Sonic 2 & Knuckles... without the & Knuckles? (Childhood Mystery)

[Legendary Emerald]

Okay, the subject popped to mind again, and I decided to finally get some answers. After a google search turned up no results, I decided to come here.

 

I have a vivid memory from when I was very young, 3, 4, maybe 5 years old. Sonic & Knuckles had been released, but my mother and I didn't buy it, because games were expensive, and neither of us had gotten very far in Sonic 3. But I did end up renting the game at least two times.

 

The second time I rented it, I was at one of my mother's friend's vacation house in North Carolina for a few days. There was a Genesis there, with Sonic 2, Beavis and Butthead, Ren and Stimpy, and Street Fighter 2. That's when I first learned how to play fighting games, with the older guys teaching me how to do the quartercircles and all that. But I eventually got tired of beating the CPU on easy mode by spamming Sagat's kicks, and wanted to rent Sonic & Knuckles from the local video store.

 

Here's the point of this thread. I played Sonic 2 and Knuckles locked-on, for quite a while. Then, someone else wanted to play, but they didn't want to play & Knuckles. So we took out the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge, put in Sonic 2 by itself, and the game started up... still in "Sonic 2 & Knuckles" mode.

 

We turned off the game and turned it back on. I'm guessing we also took the cartidge out and blew on it, but the game was stuck with Knuckles. So the person I was with started to play through it as Knuckles, until she got partway through Aquatic Ruin Zone. There was an underwater, straight vertical jump that she couldn't make, because Knuckle's jump height isn't good as Sonic. I told her to just climb the wall, but she refused, and let herself die and restart rather than abuse what she thought was cheating.

 

Later on in the day, after it hadn't been played a while, the game started working normally again, and Knuckles was no longer playable.

 

Now that I'm older, this situation makes no sense to me at all. The information for playable Knuckles shouldn't have been able to be stored on the Sonic 2 cartridge, as far as I know. I'd think this was all a dream, except for remembering so many details about it, specifically how the older girl I was with refused to glide or climb walls. And I remember a hell of a lot from that trip in vivid detail, such as playing Street Fighter 2 and getting far in Ren and Stimpy. I could have been even older than 5, but I'm trying to base my guess on how long after Sonic & Knuckles was released that this incident happened.

 

So... any explanation or guesses for what happened?

[Place]

Criminey, that's weird. If I must offer a theory though, I'm assuming that what happened here is not unlike the Super Mario Bros/Tennis or Banjo Kazooie Stop n' Swop glitch thingos. In those, swapping carts within a relatively small window of time allows data from swapped carts to be exchanged and exploit unconventional behaviors. Perhaps that is what's happening here although I don't know how all of the S2&K data could be exchanged to the lone S2 cart without serious graphical malfunctions. Was the altered S2 behaving oddly during play?

[Indigo Rush]

BURN THE WITCH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, but really, I have no idea how to approach this without saying that you must have remembered the situation wrong. I have some weird early childhood memories regarding Sonic as well, including....

 

 

...

 

...

 

 

 

...you win this round.

 

 

 

But regardless, that's definitely weird. I wonder if Sonic Retro might have any answers? They've studied Sonic 2 day in and out for decades. I'm sure some sort of glitch like that may have popped up? I really don't know how that's possible.

 

Now I'm stumped.

[PharoahBeast]

I think cartridge games can just be kind of wacky at times. I never had a sega but I did have a gameboy. I used to have weird crap happen in my old pokemon blue. I once came across an electabuzz in the ghost tower that once I defeated it froze the game. My friends had similar things happen. I don't see why similar stuff could not happen with the old sega carts. 

[iDEATH]

This is the tamest creepypasta I've ever heard

 

Yeah that's really weird, couldn't think of anything to explain it though. Doesn't seem to make any sense, like you said the Sonic 2 cart shouldn't have any data dealing with Knuckles surely? All of his programming and assets must come from the S&K cart....weird

[JezMM]

Criminey, that's weird. If I must offer a theory though, I'm assuming that what happened here is not unlike the Super Mario Bros/Tennis or Banjo Kazooie Stop n' Swop glitch thingos. In those, swapping carts within a relatively small window of time allows data from swapped carts to be exchanged and exploit unconventional behaviors. Perhaps that is what's happening here although I don't know how all of the S2&K data could be exchanged to the lone S2 cart without serious graphical malfunctions. Was the altered S2 behaving oddly during play?

