I have to admit, I was jealous of Q's Sonic 2 run because his Chem Plant 1 is the shortest level in any of the Genesis games (not counting Knux Hidden Palace in S3&K which isn't really a level), and that's a super cool thing to have in your run. Some might say I shouldn't have been
that jealous since that was one of the levels I helped him to optimize. In truth, he took the time from 22 seconds to 18.1 seconds on his own, and I came in at the 11th hour and pointed out how to shave off 0.1 seconds for the 17. So yeah, I was still jealous.
Anyways, Q, you can have your CP1 because I finally tied you!
http://www.geocities.com/xebranick/Sonic1Acts1-2v3byxebra.zip
I got 17 seconds on Green Hill Zone Act 2. The run through is still very rough, and I'm sure I can knock off some more frames, though at this point in time I don't see how 16 can be possible.
For those that have watched the run, if you land even a few pixels more inside the wall above the breakaways, you are "stuck," at which point pressing left will shoot you off at high speed to the right, while pressing right will shoot you off at high speed to the left. I have not found a way to exploit this, because no matter what I do I have to collect the boots. Launching from slightly different spots inside the wall sends you off at different velocities.
It is possible to launch yourself off to the left at just the right trajectory so that you pass directly above the long row of spikes and shoot clear off the screen. When this happens the game starts scrolling at very high speed to the right. I was hoping it would scroll all the way to the end of the level, but I die (even though you can't see Sonic) when I reach the portion with the moving platforms and spikes interspersed amongst each other, past the loop with the 1-up on top. If I jump at just the right time I can make it farther into the spikes/platforms, but I still die. I'm not sure if I die because Sonic, wherever he is, is somehow colliding with a spike, somewhere, or just because that's the first part of the level that has no bottom whatsoever, and Sonic, wherever he is, falls completely off the map. Here is a movie of the glitch:
http://www.geocities.com/xebranick/gh2glitch.zip. If anyone can tell me what the heck is going on there, and whether or not it might be possible to do something to scroll past the portion where I die, that would be great.
