Guys, I can't stress how important it is you read the book. It's very clear that how the game turned out was because SEGA of America's involvement. They saw the concept, asked for it to be changed to omit what was weird/crazy about it to appeal to all audiences. They axed Sonic's girlfriend with the"great cleavage", and changed some aspects of his design, as in Japan he was very serious looking, though in the game I always felt that remained. Sonic's band members would have stayed as part of the soundtest regardless of their ommission from the gameplay itself, but due to time constraints that was axed and what came of it was the SEGA logo screen you see today, which is infinitely famous. Notice that Sonic was meant to have his jumping celebration pose, and it even mentions how long this would have lasted. If the game had not been changed we might not all be here today as Sonic may not have been that popular if SoA hadn't stepped in. Also, it is pretty clear Ancient didn't just do their own thing, and had some set earlier ideas about what Sonic was before they were left to their devices. They may even have had some of these concepts to use as reference, as there's some great similarities. Glad now that I bought a copy of the SMS game as it's important to the history of the game we all know and love.
This stuff is incredible! You can definitely see how some elements of the original Final Boss concept survive in the SMS version of the game - the enclosed room, being shot at from the ceiling, Robotnik encased in glass which then shatters... The most interesting ones for me are definitely the ending storyboard and the boss battle - it's amazing to see that the famous wrecking ball was originally conceived to be a part of a "proper" demolition machine! Interesting to note that the platforms were intended to be further in and move up and down, which would in theory make it quite a bit harder - I wonder if it was intended to be a later boss than it ended up being? As well as the history of the MD, hardware plans etc, does the "Collected Works" book contain concept designs and production materials of this sort from some of the other games featured? If so I definitely need to pick this up. = )
For other games they have bits of concept art and designs straight from the the designers themselves. It's not chock full of tonnes of stuff like that, but they have a decent amount of stuff at least I'd never seen before, including alternate designs of the Mega Drive controllers.
Eh, don't get me wrong. I'm not bashing SoA specifically*. And on the other hand, I'm not bashing SoJ specifically*. All I'm saying is, they really could have been two separate franchises at some point (ideally before the first game) and the decades-long power struggle might have been alleviated somewhat. *That being said I've never been shy about stating what I completely disagree with stylistically coming from either entity. Mohawk Sonic being one. "Dr. Eggman" being another. Hence in a weird way the power struggle resulting in what's Modern sonic today along with what's generally accepted as 'classic' Sonic is a good thing. Not to mention how having both western and Japanese influences made the franchise's music as memorable as it is today. Michael Jackson involvement aside, which up till today I think was a needless clusterfuck the franchise really could have done without**, as good as S3&K's soundtrack is. (**p.s. don't hurt me)
Well you're right, it's potentially the reason S3&K is struggling currently, so MJ's involvement could really have caused this major issue. Still, the music is freakin' electric, I wouldn't change the way things have gone. It's given us a lot to do in our spare time!
I can't stress how important it is to have scans in the public domain so this stuff is preserved forever, but politics!
I'm happy to do this, but I'm a supporter of this kickstarter project and I don't agree with scanning everything until at least a reasonable period of time has passed. Makes me feel like I'm giving away the stuff for free which would be detrimental. The book's been out, like, 2 days so far, it's a bit early days :v: Plus, everyone on the internet comes to Sonic Retro for news like this. I wouldn't be bothered if we were a closed community.
It's a stellar soundtrack, but completely not worth the hassle. I don't give a shit if MJ's the king of pop, there's a reason why legalese for music as it pertains to games is going through quite the volcano as far as union contracts, copyrights and publishing, secondaries, back-ends, etc go. What applies to pop music, what applies to film scores and TV, even, simply does not work for games due to its much more flexible nature. Don't care if you're the King of China, when in Rome, do as Rome does. When you're doing game music, you're doing game music. Something that people didn't seem to grasp back then. (And which people don't seem to fully grasp right now, although times are pretty telling) edit: I personally feel that the fact that MJ's side reportedly 180'd out of the deal because he wasn't happy with the way the chip sounded is pretty telling he was being simply unreasonable because of his status. And of course, we're going way off topic here. :P My MJ rants could honestly be its own thread so I'll just drop it for now.
