GHZ Museum/Encyclopedia fact checking & ect. thread

[Dr. BUGMAN]

I popped Sonic & Knuckles Collection in today and found the sound effects overwhelming the BGM. I don't remember it being like this. Could there be a problem with my disk?

[Farmer]

"Overwhelming"? As in, much louder than usual?

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Yes, exactly. That, or the music has become very, very muffled. Or both.

[Kogen]

Considering it uses MIDIs for music, perhaps you should try switching between the two various options it gives? It is most likely something to do with your computer/volume settings. There is a patch somewhere for the game too.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Already tried switching between the two, yes.

But I did just check the volume settings; turned up the "SW Synth" and everything's peachy (can't imagine what turned it down in the first place). Thanks, Kogen!

[Delphine]

Thanks, Kogen!

oh god where am I

[Kogen]

I am a shining beacon of hope and progress in an otherwise mellow abyssal plain of darkness and ignorance.

[Crowbar]

Well that sure describes this forum.

[Delphine]

I'm starting to think Kogen is a robot.

[K2J]

Fun fact, Delphine's comment is actually mistranslated from a Japanese word that means "artificial life form".

[Delphine]

If you're talking about "robot", it was actually coined by a Czech writer.

[Farmer]

If you're talking about "robot", it was actually coined by a Czech writer.

On further research you're right, but I'd always thought it was from Polish where 'robotnik' means 'worker'.

[K2J]

I was referring to a Sonic Heroes translation flub.

[FlashTHD]

So I haven't done this in a while. Some assorted missed stuff and tidbits of Sonic 1 & 2:

Sonic 1
- Not sure why you felt the need to stick Bobbins & air bubbles among the common items since they only appear in one stage apiece
- The 100-point markers at the end of each act are actually just worth 10 points due to a silly programming oversight or something. The markers do not appear in Scrap Brain Act 2
- Gani-gani (Crabmeat) has a distinct movement pattern: waddle slowly in one direction, stop; waddle the other way, stop and shoot his projectiles
- Green Meleons disappear permanently once they've fired at you
- Marble Zone: at some places there are openings in the cieling that lava periodically comes pouring down out of (usually over precarious areas). The fireball-shooting wall fixtures, act 2's chasing lava escape, and the rising/falling chandeliers are also unmentioned.
- Spring Yard: the weird neon light messages in the foreground are prolly worth mention
- Labyrinth: woah, what? Every gimmick in the level (act 3's "endless" water slide included) is unmentioned
- Star Light: there's numerous types of floating platform formations, and the bottom areas of all three acts are a giant bottomless pit
- Scrap Brain: electrode traps, flamethrowers, giant buzzsaws (some of which chase you down in act 2), vaccuum chutes in act 2, giant swinging maces, swinging trap floors, and those red floors that retract very quickly when you step on them. A cutscene seperates acts 2 and 3.
- A couple of missed cheats, one of which even I didn't know about until just now. I could not get any of them to work in the ROM I had and am just reporting these verbatim, but I know the latter one exists in some version of Sonic 1.

View Staff Roll/Ending: This one I found on Sonic Retro (gag) and i'm not terribly sure of its' validity, but here goes. On the title screen: C six times, , wait for attract mode to start, go back to the title and punch in the stage select code. Then, in the sound test, play 9E to launch the credits or 9F to watch the ending first.
Hidden Japanese credits picture: Punch in the above (sans stage select), wait for attract mode, then hold A+B+C+ and wait for the Sonic Team Presents screen. The developers snuck their real names onto this screen in japanese using a pallette trick.

