The GHZ Forum

I will not deny it; no matter how good Sonic Rush is, the classic Sonic games will always be the high point of the series. That does not, however, go without saying even they are without their flaws. You all are familiar with the spike bug from Sonic 1, yes. Cue the release of Sonic Mega Collection, which happened to contain "Sonic 1: Version 3" with the spike bug fixed. After playing that version on my copy of Mega Collection for a short while, being fully aware that the bug was fixed, I thought, "Hey, what other [technical] problems in the classic Sonic games should be fixed?"

Thinking back at Sonic 2, I recalled there was a Super Sonic bug from Sonic 2, where, if you turned into Super Sonic at the goal point, you will stay stuck in midair forever (Also notice the palette error between Super Sonic and the goal post). I later found out that there was a "Sonic 2: Version 2" with the Super Sonic bug fixed which also happened to be found in Sonic Compilation. Sadly, that version was not included in Mega Collection.

So this raises a question. Let's say you are in charge with the next Sonic collection (C'mon, you know they will be one), and instead of being lazy by simply porting over the ROMs into some fancy menu and calling it a day, you decide to fix the flaws that inherited the originals. What would you fix? This might also give Sonic hackers some good ideas.

Not a bug or glitch, but it always bothered me that Super Sonic didn't have a full sprite sheet in both Sonic 2 and 3&K.

Anything to try and restrain Super Sonic a little, like maybe a better acceleration mechanism. I still have nightmares about the fateful time when I tackled Icecap (Act 1) as Super. *Shudders*

Dude, whenever I hook up my old Genesis, that is the very first thing I do (go Super on Icecap 1). It's so easy to get 50 rings and maintain it through that entire zone.

I remember it always used to bug me how buggy and generally screwed up Sonic 3's level select was.

I'd correct Knuckles' colors in Sonic3K. In the original Sonic 3, Knuckles was noticiably pink compared to his later appearences. And his cut-scenes in Sonic 3 don't quite match his palette in Sonic and Knuckles. I'd smooth that out. And while I'm correcting his colors, I'd make sure that he didn't look blue on Sonic's goal sign while it was spinning around.

Also, the second part of Lava Reef with the crystals was full of cheap crushing deaths that always bothered me. I wouldn't change it, I just hated it.

Weren't Knuckles' colours due to the limited palette? Same reason the Flickies are red and the water shield icons have a red hue when playing as Knuckles.

Another one, again not a bug or a glitch, but I'd like to be able to play Sonic 3 & Knuckles with all of the Sonic 3 music themes, rather than Sonic & Knuckles'.

I'd change the physics for Super Sonic on 3 to be like that of 2. You could jump 2 ways in just one jump which was crazy.
I'd also give Super Sonic the animations he had in 2, the glow was better and the wavy quills were just too awesome.

Oh, and the Supersonic music in 2 was much better.

Other than that, I'd get Sonic 2's Hidden Palace redeveloped and get the unused badniks like Splatz back in the games.

Here's another technical bug. The Marble Garden bug where if you are Hyper Sonic at the Marble Garden Act 2 Boss, the game glitches up and either resets itself or takes you to the last checkpoint you touched. Something distorts the data when Hyper Sonic approaches that boss. I would find out what is it that causes this distortion and get rid of it by any means necessary.

Maybe the fact that Hyper Sonic is being used is itself not conducive to normally functioning game conditions.

Yeah, but if they are going to allow you to use Hyper Sonic in normal game conditions they should make sure he works in all game conditions. All this talk about Hyper Sonic makes me want to set up my Genesis and play Doomsday Zone. Since I have nothing better to do tonight, I just might do that.

You're mistaken. The poster meant that Hyper Sonic's energy field is so great that it can often disrupt electronic appliances and make them behave oddly. It just so happens that certain parts of Marble Garden are unusually electrically active, potentiating Hyper Sonic's energy field. I believe this is what the coder responsible for the problem told a seething Naka, anyway. Naka seemed to concur with the assessment.

ban ME wrote:You're mistaken. The poster meant that Hyper Sonic's energy field is so great that it can often disrupt electronic appliances and make them behave oddly. It just so happens that certain parts of Marble Garden are unusually electrically active, potentiating Hyper Sonic's energy field. I believe this is what the coder responsible for the problem told a seething Naka, anyway. Naka seemed to concur with the assessment.

