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Run summary

Sonic 2 for Master System in 18:44.28 with all emeralds. A fair percentage of this time can be allocated to counting down the ridiculously sized time bonus (the maximum is 300000 points, and I obtain this six times).

Run description

  • Aims for fastest (primarily in-game) time
  • Items: 100%
  • Best ending
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Manipulates luck

Emulator information

Dega 1.14a was used to record this run. L+R is on (I'm not sure if you can even turn it off), and it's used quite a bit. Sound is 44100kHz (just in case). I didn't actually change any defaults, though, so hopefully there aren't any problems.

General notes

The fastest means of movement in the game is the roll-jump. The speed of this can be further increased by rolling down a hill. However there's a small slowdown when you hit the ground, so it pays to make them as long as possible most of the time.
Collecting all six emeralds allows me to play Crystal Egg - it doesn't add that much time, and it doesn't really feel complete without Crystal Egg at the end.
The timer in this game sucks. It carries over fractions of a second from the previous level, meaning it's not entirely accurate. Some levels, therefore, are actually a second shorter than they appear.
Some specific level notes:
Aqua Lake 1 - I got hung up on this level for about a week because it seemed to be half a second slower than the real-time video I was using as reference. Sprint told me he only managed 16 because the timer on the PAL version ran slower, but I didn't like this explanation because it didn't meet the usual 5:6 ratio. So I ran my TAS against his speedrun side by side. I came out in front.
Draw your own conclusions.
Scrambled Egg 1 - This level is slower than the equivalent real time video, but only because there's a shortcut on the Game Gear version that the Master System version can't make.
Scrambled Egg 3 - If that looks like random input in the tube... well, it is. I basically mashed random buttons until Silver Sonic bent to my will.
After three hits, I had to force him into my preferred pattern again, but I couldn't manage it a third time and it got one proper attack in.
Crystal Egg 3 - I feel this isn't a great end to the run (normally Robotnik would be spouting attacks at you) but the alternative was to torture myself with nonsensical hitboxes and frustrating attack patterns. This one is more directly comparable to existing material, anyway.

Special thanks

sgrunt - Was the first to attempt a run on this game, and got me started on it when his first WIP left plenty of room for improvement. So, for being suboptimal, I salute you!
Sprint - Creator of all the real time videos on which I based my strategies. In particular the whole Scrambled Egg 2 strat is down to him, which is amazing when you consider the amount of frame-perfect tricks there.
Anyone else that watched my WIPs... anyone?
Enjoy!
NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots of this movie and placed them here. Oh! I also corrected the ROM name.
  • You indicated Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (UE) (V1.0) [!].sms
  • I updated it to Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (UE) (V1.0) [!].sms
Bisqwit: Seems proper and good. Accepting and encoding. Congratulations. :)

