This content may be freely modified and/or maintained by anyone.
I have seen some complaints on SMS's design, but honestly, I love it. I don't know what it is about him, but he looks like he would be a character exclusive to the archie comics, in a good way.

The new sprites look fantastic (to me at least), and completely blow the old ones out of the water. The controls are complicated, but I think it's better that way. I have my custom actions on my mouse, along side ring toss and toss flag, and it works pretty well. Left Click, Middle Click, and Right Click are Custom 1, 2, and 3 respectively. Mouse 4 is Ring Toss, and Mouse 5 is Toss Flag. I would recommend anyone struggling use this control scheme, but I understand that not everyone has 4th and 5th buttons on their mouse, so I guess not.
 
I think it's totally fair to wait for more data to come in before making any adjustments. But please take my above recommendations as possible pressure points in the character's design to watch out for -- in particular, I believe denying SMS from receiving a +25 bonus for hitting other SMS players would encourage them to engage more frequently with non-SMS characters. Second, Comet Haymaker appears to be the most obvious point of polarity, so its current PvP interaction at least ought to be reconsidered. The rest is largely tertiary.

Ahhh, that's where you're coming from with not giving SMS the 25+ bonus. I was wondering why, 'cause it's more risky to take on other SMS than characters with far more limited movesets. But I suppose it is annoying if SMS players won't engage you because they want the score bonus for themselves...

There's some other things I've been considering from seeing things right now.
-Giving homing attack a slight cooldown if it's countered
-If you dodge or get hit by a haymaker, you'll temporarily be given extra time to dodge consecutive ones to discourage spam. Maybe even stun SMS for a bit if he misses at that point in the same style when he dodgerolls 3 times in a row.
-Maybe have the haymaker itself also drain few rings.
-Remove the shield-piercing effect of haymakers.

I second this. Having a config file similar to Silver would be wonderful.

Absolutely coming up!

Honestly, the only thing I would really like to see changed is for Homing Momentum to be set to KEY by default. Or at least for SMS's settings to save so I don't have to change them every time I start the game.

Fair. The current default settings are my control scheme of choice, but I think the majority of players use this.

Controls discussion

I understand. I just want people to be aware of all the options first. I failed to convey the alt controls with SMScontrols.(the screen is already cluttered enough as is) It's possible to use practically all of SMS moveset using custom2, spin, and jump if you wish. You auto-sprint after the jump double-tap version of the airboost, you can hold back in midair and double tap spin for the atomdive, HMS can use his maxspeed airboost by double tapping spin without custom1, or hyperrise by double-tapping jump, just to name some examples. Proper tutorials coming up soon!

I have seen some complaints on SMS's design, but honestly, I love it. I don't know what it is about him, but he looks like he would be a character exclusive to the archie comics, in a good way.

Thanks! It's not following color theory, though I think that's a little overrated and restrictive personally. I'd recommend trying the other special colors from the menu if it bothers people, since the sprites are designed with pulsing in mind. The shading will make no sense if you're using a stationary color.
 
-Remove the shield-piercing effect of haymakers.

Oh that's what it was doing. I couldn't make sense of why I was losing multiple resources on hit. I also learned that there's an area of effect on the haymaker that causes me to take damage if I'm near someone else who fails their QTE. Good grief, how many game mechanics did you stuff into this attack?
 
Last edited:
I've been holding off on writing my review since I wanted to give it a real fresh, fair shot at this. A few days later after release feels like the right time.

The whole ordeal before release was... pretty ominous to me. I was kinda worried about what would happen when this character officially released. Thankfully, I can say that it was a success worth celebrating.

SMSReborn is the best mixed bag I've played.
It feels like every positive I can note has a downside, which is not exactly bad, just a bit upsetting.

In the visuals department, SMS delivers! A lot. He delivers... way too much at times. If i'm honest I actually like the amount of effects SMS has. It makes every action feel insane, as simple as they sometimes are. Plus, if you don't like the amount of effects, you can lower the graphics settings for SMS and have way, way less particles. HMS is way too much though.

His sprites are... unique. The shading of course calls back to his original banding/no anti aliasing shading which is a neat touch, but it's also 2020 and it's really hard to look at. I always set his color to blue so my retinas dont melt.
The animations though, are absolutely fantastic! It's so incredibly cool to see Sonic spin around, doing tricks in the air, punching stuff! They make me feel so so cool. Shout outs to the drifting sprites and the jump animation after a kick. The only exception is the walking animation. It's... super janky. Sonic shifts around side to side and it looks so weird.
oh and the different sprites for the edge is such a nice touch - all animated too! love the SA1 pose

Oh boy, the gameplay. I've... truly never seen a character with so many options, so many useless, random and incredibly hard to pull off options... I actually kinda love it. I keep finding stuff out and I'm like "why is THIS a thing". Best part is, they're all trying to make you feel as powerful as a cutscene sonic looks like! And it works. It works way too well.

