I'm releasing a prototype of Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure that I bought from Yahoo Japan. Enjoy! News article: http://hiddenpalace.org/News/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_Pocket_Adventure_Prototype Prototype article (with download): http://hiddenpalace.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_Pocket_Adventure_(Oct_22,_1999_prototype) Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhGgoojn13Q Previous discussion: http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=35469&st=0&p=859164&#entry859164 Thanks to Jelq God, Jen, JTE, Peter Küffner and SoNick for donating!
Hey look what I found in the second Test Level: EDIT: Here's some more stuff from the test level. Looks like they tried to give the item monitor icons the yellow border? Different hurt animation. Different spring animation. And a different win animation.
After feeling blessed with the Final ROM Archives, and now this, I feel like I should give thanks for all the great work! The prototype and it's obscure handheld platform nature should definitely fuel some interest back into the reverse engineering scene for sure. Oh yeah, also: There's a weird data stream possibly acting as padding, duplicated 2 times throughout the final and the prototype, and it is slightly different in both. No idea why. Spoiler Spoiler
I noticed that the Knuckles fight uses the normal boss music rather than Flying Battery Act 2 or whatever it had before.
Nicely done! But that Aladdin prototype - there was a topic here and it's totally definitely not a Summer CES build. I have lots of evidence (though the key is that the 27th is three weeks after SCES 1993) - just figured I'd quash it before it spread further.
Several songs have differences in arrangement, with the most different being Cosmic Casino 2 which has some different notes on the 2nd harmonic lead. Valleybell should take a look at this! Also the Test level map seems to be this GIF: http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=29461 Would we be able to extract the complete maps?
Not exactly, there are screenshots of that build, apparently yes, but there are other screens with alpha material, with green waterfalls and Motobug. So it was mostly 'prototype talk in general' back then. Also songs with noticeable differences: Knuckles Encounter (Cutscene): Extra/different beat before the loop Mushroom Hill (Aquatic Relix 1): No echo on the main Lead, no harmonics added in some parts and different loop Slot Machine Theme (Cosmic Casino Act 2): Lacks the intro, different stereo setup, different volumes, different backing harmony and completely different percussion Other songs may also have differences but I couldn't point the out just by listening (just maybe some panning/volume changes). I intend to record wavs of the prototype tracks and try 'wave cancelling' with the final songs.
I didn't have much time to research the prototype yet, but extracted all sound data and collected offsets for level data. (I want to dump level maps later.) I compared the music files of prototype and final version and these are my notes so far: Spoiler Code (Text): proto final bgm20.bin ! different song bgm21.bin = [instrument IDs] bgm21.bin bgm22.bin = bgm22.bin bgm23.bin = bgm23.bin bgm24.bin = [instrument IDs] bgm24.bin bgm25.bin ! [song differences] bgm27.bin bgm26.bin = [instrument IDs] bgm29.bin bgm27.bin = bgm2C.bin bgm28.bin = bgm2D.bin bgm29.bin ! [minor song differences] bgm2E.bin bgm2A.bin = bgm2F.bin bgm2B.bin = bgm30.bin bgm2C.bin ! [instrument IDs, song differences] bgm31.bin bgm2D.bin ! [minor song differences] bgm32.bin bgm2E.bin ! [minor song differences] bgm33.bin bgm2F.bin ! [minor song differences] bgm34.bin bgm30.bin ! [song differences] bgm35.bin bgm31.bin = [instrument IDs] bgm36.bin bgm32.bin ! [different arrangement] bgm37.bin bgm33.bin ! [song differences] bgm38.bin bgm34.bin ! [song differences] bgm39.bin bgm35.bin = [instrument IDs] bgm3A.bin bgm36.bin = [instrument IDs] bgm3B.bin bgm37.bin ! [song differences] bgm3C.bin bgm38.bin ! [song differences] bgm3D.bin bgm39.bin = [instrument IDs] bgm3E.bin bgm3A.bin = bgm3F.bin instrument IDs: If only the instrument IDs are different, the song should be the same, since IDs are shared with sound effects. (i.e. loading more or less SFX results in different instrument IDs) minor song differences: There are minor differences in the song data, but overall the data is the same. song differences: There are more or less commands/notes in the song, so all data is shifted. Songs/SFX are using a bitstream-based format, so you need to decompress them before you can tell the exact differences. I haven't looked at SFX yet, but they are ordered differently from the final.
If you're dumping level maps, hopefully you can get the right palette for Gigantic Angels maps. The current rips of the final maps on the wiki have an incorrect background palette.
Also, the level layout - specially Gigantic Angel - is very unfinished! EDIT: So what we got is earlier than what we saw on the screenshots from before: Far left: this proto Middle: IGN's Right: Final game. They enlarged the boxes/platforms and made them easier to see with the yellow BG. Cosmic Casino roulettes are non-existant in this version, so it's safe to say it's an Alpha.
Was the puzzle piece added in the IGN proto then removed again in the final, or was it collected in both of those screenshots?