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

Wait, we've talked to Mark Cerny a lot about Sonic X-Treme...

But have we ever talked with him about Sonic 2?

 

Mark is a pretty bjg figure and a busy man. Good luck getting to talk to him nowadays.

 

I think the Atlantis-themed level might be Olympus itself. As I said in the other thread, "the fact the past map depicts Olympus as being just right there in the middle of the water without any visible land underneath gives off a very Atlantis-like vibe. Like it rose from the depths of the lake, rather than being on an island".

 

I'm still fairly certain the "atlantis theme" refers to Blue Ocean. Look at the ruins to the left in the concept art:

If you google "atlantis", you'll get similar underwater Greek/Roman ruins:

Now compare the concept art to the map:

Just like in the concept art, there's an open area before getting sucked into an underwater cavern.

 

I must admit that Brenda Ross art using Sand Shower tile work gives off an Greek/Roman ruins vibe:



The colour scheme also gives off a cool aquatic vibe as well. I wonder if this had anything to do with the Atlantis/Olympus concept.

 

This could either be some version of "Olympus", or the 2nd unspecified "Rock World Zone" in a different time period (since it recycled the same assets used in 2 other maps in the same location within different time periods). Those 2, along with "Warp Zone" remain the biggest question marks in the whole "where does everything fit" right now. Though Hidden Palace is still likely tied somewhere in all this as well. If this is a missing piece, it does fill in one of our knowledge gaps, and could mean we even have a potential visual depiction of every stage now (either through digitized art or concept art).

Unfortunately, the only way we can know for sure is if Brenda herself says something, or even remembers anything about this piece. If she has no idea, we're only left to speculate. It could of course be part of another game project (an unreleased game, perhaps), or even just a piece she drew up for her portfolio itself, but I somewhat doubt that given the use of the GHZ clouds. Using assets you didn't create for a digital portfolio doesn't make a lot of sense unless the piece was ACTUALLY part of a real project.

But to me at this point, it being sonic related makes more sense than it not being sonic related, and if it's Sonic related, Sonic 2 is the only game we know of that would fit. If it was only used for a small "cutscene" zone, or was based on a concept that was quickly discarded, it might explain why the topic of it came up before. Whatever this was, if it's Sonic 2 related, it's probably only based on a very rough concept that was tossed out quickly when most of her other work was sadly discarded. I'd guess this was a few weeks after Sand Shower, but never got far enough to be shared with the press via mockup.

Who knows? I'm only trying to piece together ideas here. Don't think my speculation is taken as fact, but I want to reason out the possibilities before we may (or may not) learn more from Brenda later.

 

This reminds me of this: https://tcrf.net/images/b/b1/Sonic2GGUGZ1.png



Obviously, this is pure coincidence.

 

Let's assume that piece is for Sonic 2. How do we know it's using assets made for Sand Shower and not the other way around?

Perhaps when working at STI she was asked to submit a sample showing she understood the Sonic artstyle in order to be hired onto the project. Then when she was contracted to work on Sand Shower, she repurposed some of the assets in that sample.

 

A 2nd Rock World never made it past the initial island concept maps, as it was already cut in the first timeline/story document alongside both Tropical Plant and Tropical Summer being merged into the single Tropical Sun.

IIRC, the Past 2 map was then cut in the second timeline/story doc we have, merging the two "Blue" levels into just Blue Ocean. This would've been before any work on the levels themselves had happened.

I'm still of the opinion that if Olympus became anything, it was Neo Green Hill/Emerald Isle/Aquatic Ruin. It's a semi-aquatic level with a Greek/Roman theme and a mysteriously late game level slot.

 

We really should be careful with that sketch.

We quite literally have no idea if it's Blue Ocean or not. It's not even a real "level map", just a doodle that happens to resemble a level layout. There's no chunks or anything. And what would a genuine concept for an approved Sonic 2 level be doing in Tom Payne's notebook anyway?

If I had to guess, it is more or less similar to Craig Stitt's planned carnival zone - An entirely personal concept that he came up with to pitch to Yasuhara, only for him to tell that all the level themes had been planned already.

 

That banper enemy document referred to "Rock Zone" as being in the past, so we don't really know what's going on with that level. Also, regarding the 2nd past, the newer document we got recently states that you would do 1 zone on the first visit, then 2 others (it lists "Blue" and "Highland") on the second.

 

It's a scan (that's why the zone name is cut off) located with other scanned concepts from other members of the team that Tom Payne had. If it was just someone's personal concept, Tom Payne wouldn't of had a copy of it.

 

Good point. But that just makes me wonder what's going on with the animal and Balkiry doodles - those are very clearly Payne's style.

 

He doodled over the scans (you can see his sketches drawn over the Japanese concept art). Since Tom was an enemy artist over multiple zones including Sand Shower, he was likely given a copy of that water level concept art and tasked with designing enemies for it.

Oh yeah, that does put a wrench in things. It's possible that Rock World was moved back to the past to balance the levels out around the time Neo Green Hill was added, but that's pure speculation.

The second visit to the past still took place on the "Past 1" map, it was the "Past 2/tsunami" map that was cut. If we assume "Highland" is a rough translation for Hill Top, then everything still lines up with the first doc:
1st visit - Tropical Sun
2nd visit - Blue Ocean, Hill Top

EDIT:

So, after the first visit to the past with Tropical Sun, the volcano erupts.

S3&K strikes again?

 

this is kind of the downfall with blanking out the placeholders. There are "electric floors" or whatever they were supposed to be in some spots. I'd still love to know what those were meant to be.

 

Interesting comparison, but I'm pretty sure the volcano erupted between the past and the present (leading to the ruined present), rather than the past.

The ruined past was supposedly caused by a tsunami. And even that seems to have been dropped by the time they created the story documents. The timeline documents use the same past map for all past visits, and make no mention of the island in the past being destroyed.

 

The Death Egg Zone (S&K) electric floors maybe? Many things in these maps make me think of DEZ.


https://info.sonicretro.org/images/1/1f/DeathEggAct1.png

Even those green tubes. I thought those might be near-instant teleporters.

It also kind of looks like maybe the point was for the fans to let you walk on the ceilings.

Is there no way to ask the artist, actually?

 

Rather than totally blanking out the floors with the purple overlay like that, it'd be better to set the purple layer to "multiply" blend mode or similar so that the original line work is still clearly visible through the colour fill. That way details like the electric floors wouldn't be obscured, but it'd still be more easily parsable than the raw scan.

Is a version of the maps with the red lines removed but no purple overlay added available? If so I could easily create a version like the one I've described by combining that with the existing one with the purple overlays, if people think it'd be useful. = )

 

Mark Cerny worked on Sonic X-treme?! That’s news to me. Am I missing something important here? I never seen his name dropped as part of the team anywhere.