Out of Bounds Secrets | Sonic The Hedgehog 1 and 2 - Boundary Break

[@MisterVercetti]

11:23 That's actually not true. In most instances, those are basically invisible walls. The reason they exist is because the environment collision isn't all that reliable when it comes to moving objects, so they help to reinforce collision when necessary. In this specific instance, they prevent Sonic from clipping into the wall if he stands on the moving blocks as they retract into the wall. You'll see similar objects above moving objects that are meant to crush Sonic into the ceiling, since otherwise he'll just get pushed into the ceiling without being killed.

[@prezidenttrump5171]

You're wrong, can you handle that?

[@badiiin]

You are absolutely right!

[@therealinferno161]

​@@prezidenttrump5171No, as a ROM hacker. They are absolutely correct. The blocks themselves handle their movement, that is indeed an invisible solid block. The very level editor he uses (SonLVL) would tell him that.

[@ElmerFudd16]

@@prezidenttrump5171Clown profile 🤡

[@prezidenttrump5171]

@@AlezanderNX You're wrong, can you handle that?

[@cmoul001]

That "circle with Sonic's face" on it in the special zone in Sonic 1 was supposed to be an extra life. This is mentioned in the book that came with the game. Children of the 80s/90s would look for this in the game, only to find it wasn't actually present. They forgot to take it out of the pamphlet for the game even though they took it out of the actual game. This is my first time seeing it in real life!

[@TheOsitoRocks]

I actually own the original cartridge with box and manual, so I decided to check your claim myself, and you are right! I was surprised that after all this time I did not pay attention to that detail, which admittedly is easy to miss, but it is interesting nonetheless.

[@xard64]

Considering that there are many separate teams handling the written manual work with strict scheduling and many things happening at the same time it's kind of wonder that these kind of mistakes do not happen more often. Usually manual content is written and proofread well in advance before it's fit to the print layout. Images are usually work intensive as they need to be fit and converted to be suitable for the print output. Once the first language manual is ready then come the translations where the translation work usually happens outside of the company with varying degrees of delay. Images requiring translation can be major a pain as you need the software translations be ready way in advance before this stage to get the screenshots using the correct language. There are understandable delays here and there but the whole pipeline to get the written manuals done is rather long and tedious even when there are not that many pages of the content. I guess it's a bit of balancing act when to start writing the documentation: start early and have lots of small additional fixes, but probably get the work done earlier. Starting later will reduce the amount of errata work but it will delay the project more.

[@Crunchy_Punch]

I always felt just a little bit cheated that the manual said they were in the game, but I couldn't find one.

[@Cookies2132]

@@xard64how do you know all of this?

[@xard64]

@@Cookies2132 While I'm not a technical writer nor I work for the games industry I have had my fair share of sorting these kind of issues in creation of technical software manuals and documentation. I believe these fundamental challenges in software documentation do translate to game manuals as well.

[@SameytheHedgie]

2:30 Those unused Spikes are what stop those set of Green Blocks I believe 2:55 Those unused monitors are actually supposed to be the invisible Eggman-block barriers but are set to the wrong object type.

[@mitchell562]

Yeah I was going to say - it can't be a coincidence that all 4 times the unused monitor is shown (on video) it's next to the spinning platforms

[@BlueAizu_]

Seeing how the background scrolling works is super interesting! The Genesis had pretty strict limitations with how it could scroll its backgrounds, so I love seeing how the images were chopped up to give the illusion of more scrolling layers than there actually were.

[@BlameThande]

When I was a kid the scrolling backgrounds in Mystic Cave Zone specifically were one of the most impressive effects I'd ever seen - I always remember both that and the Cave of Wonders from Aladdin (the film not the game).

[@MisterVercetti]

Even better were the rare occasions where they used the background layer for foreground elements, like with the earthquake segments in Hill Top Zone.

[@therealinferno161]

​@@MisterVercettiThis was used a lot in S3 as well (AIZ1 fire transition, HCZ2 wall, MGZ moving ground, SOZ rising sand, LRZ moving lava, etc.). It's a really nice trick.

