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Sonic 1 prototype Video (FAKE)

Discussion in 'Fangaming Discussion' started by Andrew75, Feb 6, 2012.

  1. Arique

    Arique

    SHUWATCH! Member
    If this ends up being a hoax then this is gonna go down as being one of the biggest trollfests of the century. But yeah, I really, REALLY hope that this is real. Only way to find out is with a rom dump!
     
  2. Sik

    Sik

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    being an asshole =P
    Considering how everybody here thought it was a hoax since the beginning, doubt so. Now, if it's real (doubt so), then it's one of the biggest reverse trollfests of the century instead =S
     
  3. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    Great, now this shit is corrupting the memories of the original devs. We might as well accept it as real even if it's not, let's change history.

    This really sickens me...
     
  4. Mastered Realm

    Mastered Realm

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    Shit you truly think "the original betass more important than the game" srsly, when making a game, what gets scrapped is what's bad! Seeing a beta is interesting. Only interesting, the most important version we already have, Sonic 1 Final!
     
  5. Aerosol

    Aerosol

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    Sonic (?): Coming summer of 2055...?
    You must be new here :v:.

    But seriously. Betas give us insight into how things could have been, which to alot of us here, is more interesting than what we have. I mean, we can look at what we have any time we want!
     
  6. Sik

    Sik

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    being an asshole =P
    May as well realize that anything you do with the developers at this point will eventually "corrupt" their memory (hint: if it's like that then most likely they already forgot about it for starters so it's already lost).

    Or what started being implemented but took too much time to meet the deadlines so was scrapped, or what was originally implemented that later had to be removed because it interfered with whatever was done later from a technical standpoint, or something the game designers thought was good but the marketing department didn't like...
     
  7. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    I think enough has been said on the "it could be real or it could be fake side of the topic"
    I hope we can keep the topic clean and ready for if real news appears on the subject.
    or for if anyone wants to take the time to dissect this and post visual results.
     
  8. David The Lurker

    David The Lurker

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    Right..ok. Let's all calm down for a second. Sit down. Take a breath. Everyone ok? Then let's go over this in a very calm and gentle manner.

    First off, for anyone who was saying "it's fake!!1!" not because of the content of the video, but because it was a new YouTube account...um...I don't see how that means anything either way? Anyone can make an account at YouTube at any time, why would it have to be from someone established? I mean, yes, you need a healthy dose of skepticism when you hit these waters, but you're going way beyond that level when you question the material for the most arbitrary of reasons.

    Now, for me personally, I have doubts about the video for very simple reasons. I don't know the technical ins and outs like Taxman, but I do know what Yuji Naka has said about this previously, and what we have available. At Summer of Sonic, he explained that these images of the Green Hill Zone were from a build that was created for the Tokyo Toy Show in 1990. Now, to me, that says that they really wanted to push certain things, even though they were still way early on in development. For instance, I can see there not being any loops, since we don't know when they finally got that right, and they wouldn't showcase something broken. But the video leaves out some very important things. We don't get to see the title screen. We don't get to see the welcome sign anywhere. If you had not just a prerelease version of Sonic, but THE prerelease, wouldn't you want to start the video from the beginning, and not randomly in the middle of the level? Of course, we're all assuming its the middle, but it could very well be the beginning if it is fake. I also find the fact the level just...ends...rather unsettling.

    Unfortunately, we don't know what capacity the game was shown off at within the Tokyo Toy Show. We don't know if it was just being shown on a screen, if people were able to play it, or...what. We have no proper report on it since the only scans we have come from Electronic Gaming Monthly. We don't have any Japanese magazines from the same era, sadly.

    ...in trying to find the actual article, I just realized that the first image of Sonic just standing about came from issue 13 of EGM, while the one with the sign came from issues 15 or 16. Though when shown both, Naka implied they were from the same build...at the same time, he could have just been telling a story without going specifically off both. Yet both use the same art style, and...well, apparently it was just a case where EGM just showed off that shot with the sign and nothing else? See, we don't know what they were doing in Japan. EGM could have just been "oh we didn't show off this shot we had three months ago." It is frustrating knowing that there are all these uncertainties floating about.

