What is a fun way to get rid of Tails the Fox in Mushroom Hill Zone Act 2?
Last updated: Oct 31, 2006 (first version)
Level 4 update on Oct 24, 2007 - Fixes made and a YouTube video added for this
For how to enter debug mode and the origins of this and the meaning of the terms, go here. This just tells you what you need and where to place the object. Due to finding a bug with the battery blimp and that it is possible to actually get rid of Tails, I thought of a great way to get rid of the fox and get a more intensive case of the harmless bug. If you make a big mistake, enter debug and head to the very bottom and exit debug. You will lose a life and there's no other option. If short on lives, get Tails to go in a spin dash, enter debug, switch to any robot (the dragonfly is the best) and place several of them. At first, it won't appear to have any effect, but eventually, for every 5 robots you place, you will gain an extra life, as long as Tails remains in the spin dash and the score doesn't max out at 9,999,990. Be warned that, if you pass 255 lives, very weird things happen.
A video demonstrating this setup and the glitch's effects is available here (hosted by YouTube).
Upon entering debug mode, choose Mushroom Hill Zone Act 2. When the level loads, first, learn the order of the objects. Normally, it's ring, S-monitor, up catapult, left/right catapult, down catapult, up-left/right catapult down-left/right catapult, and up spikes. You only need the catapults and spikes. Once you learn the order, head for the boss area far to the right at 0300 for the Y position. Defeat the boss but don't break the egg thing yet. If needed, place one of those S monitors to get Hyper Sonic and you can easily defeat the boss as Hyper Sonic is invisible (Hyper Sonic can't even drown, even without the bubble shield).
We first need a way to get the fox launched into the maze. Change the items to the catapult pointing down and place one at 45F00340. Change to the down-left catapult (exit debug, face left, and enter debug again) and place one at 45D002E0. This is the launcher, the first item causes the fox to jump.
To get the fox over the egg cage, we need to add a catapult facing upwards at 45B00340. The down-left catapult gets the fox onto this up-facing catapult launching it up. Switch to the down-right catapult (exit debug, face right, and reenter debug) and place one at 45B00280. Change to the catapult facing down and place them at 45D002C8, 45F002C8, 461002C8, 463002C8, and at 465002C8. With this, the fox will make a few puffs and eventually get on the other side of the egg, but wouldn't do anything but jump.
Let's add more excitement. Place another catapult facing down at 46D802C0. This will stop the fox from going further right but there's more to it than this. Change to the spikes pointing up. Place a series of them at 46A80308, 469802F8, 468802E8, and at 466802E0. When the fox hits the catapult placed at the start of this step, it will head left toward Sonic and land on the spikes. The spikes send the fox to the right and eventually down on the ground. This alone will only cause the fox to head to the left and repeatedly jump going nowhere. To get it to head right and into a bottomless pit to the right of here, we need more objects, but we want it dangerous.
To make it more dangerous, place a series of spikes at 46700348, 46900348, 46B00348, and at 46D00348. The fox will land on these spikes then walk on them to the left. Now the fox will just jump up and down and the fox will get injured continuously, but we want to get rid of it. The last thing we need is a catapult facing down-right. Place it at 466802F0. When the fox gets to the egg, standing on the spikes, it'll jump up into the catapult facing down and right and land on the spikes hard making puffs over the edge, landing a bit lower, continue making puffs and go over the edge falling into a bottomless pit thus die (going "buong").
Now bust the egg like you normally would. You might need to get Sonic to stand on the catapults at the top and wait for the fox to appear and use it to get it to bust the egg. You have to exit debug at the right time though. With the egg now busted, the end-of-level details come up and eventually the air ship will appear. Quickly move to the area where the fox will launch on the far left and exit debug. Wait until Robotnik appears and at this time, enter debug and wait about ten seconds. Exit debug and quickly enter it again. Exit debug and let it run. The fox will follow the course and eventually die and another one appears, lands, jumps into the catapults and continues on. As the fox continues doing this, strange things happen where the battery blimp keeps on accelerating. In fact, after 96 minutes of acceleration, the battery blimp will be moving 992 pixels per frame faster. The red catapults send Sonic at 16 pixels per frame for comparison and the width of the screen is 320 pixels. That's 3 screens' worth per frame! Just let the game run for a while and you can get the movement to extreme levels. The grass and "plate" texture are spaced 32 pixels apart. If at 32 pixels per frame, it would appear to remain steady. The trees are spaced 512 pixels apart. Thus, if there appears to be two trees, it is going 256 pixels per frame. If they remain steady, it is going 512 pixels per frame. The spacing from when those fans suddenly stop and start again is 65,536 pixels, the typical size of levels on the horizontal at the absolute maximum possible.
