:thinkingemoji: I'm not expecting them to include time travel or anything crazy like that, but we might get something nice instead of same old Sonic 2 for the 8th time.
I suspect that we may be getting a "more official" restoration of the Hidden Palace Zone that follows the original design documents.
Genesis limitations, huh. Do we know of anything that was lopped from 2 explicitly out of technical restrictions and not just time restrictions? Because it seems (as far as my sleep addled brain can tell right this second) like pretty much everything that we know about that was cut out was because of "this is confusing lets do something else" and/or "fuck this game ships in three months, cut everything". Either way, this could be very interesting. As well, I'm pretty excited to see if they'll be adding anything additional to OutRun on top of everything they did in their fantastic 3DS version.
I'd love if it was more 2 player stages. I know the limited choice of levels was specifically because the split screen function couldn't handle the graphic tiles of the others and other mechanics like water. I know previous rereleases like Mega Collection tend to refine split screen programming so it might be possible even with emulation. In fact just adding bigger 2P VS and flying for Tails would leave me quite satisfied. (Knuckles would be nice too, though that might count more as S+K). Concerning remaking old levels I think they'd be on a leash besides Hidden Palace, since Taxman mentioned SEGA were wary towards adding entirely new levels and content to their old games (eg. Desert Dazzle, Final Fight and even the Egg Gauntlet mini game all getting cut for this reason), only submitting to Hidden Palace due to it's particular fame and Taxman and Stealth really pushing for it's inclusion. It's not known if Wood Zone and the likes would be quite as lucky, especially since there's far less original material to go on for completing them.
Ooh. Expanded 2-player would be nice, if I had literally anyone to play it with lmao. Would definitely make sense for the Switch's portable multiplayer nature though.
My concern however is that the recent teaser screenshot of Switch Sonic 2's title screen didn't even have the 2 Player VS option visible.
You know what would be really cool: What if they include Hidden Palace zone and finish it as originally intended. I.e once Sonic has collected all the chaos emeralds he gets transported to Hidden Palace where he then gains the ability to become Super Sonic
While that would be cool, I do question whether AGES is really capable of doing something so elaborate. Don't get me wrong, these are fine rereleases, but a lot of their tweaks to the original source code are limited and even a bit buggy. I mean Sonic 1 as a package had solid emulation of three variations the original game, loads of neat emulation filters and a couple okay-ish extra modes with online leaderboards, but as an enhancement of the original, it had a glitchy Spin Dash and Drop Dash, which are still appreciated over nothing, but a far step from programming new levels and a cutscene. Unless they hire some professionals to look at the source code, I feel like the best they could do is something like the remake's Proto Palace. Or a premade FMV using the original sprite work, they tend to be good at those.
Wood Zone had finished art assets, and was scrapped at least in part due to not getting the unique ramps there to work right, right? So perhaps that could be an option they have mind. That and Hidden Palace probably. I would die from overjoy if they implemented Time Travel, even without the remaining tossed levels. Preferably with all of them though, as I imagine many were really just past/future renditions reusing assets with different badniks. But who knows.
Vertical looping level with water (Hidden Palace's steep slope)? EDIT: Oh and yeah, more 2 Player stages without the need for a properly adapted tileset.
If they DID make Hidden Palace, I would be interested in an official version that tries to finish the original layout. The Taxman version was great but completely redid things from scratch so that 'What if' aspect wasn't there.
Matbe they wanted to do it while the water was on screen, unlike in Labyrinth (with Sonic riding a floating elevator of sorts, perhaps?).
There is that strange slope structure that no one figure out what the hell it's for. Granted this is assuming they have more resources than Taxman's lot or met someone in the original team that knew what it was supposed to do. The fact 2P VS isn't on the title screenshot is a point of interest. Unless they cut it altogether (which would be quite a detriment) it would suggest they have moved it onto a separate part of the menu like their other extra modes, which might be for allowing more tweaking without altering the original code too much. Notice Sonic 1's Time Attack was touched up with separate graphics and programming that was obviously not part of the Mega Drive's programming. They might do a similar thing for Sonic 2's VS mode, using an artificially made split screen that can better handle all the graphics and everything without bugs or slowdown or maybe even allow for other tweaks like other levels, tweaking the screens or online play.
Always a bit difficult to tell, but if it's things Yuji Naka wanted to do, as opposed to whoever was behind Hidden Palace, it could be things like more two-player stages and a full-screen special stage. I don't think Naka wanted to "do" Hidden Palace, because it sat for most of 1992 not being "done". There's not even an attempt to get it working - I think they realised it wasn't going to work well from a very early stage.
I seem to recall at least one hack that restored Hidden Palace pulled this off (a lift coming out of the wall and going up that slant) with no issue. I don't remember which one it was though, if it was Long Version or Delta or another one entirely... Or maybe I'm just making shit up, it's been forever.
Ah, of course it could be this. They did already re-render the Special Stage graphics for the 3DS version, so it shouldn't be too difficult for them to just make them full-resolution. By the way, OutRun is (unsurprisingly) getting the widescreen mode and colored non-Ferraris from the 3DS version:
I suspected most of the extras from the 3DS versions would return, like Sonic 1's Spin Dash and Ring Keep Mode. Out of curiosity was OutRun's Widescreen Mode made specifically for the 3DS version or was it a custom option for the Arcade ROM like Virtua Racing?
