Is Sonic SMS based off the beta version of Sonic Megadrive?

Yep. That's about right. Didn't they say the teams were in contact with each other every now and again over a few of these things?

 

Great theory! I've always had the same inkling with that singing Sonic, there's no way it's just some coincidence, Sonic was meant to be some cool dude who sang in a band, a concept that was lost when they left it out of the game. Personally though, I think it was the right choice, given the lack of vocals, it wouldn't have let the games age as well as they have.

I can just see a few coincidences with the Spring Yard Zone and Jungle backing, but as I've said, it does seem that it's coincidece. However, it's really interesting to think what was going on behind closed doors when they were making the first games.

 

If anything else, this was an interesting read. I like theories when they're presently clearly with evidence to support such a claim.

 

I've always thought that. It's pretty obvious that sonic SMS is based on an early build of sonic 1 ( 16 bits).

I've also have another unfounded theory:

Seeing that Sonic Chaos ( Sonic & Tails) came out afther Sonic 2, but before Sonic 3, and that Tails has no controlable flying in Sonic 2 ( 16 bits), but has in Sonic Chaos and in Sonic 3...I think they tried to implement it on Sonic 2, but due to developement issues ( and we know they had lot's of 'em during sonic 2 developement) they didn't. But they reused the idea they had on how could Tails fly on Sonic Chaos, and polished it to use it on Sonic 3.
Why would they want to create a characther with a flair for flying, if they weren't planning to implement that move? It's obvious that they were going to implement Tails flying, and they did to some extent ( computer controlled Tails). We know that they had to cut out a lot of ideas and levels for the game due to developement issues, so why would not be Tails flying one of them?

Tails's Sonic Chaos flying feels really sloppy, as if it were an uncomplete implementation of how they wanted Tails to fly. In fact, it feels more like debug mode with limited flying time. That makes me think that, maybe, the flying in Sonic Chaos is just a "beta" version of how they wanted Tails to fly. A test to see if it could work in a game or not, and seeing that it was unefficient for the huge project Sonic 3 was, they polished it from there.

That's just my grain of salt.

 

Seems pretty reasonable to believe all of those things could be pretty darn true.

 

I, too, had this theory. However, I think that Bridge Zone's mountains bear more resemblance to the "alpha" Green Hill Zone than to Marble Zone. The mountains in Green Hill SMS's background also look very similar to the alpha Green Hill, and are of a similar colour. Interestingly, Bridge Zone features Green Hill-style rocks that weren't in the SMS incarnation of the level.

In Labyrinth Zone, the SMS version features the "ceiling crystals" present in Sonic Beta that were absent in the final build. We can see this in the screenshots that were posted previously.

Most crucially though is this, found in the Sonic SMS rom:

...which looks strikingly similar to this. + - Not really, I made it years ago!  

So yes, I do think that Sonic SMS was based on an early build of Sonic MD. Ancient were perhaps sent material early on to base the port on, so the game could be released on time.

 

*edit* I am a derp about the sign, didn't read spoiler tag first :P

I love sonic 1 sms and stuff like the singing sonic at the end always stuck out to me, quite cool to think about the concept of sonic 1 sms being based on a beta design.

 

Edit: I missed the Spoiler alert. My mistake!

 

Another thing to add would be that the following <a href="http://info.sonicretro.org/Game_Secrets:Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(16-bit)#Zone-Specific_Art" target="_blank">unused graphics</a> were found in the MD ROM:

 

What is that supposed to be?

 

The edges of the ground in the underground areas. They were used in the 8-bit game, but left used in the 16-bit one.

 

Wasn't that a quote from a Sonic 2 documentary?

In other words, [citation needed].

 

Sorry, what's the point of bringing it up if you're just going to turn around and go "hurhur not really!"?

Anyway, it's an interesting theory, but there's an astonishing (and upsetting) lack of Jungle Zone in your post! =P

 

Development for a Game Gear/Master System title is probably shorter than for a Mega Drive one. If they were both started at around the same time simultaneously, it makes sense for the 8-bit version to be finished first, and as the concepts were developed simulatenously too, it also makes sense for the 8-bit game to be based on earlier works. With a big game like Sonic that was designed to help the Mega Drive sell, it makes no sense to release the 8-bit version first, otherwise sales of the Mega Drive game may have been affected. Furthermore it makes no sense to start developing an 8-bit sequel straight away, because the experiment may have not been a success. So you get a situation where an 8-bit version of the game is sitting about waiting to be released, a 16-bit game still being finalised, and Ancient going on to develop another game (hence maybe why they didn't do Sonic 2?)

With Sonic 2, the 8-bit release wasn't put on hold because the formula proved to be a success. And it's fairly obvious that was based on an earlier version of Sonic 2 (the title screen's a big giveaway, and the fact Tails was mostly omitted and spindashes were non-existent). Sonic Chaos' development cycle probably started straight after hence why it's not related to Sonic 3, and by the time Triple Trouble started Sonic 3 had already been released, so things like Nack were added to keep things fresh (rather than re-releasing an older game).

just a thought

Bridge and Jungle zone were always fairly poor levels as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps concepts were pulled from unreleased games. Not a lot of thought was put into names so they may have been rushed. There's also no loops in Sonic 1 8-bit, and that would ruin large parts of Star Light. It's a perfectly plausable theory that Sonic 1 8-bit is really the first Sonic game, but the delayed release meant it wasn't marketed as such.

 

You must also keep in mind that the concept art for Sonic 1 MD looks nothing like any SMS exclusive level so, at most, some levels might have been based on not-so-early concepts.