If you're very familiar with the previous run, you might want to to watch the new run before reading about it for surprises.
  • Emulator used: Gens 11a + Camhack + SolidityViewer + (partial)HitboxDisplay + LUA HUD for Genesis Sonic games (I recommend using a normal emulator when watching it for the first time)
  • Aims for fastest ingame time
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Controls 2 players
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Manipulates Luck
  • Contains Speed/entertainment tradeoffs
One thing was clear to me after finishing the "Sonic 1" run - I would never TAS another Sonic game again. And what happened? I TASed another Sonic game. It started at the very end of my last project when I was bored and just felt like trying to shave off some frames in the first level of this game. After saving a handful of those I still wasn't motivated to take on the run as a whole, then I found a timesaver of half a second at the end of the level - still not motivated, but then after another half a second timesaver at the middle of the level that pushed the time down another ingame second I did start to consider taking it after all. 4 months later the total ingame improvement became 3956 frames (65.93 seconds) with the following breakdowns.

Timetable (the times are correctly read as minutes:seconds::frames)

ActNew timeOld timeFrames savedTotal frames saved
Emerald Hill 10:15::340:16::426868
Emerald Hill 20:33::310:33::39876
Chemical Plant 10:16::330:16::501793
Chemical Plant 20:31::590:32::4647140
Aquatic Ruin 10:12::500:16::30220360
Aquatic Ruin 20:27::160:30::09173533
Casino Night 10:19::320:23::35243776
Casino Night 20:44::540:47::50176952
Hill Top 10:24::250:27::101651117
Hill Top 20:38::320:43::443121429
Mystic Cave 10:22::120:23::19671496
Mystic Cave 20:32::110:35::141831679
Oil Ocean 10:16::420:20::322301909
Oil Ocean 20:29::200:30::09491958
Metropolis 10:31::160:32::26702028
Metropolis 20:12::230:13::36732101
Metropolis 30:32::380:59::4116233724
Sky Chase2:05::572:05::5703724
Wing Fortress1:30::081:33::452173941
Death Egg0:40::300:40::45153956
  • New total time: 11:38::23
  • Old total time: 12:44::19

Level-by-level details

Emerald Hill 1

Main improvements came from 2 maneuvers. The first one was jumping to the spring board after taking the shoes, which required some subpixel positioning before that box in order to work. The second was about gaining slightly more speed and different positioning at the loops which allowed me to run through the springboard, then by positioning yourself correctly (this is off camera) you could run up the hills that would normally launch you into the air.

Emerald Hill 2

A small improvement here, despite taking 2 different routes than last time - since they were almost identical in terms of speed.

Chemical Plant 1

This act was basically my only previous experience with the game, spending around 10 hours here learning about the physics in this game and ultimately made a run where most of it was used in the previous TAS. This time around, with much more experience, I brought some extra touch to this act by doing many things slightly better than last time.

Chemical Plant 2

Around 35 frames were saved by getting a higher horizontal speed when jumping to the platforms that goes in circles. Some extra nitpicking brought the time down 1 ingame second.

Aquatic Ruin 1

Using Tails at the beginning, then used the new loop zip found by skychase.

Aquatic Ruin 2

Used the zip found by skychase and Felipe.

Casino Night 1

Used the zip discovered by GlitchMan resulting in a 4 seconds improvement.

Casino Night 2

Lots of changes throughout the level. Much time was gained by spindashing into the loops, something you might've seen in Felipe's Perfect Bonus run (I found it independently of him though), which also allowed for a route change early on. Tails' behavior after losing control over him was extremely weird:). At the end I choosed, like in the previous run, to hit the capsule with Tails', losing 10 ingame frames. It could be seen as both "real time"-saver (which proved to be very important later on in the run) and a speed/entertainment tradeoff.

Hill Top 1

Much time was saved by better movement in the beginning, then I found a way to extend the zip a bit. It's not too far away that I could've zipped even further but in order to even extend it as much as I did some rather extreme positioning had to be done so there was hardly any room to do things differently.

Hill Top 2

Slightly better gameplay in the beginning saved me some frames after the rising-lava room. I was then fooling around with different way to improve the next part, when I unexpectedly found a way to cut more than 4 seconds off that section. Some new maneuvering at the last springboards also saved a decent amount of frames. The boss fight was just as fast as in the previous run even though Tails didn't take damage like before.

