Sonic ERaZor 8.0 – or, Sonic ERaZor (Eighth Public Release), if you still prefer it old-school – is the follow-up to Sonic ERaZor 7, winner of the Sonic Hacking Contest last year. It started out as a simple 7.1 patch, but then spiraled out of control, eventually amounting to so many changes that it warranted a new major version number. The main highlight of that update was the creation of a special 16:9 widescreen version.

A few months later, Sonic ERaZor 8.1 was released. It came with a few more bugfixes and quality-of-life improvements, and it didn't spiral out of control again to accidentally become a version 9.0 (hooray). However, it did come with a new, fully self-contained, standalone EXE file of the widescreen version, titled Sonic ERaZor: Zenith Edition!

If you aren't familiar with ERaZor yet, I suggest you take a brief look at the brand-new official website or the Wiki page first.

Highlights of Sonic ERaZor 8.0:

• Gameplay:
• Added a brand-new level, along with a brand-new boss!
• Added another brand-new boss to the end of Ruined Place... in the broadest definition of the word "boss"
• Added a new ending to Ruined Place which will definitely not be relevant later in the game
• Drastically extended Green Hill Place; people rightfully called the stage too short
• Star Agony Place is now an actual buzz wire game!
• All existing bosses have been rebalanced or partially redesigned (less RNG bs, hooray!)
• Refined all levels to tackle design quirks I saw in ERaZor 7 playthroughs
• Removed the roll-jump lock
• General:
• Custom 16:9 Widescreen ROM for RetroArch with the Genesis Plus GX Wide core! (HUUUGE shout-outs to vladikcomper for making this possible)
• A new save select screen with three save slots and one no-save slot
• A bunch of new options to customize your playthrough: Arcade Mode, Alternate HUD options, finer control of Flashy Lights and Camera Shaking, Audio mute settings, refined ERZ unlockables
• Remastered Palettes across the entire game; don't worry, the old-school ones are still there as an option
• Remastered HUD and title card graphics
• Insane performance improvements to the point where levels load near instantly now
• And last but not least, the usual countless bug fixes and polish touch-ups across the entire game

Highlights of Sonic ERaZor 8.1:

• Zenith Edition: a new, self-contained, standalone EXE of the 16:9 widescreen version Sonic ERaZor – learn more about it here. This version has a few unique changes to it:
• Added "DMCA-friendly mode" option to the options screen, which plays safe versions of songs that have caused YouTube copyright claims in the past (namely, the tutorial and credits tunes)
• Running on a custom emulator allows many optimizations, such as overclocking (no lag!) and rock-solid black bars out of the box
• Replaced the black bars setup at the start of the game with an info screen about this special version and the default controls
• Other:
• Cool new title screen dimming effect, copied from the tutorial box dimming (I hope this makes thumbnails more eye-pleasing with the increased contrast)
• Added visual indicators for the Space Golf ability to make the 8-directional movement more apparent
• Raised Ruined Place boss health to match health from Green Hill Place boss
• ...and about 60 other bugfixes and minor quality-of-life improvements

Why was this submitted as an Unjudged entry?

There are multiple reasons, but at its core it comes down to staying out of the spotlight. I'm more than happy with ERaZor 7 winning the judged trophy last year, and coming second for community votes. This made it the second win since taking the first place back in 2012, and I really have no desire for ERaZor to win a third time.

Though there's also a more pragmatic reason: ERaZor 8 already came out in January 2025. The release of 8.1 with the new standalone edition is a bit more recent, but even then it's just a patch (aside from the new standalone edition, but that one is so far detached from a traditional ROM hack that it wouldn't be fair to submit it as a judged entry anyway).

In a nutshell, I'm just here to get a little more exposure for the update.