[@minordelayz]

The updated Korean version had clouds that moved independently from the rest of the blue sky. How did they add at that?

[@therealinferno161]

@@minordelayz You are referring to REV01. It's done by just applying the same thing done to have the layer of mountains closer to the level scroll separately from the farther mountains, just incorporating the current frame count into the offset.

[@skpacman]

The stuff that's hidden behind graphic layers or are far outside of the playable area were often used as objects to tie code to. It was a workaround for a limitation for a lot of the oldest game engines where you couldn't have arbitrary code running that wasn't tied to a sprite or object on the screen. They were also used as hidden triggers for motion or reactive elements.

[@Oysterblade84]

Not sure if anyone's pointed this out already but in Aquatic Ruin Zone Act 2, there is basically a few rings hidden behind an object and this prevents the player from getting a perfect ring bonus at the end of the act.

[@catchall4574]

Oh yeah we love when u do old games

[@ndpx673]

100% !!!!

[@OneRoomShed]

Definitely 😁

[@zussman_]

Arent we all?

[@lpnp9477]

Better old games than old memes

[@Flyingboots1]

@@lpnp9477 I love it when he does me in the ASS!

[@Estaguy24]

Here’s one you might not have seen, a lot of levels in Sonic 2 have rings and other objects placed out of bounds or in bounds but out of reach, those are earlier paths from prototypes, especially in Sonic 2’s case since the levels got massive overhauls with time and a lot of stuff was left, that would make some acts like Oil Ocean unfinishable with a perfect score (you get it if you collect every single ring from an act). Maybe you could do a video on Knuckles in Sonic 2? This game did change the layout of certain levels and add a bunch of secrets Knux only would access.

[@panafa3617]

Wait, really? Never tried Sonic 2 with Knuckles because I thought it was exactly the same

[@Estaguy24]

@@panafa3617 One good example I can give you is in chemical plant act 2, before the long ramp that pulls you deep at the start, glide and climb a wall, you’ll find a neat extra, but you can glide further for more

[@Mage_Nichlas_]

It would be crazy to actually see the Eggman textures in game and see the unravelling of the public mind trying to figure out what it was supposed to mean.

[@ucitymetalhead]

I always thought it was some kind of thing that damaged you.

[@rcktneoofusa]

​@@ucitymetalheadme too. But i think that some of them have a function of "death by crush". Because not all objects that was supposed to cause death by crushing actually works. And most of these Eggman images are slightly above or under things that can crush Sonic (like Eggman's Pistons), then maybe these images have multiple functions beyond activate the function "death by crushing"

[@ucitymetalhead]

@@rcktneoofusa it apparently controls anything that moves in the level.

[@therealinferno161]

All of this is wrong, btw. Almost. Hi, ROM hacker here. They are just invisible objects meant to add extra collision to the level. In the time-stamped example, it stops the green blocks from pulling you into the wall. The objects themselves control their own movement.

[@rcktneoofusa]

@@therealinferno161 but what about they're being put on places where Sonic would die by crushing? These objects have something to do or not necessarily? Sorry if (maybe) I'm sounding a bit stubborn.

[@therollingcreeper1]

Imagine falling through the floor and then landing on a random rock

[@Ninja1Ninja2]

lmfao thats why the devs put the rock there back in the 90s so they wouldnt fall forever

[@Solibrae]

Another of Dr. Robotnik's Diabolical Traps!

[@starleaf-luna]

I mean, the camera boundary wouldn't let you. you'd just die.

[@SushiElemental]

That random rock probably leads to a level in the Backrooms. Don't go there.

[@squishybrick]

11:03 Possibly one of the earliest known presences of a "Dev Cube"

[@BrendanT-n2w]

Love seeing the out of bounds devstuff! Using Eggman's face as a script-running object reminds me that in one of their instruction manuals, they say that if Sonic gets softlocked or glitches to a death, it was one of "Robotnik's traps".

