/vr/ - Retro Games

options > sonic & tails > sonic only

quality of life significantly improved.

The Sonic 2 special stages are all about stage memorisation, there's all there is to it really.
There are too many blind spots because of the huge curves, so you need to learn where they are.

If you are using savestates past every checkpoint you're doing it wrong, scraping past the first or second checkpoint doesn't suffice, there may not be enough rings in the second/third sections to win.

The stages are actually easier without Tails because playing with Tails jacks up the ring count. And yeah, Sonic 2's special stages are pretty bullshit. It's all in memorizing the stages.

>>517475
Yeah I realized that early on, so I kept a second state at the very start of the minigame in case I failed.

>>517483
Should've known...

>>517446
>By the time I got to the third emerald, I was already using save states.

Confirmed for biggest Sanic plebeian.

>>517483
Wait, the game actually demands you collect more rings when Tails accompanies Sonic?
That's bullshit right there, Tails only catches a couple of extra rings and then usually loses them.

>>517446
The Sonic 2 special stages are not too hard, even with cpu controlled Tails. Only maybe two of them are hard - one has little margin for error (it's one of the middle ones, like 4th or so, it suddenly jacks up the difficulty a lot compared to the previous levels), and the other one is I think the last where you have to get significantly more rings in the first rounds to complete the last ones. Also the rings are thrown around in random patterns.

>>517509
>Sanic
You are the only plebeian there.

>>517513
Yeah, the only way I was able to get the emeralds legit as a kid was with my friend using Tails to get rings too, although one fuckup and we were both screwed. Super Sonic is not nearly as useful as Hyper Sonic though, so I never bother with getting all the emeralds when I replay 2.

I got so good at the special stages that it almost became ESP.
Like I just KNEW I need to stay on the upper wall after the next incline and then zip across, dodging the bombs to the other wall without even thinking. Very few games became so automatic with me.

Played this thing so fucking hard for ages. For about...a year, my genesis had some kind of bad pin in the controller port, so the A button wouldn't work on anything. Sonic was one of the few games where all the buttons did the same thing, so i played a SHITLOAD of it.

Got to the point where i could be super sonic by about the first act of Aquatic Ruin. Took forever to get it down, but if you're good, and know where all the signposts are, you can collect around four or five emeralds before chemical plant.

Now, after about a three year hiatus, i'm lucky to pull down more then three or four. I'm so ashamed i can barely play. Meanwhile, sky fortress as Super Sonic is HARD AS FUCKING BALLS.

>>517530
>Also the rings are thrown around in random patterns
UGH my luck is so shitty that I can deftly maneuver through the rings with touching a single one where as if they were bombs I'd hit all of them

>>517446
It appears someone is a punk ass bitch that doesn't know true difficulty.

>>517573
iirc you can actually get all of the emeralds in Emerald Hill Zone alone. Both acts have a total of eight checkpoints.

tails jumps right after sonic does. the difficulty of the sonic 2 special stages is greatly exaggerated.

but i also had to play it every single day at a day care

>>517654
I tend to botch one or two through there, somehow, and can never seem to find one in the chemical plant when i actually have enough rings...i'm just glad i was ever able to do it...and a little amazed...

>>517446
While being the nicer to look at, sonic 2 special stages are the ones I enjoy the less.

>>517446
>CPU Tails kept fucking things up.
You can play the game without Tails.

The only time I managed to get all 7 emeralds was playing as Knuckles once.
I never got Super Sonic legitimmaly with Sonic.
I can do Sonic 1's all 6 emeralds, or Sonic 3&K's 14 emeralds though.
Sonic CD is another that has bullshit bonus stages, the UFOs dodge like crazy on the last few stages, almost impossible.

I see people complain about Tails all the tie.

Why don't they just turn Tails off in the options?

>>517765
OP here. I'm ashamed to say I didn't know it could be turned off in Sonic 2 before I made this thread.

I didn't even check if there was an option menu.

>>517787
Least you owned it. Carry on.

>>517753
Oh God SonicCD's special stages are my favorite! I booted up my old save game and apparently I Time Attacked most of them in less than 20 sec. I tried it again and took over a minute for most of them. What was I on as a kid?

I was the most uncoordinated kid in the world and I had no problem with sanic special stages

>>517869

I like them, but on the later stages the UFOs dodge way too fucking fast and just when you're about to land on them, it's like its programmed so that you WON'T touch them at all.
But yeah of course it's doable, just requires a lot of practise, and a bit of luck.

