Sonic 1 and 2 getting the Sonic CD treatment by Taxman and Stealth

Yeah, I do know it for a fact. I know what the word fact means :p

 

Gonna have to agree with him here. Evidence helps make facts actually facts, and unfortunately all of our evidence on the matter is along the lines of figuring out who did the music in Sonic 3.

It's just one of those mysteries that'll likely never be solved.

 

Speaking of Sonic 3's music, I wonder how that will be handled if Sega ever intends to bring it to mobile. I get the feeling that Brad Buxer is the one who wrote all of the songs that were replaced in the PC version. While Sega was able to secure the rights to most of the Japanese OST for Sonic CD, they weren't able to secure the rights to the vocals. I wonder if they'll end up having to use the PC tracks if Sonic 3 is ever ported over.

 

Please do enlighten us, seeing how you seem to know something that we don't.

I'm not sure if those were your intentions, but it seems that you may actually be agreeing with my position here. That track might have been planned for a cutscene once, but it was specifically programmed and implemented in the latest days of development as the Hidden Palace's definitive level BGM, right before it was finally ditched...

 

Laura may be playing a little fast and loose with the definition of fact here. I go by this maxim: "You don't know what you can't show". A fact has to be in persistent evidence.

But we do have clear evidence for 75% of her claim: The Sonic 1 & 2 Soundtrack makes it clear (by the presence of an ending) that it's not a zone theme. It also bears musical similarities with the Special Stage music from Sonic 1 (time signature, motif) while sharing none with other zone themes.

So I would be comfortable saying it's a fact that it was never intended for a zone. To jump from that to saying it's a fact that it was intended for a cutscene is too much - that's speculation, unless there's evidence I'm unaware of.

To sum up: I think Laura is partly right, and that StealthTax made the right call in using the music they did.

 

Just to make it clear, I don't think the Mystic Cave 2P track doesn't fit in there since, well, it's also a cavern and has that echoey feel to it... But I don't see a reason to have two different levels share music when another track was programmed specifically for one of them, whatever form and intentions it had back when it was first composed.

 

Yes, this is a bit weird. Potentially I would prefer all levels to be available in 2P and use their 1P themes, but that means you're losing music (at the very least relegating it to sound test only), or use the 1P theme for Mystic Cave only. Every choice is a compromise at this point.

I also want to add a caveat to what I said earlier, which was worded too strongly:

What I mean to say is that I consider it a fact that it was not composed for a zone. At some point in development someone somewhere might have made the (IMO poor) decision to make it the BGM anyway, so saying "never intended" is too much. Although, I don't consider the fact that $10 is used for Hidden Palace in the final to be strong evidence of this; at that point the level was cut and the graphics removed so nothing about it could be considered indicative of much.

 

I only know parts of Sonic 2's development from my friends (I'm probably using the word friend a bit liberally here) at the old Sega Technical Institute (such as Mark, Craig, Brenda and Tom). Okay, apart from Mark they weren't exactly high up in the game's development team, but they at least know a little bit. I believe some of them may have spoken to this fanbase at some point.

Well, I'm pretty sure that track 10 was meant to be cutscene music. I may have misheard or dreamt up a conversation, but I have reconstructed what must have happened with my conversations with the old development team and the various pieces of evidence on the web.

So for that I think it's a fact that track 10 was cutscene music. Okay, I can't be sure 100% but I feel confident that it's probably what it was for.

 

Okay, you're confusing me too much now. What do you mean by that exactly?

 

I'll only say this:

Try remembering something that happened 22 years ago that wasn't a life-changing memory.

Other than that, my b.s. detector is about to burst. I suggest you stop trying to make yourself more important than you really are. Those facades are just idiotic.

 

Exactly what I said, I've spoken about this stuff some time back. Probably nothing that you lot don't already know though. (At least I wouldn't think so)

As for GeneHF, yeah, I don't deny that. Their reports may be misleading but it's still interesting to ponder. And important? I've never claimed to be important. In fact, I'm not important at all. Sorry if I gave that impression off

 

Regarding what music belongs to which zones, perhaps we should consider that the following:

- That the 2-player zones were thought up late in development.
- That Super Sonic's transformation would warrant a cut-scene into a "hidden palace" where the emeralds originated, blah blah blah fantasy storyline...
- That time travel would be a major feature for players to experience.

The musicians might have been asked to create music based on generic zone concept arts/names long before any game coding was done from the Sonic 1 source. So for example, the demo music might have been done for some cut scenes, and full zones.

Then when came time to code the game & music into the Genesis hardware, the idea of Sonic's first transformation was scrapped in favor of a full zone (thus the music looping in the Genesis game), & that coding for time travel would have been too time consuming (thus having fewer zones to use music for, & transferring that time travel idea to Sonic CD only). Then later in development, to compensate for the lack of new features, 2-player mode would be introduced (giving reason to use the already coded music, with Tune #10 having no place).

So the idea is that the 2-player music would have belonged to full zones & that music was shuffled around before settling with the final results.

 

2 player mode was in the works very early on, since before the NA beta, since before they made EHZ. They made EHZ (all the 2P zones) with 2 player mode in mind.

 

Ah, shoot. Nevermind, didn't know that part.

 

Admittedly, I know fairly little about how the game's music would have been implemented but after a good night's sleep I do remember some interesting info about this cutscene! Talking to you guys refreshed my mind and brought it all back!

I remember talking to Craig (the guy responsible for Hidden Palace's game art) and he told me that he drew art of a crystal cavern that led out of the Hidden Palace. Of course, he had no idea what this cavern's gameplay was for but I don't think it's out of the ordinary that this area was planned for Sonic to fly out of once he transformed, coupled with track 10's music playing. I remember that Craig told me that he was particularly proud of the crystal cavern because he found it hard to design with the colour palette in mind. Apparently, the team behind the game had to find all sorts of ways around the colour palette.

In fact, that reminds me of other levels themes that he was told to design that he thought was challenging with the colour palette in mind such as a circus level, an ancient sky city and an ancient underwater city (I think he worded this one differently but I can't remember quite how he put it! I also think he only helped someone out with this one too). It's a shame these levels never found their way into the game development!

 

This thread is missing a whole bunch of :rubyeclipse: at this point

 

Why are so many people being so rude?

Maybe try applying cautious optimism towards the info if you're so unsure of it but there's no reason to heckle someone who is allegedly privy to info we would like to have and is taking her own time to reach out.

Are you all children that you don't know how to act towards other people yet?