I doubt Sonic's popularity was due to the omission of content rather than the content the game had. Sonic 1 had graphics, sound and gameplay that exceeded standards at the time. It helps that Sega went all out with the marketing because they needed Sonic to sell the Genesis. I don't think the band members would have interfered with that. I know a lot of the scrapped concepts were a little weird, but so was the stuff that Sega would eventually think up. Flying two-tailed foxes, red echidnas with giant fists, and while we're talking about American Sonic stuff, all of AoSTH. At the same time, maybe the Western world wasn't ready for Ohshima's brand of weirdness. Ristar and Dynamite Headdy had a similar brand of weirdness and those games didn't exactly take off. Both of those games were heavily localized though, so maybe it wasn't their Japanese influence that interfered with their commercial success.
There's even more substantial Gunstar Heroes and Streets of Rage production material exposés, including reproduced game plan documents from when they were pitched as "Lunatic Gunstar" and "D-SWAT". There's also a load of concept artwork and stuff from Eternal Champions, Toejam & Earl, Vectorman, Comix Zone and Monster World IV, to name a few. Highly recommended if you're curious about early concepts and industry secrets from the era.
Just a snippet for you all from the book. In an interview with Art Director Kazuyuki Hoshino he was asked: "Is there any truth about a level from Sonic CD - known as R2 - being cut from the final game?". The response is: "I have heard that there are rumours about this on the internet. However, it is probably too dangerous to talk about it here. I would prefer not to comment [Laughs]". Curious...
Me too ! It looks very interesting ! I've asked Naoto Ohshima the same thing threw a chat and got a similar response some years back.
I never bought for a second that S1 was meant to be as empty as it was. Deadlines must have played a large role, but I haven't read the book so I'm just making assumptions. I really like a lot of this cut content, and the 8-bit game does feel like the other missing half. It just makes it all feel more coherent, a much more well rounded vision for the early Sonic universe. On another note, am I the only one that prefers the direction Sonic 2 was taking around the Wai build? I like the music a little better for some reason, and the art style was much closer to 1's. I always thought Sonic 2's final art direction looked a little too "harsh" and narrow, if that makes any sense. Specifically with Sonic's sprites, I just don't like his S2 final set. His 1/CD set looked more expressive and was much more polished (I cannot believe the level of sloppiness in 2's art). Like the first game, the final build feels empty. It would have felt much more well rounded had they kept Dust Hill and some of the other stuff.
While all this cut content is really cool, I have to admit that I like Sonic 1 just as it is. Sonic 1 is my 2nd favorite game in the series, after Sonic CD. I started with Sonic 1, getting every game in the series in order as they released, and I absolutely adored Sonic 1. I thought Sonic 2 was a bit of a letdown compared to the original when I got it, only for the best game in the series to arrive the following year.
So many cool things to read in this thread! I miss the days when Sonic 2 beta speculation was the main thing to debate. It's great that drx found the "Nick Arcade" proto (we were never 100% it was from Nick arcade and from what drx said earlier about Sega getting their prototypes back it might not have been from Nick Arcade afterall.) The only bad thing about finding it was it answered the majority of our questions and we didn't have anything to talk about relating to the prototypes because Sonic 1's history was pretty scarce. I'm someone who believes most cut content was cut for the good of the game and its future. I'm happy they cut the band stuff because I doubt Sonic would have done as well as it did (it also gives us stuff to talk about.) The ball in the Nick Arade pilot was interesting but was obviously removed because it served little purpose and was potentially a test object. People are always bitching about how the Sonic series has so many lame and unnecessary characters, imagine if the series STARTED OUT that way. Sega came up with the winning formula which was Sonic 1 and I'll never believe otherwise. It's a good thing they had the winning formula from the start or the series would have just fell over and died if we started out with a game like Sonic Adventure (ick.) The only thing I was ever sad about was Hidden Palace zone, which had beautiful art but that's all it ever really had going for it. HPZ fell victim to time constraints, while that was never confirmed, that's what all the evidence pointz to. The rest of the prototype Sonic 2 things that were removed were either unnecessary (Wood zone) or were improved upon (Casino Night.) There were also things that supposedly exist but we'll never see (Dust hill zone, cyber city.) But yeah....crossing mg fingers that a Sonic 1 prototype is discovered and is early enough to be interesting. I'd love to see the Wayne's world footage playable since I find the UFOs to be so....random.
I thought it was already confirmed in an existing interview that Hidden Palace was cut due to time constraints. If not though, then this'll be of interest to you: "It [The Hidden Palace] had to be removed in the end due to time and capacity restraints, which was a shame, but all games experience these kind of cuts during development." - Yuji Naka, SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works. Also interesting is that in the book's midsection of sprite art and background graphics, one of the chosen showpieces for Sonic 2 is... Hidden Palace! They show off a section of it's foreground and background art, which is odd as you obviously never see that in the final game.
