Sonic 5 - Improvement Vol.2 (Nes)

[sebastianangel]

Good news, I've finished applying the title screen to the game!


bootleglover
Welcome back, I'm glad you like this hack, it's good to see you back!

On the other hand, I'm preparing a kind of tutorial, explaining the process I went through to make and apply this title screen

SuperStarFox
I don't know on behalf of whom you speak, but I have already made a screen for Family Kid


And considering the quality of the original material, I don't think I did a bad job...


To be honest, Family Kid is a very bad game and even though I knew it was a waste of time, I have taken the trouble to fix even the smallest details, so it would be great if you appreciated my effort

Sics That cover looks really great! Congratulations, I already want to see the improvements you will implement to this great bootleg
I hope you continue with this great work

[sics]

Thank you! I'm working very hard to bring a new update focusing mainly on the requests that were left pending (The ones I can fulfill, of course)

I've found the demo mode script, and I'm trying to fix it!

I optimized the end of level screens to be able to get the space needed to restore the word "TIME BONUS", and corrected the message for the passed acts in the Family Kid version.



At the same time, this optimization allowed me to add some decoration for Vol.2 versions of the hack



Also, as requested some time ago, I included Sonic Classic and Speeding Hummer, in this branch of the project:


^{Note: I honestly don't understand who would want to play with this version of Sonic...}

(For Doraemon and Family Kid, I will need a little more work, since the excessive amount of data I need to recalculate many pointers, to move them )

On the other hand, I have fixed several frames that presented graphic glitches of Somari, I also corrected his palette distribution, to look correctly and retouched the frames where he looks up.



I modified the level selection cheat, to be faithful to the Konami code.



I changed all the names of Speeding Hummer's acts, to correspond to his counterpart seen in "Samuri - Star Angel"



And I corrected the spelling errors in the Famili Kid level selector.

[UltraEpicLeader100]

Well this is one bang up job of an update! Way to go!

[SuperStarFox]

Okay, this hack looks way more better with these features, optimization, and having new zone names for Speeding Hummer! Also, I apalogize about Family Kid's title screen improvement... I still think it's good. I honestly wouldn't mind replaying this hack with Doraemon, Hummer, and the original NES Classic Bootleg Sonic. 

[Amilgi]

I should have read through this thread earlier! My apologies for not checking in.

I had actually made a cover of the master system special stage music a while back, here's the .0cc and .nsf for that:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AfyhvdJERfvf7w4cdngJn8IGfO05gZp8?usp=sharing

If people are onboard to help with the audio hacking, I'd be happy to tune up my original covers (re-balance the music, fix some notes, adjust so sfx don't cut it off, etc.) as well as update the SFX to more closely match the original.
For the music I can work off my original file, but if we can put together a list of the desired SFX, I'll go ahead with remaking them.

Great to see the other various updates are coming along well!

[Lood]

@sics

Nice to be back 

Hopefully things such as level chunk placement/enemy placement gets changed eventually as this game currently doesn't work too great with the improved (and better feeling) game physics

[sics]

Actually, I've done all the things you mention, but the enemies are still very aggressive.

Remember that I'm just an overqualified graphic designer, all my progress was achieved by investing hundreds of hours of effort and even then my progress can never compare to a real programmer.

On the other hand, although it's no consolation to admit it, it's not the first game with broken physics and although counter-intuitive when you understand them you can handle Somari quite well...


And even if it's not the case now, I must admit that it hurts and annoys me a bit to hear people saying that my effort is not worth it, being such a bad game, I really don't understand what's the problem in dedicating time and love to a game that I personally like...

For my part, I'm open to any kind of proposal, I'd love to have the help I need to add all the content this game needs!

Another clarification that I think it is necessary to make, is that this hack is not just a graphic edition, besides I started long before there was a single application to facilitate my task.

[Cyneprepou4uk]

And even if it's not the case now, I must admit that it hurts and annoys me a bit to hear people saying that my effort is not worth it, being such a bad game, I really don't understand what's the problem in dedicating time and love to a game that I personally like...

Don't worry about it. You just need a good agent 
https://youtu.be/FWTwECbJy94

[sics]

We all know Kevin is a better choice
If Dr. Robotnik Had An Assistant

Although I must admit he's not wrong about Knuckles, that echidna's got style

[pipoquette700]

It is possible to fix the HUD to look more like the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive version?

