Sonic fan hacks emulator to make it switch between games when you grab rings
Aren’t emulators magical things? Aside from allowing you to play video games outside their native hardware – thereby sidestepping the very best attempts of some companies to prevent certain audiences from getting at their product – they have all sorts of neat bells and whistles that enhance the originally intended experience. You can rewind to undo a botched jump, for example, or load a save state to return to an earlier point in time.
Pausing, fast-forwarding, using special proprietary cheats to alter the very game code itself; debate the legality of emulators all ya want, but they let you do a tonne of cool stuff. Hell, even Nintendo themselves have implemented a similar, albeit rudimentary, set of features for their NES and SNES Switch Online libraries. I never had all this guff in my day. When I died in Zelda 2, I sucked it up!
As GameRant reports, though, one SEGA fan has taken this functionality to a whole new level of utter ludicrousness. Using the BizHawk emulator, a bloke named Alistair Aitcheson has rigged up a program for the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, whereby when Sonic touches a ring (yes, the things there are hundreds of in every stage, why’d you ask), the entire game changes. Literally. Like, the emulator switches to a different game in the series, even if it’s not on the same platform as the one you started with. This is how fast Sonic’s gotten – far from being bound by the corporeal world, he now teleports between realities in seconds. Take a look at the Tweet which broke the news below.
According to Aitcheson, the emulation supports “GBA, Sega CD, Saturn, 32X, Mega Drive, Game Gear, Master System, SNES and NES.” Christ – imagine playing the original Sonic on Genesis, only a grab a ring and promptly have your retinas seared out by the lurid polygons (and total uncontrollability) of Sonic R.
Aitchenson emphasised that the program even runs Somari, a “strange fan recreation of levels from Sonic the Hedgehog that reskins the character to look like Mario.” A tactic SEGA would later use themselves for a certain Wii U Sonic title. Still, if you were simply clamouring to play Somari again, uh, knock yourself out.
With over 5,000 likes having been dished out, the ever-ravenous Sonic fan community has taken very kindly to this project, and have even “suggested additional Sonic games for the developer to add to the emulation such as Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure for the Neo Geo Pocket Color.” The only Sonic game, I might add, that IGN ever gave a perfect 10 to. Everybody always sleeps on Unleashed, man.
Are you interested in this project? Will you be giving it a go? Let us know!
Via, GameRant.
