Firstly this is my first ever submitted TAS and secondly I could hardly of picked a more difficult and cursed game. I wasn’t really aware of that to begin with, but that was probably the factor that got me through in the end, since during the Marble to Labyrinth stages I constantly had “Oh no am I gonna be next to drop next to drop this game”. The whole process from begining to end, starting from being mildly interested to finally submitting it took about four months, but there was maybe six to seven weeks where I didn’t do any work on it whatsoever. I did a test run up until the point where I collect the last emerald in mainly 3-10% speeds with no frame counter, it was mainly just to get an idea and understanding of the game and to work out how to use GENS. The real run used 3% speed in the first stage and then frame advance from there on in.
I like to thank mainly JXQ for his great coaching and his previous run which I treated like a natural intended path. Although there was no justification for thinking it at the time, I was actually worried incase he was offended by my run for taking his ideas and applying them in a way that he would not approve. I wouldn’t personally be to bothered if someone wants to lower the ingame timer (as opposed to the real game time) by not stopping to avoid larger bonuses that impact on time and then copying my input from all the other stages. On a side note I’d like to thank Xebra for his various tips at the start, nfq for his various WIP’s at the start, which I was able to improve on later and philipptr for his WIP’s on the special stages.
- Aims to collect all emeralds
- Aims for fastest time
- Avoid delays caused by bonus effects
- Abuses programming errors
- Manipulates luck
- Abuses left+right movement
- Aims for a low score
The most unique aspect of this run was delaying to avoid larger bonuses, but if I’m able to complete a stage in less than 23:333... Then I would do that. To those who disprove of that I would argue that this has a minimal effect on the overall run. However, there were three reasons for doing it
- Complaints that real time runs were being timed unfairly i.e. stages where being timed individually while other games included the delays inbetween as well.
- It makes it easier overall, but I tried to be as fast as possible while skidding just before the end. It also differentiates this from the previous in game run.
- It’s a goal that’s consistent throughout the game, e.g. the amount of rings has an effect on the end stage bonus, while getting +50 rings has a large delay caused by getting an extra continue.
Some say the special stages are boring, but I think that’s purely because of the simple backgrounds and music. I didn’t find them boring to work on, but they were very frustrating because of the dodgy programming involved. The stages jerk once every eight frames making the future very hard to predict. Unlike normal stages nearly all the collision is square, making corner collisions a near formality, but I took advantage of this by this using this feature to kill off and control Sonics speed. I fairly sure that most stages were done to an optimal standard. I especially enjoyed stages where bouncers could be manipulated.
Points of interest
- Green Hill 2 - This is too difficult to see in real time but at the start when sonic hits the bee and goes through the wall he partially zips through it at the end which saves 20 frames over what would normally be done.
- Marble 1 - I’ve actually done this quicker than the ingame run despite the fact I’ve collected +50 rings
- Marble 2 - This took an insane amount of planning. Everthing was planned to the last detail beforehand.
- Marble 3 - Before the end I was 11 frames ahead, but the moving platform was higher up so I had to increment it by two units costing 10 frames.
- Spring Yard 3 - I personally found this the most frustrating stage to work on because of the timed delays, lag and position of moving platforms and slight randomess of how sonic reacts to and lands on certain platforms .
- Star Light 2 - If you jump at certain frame while going fast up a slope Sonic will hit a ceiling boundary and his X coordinate will not increment he can move normally once he’s back on his feet. I took my time in gaining the fastest speed possible during the sine wave section.I could almost clear the second wall, but I had to let go of all input so that Sonic would sucessfully land on the platform below. Left+Right halfs Sonics velocity in a single frame during his running animation. This was a great surprise since I thought it was unlikely to come off. I’m kind of on a fence on whether Marble 1 or this stage was the highlight, I’ll let others peoples opinion dictate this .
- Star Light 3 - Getting 45 was intentional to avoid getting a higher bonus thus saving 44 frames
- Scrap Brain 1 - Refer to JXQ’s commentary if you don’t know what happens during the start.
- Final Zone - I tried to do a little jig during it and also get 1:14 but the purpose of doing that was to terminate the movie as early as possible, it could be cancelled if sonic is moved to the left or is killed by jumping off the end of the stage.
Suggested description: Sonic’s first installement on the Mega Drive. Sonic has yet to learn the art of spin dashing. With the curse broken on this game, it was time to remove the all emerald curse, which has blighted the Sonic world.
Suggested Screenshot: Frame 00:59:16 or 3:58:37
Truncated: I fixed the formatting since it was destroying the forum layout. Don't start lines with a space unless you want monospace font. Don't start lines with Tabs at all.
adelikat: Rejecting this submission. All reasons have been well articulated in posts in the discussion. The main reason though is that the goals are not a publishable "category" of run.
1) It is far too similar to the current published run (it is 90% the same run) to warrant being published along side it.
Overall, obtaining emeralds makes it less entertaining than current run, making it a poor choice to obsolete it.
Therefore, the only reasonable choice is to reject the submission. Congratulations on making the highest quality run I have ever rejected though :) I hope you take what you have learned from this run and make an improved version of the current run. Good luck.
