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Chaotix

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Revision as of 14:15, 21 July 2008 by MathUser (talk | contribs) (Box Art)

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Chaotix title.png
Chaotix
System(s): Sega 32X
Publisher: Sega
Developer:
Genre: 2D Platform

Knuckles' Chaotix is a "Sonic" game for the ill-fated 32X expansion to the Megadrive/Genesis. It doesn't feature Sonic (except in the best ending, alongside Tails in the Tornado), although evidence suggests that it might have at one point (see Sonic Crackers). It features Vector the Crocodile, Charmy Bee, Espio the Chameleon and Mighty the Armadillo, along with Knuckles the Echidna, Dr. Eggman, and Metal Sonic to provide a link to the Sonic universe. Other characters include Bomb the Mechanic and Heavy the Mechanic, who are booby prize characters in the character select screen.

Some elements of the game have been re-used in later games with Espio, Vector, and Charmy returning to the series in 2004's Sonic Heroes. Also, the concept of a player controlling two characters is reused for Sonic Advance 3.

Due to the game being much longer than most Sonic games at the time, the game was given a battery-backup save feature which allowed the player to save their progress either manually (by going past the exit sign) or automatically (your progress is immediately saved after you beat an act/special stage).

On a side note, all of the badniks and almost all of the bosses in the game use gray, power sapped rings to function rather than animals. However, the rings cannot be collected like regular rings, as they dissolve not long after falling out of their badnik/boss machine. This concept was later used for Sonic Advance 3's robots, but the rings appear to be fine when released and can be collected like any other ring.

Gameplay

The primary objective of the game remains unchanged from previous Sonic titles. The player must finish each level in under ten minutes and defeat Dr. Robotnik's badniks along the way. Rings still constitute the player's life energy and can be collected to gain lives or enter special stages. Extra lives are unobtainable in the game-once the player is damaged when he has no rings and his partner is absent (if you have no rings, getting hit will temporarily cause you to lose your partner, but he will return eventually) or if you use 'recall' to reduce your ring counter to negative 99 rings or lower, you will automatically be taken back to the world lobby (or back to the title screen, if you are in Isolated Island) and be given a chance to leave/save or to choose a different partner and/or try to choose another attraction to play.

The levels are divided into five worlds (called "attractions" in the game), each one consisting of five different levels in which every two stages/acts played, change to a specific time of the day (morning, day, sunset, and night). The time of day effects enemy placements and boss difficulty. At the end of Level 5, the player confronts Dr. Robotnik in one of his contraptions.

The most fundamental change in Knuckles' Chaotix involves the special ring force bond between characters. In earlier Sonic games, two-player mode would consist either of a traditional split screen race or a joint single player effort with Tails as a secondary character. In the latter case, this meant that Tails could move off screen and get lost for a few seconds until he returned to Sonic.

In Knuckles' Chaotix, however, both players are at all times connected on one single screen while neither player acts as the dominant force to move the game forward. Besides the staple of traditional Sonic moves and individual abilities this means some new tricks can be executed with the elastic force of the ring bond. For example, player 1 can hold his position while player 2 (or the AI, if in single-player mode) runs forward and stretches the bond to gain maximum speed. In mid-air the bond can be used to generate an upward momentum. Additionally, players can toss each other toward platforms or use the call-button to reunite (at a cost of ten rings, which meant that for the first and only time the ring count could dip below zero in a Sonic game). Also, in two player mode if either player is hit without a shield/invincibility/big ring (a item that when obtained, causes you to lose all of your rings in the form of one, slightly larger than usual ring temporarily if you are hit) they lose all of their rings (which is not the case in single player mode, when if the partner is hit, he only loses one ring instead of all of them).

Items

Knuckles' Chaotix saw one of the most expansive item repertoires in Sonic history, as well as the most one-game items in the series' history.