[sics]

That's a very good question, I can actually do almost anything with the HUD, but there are other issues that prevent me from being creative.

As some of you may know, the NES is incapable of drawing more than 8 sprites in the same horizontal row and it can't represent more than 64 total sprites on the screen.

This makes it necessary to strategically place each piece of the HUD, which is especially noticeable in matches against Eggman, because if you'd use a similar layout to Genesis, this would happen:



Which at runtime would cause graphics that can't be rendered to be skipped all the time, making it impossible to keep track of your rings through the HUD.

On the other hand, if your question actually alludes to adding more information to the HUD, such as the words "TIME:" or "RINGS:", with the way the current graphics work it is not a good idea.

For example, in the first battle against Eggman, this is the relative amount of graphics drawn on screen:



The first numbers represent sprites that load visible graphics and the numbers added to them represent sprites that load empty graphics.

And while I'd like to think that the invisible graphics are ignored by the PPU, when playing a normal game you'll notice that in the battle against Eggman, the game isn't able to draw Sonic's life counter on screen.

Sure, there are more efficient ways to manage the graphics, but for the moment this game works this way.

Amilgi

I should have read through this thread earlier! My apologies for not checking in.

I had actually made a cover of the master system special stage music a while back, here's the .0cc and .nsf for that:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AfyhvdJERfvf7w4cdngJn8IGfO05gZp8?usp=sharing

If people are onboard to help with the audio hacking, I'd be happy to tune up my original covers (re-balance the music, fix some notes, adjust so sfx don't cut it off, etc.) as well as update the SFX to more closely match the original.
For the music I can work off my original file, but if we can put together a list of the desired SFX, I'll go ahead with remaking them.

Great to see the other various updates are coming along well!

Sorry, I had not seen your message, I will try to contact Ti_, to see if he is still interested in this project

[SuperStarFox]

I think it's possible to switch the fonts with the ones from the Sega Genesis version expect you can't be able to add the words since they're already featured in the end screen. As for the music, finally... the GG/SMS Special Stage! Now all that's left is Ti_ for his thoughts on the music track. Anyway, I think I can try to list the sound effect tracks... let's see.

1. Ring collected
2. Ring lost
3. Hit by spikes
4. Shield obtained
5. Death
6. Bumper (from Spring Yard Zone)
7. Air bubble
8. Ding ding (about to drown)
9. Death by Drowning
10. Fireball
11. Checkpoint
12. Continue obtained (after obtaining 50 rings in the special stage)
13. Death (GG/SMS version, opitonal)

Bonus Tracks (Again, Opitonal)

1. Bridge Zone
2. Jungle Zone
3. Labyrinth Zone (GG/SMS version)
4. Scrap Brain (GG/SMS version)
5. Sky Base Zone
6. Boss Stage (GG/SMS version)
7. Chaos Emerald (GG/SMS version)
8. Ending/Staff Roll (GG/SMS version)

[Ti_]

I should have read through this thread earlier! My apologies for not checking in.

I had actually made a cover of the master system special stage music a while back, here's the .0cc and .nsf for that:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AfyhvdJERfvf7w4cdngJn8IGfO05gZp8?usp=sharing

If people are onboard to help with the audio hacking, I'd be happy to tune up my original covers (re-balance the music, fix some notes, adjust so sfx don't cut it off, etc.) as well as update the SFX to more closely match the original.
For the music I can work off my original file, but if we can put together a list of the desired SFX, I'll go ahead with remaking them.

Great to see the other various updates are coming along well!

What features you used in 0cc, than are not present in original ftm?

I checked with sonic hack driver (famitracker v5), and it's works. Idk if it sounds correctly or not.
(0cc-famitracker based on famitracker v4 with a lot of new features.)

DL:
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/2xRwsbb4EQ8XAQ
1) put rom named "Sonic The Hedgehog (NES) Improvement V1.0 + Music Hack.nes" in this folder.
2) launch build.bat
3) new rom named "Sonic_The_Hedgehog_(NES)_Improvement_V1.0_+_Music_Hack_NEW.nes" will be created.
4) open this new rom.
5) press 'UP' button on title screen, and start. you will enter in menu.
6) sound test from 20 to 30 are street fighter songs, and 31 is sms bonus stage.

For new sound effects SMS maybe used as base. The SMS square channels similar to NES channels. Only need to convert them.

[Amilgi]

What features you used in 0cc, than are not present in original ftm?

