I'm curious, do we have any of the original sources for the rumors that Tails wasn't going to be in Sonic Adventure 2 and that Sonic Knuckles and Eggman were intended to be the only playable characters? The SA2 Development page references them, but we don't have any citation besides Naka and other Sega employees being cagey/negative with their answers. This is a pretty prominent rumor nowadays, but no actual first-hand reports seem to be out there. Did this just come from people interviewing Naka and Sega in-person, or was there an online or magazine source? Or is this just one of those things that fans at the time claimed amongst themselves and that somehow became the de facto story? EDIT: The ONLY source from the time that a google search focused on articles from the year 2000 brought up is this article on Sonic Stadium. I really am starting to believe this may have been a made-up story that we've just propagated over the last 17 years.
I don't know about official word, but people and magazines who were exposed to early SA2 information back then reported that the game was going to have a branching storyline and Sonic, Knuckles and Eggman were going to be the only playable characters. This first teaser supports this, as it puts focus on these three characters, specifically mentioning their names and describing their stories' goals with two words ("Highspeed Escape", "Master Emerald" and "World Conquest").
In the game's code, the name for the object used for all racing characters is "SonicTheHedgehog", the name for the object used for all treasure hunting characters is "KnucklesTheEchidna", and the name of the object used for all shooting characters is "EggWalker", which at the very least indicates that those three were the primary characters for those gameplay modes. It doesn't prove the others weren't planned from the start though. For the sake of completeness, Tails in the Chao Garden is "MilesTailsPrower", Eggman in the Chao Garden is "Eggman", and Super Sonic and Super Shadow are "SuperSonic".
Right, but again, basing this assumption on the reveal trailer is just conjecture. And I can't find any of these "people and magazines" that always get referred to regarding this online anywhere; there doesn't seem to be anything to cite. THIS is interesting though. Probably the best evidence so far! But like you said, doesn't mean the others weren't planned. It definitely makes it seem more possible this story could be true though.
People didn't base it on the teaser alone. As I said, those who had access to early SA2 information and material (such as early concepts, descriptions and concept art) back when the game was in development reported it. Most of the sources have probably been lost to time by now, though.
Another fun fact about SA2: every memory allocation/deallocation call has the source file path and line number as parameters. Some examples from various functions (not official names): LoadSonic: "..\\..\\src\\figure\\sonic\\sonic.c", 1611 LoadShadow: "..\\..\\src\\figure\\sonic\\sonic.c", 1916 LoadKnuckles: "..\\..\\src\\figure\\knuckles\\knuckles.c", 1809 LoadRouge: "..\\..\\src\\figure\\knuckles\\knuckles.c", 1969 LoadTails: "..\\..\\src\\figure\\miles\\miles.c", 430 LoadEggman: "..\\..\\src\\figure\\eggman\\eggman.c", 434 LoadMechEggman: "..\\..\\src\\figure\\ewalker\\ewalker.c", 1270 LoadMechTails: "..\\..\\src\\figure\\ewalker\\ewalker.c", 1418 LoadSuperSonic: "..\\..\\src\\BossLast2\\supersonic.c", 599 LoadSuperShadow: "..\\..\\src\\BossLast2\\supersonic.c", 699 SetPhysicsParamsAndGiveUpgrades: "..\\..\\src\\player.c", 826 InitCollision: "..\\..\\src\\c_colli.c", 814 LoadCharTextures: "..\\..\\src\\texture.c", 260 PlayMusic: "..\\..\\src\\adx.c", 858
I believe Tails' absence was talked about in an issue of the UK's Official Dreamcast Magazine, because that's where I first heard it back in 2001(?). I think the "Nails the Bat" thing might have been mentioned at some point too. We don't have scans. I very much wish we did.
We've had this discussion about SA2 before: http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=31426&st=45 Basically it seems UK Dreamcast magazine mentioned that Tails wasn't suppose to be in. They mention as part of an interview with Yuji Naka, but they actually give Naka's exact comments, so they might have interpreted it. That seems to be the only source though, so it's a little shaky.
The best part about this is that scans were provided. And nobody put them on the wiki. And now the links are dead. So this whole thing could have been averted.
I can't type. I meant to say: "They mention as part of an interview with Yuji Naka, but they don't actually give Naka's exact comments, so they might have interpreted it." Just to clarify, the bit about Tails being in it isn't attributed to Naka.