Lame excuse for not fixing a bug…

The only thing that immediately comes to mind is Super Sonic's music, which I'd make more complex and much less repetitive. Something that can easily be sustained over the course of an entire stage should therefore be as complex as a stage theme, not as basic as an invincibility jingle. I'd also like to be able to use Sonic's shield attacks, fly as Tails, and glide as Knuckles without being forced into their super forms.

Hey, remember Sonic 3's Super Sonic? For some reason the physics when he's rolling is all screwed up; you'll roll and not go very far. It was fixed with Sonic & Knuckles, though.

I think Sonic & Knuckles super theme jingle holds pretty well, because the instruments are for the most part mellow. Sonic 3's Super Sonic theme became mind-grating after a while and deterred me from changing into Super Sonic.

Knuckles was also pink in Sonic & Knuckles whenever Sonic was in the same scene, notably due to the limited palette. Remember the beginning of Sky Sanctuary where Knuckles pushed the button so you could proceed in the stage? Well, he was pink there too.

But the main reason I typed the previous paragraph was because I wondered if anyone ever noticed that, if you duck while standing to the right of Knuckles, Knuckles does a "go now" hand motion, or it could also be perceived as a "I want to touch you" hand motion. If you stay ducked, then Knuckles looks at you. I wonder why they bothered to put something like that in.

I'd include Shadow as a playable character.

Poison Eggroll wrote:But the main reason I typed the previous paragraph was because I wondered if anyone ever noticed that, if you duck while standing to the right of Knuckles, Knuckles does a "go now" hand motion, or it could also be perceived as a "I want to touch you" hand motion. If you stay ducked, then Knuckles looks at you. I wonder why they bothered to put something like that in.

I interpreted as Knuckles saying "I'll be okay, go take care of it." 'cause he just got hurt and all and can't go on. And then if you stay he gets annoyed because, hello, you need to save the world, asshole.

Light Speed wrote:Dude, whenever I hook up my old Genesis, that is the very first thing I do (go Super on Icecap 1). It's so easy to get 50 rings and maintain it through that entire zone.

Somehow, whenever I do that, I always end up falling at that part where you need to hit those swing-things. Killer annoying. My complaint was that Super Sonic annihilates the ability to make careful jumps or movements. Also, he should be able to fly in the next collection. He does it in Doomsday Zone, so...

Damn, this whole topic is making me nostalgic. Time to dig up S3+K.

The Super/Hyper characters were S3&K's biggest flaw. It was way too easy to get the emeralds early in the game and to stay in Super/Hyper form for extended periods of time. And the music was too repetitive (as were the Sonic 2 and 3 Super Sonic themes).

Maybe there should have been fewer rings in each stage, or the Bonus Stages shouldn't have been so ring-friendly or the giant rings should have only been worth 20 rather than 50.

Having (the opportunity) to collect another set of emeralds when reaching Mushroom Hill Zone silly too. It interrupted the flow of the game by, at an arbitrary point (in the context of S3&K as a whole game), temporarily stripping you of the ability to transform into Super Sonic that you had earned.

It would have been better if after collecting the 7th Chaos Emerald you returned to the place you entered the Special Stage, like normal, but a short cut-scene played with the Chaos Emeralds spinning around (think Sonic 1's ending) and teleporting Sonic in a flash of light. Then the Hidden Palace emerald transformation scene could play out as normal, but teleporting Sonic back immediately, not giving you the opportunity to access another Special Stage straight away. A screen of text could tell you to find giant rings to return to the Hidden Palace. Then the rest would play out as normal, find giant rings to get to the hidden palace, jump on the black emeralds to get to a Special Stage, yadda yadda, and after collecting them all get the ability to transform into Super Sonic (much easier on the eyes than Hyper Sonic).

There'd need to be a better balance of giant rings too. Mushroom Hill had at least 8, and I recall Angel Island and Carnival Night having a lot also, all pretty easy to find, whereas other levels had a very small amount of giant rings, and were often harder to find.

