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Rockman Chaos

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Rockman Chaos is an "extreme" hack of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 by Hayate. Practically nothing from the original game will be kept other than the bosses and general bits of the engine (e.g. for drawing stuff on screen and playing music). In the game you play as Rockman, battling against Dr. Robotnik. The default sprites for Rockman are the .EXE style ones, but due to popular demand other sprites may be implemented as an option later.

Concepts

  • Zones - merged the two acts together into one level called "X Area" where X is one word.
  • Overworld - adding an isometric Battle Network-style overworld.
  • Bosses - kept from the original game, but removed from zones and placed at certain places in the overworld in encounters, speaking of which,
  • Encounters - lots of lovely textboxes. I've already written a routine to display these on plane A (in multiple colors ala Sonic Battle, plus flashing colors for emphasis), but I think it'd probably be better on the window plane, if I can figure out how to use that
  • Rings - removed from all levels. There is no equivalent in a Rockman game.
  • HUD - completely removed, and just add a Rockman-style healthbar, plus an extra "power" bar (think Sonic Battle), allowing you to style change when it fills up.
  • Bottomless pits - absolutely none of them, think Metroid.
  • Spikes - If you have only 1 hit point left, you die, but otherwise landing on them takes your health down to 1 hit point.
  • Enemies - shoot them (in all eight directions for once) rather than jumping on them.
  • Bosses (again) - healthbar displayed on screen with much more HP, and varying amount of HP taken off per hit depending on a) where you hit and b) how many bosses you have beaten so far (Robotnik upgrades his ship twice in the game, both times changing its graphics).
  • Monitors - fill health, fill power, take damage, invincibility, super speed, weapon upgrade, weapon/ammo replenishment (last two depend on your selected weapon and do nothing if you have an unupgradable/unreplenishable weapon selected)
  • Springs - horizontal ones gone. Vertical and diagonal ones have significantly less power than they did before, as Rockman is a lot heavier than Sonic.
  • Speed - Rockman moves a lot slower than Sonic as you'd expect, even with the super speed powerup. However, there are various interesting tricks you'll be able to use to go faster than maximum speed for a short while. This game will be one for the TASers
  • Slopes/curves - Rockman doesn't move with a 360 degree engine, so levels will be edited to remove all loops and sections where you run on a wall or ceiling.
  • Pinball - in the Pinball Area (Casino Night), you can launch a controllable pinball which moves just like Sonic in pinball mode did, which also shifts the screen to center on the pinball, and when you get it to the target, a wall opens allowing you to progress.
  • Emeralds, special stages - completely gone
  • Bonus Area - think Ristar, these are kind of replacing special stages, I don't know what to use as the condition for entry yet, but I guess I'll figure that out later.
  • Ending - once some conditions have been reached, you can go to Golden Palace (from S2OP), which is otherwise a typical level ending in a boss fight against Knuckles, then you go to Sky Chase (probably with Roll or some other Navi as the "Tails" in the Tornado) and everything from that point onwards is just like original S2.
  • Weapons/abilities - awarded after clearing a boss under certain conditions
  • Two player mode - race as in original S2 or battle each other in a small arena - and I swear I will find a way to enable splitscreen in water levels!

Emblems

Emblems are a little like those in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2. You collect them for doing various things, and new features are unlocked when you collect a certain number of them. You can obtain:

  • One each for clearing an Area, Boss or Bonus Area
  • One each for obtaining a weapon/ability
  • One each for pulling off various tricks hidden in levels (the controls are a lot more sophisticated than any game I can think of off the top of my head (yes there will be a tutorial - and yes the tutorial can be skipped), allowing for complicated maneouvers, so I felt like taking advantage of this)
  • One each for finding various hidden objects, either in an area or the overworld
  • Probably more as I think of anything that the player should be rewarded for

Gameplay

Gameplay in Rockman Chaos is quite complicated but should be easy to get used to. The basic controls are:

  • Left/right - move (or crawl if crouching)
  • C button - jump
  • B button - shoot
  • A button - grab (if standing next to an object/wall) or build power (if not; this works like Sonic Battle's L-button and only takes effect if you have already unlocked the powerbar)
  • A button + direction - pull; release the A button before the direction to do a horizontal wall-jump which lets you boost
  • Down - crouch (in the Panel Setup screen you can choose whether you must hold down to crouch/crawl, or just press down to crouch and then press up to un-crouch)
  • Double-tap Up - enter shooting lock mode (while on ground); left and right can then be used to aim and B to shoot
  • Any direction(s) + B - aim and shoot (while not in shooting lock mode)

After unlocking the powerbar (this happens when you unlock the first style change, which are each rewards from bosses which may be beaten in various orders), you can then raise the value in the powerbar either by using the A button, by absorbing certain attacks or in a few other ways (e.g. full power monitor). Once it is full you automatically style change and stay style-changed until it runs out again. The style you use you must set beforehand in the Panel Setup screen, and cannot change it once you have entered style-change mode (though if the bar runs out, you can change it again before the next style change even if it is in the same area). While in style change mode the bar drains at one block per four seconds (a "block" is four pixels of the powerbar; the default size is eight blocks and you can increase it with upgrades found throughout the game). Of course you can still keep filling up the bar ala Sonic Rush to keep the mode for an extended period of time. Style changes are similar to Super Sonic; all style changes (there are four) make Rockman faster and invulnerable to touch damage (though you cannot kill/harm enemies just by touching them in this mode), and each style also has its own individual ability:

  • Heat Guts Style - triple power on all of your attacks
  • Wood style (forgot the real name of this one >.>) - the fan is now your weapon which by pressing B you can either use to hover/fly or to repel enemy attacks - useful in some bosses
  • Elec Brother style - by pressing B you immediately start boosting (this is an attack regardless of whether you are style-changed)
  • Aqua Custom style - similar to S3K's water shield and Metroid's gravity suit, allows you infinite air underwater and allows you to move at normal speed (i.e. superspeed from the fact you are already style-changed) underwater

Track listing

So far: (ID - original use - new use)

  • 01 - 2P Menu/Results - Overworld
  • 02 - Emerald Hill - Cavern Area
  • 03 - Mystic Cave 2P - Ice Area
  • 04 - Oil Ocean - Ocean Area
  • 05 - Metropolis - Setup Panel
  • 06 - Hill Top - Hill Area
  • 07 - Aquatic Ruin - Unused
  • 08 - Casino Night 2P - Pinball Area
  • 09 - Casino Night - Unused
  • 0A - Death Egg - Metallic Area
  • 0B - Mystic Cave - Encounter
  • 0C - Emerald Hill 2P - Ruin Area
  • 0D - Sky Chase - Sky Chase
  • 0E - Chemical Plant - Lab Area
  • 0F - Wing Fortress - Wing Fortress
  • 10 - Hidden Palace - Golden Palace
  • 11 - Level Select - Level Select
  • 12 - Special Stage - Bonus Area
  • 13 - Boss - Boss
  • 14 - Final Boss - Final Boss
  • 15 - Credits - Credits
  • 16 - Super Sonic - Unused
  • 17 - Invincible - Invincible
  • 18 - Extra Life - Unused
  • 19 - Title Screen - Unused
  • 1A - Act Clear - Area Clear
  • 1B - Game Over - Game Over
  • 1C - Continue - Unused
  • 1D - Emerald Obtained - Emblem Obtained
  • 1E - Credits - Credits
  • 1F - Drowning - Drowning