| paleface [sys=PC; cat=Platformer; reg=UC] |
| | | Playing through the free Sonic fan game Sonic SMS Remake by @joaoaraya, an 8-bit-style widescreen game based on the 8-bit Sonic. It's downloadable from
https://sonic-sms-remake.blogspot.com/
The dev also made the smooth engine it uses, "Open Sonic SMS."
Stage select cheat code: highlight version number at bottom of main menu, press Jump four times to hear a confirm, then up, up, down, down, up, down & pick CLASSIC MODE (maybe others?) to get stage select screen (cheat listed on "CHEATS" page of their site).
Super-peppy physics, runs great! Unusually robust menus--even controller support. & saves game progress (at zone end, anyway).
But I can't figure out how to get it to save Time Attack progress, & can't figure out how to get it to let me pick a specific Zone-Act to Attack; it seems to want to Attack the whole game from start to finish. No!
A lot of the stages and bosses are very similar to the SMS-GG fan game (https://youtu.be/UNVa6EFho0I), but in widescreen, & 8-bit rather than 16-bit-style graphics; also the physics are less quirky, & you can run up most slopes even from a dead stop--diff from Master System Sonic 1--but nice! Some added stages, too, I think.
Argh like SMS-GG there's a music/ringtone copyright claim in Green Hill Zone, requiring ~1-2 minute footage cuts, & reprocessing, sometimes multiple times (YouTube finds 1 part claimed, you cut it & it reprocesses & only THEN finds another part claimed, you do do ANOTHER cut & reprocess, etc etc ; P). Pain in the whumpus. ; P
The bonus stage bouncing was a little more manageable than in SMS-GG. ; D
On the other hand, as in Master System Sonic 1 (but unlike the SMS-GG fan game), here when hit your rings don't scatter; a single ring pops out, but can't be picked up--so you're always dead if you don't get a new ring between hits. But somehow this wasn't a big issue--I guess the levels space the hit threats out, & I got used to leaving a ring behind JUST in case I took a hit.
A long vertical bit of Jungle Zone scrolls up but not down, so suddenly a slightly lower platform you were jumping to has scrolled down off-screen, you hit screen bottom, dead. D ; There's a "free camera" cheat on their site that seems to reference this; didn't try it but sheesh it shouldn't've happened in the 1st place (haven't played Jungle in the orig Master System version so dunno if it's copied from that).
There's a "Lightning" toggle in the Options screen that is mystifying until you get to the horrible electric field screen strobe in the final zone. That strobe should never have been there either, garrr.
AND (I did like this game but these 3 things could'a been better!) for some reason the game defaults to giving you spin dash & drop dash; you can turn Drop Dash off in Options but why is it there? Master System Sonic 1 didn't have dash, & w/ the exception of maybe an oddly placed 1up or two, & a weird door/button in a maze in one of the last stages, dash isn't necessary at all since Sonic can run up hills from a dead stop; all dash did for me--aside from getting those couple of weird 1ups & past that button/door thing which could have been set up differently anyway--was getting me killed once after I'd finished off a boss & then inadvertently drop-dashed to my death off the platform like a goofus! (For that matter there's a late boss where you can land offscreen below on a tiny previous platform.)
And there's an "Air Jump" option defaulting to On that maybe gave me an extra air jump once or twice that saved my bacon, but not normally? Confused.
And the end boss fight felt kinda broken (and easy ; D) compared to SMS-GG. And I couldn't figure the diff between REMAKE and ORIGINAL mode.
But overall I really liked it, looking forward to trying SMS Remakes 2 & 3 as well!
(Native res 348 px wide.)
The author identifies as from Brazil in their YouTube About page. |
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