Oh, shucks. Thanks for checking anyway. Out of curiosity, how did you decompress those? I tried using the old nemsrch.exe in Windows 10 and the program didn't seem to output any files. =\
Speaking of the opening FMV music, the TCRF page says that the yuusei proto's opening theme has a different vocal take. But it has no rip of it - you wouldn't happen to have a rip of this? Also, is there any additional leftovers from the sprites/concept discussed here? The "Sonic shrugging his shoulders and sinking" action that goes unused. And finally: it makes me laugh that they had enough of a knowledge of English to know that "You say" sounds like "yuusei" and yet....SALAD PLAIN
Having these protos makes me wish we finally had level layout rips of all the builds. Now that we have all of these it would be nice to finally see what specifically changed in each build.
The roll seems to work slightly better in the first prototype than in later builds, as initiating it at a really low speed while facing right doesn't cause you to gain a slight speed boost out of nowhere.
I quickly looked into the OPEN_S.BIN file in v0.02 to see why there's no audio stream. Turns out, there's just simply no code for streaming the audio. It initializes the PCM chip, but never streams any data to wave RAM. It does clear it out, though. Quick disassembly of v0.02 OPEN_S.BIN Quick disassembly of 612 OPEN_S.BIN
Yeah, the Sonic CD protos are have a whole bunch of weird graphical glitches and oddities, not really surprising.
You know what's also great? This gives me intense "original Sonic 1 release' vibes. Is this in the final perchance? (it works in the other direction too btw) Speaking of... inject this buggy shit into my veins please
Okay. I played through the demo multiple times, this is what I got. Now, mind you I don't know Sonic CD as well as, say, S3&K, so all of these are basically behavior changes as opposed to layout changes and some of them are certainly "I'm pretty sure I don't remember this" items. I'll add them to TCRF, probably later tonight, and to our wiki if we have an article for it. (I am also fully aware that some of these are already "found" but wanted to be as comprehensive as I could manage) Now might be a good time for me to take lots of screencaps of some of the stuff I saw too. Title Screen - This proto has a preceding SEGA title screen that is completely excised in later versions - likely because the Sega CD BIOS already has such a screen. - Sonic doesn't wave his pointing hand. - Little Planet, clouds, and mountain with Eggman's face on it all got redrawn by the final. - As noted on TCRF, different cloud scrolling - Named "CD SONIC THE HEDGEHOG" - Menu is on by default and overlapping Sonic himself. In the final, you have to actively act to get any menu item to appear, and it appears at the bottom of the screen (roughly around where the gold Sega logo is here if I recall). The flickering menu item has a small graphical glitch involving it overlapping Sonic: the flickering item has a blue square, quite possibly part of Sonic's sprite, in the lower right corner (for New Game)/upper right corner (for Time Attack) flashing with it. - Plays the FMV's version of Sonic (You Can Do Anything), instead of having its own separate version. UTOKU/Mi-Ke's vocals are a different take than the one used (TCRF says that this version apparently made it onto some CD releases; need to see if I can find out what those are). There's a backing guitar accompanying some of the vocals of the chorus that are not in the final. The track does not loop. - Gold sega logo and attached fancy copyright logo and year below it. - Vocal credits, which overlaps the copyright part of the game's logo. - The FMV that plays when you idle on the title screen long enough has no music. Time Attack - Entire layout is different from the final I believe but I would have to check... - S A L A D P L A I N - Only Round 1-1 and Round 1-2 can be picked from the level select (of course, E X I T can be picked too). - This screen plays the Collision Chaos theme. The mix sounds slightly different (to my ears: best to rip and then compare against a final rip). General - Music starts before anything is visible. This is also true after you die, and after the time travel transition. - The music does not loop correctly: it just starts from the beginning immediately when it "ends". - There are no level title cards yet. This is probably why SALAD PLAIN was unknown until now, as the only way to know of this was to go into the Time Attack menu. - You can see Sonic's sprite (and the animal sprites at the beginning of both acts) pop into existence after the level becomes visible. - The HUD does not show "0" rings when you have no rings: it just simply shows no numerics at all. - The numeric for the life counter is misaligned: it is a bit too high. - The game cannot be paused. - Walking acceleration speed feels much higher in this version. - Jump sound has a different pitch and might be missing its tail. - No rolling sound when rolling from a run (down on d-pad while running). - Charging up the spin dash makes Sonic very slowly inch forward. There IS a charge up sound for this. The camera does not pan forward when the spin dash is charged. - The Super Peel Out has no unique sprites (charging it up just makes him have walking and then running animations) and doesn't do much in the way of going anywhere. - Looking up or down doesn't make the camera pan in those directions. I managed to get it to pan down...once...and can't seem to replicate it. - No harm sound. - Waiting for three minutes will make Sonic do his infamous "jump off the screen" action. He has completely different