If the three official screenshots of the "Sonic 1 Prototype 1990" that are in the EGM issues 13 through 16 were photographed by EGM editor Ed Semrad in the Tokyo Toy Show on 1990, it would be best to contact Ed Semrad and ask if he still has a better resolution of these screenshots to look better?
Good call on the blue part of the ring being visible directly below the banner, I didn't notice that (and I've been poring over that proto title ever since I noticed Sonic's tiny right pupil). Slightly off topic, I think it's hilarious that the infamous "E" bug on the title screen goes that far back and was never noticed before S2's release. Unless it was intentional to leave off those three pixels?
The very moment I saw the 'Welcome' sign I knew this was fake. After the first two videos were released I knew it was fake because I went back and analyzed the original screen shots we have and compared them as did many of you. I've also read through this thread and everyone's comparisons as well. He did a really good job at fooling everyone and did his homework I'll give him that, but he totally buried himself with this latest video as the sign is completely wrong altogether. The original screen shot. It's painfully obvious the sign does 'not' say Green Hill. It says 'Sega Sonic' which is what they referred to him as in Japan back in the 1990's. The palm tree in the fake video looks 'nothing' like the palm tree in the screen shot. It's style and design is completely different. Way back many months ago when we received much larger and better quality pictures of the sign I tried my hardest at redrawing / recreating it. The fake prototype screen shot. You can really see the difference in the palm tree's design and even the font is different. The original title screen had subtle differences too. His face and hand placements...the subtle's of differences from the final. It's painfully obvious he took the final title screen and smacked on a black background for legitimacy and then made the sign in an attempt to fool everyone. It looks so different from the original screen shots that it just screams out fake to me. His insert of the Japanese text after the Sega logo feels so forced and it's just the hidden message from the Sonic 1 final. Honestly an early tech demo such as this I doubt even had a proper start up and probably lacked the 'Sega' logo at that time in development. After looking at all the comparisons such as Sonic's sprites from the screen shots and then looking at this video...it just screams fake to me. I find it funny that the uploader decided to show off the sign and start up screen now instead of before as well. He must have read everyone's posts and decided to try and fool everyone once more but it's not working. This video if anything, just buried him even more by pointing out the painfully and obvious differences between the real screen shots and his so called 'prototype build'. Also his lack of descriptive information puts up a red flag especially his remark on his second video's description. This guy just screams 'asshole' to me with the way he states "If you think it fake it's your problem". His inability to write proper English and his attitude make me think he's some fifteen year old kid who got his hands on Multi-Media Fusion and didn't pay enough attention in English class. I don't know about you guys...but if I ever got my hands on a early prototype of any Sonic game I'd be giddy as hell and eager to show off all that it has. If I was to make videos showing off what the prototype provides I damn well would record everything from start to finish for one and give as much information and description as possible. He still hasn't shown that he's playing on a Genesis nor has he shown us a cart or rom. I mean even the level in question is painfully empty with just a few hills and inclines. He tried to hard to make it look prototype-ish. The new Beep magazine images show something behind Sonic which makes me wonder if its a roller or some kind of enemy. Since the game was playable at the Tokyo Toy Show I'm pretty sure it wasn't so dead and empty. I'm sure it had some things in it at least so you're not just running on an empty straight line field. Even Yuji Naka questions object placement and how it looks. After looking at some comparisons you can see palm trees and rocks on the wrong sides and other differences. If the other videos weren't enough to prove it's a fake then this one sure as hell is. I will admit his fake fan game or hack looks nice and it is nice to see the level in motion on how it might have looked and behaved. I'd love to be able to play his fake level some time so he should just confess it's a fake and provide us with a download link to his said game.
Speaking of that, where the hell are those pictures, and if we have (or have had them at some point), then why the hell is that shitty halftoned-all-to-fuck shot on the wiki?
You can't really tell what the palm tree looks like in any of those shots, and his rendition looks better than the sketch up there IMO (which said sketch looks like it's based off the poor jpg and scan quality).
He killed it with the sign. It's OBVIOUSLY different. He shoulda been more careful... O well, game over, dude.
His biggest flaw was replacing "SEGASONIC" with "Green Hill" as well as the font used as mentioned by SonicGenesis89. No doubt about it that sign isn't 100% perfect but its pretty damn accurate. The subtle differences would be less obvious if it wasn't for the "Green Hill" flaw. Not to mention the placement of the sign in that supposed "beta footage".