>>517573
It's not hard, we all played it over and over shitloads till we beat the games and then beat it again and again

I always had Super Sonic by Aquatic Zone because you do those early levels over more often going to beat the game, and more if you want Super Sonic early.

I remember my first time on Sky Fortress, died a shitload on the rotating platforms. No different to me playing it now

>>518008
Whats with this "sanic" shit?

>>518043
It's some stupid /v/ thing.

>>517553
>Missing the joke/point entirely

How about having a second person to play as Tails?

Basically, Sonic 2 is better without Tails.
I got Super Sonic Legitimately however, I found it kinda of hard to control myself and not fall in the Wing Fortress Zone when I turned Super.

>not getting all 7 emeralds before Chemical Plant with Tails
I find the Sonic 2 special stages to be my favorite ones in the series (haven't played 3D Blast on the Saturn, so I can't legitimately say those).

>>519889
"With Tails" meaning having Tails following you. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

>>517654
>>517696
My brother and I would play Sonic 2 all the time. He actually preferred to be Tails, but we'd take turns. We knew where all the posts were in Emerald Hill and it got to a point where we'd always get Super Sonic before Chemical Plant zone and get ALL THE RINGS, then stand there during the boss fights and let Robotnik kill himself.
We got so good at the final boss fight, we could kill Robotnik before he could even launch once. It was great.

Good times.

>>519889
I remember NOT hating the Saturn special stages.
Sonic Heroes did a fantastic job of shitting up the concept though

All these people saying not having Tails makes it better.

On the one hand I agree, he fucks things up constantly, on the other, I speedrun Sonic 2 and Sonic alone is genuinely about 2 minutes slower than with Tails, sucks.

>>520007
Holy shit those were bad.

I mean, Sonic Heroes is in general a terrible game. I think it was big wake up call to people that had been holding out hope that 3D sonic could get better. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 were mediocre games that sold you on speed and different gameplay styles, so a lot of folks didn't notice/ignored how average they were.

Then Heroes came out and it was so unapologetically awful in every way that all the fence-sitters (myself included) collectively took a step back and saw that it just wasn't the same series it had been.

>>520053
Only because you can't Chemical Plant 2 skip

>>520370
And Metro 3 level wrap. CP2 saves maybe 45-50 seconds, M3 is over a minute if you get it first time.

>>520390
Subpixel alignment if I remember mike89 and werster correctly. I would rather not fuck with that and just do normal wraps.

Also, on the actual subject, I have those 7 stages so ingrained in my memory that I can tell what stage it is by the opening ring pattern. Useful in VS when the backgrounds don't match the original stage.

Sonic 3 special stages >Sonic 1 Special Stages> Sonic 2 Special stages

>>520423
Nah, it's just reliant on tapping right for less than 4 frames iirc, although I could always blame my failures on sub-pixels... Screw werster anyway, he only does ILs of Sonic 2 these days.

Nice to find someone on here who actually knows about speedrunning though.

me and my buddy did it on sonic collections for gamecube. it was decently hard. sonic 2 is the hardest to complete.

>>520453
I run Sonic 2 (Took notes from TimpZ, Mike, and werster), but my motor skills and Aquatic Ruin make me really bad at it. If you ever watch HDL run Sonic 3, I am in those chats 90% of the time.

I remember one in S3&K that kicked my ass. It was only the second or third one (out of the S&K bunch) but it flabbergasted me for YEARS.

>>520482
I'm a mod in HDL's chat, I probably know you haha, I'm JamesTiberius on there, you?

>>520505
Oh shit, Tiberius! EXCacturne.

>>520516
Oh damn, hey Cacturne, how the hell are you? I was guessing it would either be you or Hypersonic7717 or whatever numbers he uses.

>>520553
Can't complain. Sometimes bounce between the speedrun general and /vr/ when shit on SRL is slow.

Also, I forget some of the S3K ones are retarded too. I can think of 1 from the S3 side and 2 from the S&K side that I never want to do.

>>520594
Oh man, don't get me started on S3K, I attempt to run Sonic Alone for that and it's hideous. The whole fighting the boss inside the wall in MG1 is bad enough but then IC is effectively completely random, LB you can save 2 mins if subpixels are nice and then MH1 with the door, it's just horrific.

You should get involved with the SRG test marathon, just for fun.

>>520486
>>520594
this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1EiYOsIZOE

i could do 2 no problem. i think 3 was hard to control though

>>520640
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1EiYOsIZOE
That one is annoying to get a perfect on. I think the ones I am thinking of are 6 and 7 from S3K. One is the gray emerald and the other one is the "last" one with the pink/blue floor.