Is the Aerial Garden club emblem unobtainable? (Or, possible bug?)

[Charem]

Either I'm the largest idiot or something's a bit broken for getting the club emblem in Aerial Garden Zone - the only collectible emblem in the zone that I can't get.

I've read both the in-game emblem hint ("The inner sanctum! Teleport to its switches; then, check near the goal.") and the guide for getting this thing that's on the SRB2 Wiki. I'm almost certain I'm doing everything correctly, but...it doesn't work out for me.

Near the middle of the level is the "Inner Sanctum" that possesses four teleporters. I'm supposed to go into each and press a button in each room it send me to, right? I've done this, and upon pressing the fourth switch, the Zelda secret sound plays. Just like it did for two of the other emblems when I hit all their corresponding switches, after which it always successfully unlocked a gate.

You can see here I've completed all teleporters, thanks to the flames that show up. (All four flames are lit; I just forgot to show the fourth.)

Then, I get to the final checkpoint of the level, right before the goal sign, and take the path off to the right, here.

After this, I come to a room with a pit on the right, and a path on the left that the switches are supposed to have opened up...

That is all correct, isn't it? Because as you can see, the pathway is still locked. It's stayed locked, and I've tried the whole level about 6 times just trying to see if I somehow glitched the puzzle...but no, the gate always stays shut. It's driving me crazy.

Am I missing some vital information? Or am I experiencing quite a massive bug? I would really love some help!

 

[Lat']

Have you even pressed the buttons? To open this door, you must activate those teleporters, and they'll make an elevator appear on the center of the temple, take it and activate all four switches on its top. When it's done, check at that one place...

EDIT: I will try to open this gate to make sure this isn't either a bug...

 

[Liliam]

How did you miss the bright, glowing new elevator in the center of the room after pressing all four buttons?

 

[Charem]

Thanks! You guys did help me figure this out. It's not a bug after all.

Yes, I didn't even notice that the center of the room changed after I completed the four teleporter rooms. While I did overlook it, I wouldn't exactly call that very obvious; it's really a subtle change, as nothing calls attention to the center of the room either before or after the teleporter switches are hit. Neither does my stream audience of about 8 people right now, consider we've all been stumped up till this point as they've watched me play through the level. I mean...look.

Before hitting the switches and after hitting the switches...yeah, it's pretty clear if you know to pay attention to it, but the ground slightly insetting and the texture changing a bit due to the elevator appearing is really not obvious. The light - the 'bright, glowing' you mentioned, Neo - is actually a detriment. If the light streamed in after the elevator is brought in, then it would call attention to itself; but since the light exists before as well as after, it is not an effective cue for noticing the change.

It'd be nice if the emblem hint mentioned some form of elevator; it simply suggests hitting switches within teleporters and then heading right towards the goal for your reward. Which is exactly what I was doing. (The wiki also mentioned nothing of the elevator nor the four switches after riding it.)

I guess you could chalk this up to me not being observant enough, but in such a long level, a bit more of a bone could be thrown by the game, don't you think?

 

[Lat']

Without any hints, this is one of the harder emblems of the game...

 

[fickleheart]

Aerial Garden has a bad habit of ridiculously convoluted level emblems. "Go to these four rooms and press these four buttons THEN go here and press these four buttons THEN go halfway across the level to find this door" is way too much for anyone to possibly figure out without a guide

 

[Charem]

Are there any decent guides for the game? I've been using the SRB2 Wiki for Emblem hunting (basically, I use the in-game hints first, then switch to the wiki guide if I get really stuck). But the writer of it has made some things extremely unclear in his writing, and at one point I had to ignore his advice about where to go with Knux and go somewhere entirely different to find the emblem. And as is pretty clear, he wasn't much help in his description for this emblem.

I'm kind of amazed I got the other two switch emblems so much faster. I think I just got lucky and bumbled into half the switches. And I really, really do appreciate the emblem hints added into the game recently, but for this one...it really could have mentioned the elevator somehow. Perhaps coyly mentioning getting lifted up after 'teleporting to its switches' but before 'checking near the goal' like it already says?

I played this game well over a year ago, when this level was broken up into smaller ones if I recall. I preferred it that way. While the technical achievement of compiling all that content into one mega-level is impressive, it's simply not fun to play a marathon. (My main emerald-hunting run on that level went to 80+ minutes long, no joke. I was worried a time-out might happen at 99:99, but I didn't get to see.) It's like the choice between having your pizza cut into handle-able slices or trying to eat the whole thing uncut. Either way it's a delicious meal, but one way is significantly more enjoyable and manageable than the other.

This is all just my two cents, but it's stuff that I think could be tweaked and refined to make this game, just better. :3 I like this game, but sometimes it makes me wanna strangle it too. XD

(EDIT: I just thought about it, and how I'd write the emblem hint for this sucker would be like this: "The inner sanctum! Teleporting to its switches will get you quite a rise; then, check near the goal.")

 

[Liliam]

Before hitting the switches and after hitting the switches...yeah, it's pretty clear if you know to pay attention to it, but the ground slightly insetting and the texture changing a bit due to the elevator appearing is really not obvious. The light - the 'bright, glowing' you mentioned, Neo - is actually a detriment. If the light streamed in after the elevator is brought in, then it would call attention to itself; but since the light exists before as well as after, it is not an effective cue for noticing the change.

There's really no reason why you need to take an elevator up to the top just so you can press another four buttons; most of the design issues with AGZ stem from the fact that it was stitched together from four different levels. (In the original AGZ3, the elevator was the only way you could escape from the level, so there was no missing it.)

Probably what should be done is just get rid of the FOF stuff and make the first set of buttons move the bars like you were expecting -- as you said, it's counter-intuitive to hear the Zelda jingle but not actually be done with the puzzle yet.

Are there any decent guides for the game? I've been using the SRB2 Wiki for Emblem hunting (basically, I use the in-game hints first, then switch to the wiki guide if I get really stuck). But the writer of it has made some things extremely unclear in his writing, and at one point I had to ignore his advice about where to go with Knux and go somewhere entirely different to find the emblem. And as is pretty clear, he wasn't much help in his description for this emblem.

Friendly reminder that the SRB2 Wiki is edited and curated by random volunteers from our user community. If you feel like one of them screwed up, feel free to edit the article to remove the incorrect information and/or make it more clear.