Mystic Cave 1

Some better precision up until around half of the act. Then I found a faster route for Sonic that saved almost 1 second.

Mystic Cave 2

30 frames saved before the boss, then I used GlitchMan's trick to have Tails' dealing hits to it earlier than supposed.

Oil Ocean 1

The only reason for this big improvement is building up more speed by better slope jumps, and then keeping that speed much longer. Sonic is not far away from staying ahead of the screen all the way until the end.

Oil Ocean 2

Not much to say here. All savings came from just going crazy in the oil.

Metropolis 1

Smoother gameplay through the first part of the level lead to me saving 46 frames before the crusher zip, then the new way of scrolling down screen took care of most of the other frames.

Metropolis 2

Went down the same platform but zipped at a different place.

Metropolis 3

Used the zip discovered by GlitchMan to get through the left side of the screen and got to the boss 26,5 seconds earlier than in the previous run. Then I saved 32 frames at the boss which was mostly due to Tails taking damage early.

Sky Chase

Autoscroller - not my favorite thing to TAS. Just did what felt was best at the moment, and of course preserved the the nice little maneuvers at the middle of the act.

Wing Fortress

3 frames saved up until taking damage at the propeller. This time at the appearing/disappearing platforms I needed to do a short pause to make them appear at the right time. At the second to last booster I utilized a glitch which sets Sonic in a state where he, among other things - such as not being able to spindsh under normal circumstances, reacts with a slope in such a way that if helands on a slope with a certain angle, then he'll keep moving in that angle until he jumps. To learn more about the glitch, read this post plus the two below. I was also wrong about one thing, it did save time using a spindash at the place I mentioned. In the boss fight, I needed to spindash to the left at the beginning since otherwise Sonic would be too high up to be able to deliver the final blow.

Death Egg

1 frame gained between the bosses by better positioning. And finally defeated Robotnik 16 frames faster. 2 frames where lost after that, tough, since the boss was higher up when being defeated and the end sequence isn't triggered until he's still on the floor - but I can give that away, I'm just glad it's over.

Thanks to

The authors to the previous run: FuzZerd and Sonikkustar, great run that I learned much from.
marzojr for his LUA HUD script containing lots of useful stuff, especially the jump predictor which I can say for sure both made the run better and cut the time it took to create by many weeks. He also shared useful behind-the-scene info about the game making it more obvious how to handle certain parts, and he helped with various other stuff throughout the making of the run.
GlitchMan for his username-prefix discoveries.
Quietust and Nitsuja for making the first two TASes of this game, which definitely have been helpful for the later runs.
Upthorn for finding the route in EH1 that was used in the previous run.
werster for finding out that it was possible to defeat the WF boss using the slope glitch.
Felipe and skychase for finding 2 different zips in ARZ

feos: HD encode with CamHack (2 screens) and selective blending. Check it out. Thanks Nanogyth!

adelikat: Replacing submission file on behalf of the author. Improvements were as follows:
Aquaric Ruin 1 was improved by 176 ingame frames. Aquatic Ruin 2 was improved by 146 ingame frames. Wing Fortress was improved by 159 ingame frames.
All this resulted in a ingame improvement of 481 frames and an input file which became 421 frames faster.

Mukki: Judging...
Mukki: Fantastic improvement. Easily accepted.

Guga: Processing...

