Sonic Classic Collection

Sonic Classic Collection
Developer: The Creative Assembly Publisher: Sega Platform: Nintendo DS Released in US: March 2, 2010 Released in EU: March 12, 2010 Released in AU: March 11, 2010 This game has unused graphics. This game has unused music. This game has debugging material.

Sonic Classic Collection is a collection of all three classic Sonic games on the go, and Knuckles! Where can you go wrong?

This collection is notable for using jEnesisDS, made by Stephan Dittrich, who was hired by Sega to rework the emulator for this compilation. It's also one of the few DS games that's enhanced when played on a Nintendo DSi, taking advantage of higher clock speeds for better performance.

(Source: Sega Retro)

Unused Graphics

Unused saving and loading graphics. The games save and load immediately, rendering these useless.

Unused Game Content

Some menus and modes from the original games are disabled in normal play, but still exist.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Debug Mode

Similar to the code for the international version, but the player presses the A button on the Nintendo DS instead (i.e. Up, A, Down, A, Left, A, Right, A, then pressing Start and A together to enable debug.) The content is the same, though the placement mode controls have also changed.

• Placement Mode: Press B during gameplay. From there,
  • Press Y to move forward one object.
  • Hold Y and press A to move backward one object.
  • Press A to place the object.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

The options, level select, and 2 Player modes are still in the game's data and are functional (although the 2 Player modes are missing their music).

Sonic the Hedgehog 3

The level select and Competition modes are also intact, but disabled. While the level select code can be entered and enabled, it's not possible to press Start to actually access it. The Competition levels are missing their music.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

To do: It is possible to use the 2 player mode it through a glitch in Flying Battery zone, however this glitch was on a New Nintendo 3DS, so it could be poor backwards compatibility. So can somebody build up on this glitch I discovered?

Has exactly the same content as Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

Competition mode can be accessed if the ROM is reset with debug mode, but the level music is still missing; oddly enough, the Competition mode menu uses the miniboss theme from Sonic 3 alone.

Unused Music

Although all of the 2P music was removed, the unused track #10 in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is oddly still present. It can only be heard by using the sound test in the Knuckles in Sonic 2 level select menu.

General Game Differences

The games in Sonic Classic Collection are based on the latest Genesis revisions; however, each ROM was modified for this compilation. The specific changes to each ROM can be found here.

• Because the Genesis has a higher screen resolution than the DS, the games were modified to fit the DS screen. This was accomplished through scaling the resolution down vertically and adjusting the HUD placement.
• In each game, the Start button is disabled everywhere outside of the title screen and menus; pausing using the icon on the touchscreen pauses the emulator, not the game itself. It appears that this was accomplished by having the emulator check what's going on in-game to determine whether the player can press Start, as loading the extracted ROMs in another emulator will not replicate this.
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 had their multiplayer modes disabled, as it was likely too much work to modify them to work with the DS's wireless multiplayer functionality. The modes are still present in both games, just hidden:
  • Sonic 2 reworks the scrolling options so that the player can only select to play as Sonic and Tails, Sonic alone, or Tails alone. The dedicated options menu is also hidden, so it can't be selected.
  • Sonic 3 disables the ability to scroll to the next option, so the player cannot access the Competition mode and also prevents the player from accessing the Sound Test (level select) option. This is also the case in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
• The disabling of the Start button and the menu changes render many cheat codes in Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles unusable, as it's impossible to access the level select menus without hacking (though the codes themselves remain functional). Sonic the Hedgehog and Knuckles in Sonic 2 are the only games in which all codes work as originally intended.
  • While the Sonic & Knuckles level select is accessible without hacking, the player must receive a game over or complete the game to access it, since they can't press Start during regular gameplay.

Audio Changes

Sonic Classic Collection uses streamed audio rather than emulating the Genesis' sound hardware, although the sound drivers are still present. This results in a few differences:

• When the player obtains Power Sneakers, the music rises in pitch rather than speeding up. The Invincibility theme does not speed up if the player breaks a monitor with Power Sneakers.
• The vocal samples in Sonic 3's music are noticeably deeper and higher quality than those in the Genesis version.
• There is no longer a one-second silence when the Launch Base Zone music loops.
• The Blue Spheres theme only speeds up once, when the player is at max speed. The music pitch also rises.
• Sonic & Knuckles uses the Sonic 3 miniboss theme instead of the Sonic & Knuckles one. This was probably just a mistake on the developers' part, as the Sonic & Knuckles miniboss theme can be heard in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

Oddities

• Sonic 3 & Knuckles is referred to as "Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog 3" in the menu and game description. However, the game itself uses the correct title.