ROSS'S GAME DUNGEON: SONIC HEROES

[Ross Scott]

New Game Dungeon!  This took way, way longer than it was supposed to.  The original plan was to have this be under 20 minutes released last month.  Instead, the game hit me pretty hard so I just didn't want to leave so much out.  Anyway, it's finally done and I'm pretty happy with it, though I'm really going to have to go back to shorter episodes for a while.  I think I figured out the source of some of my problems in the game since I made it, but not all of them.

On another note, I discovered a bug in Premiere hours ago, where it simply interpreted FRAPS footage improperly.  It actually caused stalled frames and the timing to change.  This came as a bit of a shock as I didn't notice it until very late in the process.  Re-encoding into another lossless codec solved the problem, but I wasn't going to do that for 1.5TB of footage (the gameplay was recorded losslessly) without delaying the video another day at least.  I solved the most egregious problems, but it's possible there are some small problems left in there that I missed.  I can release one of the problematic clips for testing if people are interested, though I should see if I can chop it without re-encoding as it's about 30GB on its own.  For anyone critical of fraps, feel free to recommend software for recording DirectX 5-8 content with hardware antialiasing enabled (it may not behave how you think).

Freeman's Mind next!  Should come much faster!

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[Im_CIA]

Plannet heroes ripped off the sonic heroes jingle

 

 

[MrDowntempo]

That real early image of the Sonic Cabal. Ross, can you please make that available to us as a wallpaper?!

 

Also, regarding Tails' tails. My theory is they're connected to his behind with a ball joint, like your arm in your shoulder.

Edited September 22, 2020 by MrDowntempo (see edit history)

[Archdeco]

That is honestly impressive that in the middle of an intentionally bad sonic story you made up, you nearly came up with Enerjak, a real character.

 

For the record, it's definitely the game, not you.

 

I've heard Sonic Colors is the best 3D Sonic game but I haven't played that one yet.

 

Edit: I see the fanfic comes from an old SA troll. This is why reading the credits is important.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Archdeco (see edit history)

[Chrisfratz]

Eggman has had some assistants in the cartoons. Also, the problems you were having with the homing attack ad light speed dash aren't just you. That's a problem with the game. And apparently the PC version is built off a slightly older build of Sonic Heroes, so it's a bit more janky. As a member of the Cult of Sonic. You were fair to the great blue one, and have gained the right to pass. Also Eggman did reach his goal in one game, Sonic Unleashed, he got to build his own theme park from Hell. And it's one of the worst levels in the game.

 

[Im_CIA]

I never really got sonic. 

Is there a game where there is no hard limit on how fast he can run, but he is put into situations that require different levels of exertion? I would play that. 

[capritsuno]

This one caught me by surprise!

[steviewonder322]

Someone is definitely going to upres those skyboxes now that Ross has asked lmao, the Sonic community is crazy. Interesting that I almost never hear anything about this game considering how great it looks. Made me want to give it a shot.

 

 

As far as music, I'll toss Sonic and the Secret Rings in for consideration. The game was certainly an interesting experiment, but the music was absolutely bumping the entire time I played through (and I almost 100 percented it because it was one of the only Wii games I played). Never got around to Black Knight but I do question who thought it was a good idea to do the storybook stuff and put Sonic so on-rails. Still, I have a lot of love in my heart for that game and thing everyone should give it a shot.

[Chrisfratz]

43 minutes ago, steviewonder322 said:

Someone is definitely going to upres those skyboxes now that Ross has asked lmao, the Sonic community is crazy. Interesting that I almost never hear anything about this game considering how great it looks. Made me want to give it a shot.

 

 

As far as music, I'll toss Sonic and the Secret Rings in for consideration. The game was certainly an interesting experiment, but the music was absolutely bumping the entire time I played through (and I almost 100 percented it because it was one of the only Wii games I played). Never got around to Black Knight but I do question who thought it was a good idea to do the storybook stuff and put Sonic so on-rails. Still, I have a lot of love in my heart for that game and thing everyone should give it a shot.