To be fair my sketch is on the ugly side because I drew with my mouse that night and not my tablet. I took the larger and best quality scan of the image we had and literally traced and drew to the best of my ability and agonized over what the words on the bottom were until I figured out what it (to me) looks like. It also makes sense because that is how Sega of Japan referred to Sonic in the 1990's. It was everywhere in the artwork especially the Sonic 1 concept art and in the Japanese commercials. After going through I don't know how many Japanese Sonic sites to find extremely rare official art months ago as well, that's all he was referred to as. I know my sketch is not perfect, it has a million things wrong with it and because of the scan's terrible quality I'm sure there's a lot of things wrong with my drawing. But regardless of how off my drawing may be, it is clear that the words on the bottom do not say "Green Hill". Whatever it says you can see clearly there is no G or R and if it said "Green Hill Zone" it would be to long on the sign but if you said "Green Hill" then you would not see a letter that looks like either a "C" or "E" at the very end past Sonic. My argument isn't really about my drawing though, I just posted it up there for comparison sake since I tried to make sense of what the words had said at the time when it was brought up in another thread months ago. My main argument is that the words on the bottom of the sign is clearly not "Green Hill" like the fake prototype video. The font doesn't look right and the palm tree on the right next to the sign looks different in the video than in the magazine scan. When I look at the magazine scan the palm tree on the sign (to me) looks like it had more branches than in the prototype video but we can not really be sure until we get better quality images to really study it. Back to the prototype title screen image and the uploaders version. It could be just my eyes but Sonic's eyes (our right) in the prototype magazine scan looks longer and larger than in the final title screen image.
You guys are wasting your time at this point. There's only one thing you need to be concerned about in this video, and it's painfully obvious - He used hidden japanese credits text It's funny that anyone should respond to that by saying that he "did his research", because if he had, he'd have known WHY the screen was hidden in the first place - Earlier on in the industry, you generally weren't allowed you to have your real name in the credits. This is because companies didn't want other companies trying to contact their devs and find a way to steal them away, and resulted in credits lists full of aliases such as Sonic 1's "YU2" (Yuji Naka), "BigIsland" (Naoto Oshima), etc. Occasionally, some of the programmers would stick in easter eggs to include their real names or other identifying marks, and that's what this is. The names are loaded and "always there", although the palette index is blacked out and it's partially covered by "Sonic Team Presents". In japan region (possibly only with rev01), there was also a code to cause it to display unobscured But if there's nothing else, that clenches it for me. There is no way this screen would have been there
Just in-case anyone else thinks this is real, Yuji Naka has now said it's a fake. He basically says the background mountains are different in this. It was a nice try, though, and I'd love the art used in this. Time to change the topic title~
Naka's made a couple of new Tweets: First- Second- [quote name=Yuji Naka]??????sonic 1 proto(3)????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????ROM???????????????????[/quote] I can't really make heads or tails out of the translations. EDIT: Added Babel Fish translations.
The bit about the ground brought something to my attention, too.. In the proto screenshot, the green grass is slightly rotated (the green doesn't fall straight down on slopes). In the normal Sonic 1 ROM (and this beta), it does go straight down. I guess that's what he's talking about?
I'm glad Yuji Naka debunked it. He's probably a little disappointed but I'm happy he didn't get his hopes up and try pursuing this lead.
Even though I believed the experts on here that determined it to be fake from the get-go, it's still disappointing it's not the real thing. What rubs salt in the wound is that we'll most likely never get to see the real thing EDIT: And I wonder what Naka had to reference for his comparison? I wonder if he still has some pictures or notes from the Proto's development that he was able to check to determine the fake.
I wouldn't say never. Just very unlikely. There are a few floating around, but it really depends on: 1) If the hoarder is willing to dump it at a substantial loss in value (see Resi Evil GBC dumps) 2) If that proto isn't just an RC. Mind you, getting a build close enough to the Wayne's World demo would be neat. UFOs and shit. ...There's more, but they escaped my mind. Either way, it matters more if people care about preservation of data than just sitting on a cart until bitrot takes its toll and it becomes a worthless pile of silicone and capacitors (Where applicable)
If he did have pictures then he wouldn't have asked for copies when he was asked about the prototype pictures. Notes on the other hand maybe.
Not necessarily... if you made something, you might not remember exactly what it was like, but you can look at something and tell it's not right. Like "Hmmm.... I don't remember THAT being there" or "I remember we had to change that tree/grass/rock design because it sucked" The previous vids didn't have as many stare-you-in-the-face fuckups as this latest which seemed to cast doubt with YN. But when he saw shit like the dev credits, it must have been like "WTF, we never did anything like that!"
