More Sega related than Sonic, but anyways... Remember that marketing with the 32X and how it was implied sexually that the systems were making an arcade machine? Well, I just realized that it may have been intentional. Either that or Sega is really really clever:
Baaahahahahaha, Oh man, wow. Can't believe I never saw that before... Then again, that only works for the European region, neither the US nor Japanese have the correct font for it to work very well.
Sonic sketch by Curt Swan (Superman comics illustrator) from the ill fated "The Encyclopedia of Videogame Characters" by Jeff Rovin with Facts on File. Jeff also did other Encyclopedias (Superheroes,Monsters etc) but this one fell through.
Sonic looks like a weird snowman with the circles for his head and body being roughly the same size like that.
How did they get a rather obscure character's story instead of a rather known, albeit infamously, characters? I typed 'Silver Sonic' into Google to make sure it wasn't just someone being lazy: first two results are "Silver the Hedgehog - Sonic News Network" and "Mecha Sonic - Sonic News Network". Even then, I'd expect the Mega Drive version out of the two...
So according to Adrian Gauna on my save screen music after 47 minutes video, you can play a song on the sound test like 18, then go on E1 and press the C button repeatedly. Not too fast, but like once a second. After ten seconds or so, the song comes blasting back in full volume, and only for some instruments. This works in S3, S3&K and S&K. Pretty snazzy. Also a bonus factoid: song 18 is the same as 2E. Well I'll be.
Yeah, that can be quite good fun. If you do it on the S&K credits medley (DC), the volume snaps back to normal every time it moves onto a new zone. 18 and 2E were not always the same: S3 has the S&K miniboss theme on 18 and the S3 miniboss theme on 2E. All uses of the miniboss theme in S[3]&K still reference track ID 2E; 18 is never called.
Not sure if this has been brought up, but... Tiara sure does look familiar... O hai old manga Amy, how're y-... -looks back and forth between them- She even has the same bow, differently coloured...
Oh wow they are pretty similar actually. What I find funny though is I've never noticed how 90s/80s Tiara's outfit is. Just everything about that design. Crazy
Aye, though I'm sure it's just a coincidence now that I think about it, like Orbot having the same name as the robots in Vectorman (orbots)
Wasn't that Madonna's look for a while... or Kylie Not really my fortay but you guys are probably looking too much into this.
Here's an interesting Sonic 2 tidbit I haven't seen documented before. Simon Wai proto: Sonic 2 Final (I don't know if any of the revisions fixed this or not): 3x screenshot from S2 Beta 4, in case you can't quite see it: One of the waterfall "cutoff" tiles is garbled in Beta 4 onwards. QUICKEDIT: Actually, speaking of Sonic 2, question time. According to the wiki's page on Wood Zone, there's "new background scrolling data" present in Rev. 00 that isn't in the Wai prototype. I've tried looking at the disassemblies (specifically, Wai/B4/Rev00), and I can't see any differences. Can anyone verify this?
Basic research, man: http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=5084&st=0&p=82646&hl=+wood%20+zone&fromsearch=1&#entry82646 Also relevant, "The origin of the Sonic 2 Beta ROM / And why it's the only one we'll ever see:" http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=5214&st=0&p=84979&hl=+wood%20+zone&fromsearch=1&#entry84979
In my defence the wiki isn't very clear on what it means and doesn't have a reference link In all seriousness though, thanks. EDIT: On a somewhat relevant note, I went to check out the WZ "scrolling" mentioned on the debug display in the Wai proto - It's fluctuating like that in all the levels in the beta, not just Wood Zone.
Also, that water surface uses Sonic's palette, which is annoying because it turns bright yellow when you go Super and red/green when you lock-on S&K.
My Sonic Second column on the subject provides translations for some of the SPEC pages. These pages, to be exact: Music Galaxy, His Name Is Sonic I'm hoping someone with more time can wiki-fy the info. Here's the original zip from the person who did the translating, in case it's useful.