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

I find it hard to believe a snowy mountaintop level would come directly after Hill Top, which already takes place on a mountaintop. It would thematically be not only repetitive but also incoherent, since looking at HTZ's graphics and background, despite rock formations rising above the clouds, there's no snow in site.

 

Of course there's no snow seen in Hill Top's background. The rock formations seen in Hill Top (red circle) are separate from Rock World's mountain (blue circle).

Personally I don't see how an ice level and volcano level are thematically repetitive, but that's just me.

 

But that section is labeled Blue Lake. If that's actually supposed to be Hill Top, then how do you know that snowy mountain (which could easily be moss/grass) is meant to be Rock World?

Think about it. Look at these smaller rocks over here. They have the same "icy" tops as that one bigger rock, but it obviously can't be ice. I'm pretty sure Yamaguchi wasn't thinking of a snowy mountain when he made that.

 

We're talking about Hill Top's background, not Hill Top's location. You were the one that brought up the rock formations near Blue Lake being visible in Hill Top's background. You're honestly not making any sense here.

And why exactly can't the smaller rock also have an ice cap? It's still fairly large in comparison to other objects such as the pyramid and things are definitely not to scale in the concept art.
EDIT: Here's Mount Fuji for example. A mountain can have snow while surrounded by plains, forest, or water.

 

The past map's depiction of Hill Top has palmtrees and not that much extreme height variation. I think that it's safe to say that Hill Top as we know it didn't properly exist yet.

Besides, wouldn't Ocean Wind coming right after Green Hill be equally redundant?

 

There's the 2nd Past Map, after a tsunami or whatever.
Hill Top exists there as a sole island, with tall mountains right before it.
I still believe the Hill Top we know was adjusted from that past one, changing seawater to clouds.

 

Interesting theory. The Hill Top background would indeed fit the second past map if that's the case, and it would make the zone closer to Green/Emerald Hill.

Worth noting that the minimaps in the story document imply that the layout of the second past map was adopted as the standard past layout at some point, being used even in the first visit to the past. If that's the case, it makes even more sense for HTZ's background to be based on it.

 

Not to mention gives it an even more logical reason to share ground tiles with Emerald Hill.

 

Damn guys, Hill Top here is even not on the top.
I bet that this is just a draft and they were selecting the places for zones just to show how it will be looking, instead of "100% true will be in final game"
Who knows, maybe they were not sure where to put Rock World and put it in two time maps?

 

Exactly. I'm willing to bet that actual sprite artwork didn't even exist for any zones by the time the maps and the timelines were made.

Also, didn't one person find out a while back that all the zone name labels were either stickers or at least separate pieces of paper? For all we know, there being two Rock Worlds could've been either a mistake or a misunderstanding - maybe whoever scanned this past map with Rock World's label had no idea that someone else had already put it on the Now 2 map.

 

There's evidence suggesting this, take a look at the first past visit map on the timeline document:

Green = Tropical Sun
Blue = Blue Ocean
Red = Hill Top
Orange = Rock World
Despite being listed only for the ruined present on the document, an X mark is still shown on the map for Rock World, so they were likely still deciding on where to place the zone while this document was being created.

The same thing is seen for Tropical Sun (since Tropical Plant/Summer were also merged at this point) on the second past visit:


EDIT: For curiosity's sake, here's the ruined present map:

Orange = Rock World
Purple = Oil Ocean
Teal = Dust Hill
The other stage listed is Death Egg, which was split between the ruined present and future (as Neo Death Egg) at this point in development. The mountain above Rock World does not appear on the regular present map, suggesting it is the location for the stage.
EDIT2: Accidentally colored the Xs for Oil Ocean and Dust Hill wrong and fixed the image.

 

Given the stuff found in the other protos released thus far, and how much was changing as production went on, IMO the chance for interesting stuff (in general) could be greater than "maybe." Especially for the build shown in the magazine scan DRX linked to earlier (doubly if it is, in fact, between the Nick Arcade and Wai protos).

Ugh, I hate asking "are people attempting to hunt down these protos?" because I feel like a cunt doing so even if the question is meant in a "IDC how long it takes, or if it ultimately succeeds or not, I just hope that the attempt is made" kind of way, so I won't.

Though god damn is it hard to resist, since there is still a lot of territory left to cover (between the start of development and the Nick Arcade proto, between the Nick Arcade proto and Wai proto especially, (obviously including not just builds used for promoting Sonic 2, but internal builds as well).

 

It 100% isn't - as has been pointed out previously, Sonic is already using his final sprites in all the screenshots of that build, meaning it's post-Wai at the absolute earliest.

 

I really, really don't think we're ever going to find any more full protos for Sonic 2. That well has dried up. Anything between Nick Arcade and Simon Wai was never shown at trade shows or magazines.

 

I mean, it would be difficult, even a long shot, but I think the track record of the community (and especially DRX/Hidden-Palace) shows that there is a large gulf between unlikely, or thought-to-be-impossible, and actually impossible.

 

Good catch / that'll teach me to latch on to information with 3 hours of sleep.

 

It's not impossible, but statistically unlikely. We have more chances to find another Sonic 1 prototype, than pre-Wai build of Sonic 2.
We hadn't found any Sonic prototype after Sonic 1 one in 2020-21, I guess? I wonder if we find anything soon.
If we haven't seen anything, can we know that it ever existed? It's a miracle that we've got tons of Sonic 2 dev materials, and protos, and digitizers, and Desert graphics, but I hardly belive that we will find another new proto of Sonic 2 that will be having anything that we never seen before.
P.S.: Tom Payne disks have nothing else to see. Yup, nothing but a stuff that already public.

 

Personally I'd say it's more likely we'd get another Sonic 3 prototype before another Sonic 1 prototype. It's always a case of Sonic not being an established IP at the time so Sonic 1 prototypes were undesirable, magazines probably returned or discarded their Sonic 1 protos after making their articles, and the prototype we did get was once in a lifetime occurrence. This is why we have a ton of Sonic 2 prototypes, since everyone wanted their hands on it. And no doubt, people also wanted Sonic 3 prototypes so I'm sure there's more out there, although rare because it's development was more under lock and key due to how many Sonic 2 leaks there were.

 

But we had just one prototype in articles of 1993..
I'd say that it's opposite situation of what you said :P