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Posted: 12/5/2007 8:54 AM
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TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1789: mike89's SMS Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 18:44.28
Posted: 12/5/2007 9:47 AM
(Edited: 12/5/2007 10:27 AM)
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plusminus
Player (64)
Joined: 11/2/2007
Posts: 100
Location: Toronto, Canada
What's the cutoff for the huge time bonus? It takes approximately 13 seconds to count the whole 300000 points, and approximately 4 seconds to count 80000 points (Green Hill zone 2, I think it was, had this bonus with a time of 26 seconds). In other words, I think you might save time in places by slowing down. :/ Although, this could possibly be excused by saying the movie "Aims for fastest in-game time", or alternately "Trades speed for entertainment" sort of. I personally would prefer to sit through a few seconds of score counting over a few seconds of sonic running down the in-game clock, I think. Other than that, I thought it was a good run. Super-fast sliding and spinning, nice boss fights, just a heck of a lot of speed for an 8-bit game. I'm not thrilled about the choice to get all the emeralds since it doesn't actually affect gameplay, but the time difference seems minimal (apart from the underwater level). Getting all the emeralds lets you play the last level, doesn't it? If so, I'm all for it. Perhaps clarify this in the submission text. EDIT: Voted yes. It might be difficult to determine whether a future run obsoletes this one, but eh. I liked it.
Posted: 12/5/2007 10:01 AM
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Wockes
Joined: 5/17/2007
Posts: 393
Location: Sweden
lol I like how the front page still says sms runs ant supported, watching this run now EDIT: No masterpiece but it kept me fairly interested. Yes vote
"No love for the game gear"
Posted: 12/5/2007 10:26 AM
(Edited: 12/5/2007 1:50 PM)
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Mechuyael
Joined: 2/1/2007
Posts: 245
Location: Israel
Wow, this was the first GG game I ever had, and I absolutely hated it, mostly because of that first boss. If Sonic 2 for the Megadrive/Genesis wasn't included with the purchase I would never have played it and would think that all Sonic games are as evil as this. I'm going to watch it right now, will edit in my vote. Edit: I'm giving it a meh. Being that I haven't played this game since my age was in single digits I guess I forgot how slow paced it is relative to other Sonic games, and the music and sounds were kind of annoying. I wasn't really entertained at any point in this run.
Posted: 12/5/2007 10:45 AM
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Atma
Former player
Joined: 9/1/2005
Posts: 803
plusminus wrote:
In other words, I think you might save time in places by slowing down. :/ Although, this could possibly be excused by saying the movie "Aims for fastest in-game time", or alternately "Trades speed for entertainment" sort of. I personally would prefer to sit through a few seconds of score counting over a few seconds of sonic running down the in-game clock, I think.
This one sort of goes against the general style of a sonic game, where fastest in level time is the goal, regardless of the score counter. There has been an occasion where such was done, however, some people found it kind of stupid to do so, as you have the entertainment of the level kinda crushed by just standing next to the goal post for 5 seconds on every stage. Also, yes vote from me on this. I still have difficulty consistently getting the second emerald, and was surprised to see that you could get it with a simple spring jump. It would've been nice however to see you using a hang glider far more efficiently than you could when playing it real time :P
Posted: 12/5/2007 11:57 AM
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stanski
Player (74)
Joined: 12/20/2006
Posts: 154
Yes (and i am biased)
http://speeddemosarchive.com/
Posted: 12/5/2007 1:02 PM
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Mitjitsu
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Joined: 4/24/2006
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TAS of 2007 N64 TAS of 2007
Voting yes, it was pretty solid throughout. Although I will say you didn't optimally use the L+R glitch, you need to press L+R, then down and then hold L+R after that. That way you will get much faster aceleration at the start.
Posted: 12/5/2007 1:24 PM
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mmbossman
Experienced player (822)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
GBx TAS of 2008
Can anyone say "Ignores delays caused by bonus effects"? Anyway, this brought back some good memories, I remember playing it on my game gear and I think I actually managed to collect all the emeralds one time. There were some small things I wondered about (being slower or faster), but nothing is popping to mind right now, so I'll give it a yes, although I would like to hear more about AKA's statement about faster acceleration.
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Posted: 12/5/2007 2:47 PM
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Anon
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 275
Any particular reason for getting the Ring bonus on the Bonus Plate instead of Robotnik's ugly mug? I think this run should be published just for you racing through Scrambled Egg, but even without that, it was an overall solid TAS. Nice work.
Posted: 12/5/2007 2:56 PM
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mike89
Active player (301)
Joined: 8/8/2005
Posts: 296
Location: NSW, Australia
A few clarifications:
plusminus wrote:
What's the cutoff for the huge time bonus?
20 seconds. I'm not deliberately slowing down to avoid it anyway, it looks stupid.
plusminus wrote:
Getting all the emeralds lets you play the last level, doesn't it? If so, I'm all for it. Perhaps clarify this in the submission text.
Added to submission text. You're right, I should have pointed that out initially, I suppose I figured it was common sense.
Atma wrote:
It would've been nice however to see you using a hang glider far more efficiently than you could when playing it real time :P
While to an extent I am inclined to agree, I always hated the hang glider as a kid because I could never remember how to use it. As such I am biased against it and never want to have to use it again.
AKA wrote:
I will say you didn't optimally use the L+R glitch, you need to press L+R, then down and then hold L+R after that. That way you will get much faster aceleration at the start.
I'd be interested to see that in action. I tried similar things that didn't have the desired effect :o
Anon wrote:
Any particular reason for getting the Ring bonus on the Bonus Plate instead of Robotnik's ugly mug?
Ring comes up when your ring count is a multiple of 10. Most often this is 00 because I've just taken a damage boost or something.
Posted: 12/5/2007 3:06 PM
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ZeXr0
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
Could someone provide an AVI of this run ? It would be nice if the submitter knows how to create an AVI to provide a link when it is submitted (that way more people could watch it instead of waiting for the published movie to come out)
Posted: 12/5/2007 3:26 PM
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sgrunt
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Joined: 10/28/2007
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mike89 wrote:
sgrunt - Was the first to attempt a run on this game, and got me started on it when his first WIP left plenty of room for improvement. So, for being suboptimal, I salute you!