I checked with sonic hack driver (famitracker v5), and it's works. Idk if it sounds correctly or not.
(0cc-famitracker based on famitracker v4 with a lot of new features.)

Most of 0CC's new features concern instruments, and since I composed everything with just 1 blank instrument I didn't end up using many of them.
The only new feature I think I used in the street fighter music was the added effect MXY, which just applies Y volume after X ticks. Even then it was only sparingly, so it's probably not that noticeable if they're missing. The SMS bonus stage should be all good.
I'm not certain if 0CC exports .NSFs any differently, but if that causes any issues you can drop the .0CC into vanilla famitracker and it plays/exports just fine (only the few MXY's won't work)

For new sound effects SMS maybe used as base. The SMS square channels similar to NES channels. Only need to convert them.

Good call, when I get a chance to update the sfx I'll try using the SMS/GG titles as reference. I'll hopefully get to it in the coming weeks.
I'll plan to stick to one melodic channel for the sfx - what I'll do is move all the lead melodies to pulse 1 and keep all the sfx on pulse 2, which should help avoid noticeable cutoff.

Thanks for offering to help out with another sound update I'll post any progress updates in this thread so they can be tested

[RushJet1]

I tried my hand at a couple Genesis-style sound effects to be played back on a single square channel.  The enemy kill sound would sound better using the noise channel as well, but since the game seems to only use single channel effects so far I kept it to one.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1x6o5e6ifflpvvb/sonic-se.ftm?dl=1

I originally tried making DPCM samples but they sound a bit rough... though it would prevent music from being interrupted by sound effects if you used DPCM solely for sound effects.

edit: I also made this just to try it (just in case it's ever added): https://www.dropbox.com/s/6yeiumpr37ftxja/scrap.ftm?dl=1

edit2: I opened the sound test just to check and you already have it so never mind; I'll keep this here for fun I guess.

[sics]

As I told you before I contacted Amilgi to present him your proposal, and he answered me that for the moment he was planning to try to adapt the SFX of the SMS/GG version to the needs of this hack, even so he thinks that your contribution could be useful anyway.

On the other hand, as ta had already advanced, he also doubts that at this stage of the project will be implemented DPCM for Sonic Improvement Vol2.

Note: I've taken the liberty of converting your sound samples to NSF, so everyone can hear them

NSF RushJet1 (7z)


I take this opportunity to give a brief update on the status of the project.

As I said before I found the game's demo mode script and even though I figured out how it works and I know how to write it, it's too tedious to write all Sonic's actions manually, so I'm not convinced yet that it's worth the effort...

On the other hand, after analyzing the animations of the original Sonic, I realized that there were traces of 4 copies of it scattered throughout the code of the game, so I took the opportunity to remove them

In the past I had already found indications that there were repeated blocks of code, as is the case of the oxygen timer in Labyrinth, I imagine that these are vestiges of the use of some automated method to expand the rom.

About that there is also a large amount of unused space on the CHR, although I have the ability to rearrange the tiles to leave all the free space at the bottom, I wonder if there is a way to remove the rest , since if we reduce the rom size, this game could be played on the cheaper everdrives.

^{I don't know if I have anything left to say, I currently have my main pc unusable, so I can't see my notes, so that's all for the moment, cheers.}

[RushJet1]

I think in terms of fixing stuff in general, the way Sonic moves is what needs to be fixed the most.  I realize this is probably outside the scope of what you want to do since it would mean reworking a lot of code probably.  I think most of this is the same as what was wrong in Somari.  Here's some of what I've noticed:

• Sonic's acceleration only has two states instead of being gradual
• Sonic can turn around too quickly in midair
• You cannot hit TV screens/powerups from the side
• hit detection around loops is still janky
• rolling into a ball does not increase your speed or acceleration
• hitting enemies from the side sometimes makes you move up even though it shouldn't

[sics]

The truth is that I have dealt with this issue several times in the course of this project, without going any further, on the previous page I answered a similar question:

Flaviogames
I took some time to reread all the pages of this project and I must tell you that I have already dealt with this topic 8 occasions

But as Spiderman would say; "Let's do this one last time!"


While I appreciate your insights, you must understand that having started this project in mid-2009, there are few aspects of this game that I am not aware of


That's why having clarified so many times what my expectations were and above all what my limitations are, I think it's time for people to accept that without the cooperation of third parties, there's not much more I can offer to this game, at least on a technical level 

Having said that, I will move on to respond briefly to the points you have raised:There is a table that indicates Sonic's starting position for each level (at 0x32A24), but apparently if the character doesn't start at the exact center of the stage there are several unexpected effects on the game's camera operation.