Problem is, SRB2 isn't built for this, so vanilla levels rarely give you a chance to use your skills. That doesn't stop you from trying though. I've seen some people do some insane speedrunning with him, its actually amazing.

He has way too many skills and most of them look like they're just for show, but are actually insanely powerful. The Comet Haymaker is capable of oneshotting anything, and is one of my favorite skills. It's way too fun to use against bosses and punch them into oblivion. Second favorite would be Ringburst, an ability i literally only learned today, mainly because it perfectly replicates Sonic's Spin Attack from Sonic X, it's fantastic.

Finally HMS is the epitome of way too much. It's so disgustingly powerful I actually feel sorry for everyone I'm blasting away, but at the same time it's such a huge power trip I can't help but smile.

Oh, and grabbing and throwing people and making them blow up is amazing.

As for feedback, I've got a few notes.
  • SMS is way too fast without holding C1. At least lower his acceleration a bit.
  • Already said, but a config file would do wonders.
  • Walking animation looks way too janky in comparison to the rest of his animations, I'd say check the offsets.
  • An option to turn off the Running Shoes Music. It eventually gets annoying.
  • The Pick Up looks like a crouch. It does not work like one, so I got crushed. please
  • If you set the footsweep option to on, it makes the dodge shift the camera around and makes the sideways dodge pretty much useless. This doesnt happen with the option off.
  • Really, if you're gonna put a huge amount of abilities in your character, a list of abilities would be really appreciated.
  • Picking up and throwing monitors don't pop them, which feels incredibly strange when you launch them and see them blow up in a huge nuke-like explosion only to see them perfectly fine later.

All in all, I am very surprised with SMS' return. I love that you went all out, and didn't hold back. Some might say it's too much, but I appreciate everyone's hard work on what's possibly the most fun power trip OP character out there.
The legend is back.
 
What the fuck have you done you madman.

Some nitpicks:

I really hoped HMS would have some design influence from the *other* HMS we had.

Don't ever give a srb2 character street fighter controls. Ever.

Things I REALLY liked:

The menu is glorious. It makes me feel like I'm in 2001.

Uncurling and Recurling after springs should be in the game dammit.

The shading looks super off, but SMS looks closer to '06 Sonic, a design I was somewhat fond of before.

In conclusion, you did it. You absolute fucking madman you did it.
 
I have to say that SMSReborn is probably my favorite version out of all of the SMS releases over the years. It's really good, but far from being great. I think a lot of the flaws from SMS's current character comes from being overly complicated-- which is perfect, and I know that you said in your video you wanted a cutscene-esque Sonic to play around with and blitz through stages. In that regard, you did very well with giving him a lot of abilities to do such things.

However...it feels a little convoluted.
I've played through the main campaign with him about two or three times just to get a feel for him, and for some stages, I found myself forced to just treat him as a faster sonic to get through some areas. Of course, with more practice and mastery of his moveset, that's likely to change and I'll be more comfortable with blitzing through a lot of the zones. That being said, his moveset doesn't really have a tutorial outside of being told what the controls are and not so much what they do. There's a bit of fault there in the main post not exactly going over that and the actual controls for the moveset being extremely bloated and oriented for a fighting gamepad. I know you plan on making tutorial videos, and while that's nice, it would also help to have simple gifs outlining what they are and the control input for them.

After experimenting with controls for a bit, I found a way to orient the keyboard to play SMS with little possibility for hand cramps or anything of the sort, but that's only because I happen to have a mouse with 2 side buttons. Without that, I find it difficult to see the intended playstyle for SMS.

Couple of suggestions:
  • Insert a movelist into the little gem menu you have. I think that's a great first step outside of your tutorial videos.
  • Add an option to turn ringslinger off? After some friends and I played on Co-Op, we accidentally desynched ourselves because of how over the top his abilities are-- and that was even after lowering the particles in the gem menu.
  • Work with some people to find a way to finetune the controls. This is one of the most eccentric, thunderous characters in the game and I think it would be much better if people were able to play the character without having to personally set it up.
  • EDIT: The ability to turn homing thok on and off with one keybind.
I think SMSReborn has a lot of potential in 2.2 going forward, and the more he's finetuned I think we'll see a lot out of him. I play a lot of fighting games like DragonBall FighterZ and BlazBlue, so studying a moveset and learning ways to utilize it is second nature. This feels exactly like that, which I enjoy a lot. Like I said, I think it just needs a bit more tinkering and you'll have a really fun character that a lot of people will enjoy.

