Sonic goes hunting for the Chaos and Super Emeralds in order to truly defeat Dr. Robotnik. The powers obtained from the Chaos Emeralds make him slightly faster in general; the powers obtained from the Super Emeralds break the game so horribly it stops being funny.
Warning: The awesomeness of Hyper Sonic may hurt your eyes or trigger seizures on susceptible people.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: Gens 11a
  • No death
  • Aims for fastest (primarily in-level) time
  • Ignores delays caused by bonus effects
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Abuses programming errors in the game (a lot)
  • Manipulates luck (a little)
  • Grabs all Chaos and Super Emeralds
  • Avoids underflowing the horizontal position (see comments, below)

Comments

After grabbing all Chaos Emeralds, most levels benefit slightly from the Super Sonic transformation: Super Sonic accelerates faster, jumps higher, has a faster spindash and a higher top speed, and this usually translates to a lower in-game time for the level.
After grabbing all Super Emeralds, almost every single level benefits from the Hyper Sonic transformation. Hyper Sonic has the most broken abilities ever: his hyper launch. This allows getting into walls and floors in places where other characters can't (although some can be replicated with Sonic and the bubble shield -- if you can find it), and wall zipping ensues.
This run uses almost all of the known glitches and abuses: the only exception is the underflowing of the horizontal coordinate; this is the technical form of saying "teleporting from the start to the end of a level" for this game. The reasoning behind it is to show more of the game, and to better showcase the abilities of Super Sonic and Hyper Sonic. The drawback is that this restriction costs dearly on a few levels in terms of time.
For the same reasons, Sonic goes solo on this run -- a fact that also costs dearly in terms of time on a few levels.
The special stages use the same input as the Knuckles 100% run by Upthorn, and are used with permission.
A few levels are similar to the existing Sonic and Sonic + Tails runs; a few levels (Hidden Palace and Sky Sanctuary) are carbon copies of the other runs.

Timetable

LevelTime
Angel Island 10:56:20
Angel Island 21:23:55
Hidrocity 10:45:27
Hidrocity 20:58:42
Marble Garden 10:39:30
Marble Garden 20:58:35
Carnival Night 10:41:24
Carnival Night 20:42:53
IceCap 11:19:34
IceCap 20:41:18
Launch Base 11:36:41
Launch Base 21:03:33
Mushroom Hill 11:02:07
Mushroom Hill 20:58:54
Flying Battery 11:20:42
Flying Battery 21:16:48
Sandopolis 11:33:57
Sandopolis 21:02:47
Lava Reef 10:57:14
Lava Reef 20:47:42
Hidden Palace0:26:52
Sky Sanctuary0:55:49
Death Egg 10:57:03
Death Egg 22:08:46
Doomsday1:34:36[1]
Total26:51:09
The table shows the in-game timer values. The value after the final colon indicates the in-game frame counter, and is restricted to the 0-59 range. It is updated every frame (except during lag frames), and increments the in-game second when resetting to zero.
[1] The Doomsday timer stops at this value; the last hit (i.e., the point where the movie ends) is at time 1:30:40. Moreover, the last time visible on-screen is 1:33(:57).

Stage by stage comments

Angel Island 1

At the end, in the crumbling platforms before the mini boss, it is possible to save 5 frames with a spindash; but these frames cost a lot more time in Act 2.

Angel Island 2

The swinging wine at 0:15:08 is left in an inconvenient position if I arrive here earlier. I decide to grab the fourth emerald here, despite the loss of time, in order to have Super Sonic as early as practical.

Marble Garden 1

There is no convenient place to lose the shield after I grab the last emerald; thus, becoming Super Sonic in this level loses more time than it is worth.

Marble Garden 2

Losing the shield at 0:23:34, however, is faster than waiting for an opportunity to go around the spiked ball. Especially since I quality for Super Sonic transformation after grabbing the 6 rings right after it. At around 0:30:00, I am slightly faster than I would be if I were to hit the red spring.

Carnival Night 2

New wall entrance at 0:20:00 allows me to skip a large section of the level then run around at very high speed right until the end, saving 26 seconds compared to the current Sonic + Tails run.

IceCap 1

Super Sonic shows up to do some snowboarding. Lots of vertical screen wrapping abuse, I reach the boss. The 3 ring monitors from the flag really speed up the next act.

IceCap 2

Super Sonic glitched transformation at 0:12:00 -- I am on the ground and manage to transform anyway! This saves a good deal of time. Sadly, it is impossible to reach the ledge at around 0:22:50 as Super Sonic, meaning I lose about 2 seconds at that point.

Launch Base 1 & 2

The fire shield I grab on the way at the start of Launch Base 1 serves only to get me faster to the first giant ring in Launch Base 2. At around 0:45:40, I go slightly higher up to have slightly more speed at 0:47:00; this way, I can glitch past an invisible wall at about 0:47:55 and kill the middle boss unhindered.