[@therealinferno161]

That was actually an error on the part of the video maker, as a ROM hacker. They are just solid objects that aren't visible without Debug Mode. The blocks handle their own movement.

[@DASH596]

3:02 Looks like those monitors were some sort of reminder placement to add the spinning platforms later, but they forgot to remove them

[@fattomandeibu]

The parallax effect was very common on later Commodore 64 titles, and being that it only has 1 background layer it is one of only 2 ways parallax can be done on the machine at all. The other one requires switching in new tiles every time the screen scrolls, which uses a lot of RAM and CPU time on a system with only 64kb of RAM(there's no VRAM, or audio RAM for that matter, and unlike a console most games were stored on audio cassette, so no fancy bank switching for the most part, out of the over 100 games I have, only 2 of them are carts, the rest are tapes) and an 8-bit 1mhz CPU, so you don't see it too often. Flimbo's Quest is the only game that does it from the top of my head, which funnily enough is one of my cartridge games.

[@princesspumpkinpanty]

Still on the side that Skies of Arcadia Legends deserves a deep dive from you.

[@lilwyvern4]

Skies of Arcadia deserves so much more than it has gotten. Damnit Sega, let the Blue Rogues fly again!

[@IvysChannel-kb9sn]

1:30 "It's not just a boulder. It's a rock!"

[@ItsKodee]

*crying It's a Roocckk

[@escopeto7849]

"It's MINERALS, Marie! Get it right!"

[@CopingContinuous]

As a 31 year old life long sonic mega fan, I learned SO MUCH! Your demonstration of parallax scrolling with level editing was truly brilliant

[@ActionSquintRingo]

this is why i always love seeing the full stage map for sonic levels. so much depth and seeing how much of a sandbox playground it is. We NEED a official Sonic Maker!

[@TheWanderer1000000]

Childhood masterpiece

[@crefelder1]

I saw and played the first Sonic in a store (Kaufhof Düsseldorf) in 1991 as a child. It amazed me so much back then and I still think it's impressively cool. It's really crazy after this time to see the whole map and the individual sprites in an editor.

[@Diwasho]

It's so weird to hear someone talk about "camera" in a 16-bit game, we didn't call it that back in the 2D days, we referred to it as view or perspective.The concept of camera didn't really enter our lexicon until the 5th generation.

[@sirgouki6207]

I don't know who you and your friends are, but everyone I knew called it a camera. We didn't call it view or perspective until game development tools became less the perceived magic hidden away in forbidden parts of companies, and more the public knowledge it is now. It helped that many games like sonic and mario painted themselves out to be stage plays or tv shows, with sonic games calling parts of levels acts, and mario 3 outright having a stage, a curtain, and set pieces as part of the level design in some levels. I very specifically remember Sonic 2 as being advertised as "so fast the camera can't keep up with him", to show off the fact that you could run out of the view if you went fast enough.

[@TheDavidVAs]

11:59 Uuuuhhh, EXCUSE ME?

[@DZY573]

Earthbound?

[@YellowpowR]

@@DZY573 But why?

[@rjd-kh8et]

In Scrap Brain Zone Act 3, there's a platform over a gap that despawns because you have to go left and then back right to reach where it should be. It's pretty useless since you can easily jump over the gap, and it was completely removed from the mobile remake/Sonic Origins.

[@RobBrawlBeastArchive]

I noticed that out of bounds stuff as well while creating my own Sonic levels.

[@DJNeoncat]

4:49 I remember this being tweaked in the mobile version, where if you attacked Eggman, he'd frown up, as he normally does when he's in his egg carrier.

[@gavinwigg8057]

Love it when you do classic retro games. Great stuff. Well done.

[@theashguardian8640]

The "I miss you" voice from Earthbound at the end caught me off guard, but it made me smile like an idiot

[@gdtyra]

Before there were dev cubes, there was dev rock

[@Bluerocket94]

really cool to see how older games were made and how environments were made.