Okay, so I had absolutely no idea where to put this, and I decided on here because it's relatively Sonic related. The Smash Ultimate Dojo has been rolling out new music arrangements over time. We don't have too many yet, but there are two that caught my eye. A Mega Man 4 medley by Jun Senoue (which sounds extremely Adventure era to me) and a Splatoon arangement by Tomoya Ohtani. Considering neither of them made new arrangements for Smash 4 (as far as I can tell with a quick search, but I may be wrong), this is exciting to see. I'm not expecting too much, but this is certainly one way to make me more excited about Smash Ultimate.
Hey Retro, how good are your eyes? https://retrocdn.net/index.php?title=File%3ABeepMD_JP_1994-08.pdf&page=41 This is Beep! MegaDrive acknowledging that Sonic & Knuckles exists. They don't have a screenshot yet, so they've borrowed one from Sonic 3. I suspect this might be a false alarm but is Knuckles using the right palette? There's a lot of contrast in the image, but as soon as I saw this I was reminded of that old Sonic 1 hack where Knuckles' reds were borrowed from Sonic's shoes. (and yes that is a Ristar prototype below - there is hoards of stuff in these scans)
Reminds me of that one guy who claimed to have a magazine with a Sonic 3 proto pic where Knuckles was just a red Sonic. I think he was proven a fraud.
Looks like those are close to the purpleish tones used in Sonic 3. They seem different from the shoe colors (even his own), so I think any oddities in the image come down to scan quality.
This week on "Akane is wonderful": https://retrocdn.net/index.php?title=File%3ABeepMD_JP_1994-10.pdf&page=95 The October 1994 issue of Beep! MegaDrive briefly mentions two of the shorts later seen in Sonic Jam - the always mysterious Sonic Ride and the "why didn't they finish it" Man of the Year. Japanese OCR only gets you so far, but I think this is part of a wider discussion with Sega AM3 about computer generated imagry and its potential for use in video games. I think they were both experiments by AM3 to see what could be done (Sonic Ride is labeled as such?). Things we know now that we didn't necessarily know before: - Both are from 1994 - Both pre-date Sonic & Knuckles' release - Both are by AM3 I think it's safe to say that neither are prototype games or cartoons or anything other than demos. I also think Sega probably bought a crapload of SGI rigs when they moved offices, which apparently occurred earlier in 1994. So they probably got excited.
That is really cool! I never would have guessed AM3 worked on them. I just checked the Sonic Jam Official Guide, and there's a small blurb about each of them: Spoiler Shouldn't this page be called "Sonic the Animation"? That's what it's called in Sonic Jam. ------ Also from the Sonic Jam Official Guide, there's a bit of commentary about some 1997 era Sonic art: Spoiler The "Kick It" image is by "Okano" (presumably Satoshi Okano), the other three are by Yuji Uekawa.
I was going to point out how "Kick it Jam" was surely meant for the Japanese version of Sonic 3D, not the Japanese Sega Saturn Magazine, but then... https://retrocdn.net/File:SSM_JP_19970704_1997-22.pdf http://info.sonicretro.org/File:Sonic_3DFlickies.jpg eek - not the same. p.s. it really is vital that that book is scanned. I need to point this out whenever it shows up.
Hey all, First, if you haven't read it yet, you might be interested in this Yuji Naka interview from 2/95 that I recently translated: https://mdshock.com/2018/07/19/yuji-naka-sonic-interview-february-1995/ I don't believe it was previously available. He talks more about the abandoned "Sonic 3D" that was meant to use the SVP chip. Also, that interview included a screenshot of "Sonic the Ride" (and mentioned that it was developed by AM3), so I looked into it more. Those pictures from the Sonic Jam Official Guide are very helpful. For Sonic the Ride, the guide says that it is an unreleased full-CG movie that was developed in 1994. It was made at the same time as certain "oogata kyoutai" (large-chassis) games which could be found at theme parks (implying that it was made for one of these rides) and it contained some degree of interactivity (probably similar to the AS-1). For Sonic the Animation, the guide says that it was an experimental work combining 3D CG and 2D cel animation. It was shown at some theme parks.
That's great stuff Gryson! Thanks! Naoto Ohshima talked a little about "Sonic the Animation" on Twitter last year: https://twitter.com/NaotoOhshima/status/858494521100730368 "It is a collaboration between SEGA's CG team and Tokyo movie animation. It is an experiment of animation of Sonic." So, "Tokyo movie animation", that would be TMS, right? It was long-presumed to be TMS, but I don't know if it was ever officially stated elsewhere.
