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

I literally had this same thought but never brought it up as I didn't want to derail the thread. I figure the story would end with the destruction of the death egg and the time stone resetting things so that Sonic 2 happened the way it's supposed to.

 

Don't know if this has been noticed yet, so ignore this if it has, but in the Simon Wai prototype, the bells on track 8F (modern Sky Chase) are much more noticeable. It gives the song more of a winter-ish vibe. More proof of it originally being for a winter zone?

Edit: Was wrong, bells are the same. Though it's noticeably slower, still giving it more of a winter vibe than the modern version in my opinion

 

Also noteworthy is Kid Chameleon apparently finished in December of 1991. Brenda Ross worked on that. That means she was probably free to do work for the next STI game.

 

I remember seeing a different layout that had the exact same colors and a totally different layout on Twitter:

Maybe that was for an Act 2 of sorts?

 

This is Cyber City 3. The zone was going to have three whole acts to it, like how Metropolis does.

Actually makes me wonder if three acts was seriously considered for other zones, or if it was only considered for Metropolis and Cyber City…

 

I encountered an article (Sega Force, Issue 5, May 1992) where the journalist talks about one complete level where Sonic is hang-gliding. They don't suggest the game is playable, it could very well be the AutoDemo. There's no pictures, though. So can't tell what they saw.

Then there's Tom Kalinske (Sega Force, Issue 3, March 1992) where he tells the journalist that he wasn't prepared to show demos of Sonic 2. Very well is a marketing reason, but could also be because there's nothing yet made to test play.

 

Again, I keep bringing it up, but it...really seems we know next to nothing about Sonic 2's switch from the 3 Act system to the 2 Act system. I haven't heard or seen anything suggesting why they did it. Unless I've missed something?

The most likely explanation that comes to mind is that with the original timeline plans it probably dawned on them early on that there was almost no way to fit all the zones on one cartridge with 3 Acts each.

But then weirdly enough nearly every other Sonic 1 followup from around the same time period sorta simplified the 3 Act system anyways. Ancient's Sonic 1, Aspect's Sonic 2, and Sonic CD simplified the 3rd Act tremendously to just being like a 15 platforming second at most followed by the boss. It's a pretty significant departure from Sonic 1's 'You get a whole Act before a boss' setup. I kinda wonder if the team sort of just felt 2 Acts flowed better (not that I disagree).

Tom's timeline document that was linked and discussed earlier also mentions him trying to work on '2 mid level bosses'. Assuming this is also something 3K inherited from Sonic 2's development and this document refers to the concept of each Act having it's own end boss (like GoldeMan speculated), it seems the idea of 3 Acts per Zone might have been out the door before any serious work was done implementing anything into ROM form? That or the idea was dead around the time Tom came into the project...at the very least.

Going back to the time travel maps, I really think Cyber City was just going to be the exception. I don't think they would've given it 3 separate 'slots' in the Future map otherwise. Plans got shuffled around a bit at some point, Cyber City goes bye-bye, and they just try to salvage the '3 Act finale' idea/certain Cyber CIty concepts(?) for Metropolis and draw up some plans for it that eventually make it into the Sonic 2 we all know and love.

 

I genuinely wonder if this explains the very odd ending area to Cyber City Act 1. That last section just screams mini-boss arena, but this map layout could also predate almost any other map document we've had.


Act 2 and 3 both end with rather gimmicky areas as well, with Act 2 clearly being a fan and rising water arena of sorts, and Act 3 being some sort of odd angular arena both in and out of water to the end of the level, seemingly similar to Labyrinth Zone 3.

Maybe they weren't all bosses per-se, but they defintely seem to be cinematic setpieces of sorts.

 

That specific part of GCZ Act 1 is the most interesting part of the three acts to me. Looking at it in Hez's interpretation, and the map of course, something doesn't add up.

The arrows pointing both up and down give me the impression that the elevator (that's if it is an elevator.. but I'm assuming it is one for now) lowers after something happens. Like a boss or some kind of event triggering the elevator to then lower allowing sonic to ascend.

Also the circular nature of that lends well to rolling I'd imagine, which would make for a nice small boss arena. The only other way I can see this room working is using the fans on the side as a boost to launch sonic towards the elevator after spin dashing up the side.

I can't imagine the left side fan wouldn't lower down or spawn in after some kind of trigger, because what other way do you pass through it from the left path, unless you were supposed to just walk through it.

 

>Circular Cyber City 1 ending
>Minibosses

You don't think...?

 

Doubtful, as its currently known, no boss was ever created or conceptualized for Cyber City.
As I said earlier in the thread, I am fairly certain the elevator is simply an end of act transition with Sonic riding it up the shaft into act 2. There is no signpost, how else would you get to act 2? Even the ocean wind concept design which we had never even known existed prior to this has a signpost at the end of the level.

 

That really isn't quite accurate. No boss was created, but at least Act 3 clearly has a unique arena based on a trap Eggman activates. Maybe there was no Eggmobile and the tunnels at the end were just an obstacle course, but clearly 'something' was planned for that final arena, even if it wasn't a traditional boss. That area wasn't designed like that for no reason.

I also think you were able to pass through the left upper path to get into the circular arena in act 1. Hez's fans don't suck the player in from the other side currently, but I suspect they were meant to, otherwise that path is a dead end for no reason.

Hez did a very good job with his recreation, but those maps and assets need a rom hack or an RSDK version with a good coder to fully realize the stage and finish it. There's clearly some aspects that could be tweaked to make the stage fully playable as the map intended (even without a boss). I think what we have is a very close recreation of what the maps show and what the zone could have been, but it does have some notable things missing in functionality.

 

Stop asking for romhcak. People are working, Hez was in progress like.. since we begun knowing about maps? It's like half of the year, and I think that making resources for game will take a time.
Just wait for few years, and you will be asking for stop hacks with genocide city.

 

Sorry to ask, but I can't find these 3 GCZ maps in their full resolution anywhere. Do we have these somewhere, or only these blurry versions ?

 

I don't know why people keep posting/using the small res maps when both high res of the original (that is also not for the purests) and one using actual chunks has been made.

Anyway. I know I said I wouldn't do it but I converted shit for the Sonic 2 ROM.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1r29lezWDgVsg5YohhrupoYGXiFvyPSay?usp=drive_link

I also built a ROM with the stuff inside. Level select is on by default along with debug. Emerald Hill Act 1 should bring you to the level. It's just the layout with MZ objects.

 

I am sorry, but the Wiki only has the ~1000x300 pixels blurry images. Am I missing something?

 

So now we basically have proof that Cyber City would have its own 3 Acts, possibly with their own minibosses and act transitions. Personally, I feel like it would be more painful than Metropolis.

 

it absolutely cracks me up how against recreations you are, yet you use one on the wiki Frank did using AI to fill in a map using the drawn in chunks. Which has more errors than the chunk one Frank and I did. Keep on making sure that wiki is perfect.

 

Yeah, this has also been bothering me immensely. We have high quality versions of all the original maps, yet the blurry chunk layout recreations on the wiki still haven't been replaced with them.

I would've done it myself, but I really cannot wrap my finger around that wiki editor for the life of me.