New Sonic 2 development lore drop - Genocide/Cyber City palette and art!

Frank and them are still streaming trying to hit a specific fiscal goal before dropping Act 2, and then they've committed to sharing the rest with us fully after that.

Hopefully, that means the high quality scan of all the tiles too. I just want everything archived and released as soon as reasonably possible, but it sounds like they've at least obtained all the known assets that were preserved.

 

Absolutely wild to think that an enemy/hazard intended for Cyber City ended up in the final game. Love it when stuff like this is uncovered!

Also really crazy to see they planned it as a full three Act Zone, when it's been thought for so long that it would have only had one. Really reminds you that even though loads of new info has been discovered over the decades, we still have nowhere near a full picture of what went on behind the scenes in the development of this game.

 

Wouldn't it be a surprise to find out that Sky Fortress'/Wing Fortress' existence came out of the scrapping of Genocide City?

Like maybe all the brown coloring, some hazards, some assets were the product of art made but not implemented right away?

I don't think much of the zone's development was ever talked about or discovered, as it was only later on that it was conceived, yes?

 

And it looks similar to some pieces of S3&K Death Egg Zone.

 

I remembered what those fans reminded me of.



They could have even called it Cyber City and not have to worry about the naming scheme.

 

Did Genocide/Cyber City ever have music composed for the zone? We know that some scrapped zones, such as Sand Shower had songs made (what is now Oil Ocean's theme), so did it have an original song, or was it going to reuse a track from another zone?

Most fan games and rom hacks gave it Pre-final Oil Ocean/2P Casino Night Zone's track, but we can be pretty sure that it wasn't the song made for the zone, and none of the other 2P tracks seem to fit the zone.

I just feel like there should have been a song for Cyber City Zone, if they got to the point of creating zone art and other assets.

 

“Due to problems with the story, Act 3 was going to be a different Zone that would only appear once”

Is the original Japanese available? Could this have been a bad translation? It could’ve been read as “Due to problems with the story, act 3 was going to be (for) a different zone that *once* was going to appear” (but didn’t.) Meaning they recycled one map from another Zone.
Either that, or the story issue happened after the maps were completed. That’s likelier since maybe the translation is okay.

By the way, the water in the one map seems a lot like a callback to Scrap Brain 3.

 

I can’t actually translate it, but maybe an expert should confirm?

 

Well uh this is certainly a surprise. I certainly didn't think we'd ever see more of Cyber City and Metropolis Act 3 was it!

The map for Act 1 is very interesting. I echo similar comments made earlier that it feels very...Labryinth-esque in design. Very linear, very 'blocky' in it's level design. While I don't think Metropolis was the best designed Zone in Sonic 2, the three Acts we got certainly have a lot more 'breathing room' and alternative pathways. It's a nice testament to how it feels like the level design in 2 was trying to phase out those design philosophies 1 had.

This also feels very Scrap Brain Act 3 in design with the lack of an obvious Goal Post location. I assume they were experimenting with 'smooth' transitions for the final 'regular' level? With some sort of transition into the Death Egg?

It is also cool seeing that Wing Fortress inherited some of the enemy design. A lot more survived than I initially thought. I wonder if they just thought Act 3 was the most salvageable of the bunch (would require the least amount of reworking to fit with Metropolis), but really liked most of the other concepts they had and threw them into Wing Fortress.

Assuming I'm understanding the previous posts correctly, it sounds like it's heavily theorized slot 0F in the earlier builds was related to a 'Genocide City 2' Zone that appears on Yasuhara's maps. If that's the case, I'm wondering if that's what he meant in that quote?

 

As a veteran I'm eagerly looking forward to playing this for myself, but can you imagine the amount of bootyblastedness that would have taken place if there were five acts of Metropolis, the last of which is a Labyrinth mash-up? The tears would be legendary

 

Here’s the text written out:

ストーリー上の問題で、 アクト3は前半のゾーン に1度登場する予定だったのですが、 カットする ことになり、結局アクト2の後につけてしまいま した。 だからここはアクト3まであります。 先行 してマップが出来上がっていたので、ボツにする のもなー……ということで採用しました。 (中)

I’m not a native level speaker or anything so don’t take this as gospel, but my very rough translation is:

Due to story problems, act 3 was planned to appear once in a zone from the previous part*, but it was going to be cut and eventually was added after act 2. That’s why [this zone] goes on until act 3. Since the map had previously been completed, it was thought that it wouldn’t be good to scrap it… so it was decided to use it. (Naka)

*not sure about this part, 前半のゾーン looks to me like “a zone from the previous half/part” but machine translations have it as “the first half of (a/the) zone”, but neither of them make sense to me in context. If my interpretation is correct it suggests that Metropolis would have taken place after Cyber City which shouldn’t be right.

 

It's generally assumed (at least, I think it's generally assumed) that DEZ's theme was meant for Cyber City. We can infer from prototypes that WFZ was meant for DEZ.

 

I have to disagree. They likely would have assigned the song to the level in the Simon Wai prototype if that were the case. I assume they either intended to use CPZ music, or they hadn't yet received/implemented a song for the level. Remember that the finals HPZ tune was implemented into the game sometime after Simon Wai. So there could have been other songs yet to be put into the game. But considering the DEZ song existed already and wasn't assigned to a zone, I think it's less likely it belonged to GCZ.

The WFZ tune is interesting. Had they already decided to change the plot by that point and WFZ was envisioned but not designed yet by the time the Simon Wai prototype came around? It's *possible* it was supposed to be for DEZ, but it seems a bit... off.

 

That brings up another point...

Could WFZ reuse GCZ assets we never knew about? The rotating turrets seem to be one possibility for something that got recycled.

Edit: They surpassed the donation goal of 24K$+ some time ago, so keep an eye out for info on act 2 before too long.
https://www.twitch.tv/thecompletionist

 

The fans in WFZ could be based off of the Cyber City sprites, as it appears to serve the same purpose with a similar size.
Edit: I also realized if Cyber City was meant to be the last zone before Death Egg, the rocket sprites could also be from there.

 

Forgive me if I’m incorrect as I was half asleep but I believe this is act 2 here.

 

Too small to make much out, but I'll say this, all 3 designs are nothing like what we'd predicted. This one does seem like it at least resembled Metropolis Act 3's beta a tiny bit? But it's still nothing like the final or even Wai Beta.

Hopefully, this means all the assets get fully released soon. Attempting to reconstruct this stage is going to be wild.

 

The water in the layout had my jaw on the floor, that would've been so evil LMAO

It is patently insane to me that we're still getting tangible, real info about a game like this, let alone info that just throws all assumptions and educated guesses about the process of what we ended up getting right out the window. Wowwww