The Most Obscure Sonic 2 Sprite

today i want to talk about a little oddity in sonic 2 that i've never really seen anyone else bring up before we begin let me clarify that i'm talking about the final released version of the game this isn't beta content specifically it's the animations for when sonic is balancing near the edge of a platform that i want to take a look at now let me set the stage for you real quick in sonic 1 this is how it worked if you were too close to the edge of a platform sonic would go into this little two frame balancing animation it's a simple but effective way to give him some character it might seem like this is the standard for 2d platformers to have some kind of ledge animation like this but it's not like they were obligated to include it or anything it's just a nice little touch you can tell they really wanted sonic to be expressive like with his iconic impatient foot tap anyways that simple two frame animation was the entirety of the balancing feature in the first game but they actually greatly expanded this little feature in the sequel in sonic 2 there are three distinct balancing animations that can play the first is the standard balancing animation that plays when you get too close to the edge however this animation only plays when you're facing the ledge if you're facing away from the edge then you instead get this balancing animation but if you get even closer to the edge then it will instead play this panicked balancing animation where he's swinging his arms and looks like he's about to fall off this will only play when you're extremely close to the edge and it doesn't matter if you're facing left or right if you're this close to the edge it will automatically play this panicked animation this detail will be important in a moment so keep it in mind so that's it right there are three balancing states every sonic 2 fan knows that but what if i told you there was actually a fourth balancing state and you might have actually seen him before while he probably didn't notice because for whatever reason it lasts for one frame this is actually a special transitionary state which can only be seen under very specific circumstances so here's what you have to do get close enough to the edge to trigger the panicked balancing animation then take a small step back it has to be an extremely small step because you need to stay in the range that will trigger the panicked balancing animation so use incredibly light taps of the d-pad if you do this correctly you can see this sprite for just a frame wow incredible oh what's the matter you can't perceive something that only exists for a 60th of a second here i'll slow it down for you this is what it looks like and well i might as well just freeze framing for you too this sprite just look at it looks like it should be in a sprite comic or something so what the hell is the deal with this animation it seems like maybe they wanted to have some kind of visual indicator that sonic was turning to face the edge when the panicked balancing animation is activated the actions needed to trigger it are so specific and it's on screen for such a brief moment that it's incredibly hard to notice maybe originally it was meant to last for more than 1 60th of a second so you could you know actually see it but that's just speculation on my part what exactly is the purpose of having a sprite for such a specific scenario like if you're close enough to the edge to trigger the panicked animation then your next move is probably going to be to actually move away from the edge not move backwards by two pixels by tapping the d-pad however to be fair there technically are some other ways to trigger it like for example in casino night zone getting pushed off by one of these blue blocks while facing away from the edge also uses this animation you might be wondering is this really that obscure well i looked around and i honestly couldn't find much acknowledgement of it it's not included on the sonic 2 sprite sheet on the spriter's resource although they have been made aware of this in the comments so please don't go bother them about it it's not listed anywhere on the cutting room floor which okay to be fair it's not actually cut content since it's in the final game so i guess i'll let that one slide but here's one that surprised me it's not even in the 2013 christian whitehead remake of the game which means it probably won't be in sonic origins too in fact i was rather surprised to learn while testing that this version actually has slightly different mechanics for the balancing on a ledge animation unlike the genesis version the panicked balancing animation does not override the backwards balancing animation meaning you can freely swap between them you can also see this demonstrated and how getting pushed off the edge by a block like this won't turn you around and have you falling with the panicked animation as it does on the genesis i'm so terribly sorry that i have to do this christian but due to this oversight the oversight of forgetting to include the incredibly specific one frame turn around animation i'm afraid i have to downgrade the 2013 version of sonic 2 from definitive edition to unplayable it pains me to do this but what can i say i'm a man who values authenticity anyways i know this is kind of a short video but i just really wanted to raise awareness for this poor forgotten sprite before it's completely lost in the sands of time it's not like this is a brand new discovery like if you go looking around for other sonic 2 sprite sheets you can find some that have this sprite on it but apart from this one youtube video and the aforementioned comments on the spriter's resource i really couldn't find anyone else talking about this i think it's rather self-evident that this is an incredibly important issue possibly the most important issue of our generation so if you know of some decade old forum thread of people talking about this sprite feel free to share it in the 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Channel: Cybershell

Views: 745,021

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Id: yvj5__-uIu4

Length: 5min 5sec (305 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021