Sonic 5 - Improvement Vol.2 (Nes)

[CowboyJoseph64]

I have a concept mockup myself, separate from my previous one, but do pardon me for the spoiler, since the content is both indeed spoilery for those who haven't fully played this hack and the GIF won't be easy to look at.

Spoiler

I think it would be neat if Hyper Sonic had an animated palette effect, borrowing colors used by the chaos/super emeralds in the Special Stage clear screen. I made a mockup of how it would look ideally, under the assumption Sonic's palette could be swapped out and cycling with that of the results screen emeralds during play. The color used by Sonic's skin, eyes, gloves and parts of his shoes are not touched in this mockup GIF. Sprite used is one of the Super Sonic sprites posted a few pages back.
I picked the emerald colors because to my knowledge, in the original Sonic 3, Hyper Sonic doesn't just cycle random colors, but the color of each of the emeralds in that game.

[close]

Spoiler

While Sonic's palettes can be theoretically cycled, several objects in the game share them. On NES, you can only have 4 sets of 3 colors for the sprites. (incidentally, the tiles are the same way with their own separate sets, but with an additional "background" color).

While I don't think he could flash the full rainbow of colors, he could theoretically change between all 4 sets of colors? Unless the NES couldn't do that very quickly. Considering the colors available are usually like, blue, red, yellow, and pink, it honestly might look alright.

[close]

[sics]

StickyChannel92

The moto Bug & the Roller are very nice, the rest graphically I don't think they qualify to be in a game.

The bad thing is that in general, none of these designs have been optimized to limit the use of graphics, so the amount of sprites they use may be excessive.

On the other hand, although a design as simple as the one used for the "seesaw" is out of tune with the rest of the game, its palette is also a problem.

Since in each level, 3 of the 4 palettes cannot be changed and the last one is always used for the characteristic enemies of the area in question, in the case of Star Light, the Unidasu and Uni Uni.



Sure, you could switch the palette to match your proposal, but that would force the two elements to not share the same space, limiting your level design options.

Also, for a simple sprite, it seems too big, but for a stage element, it's the opposite, this being the case it seems more sensible to recreate this object as a background element.


(Note: Graphics already existed for the Check Point monitor)

ChromiusMixin

Spoiler

[close]

Sonic's transformation palette is shared with various elements on the stage, so such an effect would not only affect Sonic.

Finally, keeping this thread up to date is taking a lot of time and since my colleagues are working so hard, I don't want to be the only one not making progress, so I have decided to stop answering your questions for a while, thank you very much for understanding 

[BootLeg_Lover_BR7]

BootLeg_Lover_BR7
I appreciate your offer, but your attitude makes me suspect that you are a child, with this I am not saying that you cannot hack, in my case, I started with Somari at 13

You maybe think that I'm a child, but I Have 16 Years

But I'm not sure if I can do This... Because i Never Maked a Hack rom 

[BootLeg_Lover_BR7]

But Sics
I have now a question.

Did this Project will have 1.6 Version?

[StickyChannel92]

I found one bug a few minutes ago regarding the Special Stage and its result screen. I tried my best to replicate it again to no avail, so here is one of my successful attempts to create the bug.

Basically before the result screen appears, walk to the left from the right side of the screen, roll into a ball when you pass the goal post, then jump in a very specific area, and one column of tiles is garbled with the zone font and using some palette.

If you can recreate the bug, I want to know, since I was playing the hack again and messed around with the goal post area for 8 seconds before the results screen appeared. Another related bug is that sound effects coming from Sonic sound awkward right when the results screen appears. Try jumping as soon as the screen fades and you'll notice that problem.

[Cyneprepou4uk]

Looks like PPU buffer in RAM was not closed properly or something during this screen. I bet it is related to a buffer.

[BootLeg_Lover_BR7]

Thats looking very great for NES.

But Sics did this project will have more updates like 1.6 Version? Or something /:|

[sics]

StickyChannel92
Thank you very much for the report, I am trying to replicate the error since this morning, but I have no success.

It would help me a lot to know the emulator and version you are using and rule out that it is not an error when applying the patch, therefore I ask you to please check the hash of your Sonic Vol.2 rom on this page:
https://www.romhacking.net/hash/

If everything is OK, you should get a result identical to the following:


BootLeg_Lover_BR7

Finally, keeping this thread up to date is taking a lot of time and since my colleagues are working so hard, I don't want to be the only one not making progress, so I have decided to stop answering your questions for a while, thank you very much for understanding 

If you consider yourself an adult, don't become a headache and before spamming questions, use your reader compression; if I say that I want to "move forward in the project", it means that the project is in motion, ergo...

[StickyChannel92]

Sure enough, the data on my end looks very different. 


I used the mentioned ROM "Somari (NT-616) (Unl) [!].nes" and patched it with the included patch in the download from the project page. What does this mean for me?

Also, I used Mesen as my default emulator.

