Sonic 2 Heroes

Revision as of 21:33, 10 August 2012

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Sonic 2 Heroes is a hack of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis by flamewing that allows the player to direct Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles simultaneously, similar to Sonic Heroes. It also features multiple elements from ‘’Sonic 3 & Knuckles’’ including element shields, character abilities, and game save features.

Beginning almost immediately after the initial release, posters to its official thread on the Sonic Retro forums suggested (with varying degrees of jocularity and seriousness) that flamewing and Sonic 1 and 2 author ColinC10 combine their two hacks. Reminded of this suggestion several months later, flamewing posted expressed interest and an intention to ask ColinC10. The two agreed to collaborate. flamewing took most programming responsibility to integrate the source code of the two hacks and only announced the existence of the project once it was well underway. This new version, entitled Sonic Classic Heroes, supersedes Sonic 2 Heroes and saw its first release on 20 July 2012.

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 between them.
• A new options screen enables the player to select the number of characters to play as, and the order thereof. Future versions will include multiple save slots and several other options.
• Up to three players can play co-operatively via the sega:Multi-Tap. Special Stages can be played in this way, too; currently, all selected characters enter, 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 can carry either or both Sonic and Knuckles.
• Knuckles can glide and climb.
• When player 1 is controlling Sonic, Tails and Knuckles share his top speed, acceleration, deceleration and jump strength (the last three of which are more meaningful when you consider Super Sonic's enhanced stats). (This is especially useful for Knuckles: when he is CPU controlled and thus following Sonic, his usual reduced jump height might make him unable to reach some platforms that Sonic might jump to.)

Items

• Power-ups are shared between players; for example, breaking a monitor containing a shield leads to each player character receiving a shield of that type.
• The Blue Shield gives Sonic the Homing Attack.
• The Lightning Shield, Fire Shield and Water Shield have been ported from Sonic 3 & Knuckles and have been sprinkled through the game.

Other

• Physics imported from Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
• Projectiles bounce off of Tails' tails and from Knuckles when gliding, as well as from shields, as they did in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
• Graphics imported from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, particularly when they could be used to reduce the VRAM footprint.
• A new HUD frees VRAM for Knuckles.
• Amy Rose makes a cameo appearance flying the Tornado in Sky Chase Zone and Wing Fortress Zone, and in the pictures during the ending sequence.

Controls

• or (P1): Cycle through each on-screen playable character: cycles clockwise, cycles counterclockwise.
• or (P2 or P3): Cycle through remaining on-screen characters not being controlled by other players.
• All other controls and player abilities are consistent with their traditional standards in the Sonic series.

Future additions

• Save games S3&K-style, possibly removing the options screen altogether as redundant;
• Knuckles being able to carry Sonic and/or Tails while gliding/climbing;
• Sonic being able to carry Tails and/or Knuckles while running.

Downloads

Download Sonic 2 Heroes File: S2heroes-v0.06h.7z (780 kB) (info) Current version: 0.06h

Prior versions

• Sonic 2 Heroes, version 0.06f ^(info) (772 kB)
• Sonic 2 Heroes, version 0.06e ^(info) (772 kB)
• Sonic 2 Heroes, version 0.06d ^(info) (772 kB)
• Sonic 2 Heroes, version 0.06c ^(info) (772 kB)
• Sonic 2 Heroes, version 0.06b ^(info) (768 kB)
• Sonic 2 Heroes, version 0.06a ^(info) (768 kB)
• Sonic 2 Heroes, version 0.06 ^(info) (768 kB)
• Sonic 2 Heroes, version 0.05 ^(info) (935 kB)
• Sonic 2 Heroes, version 0.04 ^(info) (931 kB)
• Sonic 2 Heroes, version 0.03 ^(info) (938 kB)
• Sonic 2 Heroes, version 0.02 ^(info) (937 kB)
• Sonic 2 Heroes, first release ^(info) (937 kB)

Screenshots

• 

  • Emerald Hill Zone 1, showing individual abilities
• 

  • Aquatic Ruin Zone 1, showing bubble shield
• 

  • Mystic Cave Zone 1, showing lightning shield
• 

  • Wing Fortress Zone, showing fire shield
• 

  • Metropolis Zone 2, showing Team Super
• 

  • Special Stage with all three players
• 

  • Wing Fortress Zone, showing Tails carrying Sonic and Knuckles

External links

Release thread at Sonic Retro