    Either way, I'm not going to lie: I don't like the fact that when this topic was put up, everyone's first thought was "contact Yuji Naka!!" Have we all forgotten that the last time Naka looked at any of this was over 20 years ago? Tell me, if I were to show you grainy footage of something you worked on 20 years ago and asked you "hey is this real," what would you say? I have no doubt that if he were to actually play it, he would know instantly if it was his work or not. But Naka wasn't the art guy, he was the programmer. In that tweet, he is questioning placement. He is questioning technical issues. Ohshima might be the better person to ask if the art is authentic, but you know what? We shouldn't bother him. These people have better things to do than deal with a million questions from a bunch of random people. At the very least, it should not be everyone's first course action. Can you imagine if they were as readily available when the Simon Wai beta came out? None of them would be talking right now to us.

    lol do u know where u r

    So what you're saying is that you have no interest in the development of the original Sonic the Hedgehog. This isn't as simple as "they took out the bad stuff lol." The reason people get excited about this beta more than any other is because of the primordial nature of it. The earliest, rawest form of Sonic the Hedgehog. Besides, people don't always remove things from the final product because it's "bad." It could be because they ran out of time to work on something. It wasn't working as well as it should have been. They got excited about other ideas and put those concepts on the backburner. It's like a deleted scene in a film. Early versions of games offer a view into the development process. Scrapped level design, early graphics, unused ideas. The final product is only one half of the story. If you like Sonic the Hedgehog enough to post on a message board about it, wouldn't you want to know how your favorite character came to be?
     
  9. RGX

    RGX

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    [​IMG]

    Hey guys. I'm no expert of the specs or limitations of the genesis but do graphics usually cut off when playing? For example, sprites will sometimes be sliced in half? It happens to the trees a few times in the videos.
     
  10. LockOnRommy11

    LockOnRommy11

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    Still awaiting someone to just out and say that it's blatently obvious that it's a fake and that it's a silly joke, moreso so I can say to everyone "I told you so".

    On the topic of the proto version of Sonic 1, surely there must be some video of the game in some format somewhere in the friggin' world- I mean, japanese people at these gameshows surely would have had interviews, and press Q&A's. Somewhere in japan some unsuspecting person has some footage of the actual rom, and it would be amazing to see it.

    I honestly doubt that Sonic 1's rom will ever surface. I don't think it exists anymore, I honestly don't. It's a little tiny cartridge in a huge world and 22 years old, something which wasn't even well documented at the time, let alone now. All remnants of it are probably destroyed, and some game companies are known to throw out what they don't need anymore. The fact that Sonic The Hedgehog was such a tightly created game with much less outside view or input than the sequels just diminishes any hope we have. It was probably filed away somewhere and then some huge clearout happened.

    It's because of this why bullshit looking fan games like this become so popular in days. People want to believe it's real, despite there being no evidence to suggest so, and evidence strongly showing otherwise.

    Even poor Yuji Naka has taken an interest, though at least he doubts the object placement. Yji probably barely remembers anything about it- I hadn't played a Sonic game for a period of 5 years, and I totally forgot myself some major details about the world of Sonic up until I rejoined the scene in 2004, imagine what Yuji's brain is like- what he's looking at probably looks familiar, but at the same time, he probably has no idea of the extent of the Sonic fanbase and the games we've created, so he's probably quite dubious about openly questioning whether it's actually real or fake.
     
  11. evilhamwizard

    evilhamwizard

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    Like I said before, the smoking gun for really early prototypes of the game like this is supposed to be is the speed of Sonic himself. Supposedly at one point (even while the game was being play tested), Sonic used to be too fast. In these videos, it doesn't look like it. I don't know if they tuned it down for the toy fair demo or not.

    But really, the thing that killed this for me is the border. Even in the original screenshots, you can see that there's a border around the frame that takes the same color as the color of the sky. If the game were truly being played from a console, you would see something like that. But in the videos, there's a black border instead. Not sure if there could be a reason for that, but to me that's a dead give away. Unless it's not being played from a console (har har), but the end of the first video implies that it is.
     
  12. Metal Man88

    Metal Man88

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    As for Naka's memory, I get the idea that if he had more memory of the earlier versions than he did, he probably would have mentioned that already.

    As for this fake, it's just the same confirmation bias human beings have in general.

    Nothing much to see here, except a guy obviously trying to trick people into believing something that isn't real. You know what happens with real betas?

    They get sold for high amounts, posted up on the internet, or hoarded and hidden out of sight by jealous collectors.
     
  13. Sik

    Sik

    Sik is pronounced as "seek", not as "sick". Tech Member
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    being an asshole =P
    Bad programming can cause that... though pretty sure that never happens in the Sonic games. I'd like to say that's a tearing issue there (which would give it away as being a PC program), but only the palmtree is affected, not the entire image.