[sics]

For a correct functioning of your game, it is necessary to use the correct rom to patch it, using the information provided, both in the readme and in the download page

• ROM: Somari (NT-616) (Unl) [!].nes (GoodNES 3.14)
• Database: No-Intro: Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20210216-231042)
• File SHA-1: 4D6227A3CDB85EAEB1FF4682D5B5EBCB73E7CE25
• File CRC32: 84D33E07
• ROM SHA-1: 5A91F54A6FF44762D98FC8D8974909D298EB52A8
• ROM CRC32: E40DFB7E

[StickyChannel92]

I initially did use the correct ROM from NESNinja to patch the game once it was released. Now I downloaded the ROM again to makes sure it was correct and it was:




Unrelated, one suggestion for a feature I'd like in this hack is an adjusted jump height, akeen to the Mario series (and Sonic 1).

[sics]

Regardless of the application you use, I always get the same result, I recommend you use the online patcher or update the program you use to patch your games.


Note: If any moderator sees this post could you please modify my hack page so that the public can use the online patcher? Thank you very much.

[StickyChannel92]

sics
I just did what you did, by using the online patcher and the exact same rom and patch. I successfully patched it. Unfortunately, that did not fix the bug, as I was able to replicate it. I wasn't sure exactly how I did it, but all I had to do was move to the right or left for a few seconds and jump while moving in the same direction. As far as I'm aware, I think the problem only affects Mesen, but try to debug it in fceux and at any other level by replicating controls if you can. I'm sure you can get it fixed.

Proof:



That means the problem wasn't with the current version of Floating IPS I had, or any patcher....

[sics]

Could you provide the save states for both emulators?

[StickyChannel92]

Could you provide the save states for both emulators?

Here are the save states I created for Mesen and fceux.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ak5br0jCI8hDh8cFQ0jVYnoDq3btNA?e=Jnxd0D

[cornholio309]

Shared my thoughts on the ROM hack a little while ago in the form of a review here, and really ended up liking the hack! Well done to all of those involved! I also wanted to share some quick thoughts after having cleared the game once:

I was really impressed to see the Blue Sphere re-creation/Super Emerald rewards as a post-game bonus. It plays very well for the system and is very faithful to Sonic 3, and offers a nice incentive to run through the game again since you can't get all of them in one go. Very cool sort of New Game + feature! Blue Spheres on it's own is also a really fun minigame. Are there any plans to perhaps offer this mode as it's own standalone thing, like the actual standalone Blue Sphere game? I'd love it as a separate patch after the project reaches a 'pretty much complete' status. I do realize that asking for randomly generated clearable levels might be rather difficult, however. 

The only major balancing criticism I have left is that I'm not terribly huge on the changes made to 'Final Zone'. Specifically, the electricity attack. The electricity balls home in on Sonic a bit too well. Sonic's quick acceleration, slow deacceleration, and the speed of the electricty attack makes it insanely difficult to properly find a way to 'squeeze' through the gaps they provide. It's something I'm able to do consistently in OG Sonic 1, but not here.

I saw from the readme that apparently their behavior was deliberately changed. I never ran through the original Somari (or any other revisions), so I can't compare, but might it be possible to revert this change? I was dying constantly before I got frustrated and resorted to save states in order to figure out a 'safe' consistent strategy.

Spoiler

For those curious, I found the 'safest' way to beat Final Zone consistently is to run into the far left corner of the boss fight room. Charge up a spindash, and right when the electricity balls are about midway from reaching the floor level, let the spindash go and camp in the right corner. This strategy prevents you from hitting Eggman if he uses the leftmost crushers, but it's safe and I never got hit with this strategy.

[close]

Really Final Zone (and maybe Labryinth Act 3) are the only places I found myself getting mildly frustrated. The rest is wonderful and I hope to see future updates!

[sics]

Sorry, the saved states that you have provided me, were made in the corrupted rom, therefore Mesen does not allow me to use them.


In addition, to verify that the glitch is a product of a deficiency in our hack, it is essential that you can recreate this bug in our rom without modifications.

Lastly, besides reminding you that I spent a whole day trying to recreate the glitch you mentioned, to no avail, when I open the saved state of Fceux, completely nothing happens, the game works fine...

Note: I do not rule out that there may be a bug, but if it cannot be recreated, there is little we can do to identify what is going on.

[StickyChannel92]

That's unfortunate. Turns out the problem happened since version 1.4 as well in Mesen. I don't think it's worth the fix, since it's a minor bug, but here are the files I used.

Save States:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ak5br0jCI8hDh8cOTWJqeyyUI7Dp-w?e=OpihGa
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ak5br0jCI8hDh8cP6mWi2daHHedhTw?e=9WtWKu

[sics]

You can't share roms on this forum, moreover, as you rightly said, it is of little use to me if you show me a bug, in a different version of the hack.

On the other hand, when I load the Fceux status, nothing strange happens and when I try the same in Mesen, it locks the emulator. Have you updated your emulators recently?

If so, could you provide a save file with the glitched point count screen, using the correct rom, please? (CRC32: 4675043A)

[StickyChannel92]

I just got the newest version of Mesen. It seemed to fix the problem, which meant that there was something wrong with my older version of Mesen, as I can't replicate the problem on other emulators. 

I apologize for any inconvenience and chaos I caused to you.