Oh yeah, the modding and ROM hacking side of the sonic community is amazing. I'm kind of tempted to try to rip the Skyboxes from the GC version with dolphin's built in texture ripping tool. I have Waifu 2X installed, so I can try that. I'd try AI Gigapixel, but I don't have the cash for that.

LAST EDIT: I forgot that there's a trial. I'm getting that now.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Chrisfratz (see edit history)

[Asscastle]

Ross, since you were so curious about Amy, I think you should know something about her:

 

Did you know that Amy canonically has a shaved, waxed pussy? It's true, it's 100% confirmed by these lines from her theme song "My Sweet Passion":

I do understand the feelings of a Persian cat
(But the Sphinx looked so cute I had to shave it)

Sphinx is slang for a bikini wax. It comes from sphynx cats, which are famous for being hairless. She thought that a sphinx would look good on her so she went and shaved "it".

It's really true, I asked my spiritual leader Yuji Naka

[Chrisfratz]

Alright, I'm back with some upscaled skyboxes. Here you go. Note, this was my first time using AI Gigapixel, so I just kept it on the auto settings for now.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1I8OqoulVaZxN_lZtBoGxo3QNewM6jTYn?usp=sharing

I'll also post a sample while I'm here, for those who don't wanna click the link. Look at those canyons.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Chrisfratz (see edit history)

[ThatOneDraffan]

In reference to Tails flying that plane really close to the ground, as dangerous as it definitively is, it can actually be easier to hover a plane close above the ground due to a phenomenon known as ground-effect (wiki) which effectively increases the lift generated at any given speed. This only works when the aircraft is flying very low over an effectively solid mass (the ground or the ocean), but it isn't unheard of for pilots to purposely fly very low as depicted.

 

Some aircraft are even specially designed to fly in ground-effect (wiki). The Russians have several examples of Ekranoplan ground-effect aircraft that were dual-purpose as flying boats (wiki example of Russian Ekanoplan).

 

I've attached an image of a modern ground-effect aircraft flying very low over water for reference.

 

[ws_]

For the whole "It must have took this guy over 140 hours!" is rather incorrect, you only need to complete 7 secret levels (7 different gems, each set of levels have their own gems) you can also do it with any team in order, so for the easiest and fastest way to get through those secret levels if you're not good at the game is to run through team rose and collect those damn chaos emeralds, after that your last goal is to complete the game four times separately wtih each team. Most of that time is probably spent off getting mulitple A ranks by trying not to die, collecting rings, not going too slow, etc. At worst it's roughly ~10 to ~20 hours to complete it.

Team Chaotix is not just 'collect seashells: the game', but they are what they are, a gimmicky mission mode variant of the normal stages, this is just the fault of skipping 75% of the game as Ross did in the video and probably just overlooking the actual checklist to unlock the final extra special stage, since he mentioned ShadOW THE hEDGEhog that does it slightly more worse for trying to unlock the final extra special secret sauce stage with having to complete the game roughly ten times in a row (there's some extra caveats as well on that as well but knowing Ross he might blow it up more than he should if by going Sonic Heroes)

Light Dashing rings that are in mid-air especially for that castle section are best done jumping towards it and light dashing rather than walking off and hoping for the best.
The homing jump isn't the most automatic/braindead thing ever, since you were pressing less than ~2/5 of a second (going off by frame counting of 12/13f of a 30fps video), you have to be more accurately with your movement in the air with the left stick and actually have face towards the enemies, turn in mid-air and doing it fast & correctly, luckily all of the characters have a jump arc that stalls throughout their jump including the apex for a rather lengthy amount of time, so you just needed to press & aim slower rather than just pressing it fast.
That last section in the last level with all the lasers, have to break it to you Ross but you just went too slow with knuckles instead of using sonic because of your previous trauma/behavior, see this longplay at ~1:43:25 for example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4srM5Dda8BE
I could probably explain why in the second level with the automatic loopdeloops if I had better memory, but the reason why you're not exiting with enough velocity is if I recall it's how you mess with the left stick not only entering that section, but also during & exiting it, just by using game footage to look back on you can't really tell without extra stuff like recording your inputs as well and being experimental.
Sonic's age is stated to be 15 while Amy was either 8 or 12, so your theory is kind of correct