Great job.

---------- Post added at 05:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:29 PM ----------

giphy.gif

Found a bug.

After dying SMS became abnormally bright. Not sure what triggered this, but it seems to have just happened randomly after I died in Silver Cavern Zone. It goes away when entering and exiting a menu.
 
Last edited:
this is epic but why does the homing attack have to have more inputs to do, its kinda annoying cuz other sonic wads use double jump to homing attack. idk maybe im not able to get used to it :(
 
i found a bug if you play as tails guy and shoot a roaket at the sms emerald the game crash

I can't seem to recreate this.

HMS123 vs SMS
Who won?

Who's next? You deciiiiide!

I really hoped HMS would have some design influence from the *other* HMS we had.

Why would I? HMS existed long before HMS123 and isn't made as a meme. I know some people's enjoyment of SMSreborn is limited to "haha funny yellow Sonic is op", and I'm happy to please. I won't police others on how to enjoy my work when SMS bends the rules of game design himself.

But I don't intend to purposely suck the soul out of it with the Sonic Boom route, becoming a self-deprecation parody. There'd be nothing left for HMS123 if I did.

Don't ever give a srb2 character street fighter controls. Ever.

Alot of these abilities were either going to require extra inputs, or would not be in at all. The important ones are placed on the main buttons, while the extra for-fun stuff are usually more remote. I did make alternate controls and options to ease things for players. Hopefully the coming tutorial can show methods to simplify things for yourself.

  • SMS is way too fast without holding C1. At least lower his acceleration a bit.
  • Already said, but a config file would do wonders.
  • Walking animation looks way too janky in comparison to the rest of his animations, I'd say check the offsets.
  • An option to turn off the Running Shoes Music. It eventually gets annoying.
  • The Pick Up looks like a crouch. It does not work like one, so I got crushed. please
  • If you set the footsweep option to on, it makes the dodge shift the camera around and makes the sideways dodge pretty much useless. This doesnt happen with the option off.
  • Really, if you're gonna put a huge amount of abilities in your character, a list of abilities would be really appreciated.
  • Picking up and throwing monitors don't pop them, which feels incredibly strange when you launch them and see them blow up in a huge nuke-like explosion only to see them perfectly fine later
  • Try to use those slower multi homing thoks to slow yourself down in sections. They're your main tool to aid in precision movement.
  • Coming up!
  • Really? I'm a big fan of the energetic bounciness here.
  • Surprised you grabbed enough runshoes get annoyed by it when you complained about SMS' minimum jogging speed being too fast earlier. ....I'll probably mix it together with the HMS theme, don't want to overload the menu.
  • You tried the leapfrog animation to prevent getting crushed?? Where?
  • ....oh. I'm embarrassed I missed that. ;
  • You can try the controls aid in the menu, and hopefully the tutorial coming up soon will fill any gaps. If neither of these are enough after the fact, lemme know, though.
  • The pick-up was a last minute extra ability for screwing around. I figured people would prefer carrying items through entire stages over using it as a method to actually break open monitors, which would mean they can't be grabbed again.

  • The ability to turn homing thok on and off with one keybind
I'll see about an option to switch between multi-homing thoks and the thok with a tap of spin button instead of holding it. Toggle may be easier for some. The greatest challenge with SMS is finding a way to perform all his actions while preventing accidental inputs. Complexity can eventually be understood, but overlapping controls for the sake of simplicity will forever place a limit on possibilities.

SMS GFZ1 speedrun

Take this for example. Even in 5 mere seconds, there were 2 times SMS stomped while he had the option to haymaker. Had he used the "simple haymaker" setting, he couldn't have stomped at all in those moments. So there's a reason the complicated aerial haymaker method is the default.

If you don't intend to get that good, that's fine, it was easy for me to implement a simple alternative in this case. But this is the reason why we have "Hold Back+Spin" to charge a Spindash while moving and not "Hold Spin".

But I hear you. If after tutorials and SMSreborn-v1.1, people still desire more controls, I'll make an expanded controls menu to meet that demand.

Found a bug.

