luck on creating the rest of it. If you need any help with said hack, contact me. I don't program, but I do do art and music.

 

The pallete choice is a bit odd and hurts my eyes a bit when I increase in speed, and the levels feel a bit easy until Act 3 where the difficulty suddenly spikes a bit, also for some reason is it me or did the Final Zone boss music just randomly appear during the boss fight? Is it meant to be music that pops up when the boss is about to go down like some Sonic games have, or is it a glitch? I really can't tell. And with the boss, you have to time your jumps well and use the double jump (press C in mid-air) or just take your time. On the boss fight if you get hit it's probably going to be your last hit, because the lack of floor makes it so the rings will drop nearly instantly, perhaps bouncing once on the platforms. And may I add that when I tried to go back before the boss fight expecting something like an extra life there was just empty space

And on the subject of music and sounds, some of it is actually pretty catchy. I liked the Level Select music despite the fact you're not going to hear it in normal gameplay. I actually sat on the level select every now and then to hear the music. But Sonic's double-jump sound is pretty weird and unfitting, isn't it the same used for spikes?

There's some weird tile placement too, but that doesn't really make much of a difference but visual which doesn't really matter right now due to the strange choice of pallete. But right now the game is actually pretty fun to play but otherwise you need to fix it up a bit before it can get a high score. Better than some things that are submitted on here though, so I'll keep an eye on this topic for updates. I wish this project luck!

 

Why is it 2015 and people still say "pallete"?

 

A pallet is a straw mattress, apparently, or could also be defined as "a portable platform on which goods can be moved, stacked, and stored, especially with the aid of a forklift." Meanwhile, a palette (which is the spelling of the term that should be used here) is basically that thing that an artist puts paint on, or in this case, the selection of colors used for a level or character or whathaveyou. Pallete is also the last name of an actress.

tl;dr I don't know why either, nineko. I don't know why either.

Anywho, things I've found either interesting/good (+) or bad/irritating (-) about the hack:
- The GHZ palette. While I will agree I've seen far worse, I've also seen a few GHZ palettes that greatly outmatch this one. The colors don't blend well and the background is a bit hard on the eyes. That particular shade of magenta doesn't go too well with yellow and white =P
+ Sonic's moves. I like the way the double jump works. Jump, press C, jump again but be vulnerable to attack. It prevents that extra air from letting you destroy more enemies than a normal jump would let you. Also, the jumpdash is rather interesting, although from my experiences I can't tell if pressing A gives different results from pressing B or vice versa. Both trigger a jump dash.
+ Myoosix. I like the choice of music in this hack, I'll be honest. It's rather upbeat and while there are better choices for what is usually a very happy zone, I say it fits pretty decently.
- blah blah disappearing bridge logs blah blah unfair deaths blah blah everything else that's already been pointed out.

Not in the mood to write a damn book today, just got out of school. =P

All in all, change the palette a bit to make the colors blend better, add more variety, get at least 1 other zone done, and this could actually turn out to be a pretty cool thing. Right now, though, it's...just a thing. Not a good thing, but not a bad thing either. Just a thing.

edit: also, dear merciful hell that spring yard though

 

Some of the available disassemblies out there mis-spell the word throughout (specifically Hivebrain, if memory serves), so if English isn't your first language, the I'd guess that this mistake could be easily made. It's been bothering me for several years now...

 

​'Cause I'm extremely good at English.

Did I say it's my first language?