Having now watched the run, I found it quite enjoyable. Voting yes. Great job, Aglar! I do think that ais523's proposal, if implemented well, should be able to obsolete this run though.

What to say... Well, nvm that. All Sonic are good but I didn't even seen any TAS nonzipping that game! Well, watched it last day and I must to say that, YES!

I'm far from being TASer-elitist but I enjoyed this run much more that the current published one. However, I agree with some forum members that "low-glitch" version without glitches in GHZ2, LZ1, SBZ2 and SBZ3 would be even better. I really hope it'll be published. Now I want glitchless S3&K as well. That would be so awesome.

Call it arbitrary, but I mind the Scrap Brain skips and not the Final Zone glitching. I feel that skipping large parts of SB2 and SB3 does not fit in a run of this type. Up until those two levels, it seemed that a God was playing the perfect Sonic game. I think those two glitches are completely out of place in, what appeared to be, a full run through of this game. They seemed to come out of left field, and really ruined the flow of the run. I vote yes for the goal of being able to see Sonic, because I love seeing a God play the game. I have to vote no on the movie, due to how those two glitches being visually out of place in the movie. They ruin the entertainment.

I don't feel this really adds anything new. The run was well done, but I don't think it's necessary. Voting MEH.

For what it's worth, I think "no glitch" runs should be reserved for games that are well and truly broken. This run is less than 2 minutes slower than the published run, a difference of just 15% or so. That's not earth-shattering to me, even when you consider the extra time spent tallying the score at the end of each level. I checked the published run for the zips it used. Of the 18 levels, 12 used zips. Of those 12 zips, three of them were relatively minor (skipping only a portion of the level and not zipping straight to the end, such as in Scrap Brain 2) and one of them is in this submission (Scrap Brain 3). That leaves one-third of the levels with no noticeable changes, plus another one-sixth with minor changes to the route. If this had been, say, a Chrono Trigger "no save corruption" run, a Mega Man "zipless" run, or a Donkey Kong Country "warpless" run, I might be more open to it, but it just doesn't strike me as setting itself apart from the published run as much as it should. And consider this: all the games I just mentioned have glitchless versions that were obsoleted! Put another way, if we were working in the opposite direction-- if your run were published first and then a zipped run were produced-- I'm confident yours would be obsoleted. I checked the list of runs for the phrase "glitched" (quotes included) and found 19 games with that label. Eight of those games had no alternate runs. For the 11 remaining games, the percent difference between their glitched and non-glitched versions were 46% 94%, 95%, 88%, 75%, 77% 90%, 56%, 77%, 47%, and 52%, for an average difference of 72%. Additionally, there are just eight runs with either the "Forgoes time-saving glitches" and "Foregoes save data corruption" labels (though there is probably some overlap with the runs I already searched for). This is not a ringing endorsement of your run. I don't vote and I'm not about to change my ways, but if I did, I think you can see how I would.

I checked the published run for the zips it used. Of the 18 levels, 12 used zips.

For what is worth, one of the reasons Aglar has decided to do a non-zip run is that there are several new zips which will be added to the normal run: the 3 Marble zone levels basically are all skipped due to new zips, there is a new zip/shortcut in Spring Yard 3 and Star Light 1 is basically skipped also due to a new zip.

I checked the published run for the zips it used. Of the 18 levels, 12 used zips.

For what is worth, one of the reasons Aglar has decided to do a non-zip run is that there are several new zips which will be added to the normal run: the 3 Marble zone levels basically are all skipped due to new zips, there is a new zip/shortcut in Spring Yard 3 and Star Light 1 is basically skipped also due to a new zip.

That certainly pushes the percentage that Bobo calculated up to a more favorable number.

Personally I liked the movie, even with the sprite ejections. It's a nice break away from the zipping (though I love those runs too). Pretty soon though the whole game will be zipping anyway, so it's nice to have something like this alongside it. I'll vote yes.

