Sonic Generations Speedrunning
Stage: Classic Green Hill
The book I selected for my second quarter IRP is Sonic Generations Official Strategy Guide. The goal of most Sonic games is to get to the end of the stage as fast as possible, and this book provides information on what paths to take in a stage to achieve just that. Sonic Generations is a game split with two different types of gameplay, Classic Sonic, and Modern Sonic. As my first blog post, I decided to go simple and play as Classic Sonic in the first stage, Green Hill. I will be comparing how much time can be saved by using the shortcuts the book mentions. Also, I apologize for the poor video and sound quality of the videos.
Attempt #1
For my first attempt, I decided to play through the stage normally without taking any shortcuts. This mostly consisted of me taking the bottom path of the level. While I did get hit by an enemy once at the 1:32 mark in the first video, it didn't significantly impact my time. It would've saved around three seconds (at most) if I didn't take the hit. In the end, I finished the stage with a time of 1 minute 33.59 seconds.
Attempt #2
For the second attempt, I played through the stage again while using shortcuts mentioned in the book. The first shortcut I took was at the 0:25 mark in the second video. In order to take the shortcut, I had to "Jump and Spin Jump again to take out a Buzz Bomber hovering to the right. If done with the proper timing, Sonic bounces from the attack onto the upper level" (Birlew 29).
The next shortcut was taken at the :37 mark, where there was a platform by four raised rings I had to jump to. According to the book, "Jumping onto the platform and then from there basically allows you to skip the next area, shortening your stage time immensely" (Birlew 30). Additionally, another shortcut can be performed immediately after. When taking the previous shortcut, you go through a tunnel (0:42 mark), "Emerging from the tunnel, you want to jump to the next level up and then jump up again to reach another shortcut" (Birlew 30). This shortcut was taken at the 0:44 mark.
The final shortcut required me to propel myself off an enemy at the 0:58 mark. This lead me to a "...yellow Spring concealed in a palm tree" (Birlew 33). The second part of this shortcut I only half achieved. The book stated "Spin Dash to break through the boulder blocking the right edge. This should propel you over a couple of platforms and through a Moto Bug and some Power Sneakers, which increase Sonic's speed and shorten his momentum buildup time. Stop as soon as you collect these, then Spin Dash and release to fly uphill and over the next gorge" (Birlew 33).
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| Oops! |
Even with this slip up, the alternate paths I took during this attempt allowed me to get an impressive time of 59.83 seconds! That's in total 33.76 seconds saved from taking most of the high pathways!
Conclusion
To wrap this post up, this book has proved surprisingly useful to aid me in my speedruns in this game. The directions may sound confusing to me at first, but they make much more sense once I started to play through the stage. I'm looking forward to using this book when I get into more difficult and longer stages in the game.
Have you ever played a Sonic game before? If so, what's your favorite? Also, what stage do you think I should speedrun next? I was thinking about doing one of these four: Chemical Plant, Perfect Chaos, City Escape, and Rooftop Run. Please feel free to leave comments about these questions, or anything else you want me to cover!
Birlew, Dan. "Green Hill: Act 1." Sonic Generations. Indianapolis, IN: DK/BradyGames, 2011. 26-33. Print.
Wow! You must’ve spent a lot of time at this game. When I’m playing games I tend to lose track of time. How do you balance your time between video games and homework?
ReplyDeleteThat's a great question! Usually I only play Friday nights and most of Saturday on a normal week. I never really play on weekdays or on Sunday, as those are my homework/studying days.
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