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(DC) Sonic Adventure Prototype (1998-10-16)

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Orengefox, May 21, 2013.

  1. Fred

    Fred

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    Not necessarily. Froggy's "name" in the Japanese dialogue is kaeru-kun, literally the word frog with the honorific -kun, which is commonly used to describe a close friend. Thus, a possible interpretation of kaeru-kun is in fact, your friend frog. Whoever localized the mission texts probably wasn't privy to the character's name in the English dialogue and just went with a direct transliteration, which got noticed and corrected sometime during development.


    This. Seriously, my thoughts hearing this were "Why the hell didn't they use this instead of the version which had my ears tired after just one or two minutes?"

    EDIT:
    From watching this, ZERO appears to be using menu sounds for his scanning actions... Placeholders or just the wrong sound bank? Also, the reflection on the spikeballs is busted.

    Big does indeed seem to start inside the cave area that's a secret in the final game. Maybe this room was going to be the entirety of Big's stage, until they realized they had already pulled that shit with Twinkle Park and tacked on a bit of Sonic's act along with some new geometry to box it in.
     
  2. MainMemory

    MainMemory

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    I looked into stg00, and to my surprise, there are three sets of level geometry right at the beginning of the file.

    The first one (0x6C) shows this:
    [​IMG]
    This level uses no textures, consists entirely of three models, and I think it might match the unused SET file and paths that were discussed in the SADX Preview topic a while back...
    The second one (0x120)... shows nothing in SALVL, and consists of four models.
    The third one (0x2F8) crashes SALVL, and consists of twelve models.
     
  3. JansenM

    JansenM

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    Been scrolling through the tracks, and 'And... Fish Hits!' (12.ADX) is completely missing the guitar riff at 0:30, and the song as a whole feels like it has less instruments/is less exciting.
     
  4. Tanks

    Tanks

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    [​IMG]

    I don't think this is exactly the same stage, but looking at E-102 down in the center there, its certainly very similar with the 3 circular platforms in background, but I don't think you could reproduce that screenshot with the way the platforms are lined up in the model...
     
  5. evilhamwizard

    evilhamwizard

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    Awesome! It's interesting to see all these changes that occurred months before the game went gold.

    I think the level geometry for a lot of the levels, even those not included here, are present. So maybe we can at least see if the some of the levels are modeled completely different. STG02 (Windy Valley) looks to be bigger in file size in this prototype than the final NTSC-J version.
     
  6. DustArma

    DustArma

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    It looks way too blurry to make out anything.
     
  7. MSX

    MSX

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    Looks like SA1 might have had rankings. Wonder why they would decide to put it off until SA2
     
  8. redhotsonic

    redhotsonic

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    If that's true, then why is the S purple instead of gold? =P


    Anyway, nice find on the SA prototype!
     
  9. ashthedragon

    ashthedragon

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    My friend DaGuAr -Gorila5 in Youtube- ( geez, he really needs making an account here...he has made so much discoveries!) has found a few things.

    First, the second set of geometry found in stg00 by mainmemory, he was able to open it on SALVL, using the same data as mainmemory did ( dunno why it didn't work for him in the first place). Here are the results, a pretty cool looking level.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Also, he has found some strange texture at Red Mountain's texture pack. He doesn't recalls seeing this ghost-like textures in the final game.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Finally, he has located some sort of playable tutorial textures for Knuckles.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    maybe those geometry sets are for practice/test levels?
     
  10. Catley

    Catley

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    Definitely noticing some differences in the music tracks. Some of the backing instruments in Emerald Coast Act 1 sound much clearer. The song also seems to be missing an extra drum at the beginning of it.
     
  11. 0r4ng3

    0r4ng3

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    It doesn't make me recall anything in the game...

    A hub prototype? Or a tutorial level? The other post where it speaks of textures for tutorial levels can be an indication of the latter (it even has a loop for / due to Sonic).

    My first thought was Windy Valley, because of the path with the mountain on the left side, the sunk basin and the lacing paths, but then I actually paid attention what this is STG00 not STG02. It has weird path options. Again, hub (could be the mystic ruins, that too has a sunk basin in there) or a tutorial level.