It's kind of weird seeing Ross thinking Sonic just go fast the game when he ultimately explained it perfectly with Sonic 1 (although later 2d sonic games did it better with sonic 2, 3&K, etc.), there's nothing wrong with going slow when going fast, it's part of the nature of going fast, it's easy to go fast on a very flat straight line, it's multitudes harder to go fast when there's 5 consecutive hairpins, the difficulty of clearing obstacles that force you to go slow, fast is part of the challenge of going fast.

[Ross Scott]

7 hours ago, RaTcHeT302 said:

I FUCKING KNEW IT WAS SONIC HEROES

god i wish i had made a post with the prediction, i would've been so DEAD ON

I noticed there were a lot of wrong guesses, I wanted to keep it a surprise.  Sonic Heroes has that blend that can make for interesting episodes.  It really is a game that stands out in my memory.

 

6 hours ago, MrDowntempo said:

That real early image of the Sonic Cabal. Ross, can you please make that available to us as a wallpaper?!

 

Sure, that's by Boone Harris, I was trying to have a basic image of hooded robe members with Sonic character eyes, he went all-out on it.  He said he might post it later, otherwise I can do it.

 

35 minutes ago, ThatOneDraffan said:

In reference to Tails flying that plane really close to the ground, as dangerous as it definitively is, it can actually be easier to hover a plane close above the ground due to a phenomenon known as ground-effect

 

Yeah that makes sense since the air would have much more to push off of, I just liked how it was inches, plus skimming water in a seaplane has slightly less risk than regular ground I would think.

[Ross Scott]

5 hours ago, Archdeco said:

Edit: I see the fanfic comes from an old SA troll. This is why reading the credits is important.

It was narrated by the original author in the video actually, that was a pen name for Tom White.

52 minutes ago, ws_ said:

Team Chaotix is not just 'collect seashells: the game', but they are what they are, a gimmicky mission mode variant of the normal stages, this is just the fault of skipping 75% of the game as Ross did in the video

 

That last section in the last level with all the lasers, have to break it to you Ross but you just went too slow with knuckles instead of using sonic because of your previous trauma/behavior

I would argue you're not really missing 75% of the game, more like 10% considering how it's all the same levels with just some modifications.

 

And yeah, I realized WAY too late I wasn't accelerating on the rails properly, although it still doesn't explain some things, like how I could drift backwards on a rail and make a jump fine, but move forward and then come up short.

[ThatOneDraffan]

2 hours ago, Ross Scott said:

Yeah that makes sense since the air would have much more to push off of, I just liked how it was inches, plus skimming water in a seaplane has slightly less risk than regular ground I would think.

Tails plane bothers me in a number of ways, because it's not a plane, it's a freaking rocket. There's no evidence of any landing gear or landing skis, so it cannot safely land on neither water, ice, or solid ground. Additionally, the four wing design combined with the jet placement exaggerate this.

 

Whenever Tails enters ground-effect, the bottom wings will experience less drag (the air isn't pushing off the ground necessarily, but rather the wing experiences less drag, rotating the lift-vector, and more effectively utilizing the lift generated [video that explains this graphically]), which means the upper wings will have greater drag, thereby causing a rotational force that naturally pitches the plane upwards. Next, the jet itself is in a precarious situation, the jet is parallel to the direction of travel, this may seem like a good thing at first until you consider where the jet is located, on the bottom of the plane. If the thrust vector of aircraft is below the center of mass, then a rotational force will be applied.

 

There isn't much to the plane, but based on the intake on the front and going off that most airplane fuselages themselves are very lightweight, the center of mass of the plane seems to be above the jet (offset engines can be solved by angling the engines themselves, otherwise known as thrust vectoring). The only way Tails can safely land that plane is if it using a whole airplane parachute system, which actually do exist and Tails plane would be small enough for a parachute system to work (wiki).

