Assault and Battery
Tuesday, 17th May 2011, 9:56pm (UTC), 17 Comments
Update: Flying Battery Zone and Gameplay page added to the Sonic & Knuckles section
Back once again, this time with a double helping of Sonic & Knuckles guide goodness - the general gameplay page and the complete guide to Flying Battery Zone! Admittedly, that Gameplay page is largely the same as Sonic 3's, as you'd probably expect. Few changes to the mechanics and there's no point reinventing the wheel, but I was sure to read through thoroughly and check that any differences were accounted for. At least you finally know how to make Knuckles glide and climb walls. Lord knows what you've been doing all these years without me. It's always an awkward page to put together, that one, because ideally it needs to come early on in the guide updates, but it should contain screenshots from the whole variety of levels. Ideally, I could just take a few from those that I've already grabbed from the level guides but because I haven't done most of them yet, I have to go and get a few just for this purpose.

I'm quite pleased with the Flying battery guide, there's certainly a lot of points to cover. I think the maps are among the clearest too, as the routes are all neatly separated so I didn't have to fill it with blue arrows everywhere, something I'm often anxious about having to over-use. There's also a number of ways in which these maps can be particularly useful, such as indicating exactly what is in each of those animal capsules, individually - difficult to do otherwise. I guess I have quite a strong connection with the zone in general - growing up, similar to the infamous water-rising bit of Chemical Plant Act 2, I would also live in fear of the first death-drop ridden outside bit of Flying Battery Act 1, which was a big jump up in difficulty. Those spiral elevators in Act 2 are no reward for surviving it either. Although the appearance of the background in particular is actually quite bland compared to its neighbouring Mushroom Hill Zone, the music alone makes the whole level a real star for me. Act 2 is officially my favourite piece of Sonic music of all time, which is really saying something, as the number of truly great tunes in the last 20 years of Sonic music is easily in the hundreds. I'd be overjoyed for the level to reappear in Sonic Generations, purely for the chance to be able to hear that tune brought up to date.

In other news, I'll be at Summer of Sonic again this year (at least I assume I will, I managed to register successfully though haven't received tickets yet, I assume they're coming). Whether or not I'll be able to meet any of you, I don't know but I hope so! If Zone: 0 is featured on the website wall again, I'll just stand next to it pointing, for the majority of the time. Unless Sonic Generations is playable of course, in which case I'll probably spend much of it queuing!

Hope to post about something exciting (exciting for me anyway, and very much so!) soon, based on an email I received today. And given that it's almost just one month away until the joyous anniversary day itself (which by all rights should be accepted as a religious holiday in my book), I'll try and see if I can at least come up with some kind of article to mark the occasion. As I've tweeted recently I've been playing sizable portions of most of the games, from the most recent, working backwards, and aiming to finish with Sonic 1 on 23rd June. Hopefully bringing them all together like that might inspire an idea or two. I'm in the darkest era right now (you know the one), but after that it'll be mostly plain sailing!

That'll be all. Next stop, Sandopolis Zone!.. Ack!
Comments   17 Comments have been posted.
#1. Comment posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 1:49am
Thanks for all the hard! I hope you'll enjoy your time at Summer of Sonic ;)

Cheers
#2. Comment posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 1:50am
hard work* :P (sorry it's 5AM)
#3. Comment posted by Andrew on Wednesday, 18th May 2011, 3:56am
Wow, after over a month. I can see that it took a lot of time with a complex level like FBZ.
#4. Comment posted by Mike on Thursday, 19th May 2011, 1:16am
Sandopolis Zone! Ack. I'm with ya brother. :-D Act 2 is pure evil. Especially as poor Knuckles.
#5. Comment posted by Jamie Dawg on Sunday, 22nd May 2011, 9:11pm
Hey, I don't know if you read my last comment but here it is, since you're going to finish the guide and then basically shut down the site, I wanted to make a deal with you; to prevent the site from dying along with your great and hard work (and of the other editors), I'll be hosting a copy of this site in some host I have yet to determine, and attempt to revive it, since I'm a huge fan of the stuff your putting out here and I'd like to put some guides on more recent Sonic games, like Sonic Adventure or Sonic Colo(u)rs, of coarse anyone would be able to help, including yourself, because I feel that Sonic sites lack what this site has. If you're interested, let me know by e-mail.
Cheers.
#6. Comment posted by LiQuidShade on Monday, 23rd May 2011, 7:45pm
Hi Jamie,

Thanks for your offer, I had considered something along these lines, but I won't be handing anything over immediately I'm afraid. For one thing, the site is not dying, it will remain online and I will host it indefinitely - which I mentioned in my original post on the subject - but it's unlikely to receive updates.