  • Super Ring - Gives 10 rings instantly.
  • Shield - Supplies the player with a barrier, protecting him from one hit without ring loss.
  • Invincible - Makes the player and partner invincible for 20 seconds.
  • Combine Ring - Fuses the player's rings together as they are collected until he is hit. Upon taking damage, the player will release one ring equivalent to all rings lost. If the ring is not collected in a short time, it explodes into individual rings.
  • Swap - Transforms the player into the partner, and the partner into the player, for 20 seconds.
  • Change - Transforms the partner into the player shown on the monitor for 20 seconds. The item is best used in a two-player game, and the player who does NOT want to transform must open the monitor.
  • Grow - Doubles the player in size, thusly increasing his weight eightfold and jump height fourfold, for 20 seconds.
  • Shrink - Halves the player in size, thusly decreasing his weight eightfold and jump height fourfold, for 20 seconds.

Manuals

Beta Info

Knuckles Chaotix has had a large number of beta's released for it. Thirteen to be more precise:

Production Credits

Executive Producer: Mamoru Shigeta
Producer: Hiroshi Aso, Makoto Oshitani, Mike Larsen
Director: Masahide Kobayashi, Atsuhiko Nakamura, Naohisa Nakazawa
Team Leader: Hiroshi Fukutsu
Assistant Producer: Bill Person
Game Designer: Hiroshi Fukutsu, Keisuke Miura, Kenichi Ono
Map Design: Hiroshi Fukutsu, Keisuke Miura, Kenichi Ono, Hideki Anbo, Masato Nishimura, Katsunori Murakami
Text Coordinator: Ryoichi Hasegawa
Product Manager: Ami Matsumura-Blaire
Chief Graphic Designer: Takumi Miyake
Attraction Designer: Takumi Miyake, Jina Ishiwatari, Sei Akaiwa, Masumi Uchida, Masamichi Harada, Tohru Watanuki, Akira Yamaguchi, Saori Wada, Tsutomu Nakatsugawa
Original Character Concept: Naoto Ohshima, Takashi Thomas Yuda, Manabu Kusunoki, Kazuyoshi Hoshino, Takumi Miyake, Yasufumi Soejima
Character Designer: Ryo Kudou, Takumi Miyake, Jina Ishiwatari, Kazuyoshi Hoshino, Yasufumi Soejima
Enemy Designer: Takumi Miyake, Ryo Kudou, Kazuyoshi Hoshino
Boss Designer: Ryo Kudou, Takumi Miyake
Chief Programmer: Hiroshi Okamoto, Toshiaki Yajima
68K Programmer: Toshiaki Yajima
SH2 Programmer: Tatsuo Yamajiri
Scroll Programmer: Kenji Kawai
Object Programmer: Chikahiro Yoshida, Syuji Takahashi
Boss Programmer: Hiroshi Okamoto
Map Tool Programmer: Arata Hanashima
Sound Direction: Tatsuya Kouzaki
Sound Programmer: Atsumu Miyazawa, Yoshiaki Kashima
Composer: Junko Shiratsu, Mariko Nanba
Sound Effects: Junko Shiratsu
Special Thanks: James Spahn, Yukifumi Makino, Naofumi Hataya, Jun Senoue, Yuichiro Yokoyama, Yuichiro Konno, Jill Alexander

Miscellaneous

  • Interesting secrets in the game include a "lost character" Wechnia, and the Amy fragment discovered by ICEknight. Esrael later found a way to make Amy appear in the game's sound test menu.
  • Espio the Chameleon, Vector the Crocodile and Charmy Bee all made an appearance in Sonic Heroes as 'Team Chaotix' and also appear in Shadow the Hedgehog.
  • A Tectoy pirate version of Knuckles Chaotix was found a little later on after the game was released.

Resources

Original Sound Version Recordings

See Knuckles' Chaotix OSV for a download page.

Box Art

Artwork

Template:ChaotixLevels

Sonic the Hedgehog games for the following systems
Sega Mega Drive

Sega Mega-CD
Sega 32X
 1991  Sonic the Hedgehog | Sonic Eraser     1992  Sonic the Hedgehog 2     1993  Sonic the Hedgehog CD | Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine | Sonic Spinball     1994  Sonic the Hedgehog 3 | Sonic & Knuckles     1995  Chaotix | Sonic Classics     1996  Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island