    We can't even see if it's a TV or a monitor or whatever, the room is way too dark. I tried brightening the image in GIMP, but it seems that only black is stored, so I can't tell its shape, period. But I'm pretty sure there's a border there... a black one, at that (slightly blue tinted due to CRT recording shenanigans).
     
  14. Endri

    Endri

    Officer I don't have my drivers license with me. C Tech Member
    Say that for yourself. I AM completely sure that this is a fan game, and I bet my status as a tech member on it.

    This "proto" game uses pixel-perfect collisions. Pixel-perfect. This by itself should be already enough evidence, since Sonic 1, CD, 2, 3 and Knuckles uses "sensorial rays" for collisions with planes, and square-to-square collisions for the sprites. The "sensorial rays" method of collision is prone to a few bugs since, if no collision array height is detected by the rays, the collision will not have response. This "proto", however,
    Now, are you telling me that Yuji Naka went from a good and modern collision engine to an archaic and more prone to bugs collison method? The collision response shown in this "proto" video is the default collision method used in most pre-made game-making engines, like, well, MMF. This method of collision in the Motorola 68000 would be as slow as polygon-to-polygon collisions were 8 years ago in 3D games.

    There are many other discrepancies as well: the initial jumping impulse value is different from the Mega Drive Sonic games, the gravity is different, and also, it seems like the gravity is different when going upward than when going downward, and it looks evidently like something you see in most MMF Sonic fan games. Now, I could give you that the jump could have been different in the betas than they are in the final version (since later in the delelopment, Sonic had to be slowed down), but I doulbt that the gravity would be that inconsitent.

    More on that,
    .

    About the graphical discrepancies, Rika Chou made a very important point that I, myself, personally didn't notice at first, if it wasn't for her point it out:
    Now, do I have to walkthrough all of you on how the VDP works?
     
  15. Eduardo Knuckles

    Eduardo Knuckles

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    Yes, I have to admit that you're really correct about this. I re-watched the video for analyze this that you said, and I noticed this. Also I'm not sure if it's my impression, but I'm feeling the lack of a RF/AV filter over it, wich makes me also think that this is really fake. It's impossible to have image of old console games in a TV without the RF/AV filtering, even if they're on a high-resolution TV or something like this. I think. Correct me if I'm wrong by talk this.
     
  16. Sik

    Sik

    Sik is pronounced as "seek", not as "sick". Tech Member
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    Stupid question: how can you determine that it's pixel-perfect collision when the only collision in the entire thing is against the floor? For all we know it could be a heightmap and it'd still work. Also, even MMF-based engines have consistent jump acceleration, meaning that the jumping code here is really crappy...
     
  17. Meat Miracle

    Meat Miracle

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    Better question, does anybody know what is that music playing in the background? I want it.

    edit: it's some cover of "Surfin Bird".
     
  18. Endri

    Endri

    Officer I don't have my drivers license with me. C Tech Member
    As I said, there is also collision against the wall. Actually, the correct way to describe it would be pixel-pefect-square-collision-to-collision-mask. You can tell the collision method because the Sonic jumping sprite slides around the edge of the ledge in a perfect square. In an actuall Mega Drive Sonic game, Sonic would start to enter inside the wall/overlapse the wall as soon as no collision were detected by the horizontal "ray."
     
  19. jasonchrist

    jasonchrist

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    That is true, it's human nature to want what we can't have/didn't get. But looking at things objectively, HPZ and Wood are just not as good as the zones that did end up in Sonic 2 Final.
     
  20. RGX

    RGX

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    Its some sort of remix of "Papa Oom Mow Mow" or "Surfin bird."


    On topic...

    Although I think its obviously fake. Is it confirmed that the up-loader indeed have this supposed beta cart? His video descriptions are very vague.

    This means either:

    1. He does not have the cart therefore he cannot sell it.
    2. He has the cart but refuses to sell it.

    So lets say its option 2...

    Don't you find it odd the video quality is pretty shit with no sound considering its 2012 already? The 90s are long gone... I'm pretty sure he can get a hold of a better camera with sound by now.

    This just screams hoax... Not to mention if someone did indeed had this cart, I'd assume the person would go through every length to prove its actual existence such as to show everything off such as what the cart looks like front and back, to inserting it into the genesis/megadrive and then finally playing it on the TV.

    Even so, this still wouldn't confirm anything unless a dump was done. However it would give less of an impression that its "bogus".