After dying SMS became abnormally bright. Not sure what triggered this, but it seems to have just happened randomly after I died in Silver Cavern Zone. It goes away when entering and exiting a menu.

Seems to be a bug with OpenGL itself not displaying translucency effects.

Good grief, how many game mechanics did you stuff into this attack?

SMS was balanced for Match/CTF long before Battle Mode existed. But in Battle Mode players need their rings to pressure SMS at all with abilities, so shield-piercing there is a little excessive.
 
Last edited:
SMS was balanced for Match/CTF long before Battle Mode existed. But in Battle Mode players need their rings to pressure SMS at all with abilities, so shield-piercing there is a little excessive.

Yeah, that makes sense. There is a lot more ranged area denial in ringslinger to check SMS's speed, whereas in Battle characters have less control over the map.
 
I found this character in a server during the weekend, I tested him out and he is broken! This mod has won my heart, thank you so much for this amazing mod! -Flowey98
 
First things first, this is great, and a fun time to use, however, I have a couple of issues/personal nicks I would like to report to help make v1.1 A better experience for those Who agree with me.

To start off:
HMS music.

I’m not too fond of the music that plays when this option is turned on, therefore I was thinking that you could provide a possible second option, such as the music that plays in the reveal trailer, I would really love that as it raises my heartbeat every time I listen to it, and with hyper, I just think that it would be a fitting experience.

Second:

Control schemes.

I’ve noticed in the Mystic Emerald settings that you can turn on analog homing thoks as well as analog foot sweeps.
I fail to understand what this is supposed to mean. I’m familiar with the concept of analog but in this situation, it confuses me.

Now for The moveset:

Using the Dodge ability is a little bit wonky, due to the fact that I do not dodge in the exact direction as I press as I am pushing C2.
I tested this both using the “ Free movement” mode; where are you can face the camera, and “strafe” mode, where you can press a direction and your character will always face forward.


I also noticed that when using the SMS unleashed mode, when using the boost the camera does not turn along with you meaning you have to move the camera at very high speeds.
Is this intentional, or simply an oversight?

With certain special actions and also reversion, I have noticed that you have needed to press C1, and back. This is a little bit vague for me. I wasn’t sure if it meant the backward direction or not. This applies to certain moves as well. This made it impossible for me to perform an aerial haymaker as HMS.
In this regard, I feel that a combination of two of the custom buttons Would suffice, and also cause less confusion.

While on the topic of move sets, I feel that it isn’t necessary for you to have to hold shift in order to use the wall jumps and the homing attack. Why not just be able to use the homing attack without holding anything?
Not to mention the Wall jumps.
This would help with not having to need your fingers in too many places at once while executing certain maneuvers.

Also, a way to automatically load the settings you want would be deeply appreciated.


Other than that, this is great and has a lot of potential.

I hope that maybe these helped a little bit towards making a good future for this character

(Or should I say God)
 
Last edited:
This is really impressive! Despite the extremely overpowered nature of SMS, he's actually really fun to play and he's really good for making some awesome saves.

The only critique I really have right now is that the Classic to Adventure/Modern design is a bit jarring, but the spritework is really good and his animations are awesome, so I don't mind it too much.

I do have one suggestion, however, regarding HMS. I think that since the yellow parts of his spines have a super glow, you should update it to use whatever color is selected for SMS in the Mystic Emerald menu. It'd allow for more customizability.

Regardless, I'm really enjoying this. Thanks for putting in the effort to make such an awesome addon!
 
Hoo boy. Where do I even start? First of all, it bears noting that having been around since 1.09.4, SMS is something I was a fan of for a long time, to the point of having some pretty tangible influences on my online presence for years. That said, I also separated from that a long time ago.


And then this came out of nowhere and yanked me right back to 2008. I've played DMC5 and this still boggles my mind with how much you can do with it. I suspect I'm probably never going to have a full grasp on everything this new SMS can do, and I'm honestly okay with that. It's still unreasonably cool anyway.


For a long time I honestly felt that I was never going to see SMS again in any capacity expect legacy ports. I am so glad to be wrong.
 
Wow, I'm shocked I missed this. It honestly feels great tearing down badnicks! I do have a few requests:

1. Add an option to select any character to transform
Some of my Sonic character mods that I have work, but others don't, such as earless redesign for some odd reason.
2. I think we should go straight to HMS when turning into SMS as super sonic.
If HMS is SMS with chaos emeralds, It would make sense, right?
 
Last edited:

Who is viewing this thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Back
Top