 

Yeah it might be something like this - though in the above post, one small detail is wrong - the data is never swapped between carts with Stop n' Swop - it's held by the system's own RAM, which the second cart inserted can pick up upon (for those who don't know, the Stop N Swop feature in Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie was cancelled because newer versions of the N64 hardware stored this RAM data after switching off for less than a second, as oppose to the original model that stored it for a good 11 or so seconds, ample time to switch off, insert a new cart, and switch on so that cart could access the RAM - since not every player would have an old N64 model - or even any way of knowing if they did or not - they had to scrap the idea).

 

 

Maybe someone tech savvy here can say whether S&K just transfers data to the RAM for Sonic 2 to access as oppose to playing "through" the S&K cart in some way.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Without knowing the ins and outs of the megadrive hardware.

 

I'm inclined to believe that this is in fact possible.

 

There is a trick you can pull with some of the Sonic games, if you start up one of the Sonic games (I think it's Sonic 2), perform the level select cheat and then quit the game in a certain way whilst on the level select screen, if you then very quickly put in Sonic 3 and turn on the MegaDrive. The game will start up on Sonic 3's level select.

 

So I don't doubt the story, though I am surprised you managed to get as far as you did in Sonic 2.

[Tracker_TD]

Strangely my S3&K saves seem to fuck about between being my 100% save and my Sonic 3 saves... the latter despite it actually being Sonic 3 and Knuckles, not just Sonic 3.

Sadly the latter also happens more often, I think my S3 cart's saves are fucked up a bit.

[Legendary Emerald]

Yeah it might be something like this - though in the above post, one small detail is wrong - the data is never swapped between carts with Stop n' Swop - it's held by the system's own RAM, which the second cart inserted can pick up upon (for those who don't know, the Stop N Swop feature in Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie was cancelled because newer versions of the N64 hardware stored this RAM data after switching off for less than a second, as oppose to the original model that stored it for a good 11 or so seconds, ample time to switch off, insert a new cart, and switch on so that cart could access the RAM - since not every player would have an old N64 model - or even any way of knowing if they did or not - they had to scrap the idea).

 

 

Maybe someone tech savvy here can say whether S&K just transfers data to the RAM for Sonic 2 to access as oppose to playing "through" the S&K cart in some way.

 

So far this is the best theory, aside from "I imagined it all". I'd heard the "stop n' swap" phrase before, but never knew what it meant. If the Genesis does store game information in its RAM, that'd have to be the explanation, I think. Makes more sense than the information traveling between carts.

 

 

Perhaps that is what's happening here although I don't know how all of the S2&K data could be exchanged to the lone S2 cart without serious graphical malfunctions. Was the altered S2 behaving oddly during play?

 

I can't remember if the title screen was changed to have Knuckles on it or not. I remember there being something strange about the title screen, but it could have been that Knuckles was there, or it could have been that Sonic was there. All I remember is confusion, not an image of the title. But in the game, we were definitely playing as Knuckles.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

This is the tamest creepypasta I've ever heard

 

Yeah that's really weird, couldn't think of anything to explain it though. Doesn't seem to make any sense, like you said the Sonic 2 cart shouldn't have any data dealing with Knuckles surely? All of his programming and assets must come from the S&K cart....weird

doesn't sound like a creepypasta. It's a common problem with the cartridges.

[Legendary Emerald]

doesn't sound like a creepypasta. It's a common problem with the cartridges.

 

Well I don't think anyone in this thread besides myself has ever encountered it with these games, so I think it'd be a big stretch to say it is a "common" problem. Where have you read of this happening before? It could shed some light on the issue.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

Well I don't think anyone in this thread besides myself has ever encountered it with these games, so I think it'd be a big stretch to say it is a "common" problem. Where have you read of this happening before? It could shed some light on the issue.

A friend of mine who was around in the 90s had a similar issue with Sonic 3. But I think i'm going to need to reword that:

"It's a issue that's possible, but isn't common. Perhaps a fault with the cartridge or console."

Better?

[Phos]

Hmm, what model genesis was it?  Maybe it could be reproduced.  

[-blank-]

This is the tamest creepypasta I've ever heard

 

It is best creepypasta.

 

But in all seriousness, this is something I've never heard of. It could have been a corruption with the Genesis itself, but without knowing of other instances of this, I'm not sure just what could be happening. ^^;;