Mushroom Hill 1 & 2

Lots and lots of emerald grabbing. In act 1, grabbing the second emerald determines the rest of the way -- all other paths to the end are slower. I grab the fire shield and ring monitors after the boss to speed up act 2. In act 2, I lose the shield at around 0:36:30 so I can turn into Hyper Sonic as quickly as possible; since I would have to wait for the giant ring to form anyway, I lose no time in the process. At 0:44:14, I hyper launch into the ground for a large speed boost.

Flying Battery 1

Lots of ring grabbing at the start for earlier Hyper Sonic; the fire shield is very useful at this start too.

Flying Battery 2

Using the anti-gravity glitch to get inside the ground, I zip right until about 0:14:00, where I cancel the glitch. Hyper Sonic makes short work of the level then. I lose the rings on purpose after the boss is killed to make for a faster score tally.

Sandopolis 1

At about 0:16:00, I loiter around a bit: the next timed object is in the way however fast I get to it. The ring monitor and fire shield monitor are grabbed to manipulate the placement of timed objects in the next act.

Lava Reef 1

A bit of loitering at 0:14:40 to wait for the rings. After that, the shield is lost. The ring monitor and fire shield after the boss are essential to the next act; I push myself into the ground to gain a large speed boost at the start of the level.

Lava Reef 2

At 0:20:27, the fire shield loses its usefulness and I drop it. At about 0:33:00, I take the way around because the timed objects are in a very bad position. I then skip the boss, which would be about 2 minutes of dull, repetitive gameplay.

Hidden Palace & Sky Sanctuary

Basically identical to SprintGod's Sonic solo run. But with all emeralds in the former, and some luck manipulation in the latter to get the boss to use the same attack pattern.

Death Egg 1

This is the fastest route to Hyper Sonic. The level is broken after that, and the boss is a breeze.

Death Egg 2

Again, fastest route to Hyper Sonic. Staying in the ceiling is faster than being on the ground in the mid boss; hyper launch from anywhere hits the shield and makes a noise. The egg robo is identical to SprintGod's.

The Doomsday

Both bosses are incredibly annoying: they are liable to desynch on any changes to earlier levels due to differences in the RNG. The first boss is easy to abuse as his missiles move strangely when you are moving around the screen: you can cause a hit much faster simply by moving appropriately. I had to delay a couple hits in the second because a 1 frame delay in the hit caused a much faster recovery time. Last hit happens with only 13 frames of Hyper Sonic left on the clock.

Other comments

You may want to download and use this LUA HUD for Genesis Sonic games. It has a lot of useful information for a TAS, including a jump predictor for Sonic and for Tails (in Sonic + Tails games).
I want to thank Nitsuja, Upthorn and SprintGod, without which this run would not be possible. Orkal also helped indirectly with a couple tricks in his S3&K glitch videos.

What could be improved

It might be possible to improve Doomsday by a few frames in the mid-boss fight, but it isn't easy.
Switching to Sonic+Tails would save a lot of time, as would eliminating the "avoids underflowing the horizontal position" restriction. Also, allowing death as a shortcut would save some time in a couple of levels. I am not aware of any other improvements that don't require these changes.
Suggested screenshot:

mmbossman: Replaced the submission file with one which better conforms with goals at the request of the author; please note that Lava Reef zone has changed. If you believe this will change your vote, please rewatch.

adelikat: Popular vote wins. I accept this submission (as a new category for this game).

Raiscan: Encoding. What should the new category be called, though?


