Sonic 5 - Improvement Vol.2 (Nes)

[Spooniest]

First, sound effects still as in ver 1.0.  ( example for rings, I used key from little nemo, сan't we find something better? )

I would say, maybe the "M" sound effect from M.C. Kids, if it works in this mapper, would be a better choice. The sound effect that is there is very 'forward' in the mix, and this is a sound you will hear very often.

For the moment until I can figure out what I am missing, the best I could do was try different positions for each enemy until reducing their lethality, but I came to the conclusion that until the technical aspects of them were changed, almost in any place are a pain a nuisance

Could you perhaps make Sonic's 'hit box' smaller? It seems like even coming close to a bullet from an enemy is recorded by the game program as a hit. Other than that, I understand what you're saying about the enemies being loaded as soon as their level block is loaded. That's quite a problem. You seem also to be saying that if you change the position of a single enemy, then the entire level's enemies will fail to load, unless you change them all. Did I understand correctly?

Another idea to soften this up could be to slow the rate of acceleration when Sonic begins to move. He seems to take off pretty fast once you start walking. The MD version allows very precise movements from a complete stop, by just 'tapping' the D-Pad. In this version, he seems to move quite far from a single tap. Although, to me (who is also untrained) this sounds like it would involve altering the assembly code, so perhaps this also might not be doable yet.

Really, other than giving sonic the KameHameHa, I don't know what else, really. Someone needs to code up a level editor for this thing.

Also, as for the level length, same difference as the enemies, right? You take out one level block, they all fail to load. Once again, this seems like a job for a level editor.

I wish I knew how to do more things. :|

[diablo666]

Accidentally found bugs. I don't know if it's the original or the hack. The first is not known for sure, but the second is clearly

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/q_HTzoCaPkk

[close]

[Spooniest]

Alright, I've beaten it.

Labyrinth Zone and Starlight Zone are not as obscenely 'recycled screen' long as Zones 1-3. I think I do remember you saying that Scrap Brain Zone is not in this, also. It goes straight from Starlight Zone to Final Zone.

Still, it's remarkable how well this turned out for a Chinese Pirate game, or whatever it was that ended up leading to the creation of it. With a new coat of paint and some minor fixes, it's not half bad. The controls definitely need to be re-worked, as does the enemy placement and level design. But it's certainly far and away a much better game than most of its ilk.

Once again, this deserves a cookie. 

[Xander max]

First congratulations on the work!  I just finished the game, graphically it's beautiful, very impressive!
  My comments:
01 - Difficulty is very punitive, some enemies kill us very easily and still have good aim!
02 - The Marble Zone stage could have a better contrast between the enemies and the scenery, sometimes I couldn't see the bats and thorns until I touched them.
03 - I know that the engine is complicated to move, but skidding, collision with the rings and collision with the roof is not cool.
04 - Particularly I would prefer a color distribution like this.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/161LrQXscNTr8iPb7bONBaTNQDKxu3B6v/view?usp=drivesdk

05 - Does adding emeralds change the end of the game?  How many would I need to get?  Thanks again for giving us such a beautiful job!

[G30FF]

I finished the entire game today, and having gotten a bit more used to the controls, I can say that this is some excellent work. Some enemy placement is a bit wonky, and some of the physics, specifically with ramps in Star Light Zone, are off, but it's completely playable and works. It makes sense that without assembly code some of the bigger issues can't be fixed. Unfortunate, but understandable, and what you've been able to do without it has been great so far.

One minor bug I did find in Labyrinth Zone, there were a few instances where a bubble generator appeared on screen, but the actual bubbles were spawning elsewhere on screen. It made the boss section in act 3 especially difficult, as bubble generators appearing on the climb didn't actually spawn any bubbles out of them. But all said, I was still able to beat it.

Great work, and thanks for all your effort on this hack!

[diablo666]

One minor bug I did find in Labyrinth Zone, there were a few instances where a bubble generator appeared on screen, but the actual bubbles were spawning elsewhere on screen. It made the boss section in act 3 especially difficult, as bubble generators appearing on the climb didn't actually spawn any bubbles out of them. But all said, I was still able to beat it.

in the original, the bubbles were also displayed incorrectly. Probably didn't find the value where they are displayed. Most likely because of this. For this need to thank the pirates

[Ti_]

New background scroll renderer:

+ no 'artifacts' on left and right borders.
+ no more blanked lower border.
+ new code much more faster.

