Author: Adrian Gauna

Sonic 2 – Special Stage Colour Swap Edition is a very simple Sonic 2 hack made by myself and all in 1 day. The only difference it has over the retail original is that it swaps the colours of the 3 2Player VS mode Special Stages with the first 3 1Player Special Stages.

So in a normal 1Player game, when you get 50 rings and enter the Special Stage, the colours of the first three Special Stages feature the colours of the 2Player Special stages and in a 2Player game you get the first three colours of the original 1Player Special Stages.

1 Player Game:

Special Stage 1 = Bluey aqua-teal coloured Special Stage with light blue emerald.

Special Stage 2 = Purple coloured Special Stage with purple emerald.

Special Stage 3 = Is the Bronze-gold coloured Special Stage with the red emerald.

After this, the special stages retain their original colours from the forth emerald onwards.

The only other change I made was on the title screen, I changed one single colour from light green to light pink. I left everything else alone as i’m only a newbie and have no real Sonic hacking skills.

NOTES:

• I also made 50 lives as the starting number instead of 3. I learned how to edit the life count through hex from a hint over at Sonic Retro. I now know where the offset is located and can change it at ease. Why 50? I just chose that number randomly and decided it would be good for those that really suck at this game and to say that I edited something other than the ROM header in hex.

• It’s probably not even worth downloading but considering i’ve never ever made an actual Sonic hack myself and have spent years playing everybody else’s, i’m happy with it and can now say that I finally made a Sonic Mega Drive hack myself.

• To edit the colours or (really to copy and paste the colours and swap them around) I used a very old colour palette application called ”Hivepal Beta by Hivebrain”.

• The 50 lives is only given when you start a 1Player game from the title screen. If you start the game from the level select cheat, it only gives you 3 by default.

• I’ve always wondered why with each and every Sonic 2 hack that’s come out, nobody has ever bothered to change the Special Stage colour palettes? The zones always have different art and graphics but very rarely is the Special Stages ever touched when it comes to colours, so i’m glad I can at least say that I changed the colours of the first 3 to look different, something nobody has ever attempted despite the 1000 plus Sonic 2 hacks that are out there.

• It would be lovely to learn how to make something more different and greater in other asthetics of the game, but I simply do not have the time to learn. I can’t sit at my computer for hours and hours everyday hammering home all the information on hacking and putting them to good use. When you’re middle aged, married with small children and have to go to work, extensive Sonic hacking or video game hacking in general is not a priority nor something I can really put time into.

INSTRUCTION: 

Inside the ZIP file you’ll find the IPS patch, it is in Lunar IPS format and simply needs to be patched to the (Sonic 2 REV A) version.

Hope you like it! It’s my first and probably the only one I will ever make.

× ❮

❯