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Video Games Discussion

Sonic life counter glitches - Page 1

Sonic life counter glitches

Posted by: Sarial
Date: 2008-03-15 22:19:42
Sonic 1 and 2 have some life counter glitches, which will give you 255 lives if performed correctly.

• One glitch in Sonic 1 involves hitting an enemy at the end of a level, while the end of level scoring screen is shown. (It can also be done by debugging so that Sonic falls off the bottom of the screen.) When you arrive at the next level, you will end up with 0 lives. Kill Sonic again to end up with a "[glitch]5", meaning 255 lives. This is fixed in Sonic 2.
• A double-death glitch can be performed in Labyrinth Zone in Sonic 1 in the underwater handlebar section by releasing from the handlebar as soon as Sonic drowns, landing on the spikes, and causing a double death. The same "[glitch]5" will appear in the life counter.
• A drown/time-over glitch occurs in both Sonic 1 and 2, where you wait until the timer is down to the last 30 or so seconds, then enter water. Time it correctly so that the drown countdown ends at 9:59 and you will get another form of the double-death glitch. This behaviour was fixed in Sonic 3 and later.
• In Sonic 2, if a player dies from time-over in a 2P Versus mode while on their last life, the Game Over routine will be interrupted and the results screen will be displayed. The player who died will appear to have 0 lives, but if they die again, the counter will display "y5" (255). This, AFAIK, was not fixed in any Sonic 2 revision.

I haven't seen the fourth one documented anywhere before, but the first three can be found here.

Re: Sonic life counter glitches

Posted by: Yuzihax
Date: 2008-03-16 16:52:58
If I ever get a Sonic 1/2 Glitch List started, I'll be sure to add those in there.
This definitely makes making glitch lists easier when people decide to contribute.

Re: Sonic life counter glitches

Posted by: GARYM9
Date: 2008-03-17 14:53:32
Sonic 3/S3&K will give you glitch life counters after you do the infinate lives trick for a while. (Infinate Lives Trick is Spin Dashing in the alarm at the beginning of the level while bird badniks crash into you and after a while give you lives.) After you go past 99, the counter will be an 8-bit looking 0 followed by a normal 0, and it goes like this until 8-bit-9-normal-9. After that, the first digit turns into symbols.  I think somewhere it turns into a $6 or something.