[@BigMouthWave]

8:13 it’s funny, right here, this actually looks awesome to me. It adds debt to the level design ad suggests the background is a place you can go to.

[@ZLCProductions]

Thanks for making content, I can't say it enough but your awesome!

[@BoundaryBreak]

I appreciate that!

[@ZLCProductions]

@@BoundaryBreak any time, would you be willing to do red dead 2!! I’ll pay for it if I have to haha

[@zussman_]

​@@BoundaryBreak7:51 Which program you used

[@starleaf-luna]

​@@zussman_SonLVL

[@zussman_]

@@starleaf-luna Thank you!

[@geneabrego9759]

Check out Hydrocity in Sonic 3 if you haven't already. when I was a kid i remember glitching through the floor somewhere and somehow wound up in like an unused mess of an area with like half developed tunnels, etc...

[@SolaceAndDread]

What was the "I miss you" at the end?

[@markkoetsier6475]

Not sure, but it's from the end credits of EarthBound.

[@thisispkmadness]

Random Earthbound reference?

[@fatbelly2438]

would love to see a boundary break for golden axe

[@motbus3]

About the water, this game was developed with crt tvs in mind. The effect on those TVs is brilliant. Not the core for this channel, but it deserves someone talking about it thoroughly

[@JessmanChicken86]

You posted this for my birthday didn't you? This is amazing!!!

[@exactspace]

Ulillillia is a master of parallax scrolling, and he was inspired by early Sonic game's parallax.

[@Average_Mortal]

Your recent videos have been better, production quality wise. Well done, keep it up! 👍

[@bizarroman69]

Would love a Region Break for "Monster Party". That game and the section is a match made in heaven heheheh

[@danwhite3224]

An absolute classic and one of the first games I played as a child!

[@GamerFunOriginallyAarush]

I love the animation at the beginning!

[@tomrwills]

Whats that from or custom for this video?

[@thoroughlyunoriginalname]

I never would have thought that games this old would have so many secrets. Nice video

[@HighScorsese]

At 8:02, When you replace the tiles for the water section with something that has straight and static lines, the parallax scrolling mixed with the line scrolling effects creates a really cool perspective effect that could have made for some really cool backgrounds.

[@matt-dr4fk]

I heard that deleting the rock in green hill makes sonics eyes bleed

[@wardengamer374]

Lol

[@generallyunimportant]

does he also come out of the tv screen, hyperrealistically?

[@Thealseie]

​@@generallyunimportantYep. And then the Tails doll takes you into the woods

[@CptJistuce]

The last time someone tried to delete that rock, we got the Sonic movie trailer.

[@cvgamer_official9008]

Can you try

[@purpledproductions]

Have we seriously never done a Sonic 1 & 2 Boundary Break? Woah..

[@ItsAubreeyy]

11:35 these eggman blocks also usually stop the player from going out of bounds, but the devs didn't account for everything

[@SgtScorpious]

These older titles are always the most fascinating for out of bounds stuff

[@JaredThe]

Hell yeah, love to see some Sonic 1-2 secrets!!! If you haven’t already, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles would be very interesting to check out, there’s a lot hidden in the levels since most were designed with Sonic, Knuckles, and occasionally Tails in mind so they all tend to have unique areas to themselves and it’s interesting to see what planned routes may have went unused given Sonic 3’s initially rocky development. Also I believe a lot more levels in 3 & Knuckles tend to scroll top to bottom same way Labyrinth Zone Act 3 and Metropolis Zone do, is interesting stuff!

[@YashaMikage]

Truly wonderful seeing Sonic 2, the game that started my journey in video games, get Boundary Broken. I actually saw some bits here that I didn't know which is impressive considering how much I've scoured the games~ Love the video as always! n.n

[@yodizzle]

This is so good! Thank you for all of your hard work!