    That is bizarre and doesn't fit with the colour scheme of what's in the cave. I guess that's the point.

    Yes, yes, I'm just saying what I see in this, don't be mean. :v:
     
  12. MainMemory

    MainMemory

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    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQXU9qunIt0
     
  13. evilhamwizard

    evilhamwizard

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    I'm noticing a few things with Chao in this build.

    There's not much in this build for Chao, but there is more stuff than the usual levels that didn't get utilized for the demo. There's data for the Chao's Emotions, which is similar to the final (with the unused emotions) but all the emotions are colored yellow while the final is colored in a way to allow custom coloring and shading. I believe geometry data for all three gardens exist, but only the Station Square Chao Garden has it's texture data (no objects though). The textures from what I can tell are the same except the texture quality is higher in this version. The other two Chao Gardens (AL_GARDEN01 and AL_GARDEN02) seem to contain some data. AL_GARDEN01 makes references to the Egg Carrier Chao Garden textures, but there's no texture file in this version of the game. There are some object references as well, to rings, a tree, and a flower. AL_GARDEN02 has very little data - no references to textures and rings are the only objects referenced in the object list. But there does seem to be other data in the file though, so maybe some geometry for something really basic.

    As far as Chao Racing goes I only see AL_RACE.BIN. Nothing else besides that.
     
  14. AeonicB

    AeonicB

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    Is it just me, or does the snowboarding part of Ice Cap look bare? I remember more scenery in the tunnel, amongst a few other things.

    Also, nice find on the test level.

    ETA: Because skiing =!= snowboarding. While both of them involve moving down the mountain with some sort of plastic or wooden thing attached to your feet, the difference is one or two. Yeah, I'm being blonde today.
     
  15. I apologize if this is a bit much to ask, but is a selfboot .CDI hack available?

    Maybe I could do a recording of a run of the autodemo if I can get it running on my Dreamcast.

    Failing that I suppose I could borrow a computer and capture it from an emulator...
     
  16. ICEknight

    ICEknight

    Researcher Researcher
    Might be a long shot, but I'm seeing something that looks like a roulette and some pinball rails in there. Early Casinopolis, perhaps? The wavy floor kinda looks like the mountains of money in the final.

    Those would fit better in a Mystic Cave-like zone, hmm...
     
  17. Eric Wright

    Eric Wright

    Born into this. Oldbie
    Those loops aren't scripted, are they? Like, the player would have to actually gain enough speed and navigate them properly to get around them, right? Were any of the loops in the final game like that, or had they all been scripted so people wouldn't run off into oblivion?

    I think it's just a test level with components to see how the mechanics work...
     
  18. MainMemory

    MainMemory

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    They aren't scripted when imported to SADXPC, but they might be in the proto. There are some parts of the second test level (which I just recorded and will upload shortly) that are absolutely impossible without being scripted.
     
  19. XCubed

    XCubed

    Will Someday Own a Rent-A-Center Oldbie

    Wow, same here! This version isn't as needlessly intense as the final. I thought it was just that I was used to the SA2 version. I still remember thinking this game was old back in 2003 when DX came out. I was dead wrong.
     
  20. evilhamwizard

    evilhamwizard

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    I haven't been able to figure out how to get controls back during gameplay. I can't even bring up the typical debug info when messing around with some memory regions.

    I messed around with Cheat Engine and managed to find the address where the timer adds a second to the clock. For Demul 0.5.7 Beta I have 2C78E9E9. You can also modify the ring count around this area too at another address close by. But normally, at least as far as the NTSC-J version goes, there's an address that displays some debugging information on the screen that's usually at FF. Making it 00 will make the debugging information display. I can't seem to find that here in this version. So hopefully this will start someone off on the right path.

    Also some more side notes. I noticed that Casinopolis's STG file is really really smaller than usual. There aren't any icons for the invincibility and shield boxes for some reason. Another weird thing is that the 1up icons for each character (when you collect a 1UP) is flipped horizontally, except for Sonic. So Sonic's still looking left but everyone else is looking right.