I personally don't consider that S1 spike thing a "glitch". It's pretty much just part of the physics, like how you can't spin-dash. I mean, they're spikes. I don't have to suspend belief too much to think that if I jump onto one, and then fall onto them, getting up isn't happening.

Personally? If I could redo Mega Collection, I'd give the option to play with S, T or K on any of the core installments, (with the S&K physics engine, as that's as close to perfect as I feel it got).

And the music rerecorded with the arrangements of SA1, but mixed by the guy who did Sonic's SA2 levels. I've always wanted to hear the tunes of the Genesis era freed from the Genesis sound card.

I'd also like to put it out there and say that being Super in levels other than the ones that are intended for super feels cheap and I hate playing the game like that. Just... in general. Some say the Adventure series' lack of Super Sonic in normal levels was a fault, I say it was fixing a gaping problem.

jenkins wrote:Somehow, whenever I do that, I always end up falling at that part where you need to hit those swing-things. Killer annoying. My complaint was that Super Sonic annihilates the ability to make careful jumps or movements. Also, he should be able to fly in the next collection. He does it in Doomsday Zone, so...

Damn, this whole topic is making me nostalgic. Time to dig up S3+K.

I don't think he is so much flying as he is in space with no gravity and just kind of moving forward.

DackAttac wrote:I personally don't consider that S1 spike thing a "glitch". It's pretty much just part of the physics, like how you can't spin-dash. I mean, they're spikes. I don't have to suspend belief too much to think that if I jump onto one, and then fall onto them, getting up isn't happening.

It was definitely an oversight or error on the part of the developers. When you lose rings you're given a short bout of invulberability in order to recover and resume gameplay. This feature was included to prevent cheap frustrating deaths (being attacked by two enemies in quick succession etc). In the original revision the invulnerability kicked in when Sonic landed on the ground. The developers obviously did not anticipate that there would be ways for Sonic to receive a second dose of damage whilst still in the backwards fall from the initial damage. So they fixed it in the later revision.

DackAttac wrote:I'd also like to put it out there and say that being Super in levels other than the ones that are intended for super feels cheap and I hate playing the game like that. Just... in general. Some say the Adventure series' lack of Super Sonic in normal levels was a fault, I say it was fixing a gaping problem.

Super Sonic was very cheap, especially in Sonic 3&K. If Super Sonic is brought back for the main levels then there should be an option to disable the ability to transform, and all high scores/best times achieved with the use of Super Sonic should be kept in a separate record.

I can't say I like the Super boss battles either. Doomsday Zone and Perfect Chaos were great, but they shouldn't be rehashed a dozen times over, and the stories of the games shouldn't all end with "Sonic turns Super, stops big bad guy, saves day." Sonic Battle was a breathe of fresh air in that respect.

Light Speed wrote:I don't think he is so much flying as he is in space with no gravity and just kind of moving forward.

Super Sonic's been shown in full flight outside of space, such as in Sonic 2's ending, the transformation scene in Sonic Advance 2 and the Sonic Heroes boss battle.

The Super levels could be changed so they are like normal levels but Supersonic has different stats to Sonic and has different moves suited to navigating around the level.
Heck, maybe even have a whole set of levels too like the characters in

That way you have no repetitive music plus something different to the fly over a deathdrop, get rings to survive and your totally invincible.

I guess that Supersonic is quite the cheap invinciblity trick too although at least in Sonic 2 you had to work everytime you played the game without save files and such.

Supersonic was at his worst in Sonic 3, the ease to acquire, the animation and that cringeworthy
"Da da da da da, da da, da da da da da, DA! DA! DA! DA! DADADADADADADADA!" excuse for a tune.

Well being allowed to save your progress is what made Super Sonic so easy to acquire, but seriously S3&K would blow if you couldn't save. The lack of a full sprite sheet and the music was fairly annoying though.

This is just a pet peeve of mine, but I'd really really have liked it if they removed continues and drastically changed extra lives in Sonic 3 (& Knux). With saving, continues are completely pointless.

It'd also be nice if the Knuckles only paths were accessable with Sonic or Tails. Something like when moving really really fast as Sonic or Tails, you can break through Knuckles only barriers.