Firstly, I think many people here have made some really solid points. More importantly, I don't think anyone has definitely proved their point. Probably because with a 'low glitch' type goal choice, there is generally some unavoidable gray area. In general, I prefer to respect the subjective choices by the author, whether it be entertainment choices or goal choices. This is a well made movie, of high entertainment value, a goal choice that has a solid place on TASVideos, and has voter support. The only thing up for debate is the the author's decisions in regards to major level skips (particularly in SB2 and SB3) and/or the rational behind a no zips run. I think the author's choice is well thought out and sufficient. As such I will accept this run. However, I think a future run COULD be done with slightly different goals (such as proposed by moozooh, and others) and still obsolete this one. To be absolutely clear, I'm not saying those are definitely better goal choices. I'm saying that they are possibly valid as well, and publication of this run does not necessarily restrict them. I don't want the publication of this movie to mean that a future improvement blindly follow these goals because "they have to". If a run was technically superior but was "respecting solidity" or "low glitch", I'm saying we could accept it as an improvement despite the completion time being LONGER (presumably).

And with that.... Hey, how about that crazy Sonic 3 and Knuckles huh?

Ick. Ick ick ick. I know the decision to publish has already been made, and I can respect the decision and understand the reasoning, but I personally disagree. I actually stopped watching after the zip (screw semantics. That's what that was.) in Scrap Brain 2. You broke your own rule for the run. You went through a wall, altered your x-y, broke the game. What's the point in a low-glitch run that still features that kind of a glitch? The run would have been just as entertaining and high-quality without stooping to that. That said, the run is obviously really high quality, and you did a really good job. The only exception is during the post-level screens--I felt like half the time, Sonic just rolled off screen and stayed there, and much of the rest of the time he was just standing around. Kinda felt like a lack of effort to not give the viewers something interesting to watch. So, the publishing is fine with me; I just hope someone comes along and obsoletes this with a more pure (by my definition alone, of course) run through the offending sections and with better time-filling in the score counting moments.

I actually stopped watching after the zip (screw semantics. That's what that was.) in Scrap Brain 2. You broke your own rule for the run. You went through a wall, altered your x-y, broke the game. What's the point in a low-glitch run that still features that kind of a glitch? The run would have been just as entertaining and high-quality without stooping to that.

Link to video Played to death, but it seems so appropriate for this run. (Honestly, I don't care much about the "zip" he used. What's far more important to me is the relatively small difference between this run and the published run in about half of its levels.)

In order to create a good "low-glitch" category for the game, I'd suggest banning zips, but also sprite ejections that eject Sonic out a different side of the sprite from which he entered (unless the sprite is destroyed in the process).

Yes! This is exactly what I had in mind with my proposal of respecting solidity.

I'm fine with a "zip through a Robotnik's device" that doesn't change the screen position at all ... =P

For what is worth, one of the reasons Aglar has decided to do a non-zip run is that there are several new zips which will be added to the normal run: the 3 Marble zone levels basically are all skipped due to new zips, there is a new zip/shortcut in Spring Yard 3 and Star Light 1 is basically skipped also due to a new zip.

I'm really excited about these new zips.

I'm floored by the improvements you managed to find. I can't figure out how to zip in a useful way in SY3.

Thanks for accepting it adelikat! I like the idea of still leaving a door open for a run with less "game breaking" ejections if in the future the game will get more and more broken even without zips, or if someone just feels like doing it. Me and marzojr have also started working on the "zipped" run, so that it's up to date and so the differences between the two categories will be even more distinguishable.

Aglarsome! I would like to suggest this screenshot: ^They see me zippin', they hatin'.

There's something I HAVE to say. Recent sonic encodes, such as the last updated version of the S3K run and the one I saw of this on youtube have incorrect sound. The way to fix this is to go into the gens menu and disable the "high quality" settings for different channels. Otherwise it's missing a few sounds (listen to Sonic's jump) and it bugs the shit out of me. Great run, though.

High quality FM: Acceptable, sounds correct. High quality PSG: Interpolates square waves into sine waves, kill with fire.

Whatever version the Model 1 Genesis uses for it's sound system, use that. It's MUCH better then Model 2.

I can't figure out how to zip in a useful way in SY3.

Aglar found the zip while doing this run; he was unsure if/how it might be useful, and asked me. After some poking, I did find a way to put it to use, and it turns out to be a ~10-second shortcut. But I won't spoil the surprise just yet :-)

Alright, encoding + publishing this. If you have some screeshot suggestions, feel free to post them.

I agree with Zeupar's screenshot suggestion so I used PNGOUT on it: