[ashthedragon]

That spring could be a "proof" of what I said earlier: they took whetheaver they had made in saturn and made Jam's Sonic World, and then ported to Dreamcast the rest although in the final game only the base engine is used. They might have used Jam models as placeholders while they were finishing the ones used in final

This post has been edited by ashthedragon: 14 May 2012 - 06:59 PM

[Yeow]

JaxTH, on 12 May 2012 - 06:44 PM, said:

Ayu Tsukimiya, on 12 May 2012 - 05:57 PM, said:

Sonic Jam had some pretty nice graphics for the environment, too.

It was also Japan's "FUCK YOU" to America as well.

I beg your pardon? Could you please fill me in on this?

[Skyler]

Zinos, on 13 May 2012 - 01:41 AM, said:

JaxTH, on 12 May 2012 - 06:44 PM, said:

Ayu Tsukimiya, on 12 May 2012 - 05:57 PM, said:

Sonic Jam had some pretty nice graphics for the environment, too.

It was also Japan's "FUCK YOU" to America as well.

I beg your pardon? Could you please fill me in on this?

My guess is that he's referring to Sonic X-Treme.

[Strife]

That's a pretty interesting theory about the evolution of Sonic Adventure. I've always thought that the fallout resulting from Sonic X-Treme's failure was what knocked Sega out of the console wars for good. At that time, all of the major game companies (Nintendo, Playstation) were moving their mascots into their own full-fledged 3D games, and the Blue Blur fell flat on his face. Sonic Team is only just now recovering from it with their string of recent games, but I don't think they'll ever be in a position to make their own console again, at least not for another console generation or two.

That being said, I'm personally quite happy with the Adventure reboot. I love Amy's revamp; It's way more hip and feminine than her classic counterpart, which basically looked like a slightly smaller palette swap of Sonic in a green dress. E-102 Gamma also paved the way for the future look of Eggman's robotic henchmen, and even now we're still seeing design nods to Gamma. And of course, it gave us Ryan Drummond's voice as Sonic.

[Black Squirrel]

They were building Sonic Adventure in parallel with the Dreamcast. Yuji Naka was actually involved in the Dreamcast project for the first half of the console's development, letting his opinions known on the specs and whatnot (and helping to design and test the controller with Air NiGHTS). Then I believe he switched back to Sonic Adventure in late 97/early 98 once the technical specs had been mostly finalised.

I don't believe there are any Sonic Adventure builds for the Saturn. There might be some crappy builds for crappy Dreamcast prototypes, I.e. ones which look like Saturn games (and play with Saturn controllers) but I don't believe for a second that Sonic Adventure was intended to be released on Saturn hardware. That being said it's fully possible Sonic Jam was used as a base for Adventure, much like Sonic 1 is a base for Sonic 2. There might be plenty of placeholders which came from Saturn development stuff. But I don't think it's a case where they said "look we've got an Adventure prototype, let's stick it in Sonic Jam".


Also X-treme and any other western experiments did not influence anything.

This post has been edited by Black Squirrel: 13 May 2012 - 04:23 AM

[David The Lurker]

While I don't think they did much in terms of "Sonic Adventure is on the Sega Saturn!" in the same sense that Shenmue was intended for the console, the earliest work for the game was indeed done on the Saturn. But really, it was more a case of trying to figure out how Sonic would actually work in the third dimension. I'm pretty sure that almost all of the work done for a Saturn interpretation of the game was actually part of the Sonic World section in Jam. Yuji Naka did go on record saying that the world was part of the experimental process that was done before Sonic Adventure was set up...

What I would like to know, though, is exactly when Sonic Team went on their magical trip to South America. Knowing the date of that would certainly help put certain things in context. We know they went, we know how useful it was to them, but I don't think we know when it actually happened. What would also be interesting to see is some of those earlier builds where they were still trying to figure out how Sonic worked in the 3rd dimension, like that test level Iizuka loves to talk about that took ten seconds for Sonic to run through.

I must say, I am glad they completely ignored Sonic X-treme when they began really forming what Adventure would look like. I remember there being rumors that Adventure was going to try and include some elements from X-treme like the extra moves they were planning...but I am so glad they didn't.

Also, I do find it funny the article that started this topic is simply "hey there, how about that thing we found on Sonic Retro? I'm going to read it now but get confused about some of the minor details."

Side note: I know there was someone on here who was fiddling with the Saturn games...I'm trying to remember, was the Sonic 3D Blast special stage on the Saturn closer to the Sonic World demo or the Sonic R engine in terms of architecture? I'm going to assume it was Sonic R, but now I forget.

[ashthedragon]

But ain't Sonic R made by Travellers Tales and so then, with a non Sonic Team engine? I mean, I seriously doubt Sonic Team, with egomaniac Naka at front, would use another team engine on a game made by them and as a emblem of " hey, we can make Sonic in 3D". It's probably using jam's or maybe, just a theory, an earlier build of the one who became Jam's? The game is older anyways.

Now the guy from that article is claiming in Sega's official Tuenti ( a social network very popular in Spain, similar to facebook but with far more little kids) that that Sonic Adventure saturn's early build is a fact, and that it had Red Montain, Ice Cap, Twinkle Park, Sky Chase (act 2), Windy Valley,a shorter version of Casinopolis, and parts of Station Square, Mystic Ruins and Egg Carrier. Hilarius at least. He is dead serious about the existance of this, but doesn't offer proofs, only the beta pictures we already know! Also says Station square humans are Saturn models beacuse they are low poly. And still saying you guys have told him that.People there believe him!And if you tell he is wrong, the attack you beacuse " you're jaleous of his discovery". I don't know if laugh my ass off, or cry in desperation for this bullshit. This reminds me of all the "OMG,GREEN SONIC ASHURA IS A HIDDEN CHARACTER IN SONIC 2!! IS SONIC'S EVIL BROTHER!!" thing.

This post has been edited by ashthedragon: 14 May 2012 - 07:11 PM

[David The Lurker]

ashthedragon, on 14 May 2012 - 06:05 PM, said:

Now the guy from that article is claiming in Sega's official Tuenti ( a social network very popular in Spain, similar to facebook but with far more stupid people and little kids) that that Sonic Adventure saturn's early build is a fact, and that it had Red Montain, Ice Cap, Twinkle Park, Sky Chase (act 2), Windy Valley,a shorter version of Casinopolis, and parts of Station Square, Mystic Ruins and Egg Carrier. Hilarius at least. He is dead serious about the existance of this, but doesn't offer proofs, only the beta pictures we already know! Also says Station square humans are Saturn models beacuse they are low poly. And still saying you guys have told him that.People there believe him!And if you tell he is wrong, the attack you beacuse " you're jaleous of his discovery". I don't know if laught my ass off, or cry in desperation for this bullshit. This reminds me of all the "OMG,GREEN SONIC ASHURA IS A HIDDEN CHARACTER IN SONIC 2!! IS SONIC'S EVIL BROTHER!!" thing.

Wait a minute. He is saying...that we told him he was right?

Sigh.

There is no way a Saturn version of Adventure would exist that would be so far along that it would have four levels completely done as they would be in the Dreamcast version. If anything, it would just be...well, a level that has the same textures as Sonic Jam and thus is nothing more than a glorified test. In essence, not really Sonic Adventure at all.

[OKei]

Sonic Adventure is like my favorite Sonic game in terms of prototypical differences. I'd really like to play that original Windy Valley design, and shoot against that dragon too!

ashthedragon, on 14 May 2012 - 06:05 PM, said:

But ain't Sonic R made by Travellers Tales and so then, with a non Sonic Team engine? I mean, I seriously doubt Sonic Team, with egomaniac Naka at front, would use another team engine on a game made by them and as a emblem of " hey, we can make Sonic in 3D". It's probably using jam's or maybe, just a theory, an earlier build of the one who became Jam's? The game is older anyways.

I just want to say that one of Saturn 3D Blast's special stages may have inspired much of Twinkle Park's visual features.

[Sik]

David The Lurker, on 14 May 2012 - 05:38 PM, said:

Side note: I know there was someone on here who was fiddling with the Saturn games...I'm trying to remember, was the Sonic 3D Blast special stage on the Saturn closer to the Sonic World demo or the Sonic R engine in terms of architecture? I'm going to assume it was Sonic R, but now I forget.

Definitely not Sonic R's since like I said before it was originally made for a F1 game, and the Saturn SDK included code that showed how to render entire meshes (and included tools to make them) so they could have very easily just made a 3D renderer from scratch built upon that...

Though I wonder: the special stages in the Mega Drive version were actually made by Sega, not Traveller Tales. Is this also the case in the Saturn version?

[Hukos]

OKei, on 14 May 2012 - 11:38 PM, said:

I just want to say that one of Saturn 3D Blast's special stages may have inspired much of Twinkle Park's visual features.

You know, I'd never noticed that before. I should probably try the Saturn version of 3D Blast one of these days, but I'm so nostalgic for the Genesis soundtrack. Playing through Panic Puppet Zone without its usual tune just doesn't feel right. However, I will say that the horns in that Special Stage are rockin.

I'm somewhat reminded of all the differences between the prototype Sonic 2 and the final product (Though we have access to the beta version for Sonic 2, whereas this isn't the case for Sonic Adventure). I'd love for someone out there to leak the game, its my favorite 3D Sonic and I'd appreciated the opportunity to see what some of the initial designs for the game were like.

[Black Squirrel]

Sik, on 15 May 2012 - 01:05 AM, said:

Though I wonder: the special stages in the Mega Drive version were actually made by Sega, not Traveller Tales. Is this also the case in the Saturn version?

The credits suggest it's the other way around - Saturn's special stage was done by Sonic Team and the Mega Drive version's was developed by Traveller's Tales.

Interestingly Tetsu Katano is credited as the "main" programmer of Sonic Adventure, and he likely did the bulk of Saturn Sonic 3D's special stages too. There's also some shared artists and designers. Conversely Sonic Jam's lead programmer was Takahiro Hamano so Adventure is probably more closely linked to 3D's special stages than it is to Jam's Sonic World.


But my guess is that everyone started from scratch when Adventure came along bar the sound team. I can't see them recycling Saturn code - it's all too different. But lessons will have been learned.