Patch works with v2.0 or v1.0+music.
https://yadi.sk/d/JTHIEdZLlnSsQQ

[Dreamwhale]

This keeps getting better and better - thanks Ti_!

[G30FF]

New background scroll renderer:

+ no 'artifacts' on left and right borders.
+ no more blanked lower border.
+ new code much more faster.

Patch works with v2.0 or v1.0+music.
https://yadi.sk/d/JTHIEdZLlnSsQQ

Is this already applied to the 2.0 patch? I tried to patch my copy of the v2 rom with this patch, and it said nothing was changed.

EDIT: Never mind, I redownloaded the patch and tried again, and now it's fine.

[sics]

Ti_
The new design of the ring was taken from the FuriousHedgehog work and I honestly like it very much, but I must admit that the graphic change between the two states is not logical.

For my part what I could try is taking advantage of the fact that the location of the graphics in Sonic animations can be set independently, gain some space to improve that aspect.

Continuing with the theme of the rings if you look at the HUD the ring will use only 2 frames, when in most official games it uses at least three, it would be great to improve that too.

I love the idea of improving scrolling, but I don't seem to understand where to apply the patch, since I don't get it to work, if you want you can update the project post so that everyone can enjoy this improvement

Spooniest
The hitboxes in Sonic are very poorly located and it also seems that they were designed for Somari, but despite knowing this so far I did not discover how to edit them.

For example Sonic all the time uses the same hitbox which is a little higher than the crouched sonic sprite, which is why when it goes through a loop or there are very high rings he won't be able to pick them up, not to mention that crouching down is just an aesthetic change.

Exactly, Sonic's physics is inherited from Jabu's project.

Almost, but it will only stop charging a group of enemies, it's like a chain is broken.

No, the levels are quite easy to edit, there is a sector where you set the starting point of Sonic, the mask for the rings of each level, and finally the dimensions of the level, there is even a special sector to handle the graphics changes in Green Hill.

It would be great to have a level editor, although with this I with Tiled I arrange myself perfectly, for the moment.

^{Level working}

One thing that if I think it is a necessity is an animation editor for Sonic, the format in which its animations are written is extremely simple, but to modify them you have to write tons of text

diablo666
Marble Zone error was a common problem, but I corrected it by changing the material on the edges of the platforms.

What happens there, is that in that specific block I decided to leave it that way, since it allows to perform a very fun effect on one of the ramps later, since in the other places where it is reused, it did not cause any kind of serious inconvenience


The next problem also knew him, there are other ways to get the same mistake, but to be expected from a game programmed by pirates

Error reports are always welcome anyway, for example thanks to Ramzet's gameplay I was able to fix a lot of things that I didn't know were going on before we released the version we all know

Xander max
This color distribution was the original, but it was modified because of another criticism, which highlighted the lack of color contrast, also considering that in real hardware the current color contrasts a lot to that displayed in emulators perhaps it is best to listen to your suggestion and change it again :/

G30FF
Bubbles are a level object, and as you'll know if you've read previous answers, the current method by which you repositioned the objects is very tedious so at that level I prioritized the problem enemies and everyone who knows this damn zone knows there were too many

[G30FF]

Thanks for the explanation about the bubble generators! I admit I haven't read the entire thread, so I feel sheepish about that. But that makes sense.

[Ti_]

Is this already applied to the 2.0 patch? I tried to patch my copy of the v2 rom with this patch, and it said nothing was changed.

I love the idea of improving scrolling, but I don't seem to understand where to apply the patch, since I don't get it to work, if you want you can update the project post so that everyone can enjoy this improvement

Just apply IPS patch over any latest ROM.
I checked both "STH Improvement Vol.2.nes"  and  "Sonic The Hedgehog (NES) Improvement V1.0 + Music Hack.nes" and it's works.

Difference:
Before (bad tiles on left and right side, when X is not divided by 8, blue blanked 8 pixels at bottom):


After:

March 31, 2020, 05:59:28 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
just re-uploaded patch, can you check now?

[Dreamwhale]

After applying the new version of the scrolling patch the artefacts on the left/right border are indeed gone.

Depending on the emulator there now can be artefacts on the upper border (Mesen). Nestopia on the other hand doesn't show any. I guess it depends on the settings?

Anyway, I consider this a nice improvement. Thanks again!