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2416: marzojr's Genesis Sonic 3 & Knuckles "Sonic, 100%" in 55:48.80
sgrunt
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I have tracked the development of this run and am glad to see it come to fruition at last. Hooray for a run of the game which shows the Doomsday Zone... :-) Yes vote.
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Oh man, I wish I didn't have school in 30 minutes, it looks like such an easy yes vote. Expect a yes vote in 9 hours.
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I also vote yes on this run. Initially, I wasnt entirely interested in this run but you proved me wrong with your wips. Cheers!
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
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let me be the first to say this : can i have an encode please ? :p
Techokami
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Wow, that was very well done! Doesn't seem too different than the WIP you posted, but it's still crazy fast and I greatly enjoyed it. Also, might just be my shitty memory but the route used in the red Chaos Emerald special stage seemed... different than the one used in the all Emeralds Knuckles run on the site. Hope you'll do a Sonic & Tails all emeralds run! Voting yes.
Mitjitsu
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Skipped over all the special stages once it got the past the 6th one, but the rest of it was very enjoyable. Yes vote.
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Warning: watching Hyper Sonic may cause your head to explode from awesomeness. Or epilepsy. Whichever.
Joined: 5/24/2004
Posts: 262
I was initially thinking of giving this a "meh" vote because I noted several things that were suboptimal - mostly toward the beginning of the run in angel island and hydrocity. But, since this run doesn't really aim for best time, and we already have plenty of those runs, that it definitely gets a "yes" for entertainment value. The lava reef act 1 boss battle was one of the coolest things I've seen in a sonic TAS. Really good style overall.
mklip2001
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Hyper Sonic totally makes it worth it for this game to have a third category of run. Nice job!
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
marzojr
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Andypro wrote:
I was initially thinking of giving this a "meh" vote because I noted several things that were suboptimal - mostly toward the beginning of the run in angel island and hydrocity.
You do know that this (along with what points you think were suboptimal in those levels) is exactly the kind of feedback that would have been useful when I was posting wips at the other thread, right?
Marzo Junior
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Voted no for using a random set of goals.
No.
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Having been following the WIPs, I am excited to finally give this a yes vote.
Stuffs. Yarr!
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This run definitely needs a seizure warning. FLYING BATTERY 2 OW MY EYES I've been one of the more vocal detractors of your goals in IRC, not so much in the topic, because it enables you to hide behind "you get to see more of the level" when really you still don't see much of it at all. And if we want to get technical about it, you actually underflowed the horizontal position at the start of Lava Reef 2. Whoops! Having said that, it's still entertaining in its own right (special stages notwithstanding), so I'm voting yes. If nothing else, going Super Sonic in the snowboarding section earns the yes vote :P
marzojr
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DrJones wrote:
Voted no for using a random set of goals.
No offense, but I like to ask you what is it that you see as "random" in the goals: they are essentially "no death", the set of "standard" Sonic TAS goals, 100% completion and "no warp from start to end of levels". And even "no death" is present in most of the Sonic TASes.
Marzo Junior
Joined: 11/11/2006
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I said I'd encode this, and I will. But before I do, if anyone can give me a game genie/ patch code to disable the hyper sonic flash, that would be great. it's so annoying if you aren't the one playing the game :-/
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mike89 wrote:
This run definitely needs a seizure warning
i more than agree :: goes put ice on his eyes :: i tought hyper knuckles was awesome it was just because i hadn't saw hyper "gimmeseizureZOMGWTFFAST" sonic amazing run, yes vote BUT 2 questions : should it stay alongside the 100% knuckles run or should it obselete it ? second question is: since knuckles isn't used, shouldn't the run be on the "simple" sonic 3 rom and not on the sonic & knuckles + sonic 3 one ? edit : the run work on gens10a + Sonic and Knuckles & Sonic 3 (JUE) (i supose that it's the other name for (W) ) ?
marzojr
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Nicos wrote:
should it stay alongside the 100% knuckles run or should it obselete it ?
I'd say stand alongside it; the runs are different enough to warrant that, I'd say.
Nicos wrote:
second question is: since knuckles isn't used, shouldn't the run be on the "simple" sonic 3 rom and not on the sonic & knuckles + sonic 3 one ?
Using Knuckles or not isn't the determining factor here; the levels after Launch Base are from Sonic & Knuckles; these levels, plus the Super Emeralds (and Hyper Sonic, by extension) can only be reached from the composite ("locked-on") rom.
Marzo Junior
marzojr
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mike89 wrote:
I've been one of the more vocal detractors of your goals in IRC, not so much in the topic, because it enables you to hide behind "you get to see more of the level" when really you still don't see much of it at all.
See, *this* is valid criticism of the goals! For what is worth, when I have enough time to start working on a full Hyper Sonic run, I will probably revise this run to eliminate that goal.
mike89 wrote:
And if we want to get technical about it, you actually underflowed the horizontal position at the start of Lava Reef 2. Whoops!
Hehe, so someone *did* notice it :-) As for the warning: maybe something along the lines of this:
Warning: The awesomeness of Hyper Sonic may hurt your eyes or trigger seizures on susceptible people.
placed right after the intro text?
Marzo Junior
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The only thing that makes the flashing better is watching it when really tired at the end of the day. I vote yes
BigBoct
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I think the "no horizontal underflow" goal is a little too broad, because (as I mentioned in the discussion topic) it leaves a bit too much room to skip "most" of an act without actually skipping the whole thing; the two most egregious offenders are Flying Battery 2 and Sky Sanctuary, both of which we barely see. It's not enough that I won't vote Yes, but I wanted to get that complaint on the record.
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Given the fact that you set an ambiguous goal, and then break that goal at least once, what is your proposed resolution to avoid further complaints regarding poor goal choice?
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upthorn
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The goal isn't ambiguous (although misstated -- it should be underflow, not overflow), however, if it is violated in Lava Reef 2, it would be a flagrant violation of guidelines to publish this run. I haven't taken the time yet to watch all the way through this run, mainly because I'm still kind of burned out on S3K after my last TAS, so it's hard for me to keep an interest in the run for more than a few minutes.
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BigBoct
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@mmbossman: Which goal was violated and where do you see it? I've been following the WIPs since he started and haven't seen any violations, and definitely not a violation of the "no horizontal underflow" glitch. @upthorn: He uses wall-zips in Lava Reef 2, gets stuck in the floor at the end of Lava Reef 1 so he can zip to the right at the beginning of Lava Reef 2, and skips the Lava Reef boss. I don't believe any of those are violations of the goals.
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Not having seen this run yet, my only main concern with it is that if it's published, that will make it much harder for an entirely glitchless run to be published in the future, since this is the last plausible category I can think of for this game. Of course, I myself lack the skill to make such a run, and I'm not about to try to dictate to marzojr what he can and can't do.
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