Sonic 2 Metropolis Endless Fall Glitch

This is, perhaps, the fastest of all 2D games you've seen which really gives meaning to "Sonic". From the top of the screen to the bottom in just 1/30 of a second or 128 pixels per frame max. That's how fast you can get and this is one of only 3 Sonic levels where this is possible (this one in Sonic 2 and two others in Sonic 3).

There are 5 parts to this video. The first 3 parts is where I play as Sonic with Tails. The last two are as Knuckles. In the first and fourth parts, I show you how you get it set up, which requires debug. The second and fifth parts are where I perform the stunt itself. The third part is a slow-motion version of it, played at half speed.

After reaching 128 pixels per frame falling, Sonic suddenly goes up at 128 pixels per frame. This is due to variable overflow. Either an 8-bit or 16-bit variable is used for fractional parts given what I see when doing this. If it weren't for variable overflow, you'd have seemingly unlimited speed. It takes just short of 10 seconds to get to 128 pixels per frame. The screen only scrolls at 16 pixels per frame which is far too slow to keep up with this.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Sonic
• 2
• Metropolis
• zone
• endless
• fall
• glitch
• bug
• variable
• overflow
• fast
• fastest
• speed
• possible

[YOAnimeX]

Similar thing happend to me in Mushroom hill zone in debug mode, except I lost a life - but the weird thing was is that there wouldn't have been a pit there in the first place

[ulillillia]

Oh, do you mean the infinite scrolling? I can do that in Hydrocity Act 2 on demand without debug. Use those chutes and jump at the right time. It's a big, unrecoverable fall but if you go far to the right, you'll find an area high enough to prevent deaths and low enough to get the nonstop scrolling. For best results, use a bubble shield.

[DestinyHedgie]

SONIC IS FALLING OFF THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

[ulillillia]

Given that it takes 594 frames to accelerate to 128 px/fr and that gravity is apparently 4 times higher than normal, this points to about 38,000 pixels for the falling height. I don't know the exact scale to convert to real world units, but I'm assuming it's around 5 cm per pixel. With that, you're looking at a fall spanning 1.9 km (1.2 miles).

[Sonamy444]

What is debug mode?

[ulillillia]

Debug mode is a special otherwise hidden mode in the game that allows you to, to a limited extent, create miniature levels using the various game objects. Yep, you can place them anywhere you want. Look up one of my "fox splasher" videos and you'll see what I mean. Find that same spot in the game and you'll see things are much different. It's a lot of fun too and it's exclusive to the Genesis era games (no later than Sonic & Knuckles' release). See GameFAQs for more detail.

[SmokieRSWC]

Cool video. Just wondering if you ever realized that the bad guys in this video all look like pokemon?

Blowing up stars: Starme

Punching crab: Kingler

Green dude: Scyther. =[]

[ulillillia]

The time is like that with debug mode. It's not time, rather, it's the number of 16x32 blocks from sprites like springs, rings, Sonic himself, etc., but not level data. The minutes part is the number of lost frames. If slow motion is occurring, you'll see that the minutes value changes from 0 to 1. I've never seen it become a 2 though.

[YOAnimeX]

Sorry, meant 'shouldn't have been' in my last comment

[furybader1234]

thumps up if you were moving your head to the slow-mo music at 2:40

[jmsalaman]

lol...

[Knux95]

SEG-

[nin10doadict]

@ulillillia And if he were to land on a solid object in game, he'd be perfectly fine. -_-

[DestinyHedgie]

@ulillillia well yeah,but im saying it hypothetically

[CriticalGenesisRogue]

sonic just passed the speed of light. And ulillillia knows a loooot about the genesis sonic games' programing. He converted a video game fall into a real fall, including factors such as acceleration time and increased gravity. Thats just awesome.