16 years ago, the sequel to one of the most iconic faces in video game history, Sonic the Hedgehog, hit the retail gaming market. This game introduced a new character to the series, Miles “Tails”  Prower, who to this day has remained a prominent face in the Sonic franchise. With Sonic and his new sidekick tearing through brand new zones at breakneck speeds, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 set the bar not only for the Sonic franchise, but for platforming games as a whole at its time. Not used to the speedy platforming that the games delivered, players were blown away by the pace of each level. When asked how they were able to make the game go so much faster than other games at the time, SEGA would explain it using the classic term, “Blast Processing.” Indeed, there was something special about this game!

Celebrate Sonic 2’s 16th birthday with something special! Dust off the ol’ Genesis and give the game a whirl. Get an friend to blast through Emerald Hill Zone in the game’s two player mode! Set yourself some new challenges–for example, I’ve never personally tried getting all of the emeralds because I hate the special stages. Who knows, though–maybe this time I’ll get lucky.

Recall your memories about the game in this forum thread! Share what you decided to do for Sonic’s special day today. Engross yourself in what made this game great. It’s the least you can do, after all!

BE JEALOUS.

The Sonic 2 Hybridization project by Doc Eggfan took the Sonic 2 ROM for the Genesis, lowered the color palette, and inserted 8-bit sprites in an attempt to make a version of Sonic 2 for the Master System with the Genesis engine.  Now, Eggfan has introduced a new project that aims to take the completely opposite direction by incorporating the Genesis zones in the Master System game with Project H’ (pronounced “Aitch Prime”).

How is this achieved?  Well, Eggfan has included a downloadable package with instructions for making the Sonic 2 Genesis conversion as easy as possible.  By editing the existing tiles from the the standard mappings and collision set, posted by Ambil back in May, Eggfan will integrate the graphics back into the ROM as best he can.  If you would like to contribute graphics, visit the project’s thread.

Yeah, the demo is here. Once we missed SAGE, we took our dear sweet time, but now it is here for you to finally experience. You can play two acts of Sunset Shore and that’s about it. However, the level is sprawling with branching paths, so it warrants a few playthroughs for you to see everything. Nexus truly illustrates what a person can do in the brand new Retro-Sonic interface, so we hope it is a clear too you indication that this summer was a long, time-consuming process on making a brand new iteration of the engine. We also felt that we should take our time in creating our ideal product, as a hasty release definitely will piss people off. It was time well spent.

Secondly, you can record your best time with screen capture software and upload it to YouTube for a chance win $15. Yes! All you have to do is post your time attack run as a video response to the contest “hub” video, WHICH IS RIGHT HERE!

Finally, I encourage everybody to read our Nexus website and development blog, as the team and I will be updating it frequently, Smash Bros. Dojo style! You’ll see new screenshots, features, gameplay videos, and updates at least once a week, if not more. New music will be added to the on-site player periodically, as well. The community has always been left in the dark when it comes to Nexus’ development, as I only have been shedding light on details around SAGE time, but now, you can read about it year round. The website is essentially the game’s manual, so it will have all the goods. The first feature on the site is “Meet That Badnik,” where we go in-depth on one of Robotnik’s mechanical mercenaries. You can expect articles of similar quality coming down the pipe.

Oh, and hello, I am writing for this front page now.  I hope to contribute the same amount of news that I write for other Sonic blogs to Retro.  I’ll try not to copy and paste too much. 

With the annual Sonic ROM hacking contest’s deadline closing in, tons of prestigious, anticipated ROM hacks are getting new releases today! To name a few, we have:

Sonic 2: Advanced Edit:

A Sonic the Hedgehog 2 hack by Rika Chou, Sonic 2: Advanced Edit sports 5 brand new levels, three being entirely complete and fully playable. Each level has complete art and music revamps, and level design quality that far surpasses that of many amateur ROM hacks. New enemies, new gimmicks, as well as familiar graphics from other games (Quackshot being one of note) will face you as you play through this masterpiece. Definitely worth a look.

Sonic 1 Pixel Perfect:

A hack of the original Sonic the Hedgehog by JcFerggy and NovaWizard, Sonic 1: Pixel Perfect sports brand new level revamps, new music, and extremely comprehensive level design. Loops and curves have been placed into levels that did not previously have them in creative ways, and new boss arenas provide a refreshing look on an old classic. Highly recommended.

Sonic 2 Retro Remix:

Another Sonic 2 hack, this time by Thorn and DNXDelta. In the same reign as the previous two hacks, new levels and music are featured, but Retro Remix also contains new technical additions, such as a “field” level ala Sonic Advance 3 which allows the player to freely roam and choose which act of the current zone they wish to play. Each act has a different motif and theme song–for example, the first level in the game has an island/mountain backdrop in the first act, while the second act takes place inside a gigantic waterfall.

In addition, Retro Remix boasts the popular Jump Dash technique, as seen in Sonic Megamix and Sonic 2 Revamped. While not widely used, it adds a new degree of gameplay not seen in the original game.

More ROM hacks other than these three have been featured in the hacking contest submission thread. Check it out!

Just as we received Stealth’s great GBA hack, another technical hack has appeared. Drx, with the help of Puto, Upthorn, and Hivebrain, has created a version of Sonic 1 for the 32X. This has required extensive code changes and, most importantly, moving a sound channel based on the new hardware. More importantly, this hack has been made open source, allowing anyone with enough knowledge to try their hand at Sonic 1 with the possibility of using 32X features.

Since the hack is, currently, mostly Sonic 1 with changes to make it work on the 32X (mostly behind the scenes), rather than go on about it in length here, I invite you to see it at the thread here.

In other breaking news, drx has released five new Sonic protos. Sonic CD Prototype 806, several versions of Sonic Adventure, and Sonic Adventure 2. For more details, visit the thread here.

It’s been a very exciting time for Sonic hacking in general. Who knows what the future will hold?

Forum topic: http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=11861

Another fantastic technical achievement from the creator of Sonic: Project Mettrix, the E02 engine, and former co-leader of Team Megamix, Sonic hacking ninja extraordinaire Stealth breaks the barriers with another mindblowing breakthrough–a TRUE port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis to the Game Boy Advance!

As many know, there was an “official” attempt to “port” Sonic 1 to the GBA under the name “Sonic Genesis.” However, this version of the game was, quite frankly, horrible–it was less a port and more a disgustingly inaccurate recreation. The physics were completely fucked, Sonic would go through walls, the music was ear-rapingly dreadful, among other things. It was a gigantic mess–probably the worst Sega product ever, and a disgrace to the Sonic brand.

However, Stealth seeks to redeem the Sonic name by taking it upon himself–and I mean a one man job–to do what Sega’s paid 3rd party lackies could not: create a respectable, accurate, and true to the original version of Sonic the Hedgehog for the Game Boy Advance. As this video shows, the project was an absolute success!

Building on the concept of “anniversary mode,” Stealth includes the acceleration system from Sonic 2, the spindash technique, and two additional characters–Tails and Knuckles–to enrich the Sonic experience on the new platform.

All music is using recordings of the original Genesis tunes, so accuracy is a high as it can get–none of that horrible Mircosoft Synth sound! The sound quality is a bit scratchy at points, both in sound effects and music, but that’s a technical limitation of the GBA sound hardware itself. Aside from that, it delivers a very faithful representation of the music from the original game–after all, it’s hard to go wrong with a recording, isn’t it? =P

So far, the current build sports Green Hill Zone with all three of the characters, along with at least one working special stage. I’m not sure if any future work will be done beyond this proof of concept, but if it will, it’s sure to exert the same amount of quality that this release does.

Sega, eat your heart out!