Sonic 3D Blast is an isometric platformer/collectathon by Traveler's Tales for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.
General Info:
- Emulator: BizHawk 2.3.0
- Game: Sonic 3D Blast (UE)
- Category: Good Ending (effectively 100%)
- SRC Rules Time: 35:40 RTA
- Frames (Boot to last input): 129156
In-Game Objectives:
- Primary: Free Flickies from Enemies and take them to the Goal Rings in each stage
- Secondary: Collect the Chaos Emeralds and beat The Final Fight.
This is a fairly straight-forward run. The game is pretty well put together and doesn't include much in the way of exploits, clips, glitches, etc. There are 2 instances of intentionally taking damage. There are no deaths. No use of Level Select. Flickies can be grabbed by Sonic or by other Flickies already following Sonic. The objective of this TAS is to collect 7 chaos emeralds while progressing through the game as fast as possible.
Movement
Movement optimization was key. I ended up doing a lot of experiments in addition to referencing other work done in the game. I have a full google doc
here, but the TL;DR version is as follows:
- Optimized spindash is the fastest way to go from standstill to fullspeed, requiring 16 frames.
- Running accelerates faster than jumping
- Jumping maintains a higher oscillating top speed than running
- Rolling maintains the current speed for about 10 frames before rapid deceleration
- Having a lot of speed as you perform a jump on a downward slope sets Sonic to the game's speed cap, and will stay at that cap until obstructed or changes direction.
Emerald Route
This category requires collecting the 7 Chaos Emeralds, which are found on a successful completion of Special Stages. There are 20 different instances for which Sonic can enter a Special Stage within the game. Only needing 7 of those, we needed to route the best viable opportunities to do this. In order to enter a Special Stage, Sonic must collect 50 rings and take them to Knuckles or Tails. This route was determined by figuring out which entrances would take the least amount of time loss versus completing the stage normally, needing at least 50 rings within the routing and having a convenient access to Knuckles and/or Tails. The Special Stage entrances used in this route are:
- Green Grove 2 - Knuckles
- Spring Stadium 1 - Tails
- Spring Stadium 2 - Tails
- Diamond Dust 1 - Tails
- Diamond Dust 2 - Tails
- Diamond Dust 2 - Knuckles
- Volcano Valley 2 - Tails
Note: The Times for these stages are slower than IL World Records due to the fact the ILs of this game do not include emerald routing.
One additional tech used for the emerald routing is Freed Flicky Flagging (found and named by Zurggriff). Not known if this mechanic was intentional, but it allows Sonic to automatically collect any Flickies that are freed from enemies upon exiting a Special Stage. This is seen in Diamond Dust 1 and Diamond Dust 2.
Noteworthy Segments
Rusty Ruin 3
- First use of intentional damage. Taking damage at the right height and angle causes Sonic to recoil onto on of the paws, which allows Sonic to attack the boss before they begin their first attack cycle. This boss also takes damage from Sonic without Sonic needing to be curled up into a ball.
Spring Stadium 3
- This stage previously held an uncontested IL world record of 0:18 for over 10 years by DarkspinesSonic before this TAS. This was done by landing hits on the boss with very precise positioning and timing to manipulate the AI into a pattern that didn't allow them to ascend above Sonic's reach. This segment was by far the most difficult and underwent numerous revisions. Kurayami was the first to match the IL world record in RTA (and with video), and shortly after CoEmpathy brought the time down to 0:17.
Diamond Dust 1
- First and most prominent use of Freed Flicky Flagging. First 3 Flickies of Sector 2 are flagged and collected upon exiting the Tails Special Stage.
Diamond Dust 3
- Found during experiments that bouncing off the tops of the exploding Snowmen could launch Sonic slightly higher than his normal jump height. This allowed for slightly faster hits on the boss during their descent.
Volcano Valley 3
- Second use of intentional damage. This time it was only to abuse invincibility frames to keep attacking the boss unhindered by the fireball. It takes an additional 2 seconds to try doing this boss without taking damage.
Gene Gadget 2
- This is probably the most fun I've had with this game. The tops of the turrets are higher in elevation than the ground, so landing sooner means Sonic can charge spindashes sooner. I absolutely loved abusing the turrets in this stage, so much so that I was a bit disappointed when I had to cut some of the turret spindashes out to save time in later revisions leading to this run. I'm also very happy with the final spindash jump in the stage.
Panic Puppet 2
- Mainly noteworthy for being the only action stage without Flickies. Was surprised at how much time was saved by collecting the supersneakers here, as they were somewhat out of the way. One of the biggest disappointments in the entire run was the fact that I couldn't find a way to skip the sliding platform on the last big slope, but I'm content with the spindash strat that came out of these attempts.
The Final Fight
- Fixed attack periods and vulnerability periods. The only way to really be "fast" in this stage is not taking hits during vulnerability periods and launching the spindashes on the bridges at the earliest possible frame.
Special Thanks
- SegaJunkie - General Consultation and helped with TASVideos submission
- AmberCyprian - General Consultation and Routing
- Zurggriff - General Consultation and Routing
- CoEmpathy - Consultation leading to improvements on Spring Stadium 3, Diamond Dust 1, and Panic Puppet 1.
External References used When Putting This Together
- ComicalFlop's TAS thread on TheSonicCenter
- Kurayami's (now obsolete) World Record run of 39:44
- Sonic 3D Blast Any% TAS by MasterOfPigs
- Sonic 3D Blast Disassembly by Sonic Retro
ThunderAxe31: File replaced with a 12036 frames spiked version.
feos: It's hard to tell in a 3D game where every movement tweak affects all the future movements, but I couldn't find any easily improvable spots. Low rerecord count might be a result of prior RTA experience when the author just knows what they're doing, but in places I checked, frame precision is there. It's also a few minutes faster than the RTA record.
Best ending is a standard category for this game, so I can accept this movie. There wasn't a lot of viewer feedback, but it was still positive, and the game offers some nice gameplay (and music!). So Moons it is.