[@NathanSifuGaming]

Here's a fun one too at the end of Sonic one, I discovered this with the Bunnie Rabbot rom hack. She plays differently than Sonic of course, and she can do this long punch that extends most of the screen. After you defeat Robotnik at the final stage, as he starts to run away, I punched and "killed" him like a regular enemy! An animal came out of him and everything lol. This made the little mech thing that he hops into only half render, and then of course the game just breaks, since the end of the level is dependent on Robotnik running away.

[@PixlPixel]

We love some snoic boundary breaking

[@Werty715_25]

Now, we only need Boundary Break & Knuckles.

[@BlameThande]

Finally you get to games I played growing up! Don't forget the 8-bit versions as well.

[@isskull7272]

Yes, been waiting for you to do these for ages! I love it!

[@MoneyHoneyBunny]

By far the coolest thing of this video is seeing how the parralax scrolling can be manipulated! That makes me wanna see what kind of insane stuff could be done with crazy backgrounds lol. Imagine like a Sonic XXX with adult backgrounds or something like that

[@TheCongressman1]

always love seeing Sonic on the channel, great video! I had never seen the Sonic 1 special stage oob, that's awesome

[@uberfreak2]

Fun fact about the those dinosaur looking enemies in Hill Top Zone. There is a bug where the flag that they have been defeated will not be set, making them respawn. A person who did a "save the animals" run created a game shark code that makes the flag get set properly.

[@casedistorted]

This reminds me of back in the day, maybe 8-10 years ago, when I had the idea for making this show on youtube, but never got around to it and of course Shesez made it instead and the rest is history lol. Sonic 1 was a very nostalgic game for me seeing it for the first time in like 1989 or 1990 while living in Chicago, just before moving to Madison, WI where I would live for the rest of my life.

[@BouncekDeLemos]

Iicr, If you go waaaay out of bounds in the Special Stages in Sonic 1, there's a chance you'd find an emerald that once collected, will always be the blue emerald. You'll end up collecting the same color emerald for all emeralds, which doesn't do anything special, but still neat. It can be tricky, since going far out can land you on an exit warp.

[@uwvadertje]

Glad I subbed a while ago. This was low key bad ass

[@peggymacmillan5069]

Sonic 3 is a game of mystery. Found a secret emerald stage and if you complete it, you get a invisible emerald. Put in stage select, go to sound test, go to the tracks and play randomly and quickly a bunch of tracks, quickly get on special stage 2, hold a, hit start. When it works, you'll see a blue and red special stage with no rings (if I remember right, no rings) discovered this secret back in '94 on the Genesis 😮😮😮

[@MrYerak5]

4:50 did you try hitting hime 255 times? The maximum hits he can take

[@anon_y_mousse]

As a kid I never bothered to really explore these things, even in debug mode. As an adult, they're absolutely fascinating. Also, Sonic is better than Mario.

[@SSBMagy]

Glad you're still doing these.

[@MattTOB618]

10:04 You can still see the feet on the flying sprite, they just dangle behind, and are a bit less detailed.

[@VTRcomics]

Aw yeah, this is happening-- wait, wrong game. Either way, it feels great to unwind and catch a new episode regarding one of my favorites. I might be getting I didn't exactly grow up with Sonic 1, but it was close enough through the mobile ports. Seeing as how this is the Fearless Year of Shadow, I kind of wonder if Shadow's own game has lots of secrets to hide. Might be nice to coincide with the film in December unless Shadow Generations ends up getting a camera tool quick. Here's hoping! 👀 And man, looking back on the playlists and uploads... 8 freaking years since SA1's boundary break?... Where does the time go... Finding less time to comment but I'll always keep up my minutes with your channels, Shesez.

[@samirjohnson4524]

I love when sonic games are covered! It’s been too long since I’ve watched this channel.

[@samirjohnson4524]

And…yeah! There’s a lotta cool stuff here that I didn’t expect. Usually, I take 2d classic games for granted, but this is great!

[@singletona082]

I have so many memories of sonic 2 debug code shennanagins.