 

But all-in-all, Tails isn't flying a plane, it's at best a weird prototype plane with a parachute system, but based on how Tails treats it (by just abandoning it to crash) just reinforces that Tails is flying a freaking missile.

Edited September 23, 2020 by ThatOneDraffan (see edit history)

[RocketDude]

49 minutes ago, ThatOneDraffan said:

Tails plane bothers me in a number of ways, because its not a plane, it's a freaking rocket. There's no evidence of any landing gear or landing skis, so it cannot safely land on neither water, ice, or solid ground. Additionally, the four wing design combined with the jet placement exaggerate this.

In fairness, Tails' plane here in Heroes is the Tornado II, a jet-powered successor to the original Tornado plane seen in the classic games, which was a propeller biplane. IIRC, in Sonic Adventure, where it debuted, the Tornado II started out in a more conventional plane shape (with a propeller made of energy blades powered by a spinning Chaos Emerald for a nosecone!), before transforming into the weird four-winged jet thing that reminds me of one of those weird experimental jets from the 50's (in fact, I'm pretty sure there was a design much like that, a four-winged jet plane that was practically a rocket, and it was always pointed up at an angle when on its landing gear).

 

Also, Ross, apparently the PC version of Heroes is just jankier than the console versions. I remember playing Heroes at the age of like 12 on GameCube and I did not struggle nearly as much as you did. Then again, I also rather liked the casino stages, so maybe we're just not drift-compatible.

 

As for Tails' tails...don't think too hard about it, it's just a stylish character design. That said, perhaps if his tails worked like like a dual-rotor helicoper, that wouldn't look so weird. Actually, I think some of the comics and cartoons showed him doing that.

[Mira]

10 minutes ago, RocketDude said:

In fairness, Tails' plane here in Heroes is the Tornado II, a jet-powered successor to the original Tornado plane seen in the classic games, which was a propeller biplane. IIRC, in Sonic Adventure, where it debuted, the Tornado II started out in a more conventional plane shape (with a propeller made of energy blades powered by a spinning Chaos Emerald for a nosecone!), before transforming into the weird four-winged jet thing that reminds me of one of those weird experimental jets from the 50's (in fact, I'm pretty sure there was a design much like that, a four-winged jet plane that was practically a rocket, and it was always pointed up at an angle when on its landing gear).

But the Tornado II is confirmed to not have a landing gear. We never see it taking off in the traditional way: instead it just sort of hovers inside some sort of cannon which it's seemingly propelled out of, and in the end Tails admits he downright forgot to install a landing gear before crashing it onto the Egg Carrier:

From the way Tails treats his plane in Sonic Heroes I infer that in his eyes, destroying your plane (which requires a Chaos Emerald in order to work) and building a new one every time is apparently more cost- and/or time-efficient than actually putting a landing gear on one.

[RocketDude]

Okay, fair enough!

 

Also, re: Tom White being Peter Chimaera...is that really true, or is this just a joke? I feel like Peter Chimaera's real identity is a total mystery, just like that of My Immortal's author.

[ultrayoba]

About first of your question, about whole amy issue I always remembered a cinemotagraphic theory by Mike Stoklasa  about "not gay characters". Characters inserted just to show that other character not gay and nothing much more. The fact that sonik and tails have such... perfect duo, made it as requrement to insert someone to show that "they are just friends". I think that because Amy was probably first or one of the first... not very imaginative characters. There a lot now after all this sonic games that they produced over years, but originally sonic-tails-knuckles-robotnik was all quite unique in their appearance, abilities and character. And amy.. well, it's pink sonic that added dress and "behave like annoying girl"... and then they added a hammer to somehow make her different. Ehh, feels forced. Big the cat in Adventure was more original even.

And hey Ross you may check out this game from 3d sonic games. It hoverboard racing with it's own interesting mechanics, I think you might enjoy it https://youtu.be/ACDPyWubLuQ

Arcade style sonic racing games are fine too, I liked sonic and all-stars racing transformed