A technologically impressive hack also known for it's rapid speeds, pushed faster than the developers expected!
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Gens 11a
- Takes no damage
- Completes the game as fast as possible
- Exploits programming oversights and engine limitations
Comments
A group calling themselves SÆGA set out to make a game that did justice to Sonic's speed and agility, to do this they took a Sonic 2 rom, disassembled it and began to modify the source code, pushing the limitations of the engine far what most had seen before.
Levels are fast-paced with lots of multi-choice paths and are impressively long, so much that a typical player can easily run out of time if they don't know where they are going!
To help navigate through these levels seven new movesets are introduced to Sonic, as detailed by [Moderator Edit: Do not link to websites that host copyright protected materials (e.g. game ROMs)].
According to the forum topic, this hack is still in production and only the "First Level" is released so far.
Stage by stage comments
Power Plant Zone
Act 1
This act is rather generous at the start with rings quickly allowing me to use the Diagonal Dash ability I so I can glitch into the second loop, allowing me to zip through portions of the level. From then on the movie pretty much speaks for itself for this level.
Act 2
@ 0:03 I use a Diagonal Dash at a precise frame into the springs, this allows me to cancel the forward momentum that would otherwise cause me to go through a different (and much slower) route.
@ 0:27 I Diagonal Dash into another corner, this allows me to cut 80% of the level and put me conveniently right next to the boss.
Act 3
Unfortunately there is no real time-saving glitches available to this stage, I can glitch out of the stage in several places but never manage to get back into the level before the ring count is depleated from being in the fire. It also seems not to matter how fast you try to move through the level, it has a pre-determined length or something. Although for the sake of simply making things interesting to watch, I deliberately kill a Badnik on the way out of the level this causes a interesting graphical glitch!
Final comments
Things for the Audience
Unlike some Sonic games (and/or hacks) there is next-to-no places that force you to wait for long periods of time, so alot of the entertainment in this run will come from the blazing speed and not from goofiness inbetween waits.
Possible Improvements
I can't help but think perhaps a whole second or two is squeeable from Power Plant Act 1, and I refuse to believe there is no way to speed up Act 3 but I have been completely unable to find anyway to do so.
Suggested Screenshots
The recommended thumbnail screenshot would be frame: 12784
A few other interesting screenshots may be frames; 1078, 3436, 4143, 4869, 10641