[Ti_]

Depending on the emulator there now can be artefacts on the upper border (Mesen). Nestopia on the other hand doesn't show any. I guess it depends on the settings?

Maybe Mesen draws more than 224 pixels tall screen.

[sics]

Ti_
It's great, I always knew that at some point this game would look this good, but I never imagined it would happen so soon, right now I post the update

duiz
If I'm not mistaken, I remembered that you were the one who translated a pirate game of fights from the NES, long ago if you look at the thread where you asked for help, at that time I had written a personalized tutorial so that you can solve the problems that you had, maybe it might still interest you

On the other hand I will not deny that my nick looks very nice on the cover, but this project is possible thanks to the work of more than two people, so although I literally do not care how people decide to enjoy the hack, I prefer to see my name on a small list in some corner along with everyone else who made this possible, on the other hand I would love to have a copy of your designs

peixemacaco
I'm from Argentina, the country of milk candy and alphajores?

[duiz]

duiz
If I'm not mistaken, I remembered that you were the one who translated a pirate game of fights from the NES, long ago if you look at the thread where you asked for help, at that time I had written a personalized tutorial so that you can solve the problems that you had, maybe it might still interest you

On the other hand I will not deny that my nick looks very nice on the cover, but this project is possible thanks to the work of more than two people, so although I literally do not care how people decide to enjoy the hack, I prefer to see my name on a small list in some corner along with everyone else who made this possible, on the other hand I would love to have a copy of your designs

Ah yeah that was you! Unfortunately, I didn't quite get the hang of it and I forgot to try again... I do appreciate you trying to help.
I updated the designs a bit. The other contributors are on the cover, though its hard to see from here. As you are the publisher of the patch it looks more natural to have your name (like if Sega published, it would say Sega you know, rather than 100 names from the actual credits). Once the hack feels complete from you and Ti_'s standpoint, I can send you the designs so you can get a repro of your work for sure.

[sics]

Ti_
I found a bug in the new rendering engine, if you let the demo mode run the game crashes, Even starting the game and activating the display mode from the memory the game locks the bad thing is, that I already submitted the post

[Ti_]

I found a bug in the new rendering engine, if you let the demo mode run the game crashes.

Surprisingly, bug was in demo. I fixed it. Download again.
April 01, 2020, 06:04:41 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
There's also bug with continue screen, but it present in v2.0.

I checked it caused by changing HScroll in /irq.  The value #240 stored in $34D.  #2 in $84  is irq func number.  Changing one of them to 0 will fix this.

[NiO]

Made a full printable box for whenever I get around to making a repro of this. I did get a chance to play the hack today and it is significantly improved indeed! I understand the enemy patterns and placements aren't perfect but modifying that would probably require way more complicated modification so I get why that can't be fixed.

Awesome edit, the game does deserve it! 

[sics]

Ti_
Great, about the error on the screen of continue the people with which I dealt with that point, they felt that it was something caused by the lack of precision in some emulators.

Spoiler

[close]

Although I should also mention that in Hummer (the last version of Somari), this seems to be fixed, since it works well with any emulator, in addition said code has been moved to another sector and seems to have some differences with the rest of the versions.



On the other hand, I discovered that by changing the value located at 0x07ed5f to zeros, it seems to fix the bug in the rest of versions of "Somari", but being a value that still remains present in the code of Hummer, seems not to be really related, that is more this was what they told me about that:

The FCEUX handling of the special mapper used by this game doesn't seem entirely correct, specifically the IRQ states, which triggers this bug.

The ROM hack is just breaking code, the F0 is not directly related to the one in memory address 034d. If you really want a hack fix instead of waiting for FCEUX to catch up than I'd suggest adding a write of 00 to 034d (the offset of the bottom of CONTINUE) somewhere in the code that initializes the continue screen.

One more thing I'd like to mention is that in the name tables the title screen looks correct.

NiO
Yes, it would be great to get a copy of this job to use as a basis to create a more decent manual, and why not, include it in the project so that anyone who wants to enjoy the hack in some fronted, does it in the best way

[...]
For anyone who wants to touch the hack here I leave my Notes & Files (They're a little messy yet)

^{Note: Search near the CPU!}
April 02, 2020, 03:43:32 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

Maybe Mesen draws more than 224 pixels tall screen.

Is there a way to hide surplus charts?