[@ShawnGamingYT]

Hey Shesez. Remember in one of your videos where you show us something out of bounds in Sonic 2? It's where you show us how Tails respawn after he dies and also shown us what happens when Tails got hit and flies down but you can't tell where Tails is going to land off screen during wing fortress, you show us that some other characters that isn't in sonic 2 helps tails and the tornado

[@DryPaperHammerBro]

5:01: Also, in the Taxman port (so, including Origins), his face changes to the damaged one!

[@Skraby]

2:55 I actually unexpectedly hit this monitor during my Sonic 1 let’s play. I had no clue what happened and assumed it was a caterkiller stuck in the ground due to the glitchy sprite.

[@CaedmonOS]

The Dev Cubes being Dr. Robotnik Boxes makes me think that if you looked at any of his printed circuit boards, they'd just be covered in his face.

[@haze2244]

I seem to remember those circles with Sonic's face in, in the special stages, are mentioned in the instructions manual and supposed to give you a continue.

[@absinthetic]

If you haven’t already, you should cover the edgy emo step-child game of the Sonic series, Shadow the Hedgehog.

[@FF-tp7qs]

All hail shadow

[@MatthewBester]

I remember doing debug back in the day. I found all of these (except for the removing layer ones), good times. I also made a spring cage haha.

[@MysticalTemptress]

It was so interesting to see stuff out of bounds here. I used Debug a lot and was sad I couldn't see anything below the map and to learn there WAS a rock there in Green Hill Zone. NOW Sonic level editor... I need this so I can have friends make me some levels lol

[@daniellelondon439]

How did I miss this upload? These are so fun!

[@Elios0000]

3 and Sonic and Knuckles are ones are really neat because you see where they where meant to be 1 game at first

[@stormthegates]

Im a simple man. I see a BoundaryBreak video, and I watch it immediately. 🤘 Go Shesez

[@swandive46]

It'd be really nice to see what the grapple hook in the 1 million stud level of LEGO Marvel Super Heroes does, since no character, that can us it, is in the level. It'd require modding a character like Spider-Man into the level.

[@keithseratt5926]

I hope you're doing well buddy, great video as always. Keep your head up man

[@crazysk8rboy]

Wow thanks for this sonic 1 & 2 bonus video!

[@thumper5555]

Do sonic on the Master System.

[@internetcrusader2419]

In my opinion, one of the likely reasons Sonic 1 has way more oddities and hidden details is probably because the team had more experience building the game, and Sonic 2 was built off of Sonic 1's code, both of which helped streamline the process.

[@rocketpunchgo1]

Excellent opening, the two artists did a fantastic job :-)

[@drivethrujedi83]

I loved the debug mode shortly after it's initial release as a kid. 😊

[@PatGunn]

That water parallax trick is pretty cool

[@psykolikwid]

Great video, appreciate your efforts!

[@michaeljames8329]

The lava flow could be triggered from the above platform - but you'd have to follow it & run back to the start, to make it dissappear.

[@sirdryden42]

Sonic 3 Boundary Break (& Knuckles)

[@xGhostCat]

Amazing! Cant wait for a Sonic3 vid! So much weird shit out of bounds in that game.

[@aftervoid2613]

This made my day! Thanks a lot. Would you consider doing Streets of Rage?

[@ItsAubreeyy]

6:55 i think this is so when you finish the level, sonic doesn't fall off of it and die, and so that if the camera did move there it wouldn't look too interesting

[@scrapbrainsinc]

Nice looking forward to more episodes!

[@CaylebHarvey]

Would love to see little big planet out of bounds,was a childhood game and I'm not sure if it would have much interesting but I'd love to see them

[@Shadaxv90]

The thing you said about the robotnik faces is what I assume the static monitors you mentioned 1/4 into the video was doing. The tvs all had spinning platforms by them

[@Srcsqwrn]

Thank you for another great video Shesez! c:

[@jeremypaluck4246]

Debug mode in the earlier sonic games is frightening...but nowhere near as frightening as in jurassic park for the genesis.

[@theadventureformula40]

You should do Sonic 3, that has some oddly placed objects to the far right of the game if you speed past the level using debug.