Tuesday, August 1, 2017

The same, but different

Alright, one final detail about breakable walls. Did you ever notice that the Knuckles walls from Carnival Night Zone end up reappearing much later in the game, in Sandopolis Zone?


What's interesting about this bit of graphics reuse is that a) it's only between these two, seemingly arbitrary levels, and b) the graphics actually aren't reused at all! Although the sprite mappings are shared between the two levels, the art is not, and the two sprites actually look a bit different from one another.


The reason for the art discrepancy becomes evident when you realize these sprites are not using the player palette or the enemy palette like other common objects: they're using the main level colors in line 2! No wonder they look slightly different, considering the two levels have such distinct color schemes.

2 comments:

  1. I always thought these walls were one of the worst parts of the game, visually. They look a bit off in Carnival Night Zone, and intensely out of place in Sandopolis. It feels like artists just giving up and using something generic.

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    1. At the same time, they look like really sturdy obstacles that only Knuckles would be able to get through.

      It could've worked out if every Knuckles wall in the game used this design, as a visually codified gameplay mechanic. Though that would feel more at home in Kirby's Dream Land 2 than in Sonic 3.

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