Sonic 2
- No mention of player 2 being able to control Tails in Sonic & Tails mode. lol, for that matter, no mention of that mode making for some interesting tests of reflexes in the special stages if the CPU is controlling him
- Emerald Hill: there are a few hidden passages in the walls, one of which in act 2 is infamous for being nigh impossible to enter without slinging yourself into it at a precise angle (or something). Drill Eggman makes a rather splashy entrance/exit compared to most of the other bosses.
- Chemical Plant: extremely high speed stage architechure. The poison water is act 2 only, and maybe that infamous section with the stair blocks and rising water is worth a nod.
- Aquatic Ruin: Tonkachi Eggman can smashed in humiliating fashion if you have the presence of mind to jump on top of the pillars as they initially rise. You can then perch there and pick Eggman off at your leisure; just don't get smacked by the hammer.
- Casino Night: It'd be interesting to list all of the possible slot machine payouts, which i'm sure has been documented elsewhere by somebody. (There are several obscure ones, such as lining up two jackpots and an Eggman which rapes your ring count.) Green flippers can be triggered by the buttons; vertical orange ones take effect by touching the sides. There are some smaller slot machines peppered around that simply give you a bunch of 100 point bonuses just for dropping into them. There are a lot of one-way elevator lifts.
- Hill Top: lifts and see-saws shown, but not mentioned
- Mystic Cave: in the boss fight, the rocks are harmless but the spikes are decidedly not
- Oil Ocean: the midair "chute" rides, platforms that pop off of a vent pedestal, and those damned fans from Star Light. Submarine Eggman's attatchments are deployed in order: claw sickle, then laser cannon; you always have to avoid both before he surfaces.
- Metropolis: act 2 concludes with a trick area that has a neverending vertical shaft, with one of the paths across it leading to the exit
- Wing Fortress: the precarious segment clinging to the wall panels is particularly noteable, as are those annoying aircraft laucher mechanisms that fling you in a usually inconvenient direction if you step on them
- Death Egg: Mecha Sonic always moves in a set pattern. Don't touch his spikes when he's standing up.
- All your rings on hand are forfeit if you enter a special stage, but when you return, all the items in the stage respawn. (In Knuckles in Sonic 2, rings are not forfeit, as if getting the emeralds wasn't laughably easy enough.)
- Versus mode removes the bosses, and all item boxes are random. If a zone should end with a tied score, a special stage is played to attempt a tiebreaker. The special stage on the menu consists of (I think) the game's last 3 special stages. The third one is only played if both players win the first two.

[j-man]

Why does Robotnik come down in some helicopter contraption in Emerald Hill? It never made any sense to me.

[Delphine]

Because when you're ten you don't give a shit, and that's who the game was made for.

[j-man]

Don't be a prick, mate. This has bothered me for nineteen years.

[CM August]

To show off the Eggmobile's super customizable nature from the get-go?

[Rob-Bert]

You've only just reminded me how much I want Eggman to get his own game, wherein the general structure is based on the mech stages from SA2 except with a fully customizable Eggmobile with various travel possibilities.

[Delphine]

Don't be a prick, mate. This has bothered me for nineteen years.

Some things just don't need to be explained! He was a dude who made robots and fancy machines. Mystery solved.

[G.Silver]

Why does Robotnik come down in some helicopter contraption in Emerald Hill? It never made any sense to me.

It is troubling! A helicopter is better at hovering and precise landings than something powered by jets engines from behind (such as your traditional Eggmobile), so if the goal is to land inside of a wheeled chassis only slightly wider than the Eggmobile, it makes sense to use a helicopter to land precisely. But the Sonic 2 Eggmobile is frequently seen to hover effortlessly without helicopter blades or any visible vertical thrust, and yet some forms, like the Aquatic Ruin and Mystic Cave bosses, do have vertical thrusters even though the Eggmobile operates fine without them. The helicopter is just the tip of the iceberg that is Sonic 2's mechanical inconsistency. What were they thinking?!

It might also be worth noting that in Sonic CD, the Eggmobile has three small thrusters on its underside, and you can actually see them fire independently of each other depending on which direction it is moving in. Somebody cares!

[Delphine]

:|

[Neo]

On the title screen: C six times, , wait for attract mode to start, go back to the title and punch in the stage select code. Then, in the sound test, play 9E to launch the credits or 9F to watch the ending first.

Correct, although every instance of becomes the more familiar when playing in an American or European console. Furthermore, in the cheats where you need to press C a certain number of times, they can come any time before you press the last , at which point they're tallied up.

Punch in the above (sans stage select), wait for attract mode, then hold A+B+C+ and wait for the Sonic Team Presents screen. The developers snuck their real names onto this screen in japanese using a pallette trick.

Works, but actually all you have to do is be holding A+B+C when returning to the Sonic Team Presents screen after inserting the previous code.

- Metropolis: act 2 concludes with a trick area that has a neverending vertical shaft, with one of the paths across it leading to the exit

This is actually in Act 1.

Why does Robotnik come down in some helicopter contraption in Emerald Hill? It never made any sense to me.

Because he's making his grand return from the previous game. Same reason why the first time you spot him in Sonic 3 is after he's chased you around with a gigantic bomb-churning aircraft.

[j-man]

Pft, helicopters ain't all that grand. Silv knows what I'm talking about.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

The normal hover function of the eggmobile interferes with the frequency used to remotely control the drill machine. Duh.