Hurrah - I'm an inspiration! As you can imagine, I've been closely monitoring this run since its inception and am glad to see it complete at last. Oh, the tag should include "Abuses programming errors in the game" due to extensive use of the L+R glitch (I'm glad that you found plenty of uses for it).
plusminus wrote:
Getting all the emeralds lets you play the last level, doesn't it? If so, I'm all for it. Perhaps clarify this in the submission text.
This is correct, and was my reason for aiming for an emerald run when I first started experimenting.
ZeXr0 wrote:
Could someone provide an AVI of this run ?
That'll probably be me, and I'll encode something once I have some time to do so (over the next couple of days). Yes vote, by the way, due to this being a highly anticipated run on my part and matching my expectations.
Posted: 12/5/2007 4:17 PM
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AngerFist
Active player (432)
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
First edition TAS of 2015 Innovative TAS of 2007
I've seen all of your wips and they looked good. Strange that I never played this game when I was a child. Anyway, voted yes.
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
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
Posted: 12/5/2007 6:39 PM
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plusminus
Player (64)
Joined: 11/2/2007
Posts: 100
Location: Toronto, Canada
mike89 wrote:
plusminus wrote:
What's the cutoff for the huge time bonus?
20 seconds. I'm not deliberately slowing down to avoid it anyway, it looks stupid.
Agreed. I just thought it was important to note this was intentional.
mike89 wrote:
plusminus wrote:
Getting all the emeralds lets you play the last level, doesn't it? If so, I'm all for it. Perhaps clarify this in the submission text.
Added to submission text. You're right, I should have pointed that out initially, I suppose I figured it was common sense.
If I recall correctly the first Sonic game on the Genesis that let you access an extra level (not including special stages) when you got all the emeralds was Sonic & Knuckles. So I figured the emeralds were just to get a better ending like in Sonic 1, until I read the WIP.
Posted: 12/5/2007 10:29 PM
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moozooh
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Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away
Wow, this game is pretty… bad, at least for a Sonic game. The run is pretty good, though. Yessed it. I have no idea what happened at the last stage. It looked incredibly weird and stupid, to say the least.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Posted: 12/5/2007 10:39 PM
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sgrunt
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Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
moozooh wrote:
I have no idea what happened at the last stage. It looked incredibly weird and stupid, to say the least.
The last stage is normally fairly difficult - in this case it wasn't because the hits were landed too quickly to get a start on the attack pattern (which occupies a lot of time during which it is impossible to land hits). Thus, the rapid accumulation of hits merely prevents the more boring attack pattern from starting up. :-p
Posted: 12/5/2007 10:40 PM
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moozooh
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Posts: 5770
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Well, my statement also applies to the sequence that happened after the last hit got delivered, as well.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Posted: 12/5/2007 10:42 PM
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sgrunt
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Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
That's just a lead-in to the ending sequence. Yes, it's boring, but there's not much that can be done there. :-p
Posted: 12/6/2007 1:04 AM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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I watched the WsIP too, but I don't think I gave any feedback besides pointing out that Green Hills Zone has the theme from Sonic CD, so you don't have to mention me.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 12/6/2007 1:41 AM
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Raiscan
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
I'm voting yes because its my first SMS movie I've watched and it was reasonably enjoyable. The only thing I did not like was the piercing sound of the time being added to your score at the end. I had to map the turbo button to endure that :(
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Posted: 12/6/2007 2:20 AM
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Sticky
Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: Minnesota
i was entertained, and laughed at how bad metal sonic looks. yes vote
adelikat wrote:
I very much agree with this post.
Bobmario511 wrote:
Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Posted: 12/6/2007 2:32 AM
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superjupi
Joined: 10/15/2007
Posts: 685
Easy yes. I owned the Game Gear Sonic 2 before the Genesis version, and like most everyone else who played this game, I harbored an exceedingly large amount of frustration for it. This was honestly the first time I'd seen the last level without cheating, because I just couldn't be bothered to get all the Chaos Emeralds when I was more preoccupied with not dying. I've been watching this movie's progress from the first post onward, and while it's not especially exciting for a Sonic game, it's a trip to watch from the standpoint of someone who cursed the game and anyone who had anything to do with it right down to whoever stocked it on store shelves. There are movies that make games look easy, but this one makes me want to hang my head in shame for having ever lost a life. You'd never know how difficult the game was by watching this, and that's huge. Thumbs up.
Kirby said so, so it must be true. ( >'.')>
Posted: 12/6/2007 2:38 AM
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sgrunt
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superjupi wrote:
[...]it's a trip to watch from the standpoint of someone who cursed the game and anyone who had anything to do with it right down to whoever stocked it on store shelves. There are movies that make games look easy, but this one makes me want to hang my head in shame for having ever lost a life. You'd never know how difficult the game was by watching this, and that's huge. Thumbs up.
I'd just like to note that I have the same sentiment for identical reasons. :-)
Posted: 12/6/2007 2:41 AM
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plusminus
Player (64)
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Posts: 100
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Raiscan wrote:
The only thing I did not like was the piercing sound of the time being added to your score at the end.
Would it be a reasonable request that, should this movie be published, the sound in the AVI is lowered/muted when the score is being tallied?
Posted: 12/6/2007 2:59 AM
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shallow
Joined: 10/16/2006
Posts: 174
I would like to watch and rate this movie. I really would. Unfortunately, there must be something wrong with the link provided for the Dega emulator. There are no .exe files (or anything similar) that I can see to even start the emulator. Just a lot of folders filled with .txt files. I'm sorry if it's a bit off topic, but the reason I want to figure this problem out is because I really wanted to watch this movie. Thanks for the help.
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