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3557: Aglar's Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 17:51.60
Active player (451)
Joined: 12/24/2010
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First! Watching it now.
Skilled player (1085)
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
Amazing run. Hill Top 2 was a huge surprise. Excellent work. I can't even imagine what run you're going to surprise me with next.
marzojr
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Joined: 9/29/2008
Posts: 964
Location: 🇫🇷 France
It almost goes without saying: huge yes vote.
Marzo Junior
Joined: 5/12/2009
Posts: 748
Location: Brazil
Awesome! yes vote!
Synahel
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Joined: 1/19/2011
Posts: 259
Location: France
Sonic runs are always among favorites, but it's amazing how limits are pushed always further concerning these games. Awesome run, keep up the good work.
Joined: 6/16/2011
Posts: 48
Obviously voting yes. And by the way, where can I download the Gens 11a with the camhack for genesis Sonic games? I couldn't find it anywhere.
Joined: 5/12/2009
Posts: 748
Location: Brazil
btw, it syncs perfectly with: "Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (W) (REV01) [!].bin"
Jungon
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This is getting closer and closer to Genius, ... +D do I have to say it's a Yes vote? Loved the first stages especially, and when you save the poor little fireballs.. xP
*Jungon*/*Johnnyz* smilie weirdo =P ^^ o.o @__@ +D
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
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Encoding for YT. Please remind me the correct sound checkboxes. I recall PSG High quality shall be unchecked, right? How about the rest HQ checkboxes?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
marzojr
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RedGreenSonic wrote:
Obviously voting yes. And by the way, where can I download the Gens 11a with the camhack for genesis Sonic games? I couldn't find it anywhere.
Here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8827&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=51. These are closer to Gens 11b than to Gens 11a, but the movie synchs nevertheless. I don't have any precompiled versions with only CamHack.
feos wrote:
Encoding for YT. Please remind me the correct sound checkboxes. I recall PSG High quality shall be unchecked, right? How about the rest HQ checkboxes?
PSG High quality = unchecked; all other high quality options checked.
Marzo Junior
Joined: 5/9/2005
Posts: 748
Seems to be the year for Sonic TASs.
mklip2001
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Wow! Spectacular work. The rerecord count, and the crazy work to save a platform cycle at Wing Fortress, only goes to show how impressive your effort is at these runs. Major props to GlitchMan as well for these huge time-saving zips.
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.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
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Posts: 11251
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marzojr wrote:
RedGreenSonic wrote:
Obviously voting yes. And by the way, where can I download the Gens 11a with the camhack for genesis Sonic games? I couldn't find it anywhere.
Here: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8827&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=51. These are closer to Gens 11b than to Gens 11a, but the movie synchs nevertheless. I don't have any precompiled versions with only CamHack.
The build contains hitboxes and solidity displays that I don't know how to turn off (for a proper camhack encode).
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
marzojr
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Experienced player (742)
Joined: 9/29/2008
Posts: 964
Location: 🇫🇷 France
feos wrote:
The build contains hitboxes and solidity displays that I don't know how to turn off (for a proper camhack encode).
The hitboxes can only be turned off by recompiling with the option disabled.
Marzo Junior
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syncs on gens 11a (svn 296)
  File: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (JUE) [!].bin
CRC-32: 7b905383
   MD4: 465e3a6be0997c1d74d8e1e5da78d35b
   MD5: 9feeb724052c39982d432a7851c98d3e
 SHA-1: 8bca5dcef1af3e00098666fd892dc1c2a76333f9
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Stunning stuff, Aglar. There's stuff in here I haven't even seen before! Crazy to think that there might be even more stuff to find still. Easy yes vote. BTW - your explanations of some of my real-time videos were very helpful :)
Joined: 11/21/2006
Posts: 94
No vote because you didn't score attack Sky Chase. Seriously though what the hell are you doing to my childhood :(
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
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marzojr wrote:
feos wrote:
The build contains hitboxes and solidity displays that I don't know how to turn off (for a proper camhack encode).
The hitboxes can only be turned off by recompiling with the option disabled.
Wait, you mean there's no way to encode the movie with CamHack only? No scripts for that?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Editor, Player (68)
Joined: 1/18/2008
Posts: 663
feos wrote:
marzojr wrote:
feos wrote:
The build contains hitboxes and solidity displays that I don't know how to turn off (for a proper camhack encode).
The hitboxes can only be turned off by recompiling with the option disabled.
Wait, you mean there's no way to encode the movie with CamHack only? No scripts for that?
It's as he said - recompile without hitboxes enabled.
true on twitch - lsnes windows builds 20230425 - the date this site is buried
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11251
Location: RU
Where I can get the source code? Where is that option there?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Editor, Experienced player (607)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4012
Great improvement! Good job, marzojr and GlitchMan, for helping with the run. Yes vote!
BigBoct
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Looked terrific. I still don't like skimming under Oil Ocean Zone, but I will grant that it's way faster than going through them normally. Yes vote.
Previous Name: boct1584
Mitjitsu
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Aglar4president
Joined: 4/6/2012
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Location: Lawn, PA
As is pretty usual with Sonic games, the sheer speed with which the author goes through the run only makes its jump accuracy more impressive. This is a cool and clearly thoughtful improvement of nearly an entire minute, and is even more entertaining than the previous run, so the obvious vote is Yes.
1/60 of a second is important; every frame matters.