He says that he's been a part of Sonic Team starting with SA1, but was in charge of story starting with SA2. I can see how that might confuse some, though. Maybe I'll do my own translation of the interview at some point. ¯\_(?)_/¯
If possible, would you be able to look at these Sonic Advance 2 Strategy Guide scans: https://s7.postimg.cc/8te7px4d7/sa2-cp.jpg https://s7.postimg.cc/yq7w23sgr/story.jpg For the advance games, most of the manuals and strategy guide give generic "Stop Eggman's plot" text. But I notice for the Sonic Advance 2 Strategy Guide, Sonic & Eggman have rather lengthy profiles (compared to what is given for all the other Advance games) and I wonder if it might shed light on why Eggman was after Vanilla. If you need clearer scans let me know and I can see if I can sort something out. If you are not able to look at it, no worries.
Here: Spoiler Sonic: The protagonist of the story who boasts the title of history's fastest and does things as he likes. He is a hedgehog that hates being restrained and anything that's not fair and aboveboard, and his slightly short-tempered nature might be a fly in the ointment? But he also has a lovely sort of kindness as he cannot leave those who are in trouble alone. Sonic is always cheerful, but this time he seems quite angered by the fact that his precious friends are being kidnapped. He's going to blast through the world on his proud feet and rescue his buddies!! Eggman: He's a genius that exhibits outstanding ability in mecha development, but he's a mad scientist who has a crazy ambition to turn the world into Eggmanland. This time he came forth with a reckless action, that being "capturing Sonic's friends." His reasons for doing so are unknown. You know, I've been wanting to translate the Sonic Channel profiles for a while now, since the only currently available translations are the old and not quite good ones from a decade ago, plus more characters have been added to the page since then, but I don't know where they'd belong on the wiki? Maybe they could get a page onto themselves, or get added to the already existing pages on each character (adding a "profile from Sonic Channel" section to the page is what I'm saying), or something else entirely? ¯\_(?)_/¯
Thanks for the translations. It looks like they took the easy way out and just said Eggman's scheme was "unknown". I wonder why Dimps felt the need to keep everything generic.
Thanks for clarifying. The idea that Fang actually lives in subspace is quite interesting - I think that's the closest any game-related media has got to Sonic the Comic's idea that some characters actually live in the Special Zone! (Coincidentally, in that continuity the Chaotix characters are among the Special Zone's residents, and when they're first introduced Nack is a member of the group - so presumably he's spent at least some time living there in that continuity, too...!) Quite interesting that the Japanese manual doesn't make any mention of Knuckles being tricked "again", simply that he's been tricked and told Sonic is evil (which he should know from Sonic 3 & Knuckles isn't the case) - there's no mention of the Floating Island or his role as its protector, either. It's almost as if they're introducing him as a new character, which fits with the idea that the MS/GG games are kind of their own continuity - another pointer to this being that there's consistently only six Chaos Emeralds, and they seem to permanently reside on South Island rather than also appearing elsewhere. Also, I love that Triple Trouble's plot actually contradicts the in-game intro. Consistent between the two are that the Emeralds are scattered and Eggman retains the final one - however, the manual implies Fang steals the remaining five directly, while the intro shows Knuckles taking them instead. Admittedly, the manual seems more consistent with what actually happens in the rest of the game, where Fang has them hidden in the various Special Stages and, in the bad ending, has possession any Emeralds the player hasn't collected. It's almost like Knuckles wasn't intended to be in the game at all, and was shoehorned in later on to promote SEGA's big new character - his appearences in the intro/Great Turquoise/Tidal Plant could easily have been filled by Fang, and his appearence in the ending seems quite tacked-on (he's suddenly captive and in need of rescue, despite having been fought as a boss in the previous Zone...?). Makes me wonder if he was even in the game originally - here's hoping an early prototype can be tracked down one day...! ...Having said that, the manual stories aren't that consistent with the in-game intros for other MS/GG games, either - in both the Japanese and international stories, Sonic 2's manual states Tails was kidnapped while Sonic was away and he found out through a letter, even though he's clearly snatched right in front of Sonic in the game's intro! So maybe they just weren't that bothered about consistency between what was in print and what was presented on-screen, haha. XD
The inconsistency in Sonic 2 8-bit is likely a result of Tails being a last-second addition, something that was hinted by developer quotes, and by Tails' complete absence in the Autodemo. In addition, the Autodemo has a slightly different intro, which simply depicts Sonic running. When they added Tails, they tried to make the intro better reflect the story by altering it so that it would depict Sonic chasing Eggman just after this one nabbed Tails. It probably wouldn't have that manual-contradicting opening if it hadn't been for the early pre-Tails intro.
