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Link: https://shc.zone/entries/contest2024/1097
Gameplay changes
In general I’m a fan of the layout changes. A particularly great addition is the slopes in Jungle Zone Act 2 and the rings in the boss acts.
What I find questionable is the whole direction of removing zone gimmicks entirely. This hack lost the Bridge autoscroller, the Jungle pit, the Labyrinth water and the Sky Base lightning bolts. Sure, some of them are contentious, but the removal of everything is making the hack feel quite bare to play.
Labyrinth and Sky Base are particularly weird. I feel like it would be better to either leave it with no water elements at all or all water elements. This combination of just the surface and bubbles doesn’t make much sense.
I’m also not sure if Sky Base really needed to have the lightning bolts removed. For sure it can function fine without the whole screen flashing, right? That was an integral part of the stage, and the lightning points are still present, just… inactive.
As for other suggestions, I’d like to propose adding a single ring to Scrap Brain Act 3, as the current total is 99 rings :P
Art
The environment art additions overall look quite good. I particularly like the palette edits overall and the mountains in Green Hill, they look genuinely wonderful.
However, there are parts where the art edits aren’t great.
The rings in the special stages do not work with the palette at all, picking up a lot of random greens. To a smaller extent a similar issue is present in Sky Base Act 1.
I like the added expressiveness to Sonic, but besides that, his sprites look worse. There are a bunch of shines added everywhere with no concern to the light source, meaning Sonic looks like he’s covered in oil. I don’t think the highlight on the side of his face works at all. Additionally, the original game features different sets of sprites for jumping while facing right and jumping while facing left with the lighting changed to match; that detail is completely omitted from here.
Conclusion
Overall, I think the entry overall’s a decent excuse to replay the game, but right now it’s far from a definitive version of it.