Sonic Classic Heroes

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Sonic Classic Heroes
Version: N/A
Last release: N/A
Status: upcoming
System: Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
Original game: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit)
Credits: flamewing, ColinC10

Sonic Classic Heroes is an upcoming ROM hack for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis that is the result of a collaboration between flamewing and ColinC10, combining their respective hacks Sonic 2 Heroes and Sonic 1 and 2. It therefore is a single ROM containing all the levels from Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and enabling the player to use anything from one to all three of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. The hack is named after the ability to play as all three characters, which is reminiscent of the more recent 3D game Sonic Heroes.

The hack is built on Sonic 2’s engine, which has been enhanced by both flamewing and ColinC10 to have new features, including multiple gameplay elements from Sonic 3 & Knuckles such as element shields and character-specific abilities. There will also be the ability to save progress, scores, etc. to SRAM (something that has rarely been implemented in Sonic 2, with the other notable example being Esrael’s Sonic 2 Delta).

Features

Characters

• The player can choose to have one, two, or three characters—from a choice of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles—and, when using more than one, can rapidly switch the character that is leading and being controlled.
• A new options screen enables the player to select the number of characters to play as, and their order. Future versions will include multiple save slots and several other options.
• Up to three players can play co-operatively via the Multi-Tap. Special Stages can be played in this way, too; currently, all of the player’s characters appear in the Special Stage, but in the future this will be optional.
• Sonic can use the Insta-Shield and Super Peel-Out, and he has a higher top speed.
• Tails can fly, swim, and carry Sonic or Knuckles – or both!
• Knuckles can glide and climb, and will also be able to carry his friends.
• When player 1 is controlling Sonic, Tails and Knuckles share his top speed, acceleration, deceleration, and jump strength (which are even more meaningful when one considers Super Sonic’s enhanced stats). This is especially useful for Knuckles: when he is CPU controlled and thus is following Sonic, his usual reduced jump height might make him unable to reach some platforms that Sonic could jump to.

Items

• Power-ups are awarded collectively to all of the player’s characters when a monitor is broken. However, shields are lost individually: if a character is hit, only they will lose their shield, whereas the other character(s) will retain their individual shields until they are hit.
• Elemental shields from Sonic 3 have been added. The standard blue shield from Sonic 2 remains and has been upgraded so that, like the elemental shields, it awards Sonic a power while he has it: in this case, the Homing Attack.

External links

Announcement of project on the Sonic Retro forums