At work so can't check just now. But doesn't the SMS version open with Robotnik already having Tails captive, rather than doing it right in front of Sonic like the GG version?
You are indeed correct - though even that version still contradicts the manual's story, since the letter informing Sonic of Tails' capture states he's already being held prisoner in Crystal Egg Zone.
You'd have to check the timings on that point about Tails not existing. Tails wasn't officially revealed until some time after Sonic 2 was announced. So it's not necessarily a case that Sonic 2 8-bit was meant to be Tails-free, but possibly that it was demonstrated while Tails was still a secret. We know they weren't highlighting Tails in the Mega Drive game at the start (see: EHZ in Nick Arcade prototype). I'm not sure how well this checks out, since even the earliest of Sonic 2 marketing has a shadowy figure of Tails (and it assumes the marketing was actually organised and thought-out). I had planned to make a detailed timeline of the development of these games but the wiki extension that lets me do so is low down on the priority list.
It did seem a bit off that after the plot-based Adventure titles, Sega would go back to games that have seemingly less backstory than even the Mega Drive/Game Gear titles! I'm guessing Sonic Team/Dimps opted for the 'New Super Mario Bros' approach to story without caring how they would fit with the mainline games (but of course, Cream's introduction means even that didn't quite work out...)
Yeah. And Knuckles is described as a stranger in the prologue. Sonic Drift 2 disrupts the Game Gear lore a little by showing 7 Chaos Emeralds in the menu screen. But each GP actually only has 6 Chaos Emeralds. It also has levels from Sonic 2 and Ice Cap from Sonic 3, though neither West Side Island or Angel Island are actually mentioned (nor is South Island). Sonic Blast/G Sonic has Super Sonic appear as a bonus plate icon for some reason. It's the only reference to Super Sonic in the entire Game Gear series. I don't know what the deal with that intro is. As you said, the in-game events and bad ending match up with the manual saying Fang has the five emeralds. The other thing that bugs me, is that there are two yellow Chaos Emeralds! Admittedly, I've not compared the sprites side-by-side to see if they're the exact shade, but it looks like they are. The five Chaos Emeralds Knuckles/Fang steal are blue, white/grey, reddish-pink, orangey-red and yellow, then Eggman's sixth Chaos Emerald is also yellow. I got the same impression. Fang's designer said that "Nack" was their original choice of name for the new villain, but they had to change it in Japan because the pronunciation would be too similar to the upcoming Sonic 3 character, "Knuckles". This indicates that the Game Gear team might not have known about Knuckles early on in S&T2's development. Naoto Ohshima said that there was minimal communication between the USA based team working on Sonic 2 and the Japan based team working on Sonic CD. He was surprised to hear about Sonic 2's Mecha Sonic, and sent Naka's team sketches of Sonic CD's Metal Sonic afterwards. Similarly, I recall Hirokazu Yasuhara saying that he was unaware of Sonic CD's time travel feature when he was developing the (eventually scrapped) time travel plot for Sonic 2. So it's likely there was even less communication between the Sonic 3 team and the Sonic & Tails 2/Triple Trouble team.
Yeah, I can't remember what interview it was in but I'm pretty sure I read that the people in Sonic Team didn't really know about what was going on with the Game Gear games.
I wasn't sure where the Sonic the Fighters story would fit on the game's manual page, since it's not actually from the manual, so I decided to add it to the story section of its page proper. That section was empty for the longest time anyways.
Anyone have a backup of this? http://forums.sega.com/showthread.php?407162-Sonic-4-Episode-II-Steam-Leak-from-Ken&p=7266019&viewfull=1#post7266019 It's the response from Ken Balough about the Steam Beta 8 leak from Sonic 4 Episode II. The link on the beta's page went directly to his post on the Sega Forums, and since the Sega Forums are gone...
I'm not familiar with that topic so I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but the Wayback Machine has an archive of it, from december 2015: http://web.archive.org/web/20151229...407162-Sonic-4-Episode-II-Steam-Leak-from-Ken
I don't know if this deserves its own topic, but stratefox released a comprehensive and visually impressive documentary about the making of Sonic 2. I honestly enjoyed watching it!
Alright, havent found a clear response before, but did Sonic's Schoolhouse have an actual OST? I see playlists of songs I've never heard before, as when I had the game, the only music in the game I ever heard in game was the extremely compressed Gumball theme from S3&K.
There is music with the game, in the form of HMI files in the SONIC\MIDI folder on the disc. foobar2000 can play them, although I don't get any music when I run the game in a VM, but that might be related to the message I get that says the sound subsystem couldn't be initialized.