Although I like your ambition, I'd been trying for almost two years to get others involved in the writing process of this site, and despite many offers, no one has yet to complete even a quarter of a guide - I am the only editor. So you'll understand if I respond with "I've heard that one before!".

However, if you're serious about this I would suggest you do what I did and just get writing. Long before anything goes online, you should complete a full guide or two in plain text, even if it takes months and years (which it probably will if done properly). At that point, by all means get in touch and show me, and if you can convince me the site is safe in your hands and will be added to competently, I'll be much more willing to consider some sort of hand over :)

Good luck!
#7. Comment posted by CloneWarrior on Tuesday, 24th May 2011, 1:46am
Hey, LiQuidShade.

I love your guides and I'm really going to hate seeing this place basically freeze once the S&K guide ends.

I don't suppose that you might consider still doing blog posts as more Sonic games come out, or even just little things?

I know it's not much, but it almost scares me seeing a website that's just frozen in the past like this one could be.
#8. Comment posted by Silversounds on Wednesday, 25th May 2011, 12:59am

Hi LiQuidShade,

You may already be aware of this but I just wanted to give you a heads up in case it isn't something to do with my computer: the map for act two of Flying Battery Zone seems to be corrupt or something- it's coming out a little wonky.

Thanks for the awesome site!
#9. Comment posted by LiQuidShade on Wednesday, 25th May 2011, 7:47pm
@CloneWarrior
I might be able to post something every now and then, but I can't imagine I'd have the time to make that particularly frequent. You might have to just live with your fear I'm afraid.

@Silversounds
Really? Looks fine to me. Anyone else can confirm or deny?
#10. Comment posted by Silversounds on Friday, 27th May 2011, 1:01pm

Hi again,

Just checked it again and there's no problem now. If you haven't changed anything then I'm guessing it was a bad download that got stuck in my temp net files and kept getting shoved back up when I retested- didn't think of that at the time.

Sorry about that :)
#11. Comment posted by CloneWarrior on Monday, 30th May 2011, 9:29am
Even if you only posted when you played a new Sonic game or something, it'd be infinitely better than never posting again.
#12. Comment posted by CloneWarrior on Saturday, 4th June 2011, 2:06am
Hey, LiQuidShade, what if I was thinking about going about creating a Sonic Adventure (DX) guide?

I'm just about to go into my first homework free summer following high school graduation and will probably have enough free time in my hands to write it up.

If someone else would be able to help with formatting it, would you be willing to put it on the site?
#13. Comment posted by LiQuidShade on Sunday, 5th June 2011, 8:39pm
Maybe, but it has to be good! And also it has to be complete, before I even think of preparing the site to hold it. And you'll need to take your own screen shots, and publish it yourself (though you can use my admin system, so no need for HTML knowledge).. If that's all alright with you then by all means, be my guest. Send me a sample at some point and I'll let you know whether or not it looks promising.

That goes for anyone else too, by the way, if they really really want to contribute, feel free to give it a go, though I won't be reserving games for anyone anymore - first to complete, to a high standard, wins! I'm happy for Zone: 0's legacy to continue, providing I don't have to have any more than a guiding hand in it.
#14. Comment posted by CloneWarrior on Monday, 6th June 2011, 3:22am
Well, I currently have no means of getting screenshots, but I'm on the lookout for someone who could help me with that.

So if there's anyone out there reading this who had the means to take screenshots of Sonic Adventure (DX), I'd love to get some help.

I should get to work by the end of this week, and I'll send you (LiQuidShade) a sample of Sonic's story up through Emerald Coast as soon as I can.
#15. Comment posted by Ricky on Wednesday, 8th June 2011, 4:17pm
Incidentally, sorry about lack of artwork form me, I've been very busy with a job and will be for another few weeks at least :(
But I will be doing Chemical Plant. In it, I'm going to murder Tails. The parasite.

#16. Comment posted by Hyper_Sonic on Friday, 10th June 2011, 10:30am
I found an awesome music website, which has piano solos that replicate mega drive themes, I know this will surely start controversy, but i quite like it's sonic 2 final boss. It doesn't have fbz though :(

http://www.gamemusicthemes.com/megadrivesheetmusic.html

And while I'm at it, I found some good cpz artwork, no offense to Ricky.

http://sanik.hacking-cult.org/inker/data/1220359403sonic-chemical_plant_wall_bbs_final.jpg

#17. Comment posted by pokemega32 on Sunday, 12th June 2011, 10:33pm
Alright, I've got preliminary guides done for Chaos 0 and Emerald Coast. Where do I send them?
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