The list of problems that enemies suffer from is endless, and it's without a doubt the issue I've spent the most time trying to solve, but I just couldn't find a way to solve it:
(etc, etc...)
About that, although I never commented it, some time ago by mistake, I lost a version of the project in which among other things I tried to solve that aspect, realigning all the animations and modifying some parameters of Sonic's physics.

I don't want to delve too much into this topic, but even though I had managed to make a considerable improvement, at that moment I came to the conclusion that without the collaboration of some hacker to help me understand or edit Sonic's hitbox I would never manage to solve this problem completely.

Spoiler

As an aside, those who follow this project will be able to guess approximately when this happened, since it happened on that occasion where a few days after I announced that I would publish the 1.0 version of the hack, I completely disappeared

What happened was that in an effort to not show all the content in the demos I was sharing, I developed several things separately with the intention of integrating them later, but when I was preparing the patch I discovered to my horror that my past self had removed material I shouldn't have

[close]

I don't understand what you mean, in the original game when Sonic starts to fall from a very high place, he can finish the fall by switching his animation to the rest state, leaving the character virtually "standing on the air", but this doesn't happen in this version.

On the other hand, when Sonic hits any enemy he will always be propelled in some direction, if there is an exceptional case where this doesn't happen you should provide a screenshot to document this.


Conversely, if what you are trying to describe is something different, you should express your ideas better

gamingcat02261991
You will be pleased to know that both the sound controller, as well as the soundtrack have been replaced since 2017, thanks to the work of Ti_ (Programmer/Hacker) and Amilgi (Composer).

Also the sound driver code was updated on 02/26/2020 mainly improving its performance and reducing its memory consumption

In short, although I think this game still has a lot of potential for improvement, I've reached the point that without the collaboration and commitment of more people I can't contribute anything significant on my own.

Nowadays, I've discovered almost everything about how the scenarios work, the transition screens, the animation engine, the location of each object and enemy, among many other things.

Also from my experience hacking other similar games, I can think of many things that could be implemented to take full advantage of the game resources, but I don't know the programming language of the NES 

[Master Tom Cat]

So by any chance are we going to be able to finally add Scrap Brain Zone (Make Scrap Brain Zone playable normally), and change the level layouts to those of the Genesis version?
Also, is there a possibility that an alternate version that replaces Marble zone with Bridge Zone, Spring Yard Zone with Jungle Zone, and Star Light Zone with Sky Base Zone? (Bridge Zone, Jungle Zone, and Sky Base Zone are zones used in the Game Gear version of Sonic 1)

[sics]

It's been a long time since I started, so nowadays I don't have the same interest I had in this game, but anyway if someone with enough knowledge and commitment got involved, I'd still be willing to help.

On the other hand, this project is not looking to recreate the Game Gear or Megadrive version, but to get the best out of this unlicensed port, so if I had the means I think it would be better to focus on the mechanics and level design.

Currently, I have the most efficient method for editing levels, but I don't quite understand the criteria for repositioning objects and enemies, and if I resize a level that has Eggman or is a special stage, it will appear without any elements.



I still find it strange that a game with such an interesting engine hasn't been decompiled and studied by now.

It would be great, remove the junk code left after the rom expansion, discard unused CHRs, optimize, the use of graphics for objects and enemies, and update the graphics compression for intro scenes to the one implemented by Hummer Team in more recent games like SF3, among other things.

So far I found repeated code from Sonic's animations, in four different sectors and a duplicate of the oxygen timer, from the Labyrinth zone.

CHR tiles not used in the game, including some that belong to a programming block in the "Somari Team presents" screen. Which was discarded in this version, plus the highlighted images are parts of that duplicate code.



This is an example of how you could optimize the use of enemy graphics in the first zone.


In the following file you can see how Sonic's animations are structured, managing something like this manually is an inhuman task, instead, calculating these pointers for a compiler takes seconds, making it a reality to improve or change the player's animations.
ASM Animations (Pasebin)

In conclusion, any of these optimizations would have a positive impact on the game, reducing the rom size and allowing it to be played on cheap everdrives, providing enough space to improve the programming or include new sound effects, without complicating with unnecessary hijack codes, not to mention that after the project is finished, this engine could be transformed to create new homebrews.