sprites, no voice clip, and the camera tracks him to the bottom of the stage. It also results in a death (complete with death sound) instead of a game over. - There is some questionable collision on corners that makes Sonic's sprite rotate as if he's on a slope. There's even more questionable collision on half-pipe slopes, which alternate in behavior between acting normally (Sonic flies up), not working entirely (Sonic stops like there's something in the way), or very strangely (he gets literally zero air, hugging the corner edge and thus running on the adjacent ground instantly, like he's glued to the floor), all based on speed and positioning. It is extremely buggy. - ...collision in general is very buggy in this version. - Likewise, the sprite rotation when walking up slopes is extremely dramatic (Sonic is angled far more than the slope angle is) and questionable. Kind of gives me shades of similar in REV00 Sonic 1. - Time signposts made no sound when passed nor have an indicator in the HUD. - There are blue ring monitors that gives Sonic the invincibility sparkles without any music change. Like actual invincibility, nothing takes it away nor harms Sonic. The sparkle effect disappears after a set time (note to others: check length of time against invincibility in final), and when it does so, Sonic is left with a perfectly normal blue shield. There are also bog-standard invincibility and shield monitors too. - The music does not change when an invincibility monitor is hit. - There are monitors with clock faces on them - I can't seem to work out what they do but one that is near an invincibility monitor makes the monitor stop flickering. - THIS BUILD HAS S MONITORS. One of them is placed at the beginning of Act 2. This gives you invincibility sparkles and a speedup that the speed shoes monitors (see below) don't add. Like the blue ring monitors, you are left with a shield when the invincibility runs out. - Speed Shoes monitors do not change the music and don't seem to do much of anything. - No sound plays when the extra life monitors are broken. - While I could travel to the past just fine, I didn't manage to time travel to the future once... - The time travel transition has a much simpler background, much more annoying sound, and the sparkles around Sonic use the same sprites as the invincibility sparkles instead of using the time travel stars. The screen flashes twice on loading the new area, and like with the start of the stage, the music kicks in long before anything is visible. - Time travel takes away all of your rings. This makes you extremely prone to dying, in ways such as... - IT IS ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE TO INSTANTLY DIE WHEN COMING OUT OF A TIME TRAVEL DUE TO AN ENEMY BEING DIRECTLY AT YOUR POSITION. Guess how I found this out. This is probably why Sonic has invincibility frames in the final game :/ - There are no checkpoints. - The ending signpost is that odd "YOU SAY", but also doesn't spin at all when Sonic passes it. It is in the same font and style as the Exit signs in the final game. The camera locks off-center from it, and also Sonic is made to not even attempt to go back to the left boundary - the player is forced right and off the screen via an animation if they don't run off themselves. - There is no score tally at the end of the stage. - Having fifty rings or more does not result in a special stage ring at the end of the stage. Salad Plain Act 1 - There are far too many layout changes in this and in Act 2 for me to write here, and I'm also not as well-versed in Sonic CD as I am with, say, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, so I'll leave layout changes to people who have played this game a lot more than I have. - The waterfalls in the background have some extremely strange tiling that make it look like they have holes. Might be mis-tiled. - Animals running around at the beginning of the (present) level and later in. You generally only see them in past stages and Good Futures, not present stages. The animals are in the exact same locations between times, also a difference from the final. - Different flower pallete. - The level's first loop has questionable collision. If you spindash into it, it is possible to go fast enough to clip into the top of the loop, which then makes the game do that thing common in Sonic titles where the camera scrolls to force you out of the floor you're trapped in, sending you forward or backwards in the stage. - The robo-mosquitos stick themselves far too into the ground. - The blue enemies have a longer cycle between moving, stopping, and hunching downward. When they point downward, they don't send off any projectiles like in the final game (nothing happens). - Breaking terrain has no sound. - Partway in, there is a very weird log across a gap that also has a platform scrolling horizontally through it. The log has no collision. - The spinning metallic...drum platform thing seems to give Sonic some very odd spriting behavior with his shield. I might be seeing things but it looked like the sprites were mis-tiled between frames. - There's one of these in the middle of the level that is floating on nothing. - The Past pallette has some very, very blue coconuts with strange brown shadows. - The Past music has different instrumentation and mixing. - There's a rock near the beginning of the Past version that contains an unobtainable ring in it. - There is a loop at the bottom of the stage that has an unobtainable ring in the middle of its foreground geometry. This and the item above implies that the layout had changed recently before this proto (much like how you see similar unobtainable rings in Sonic 2 protos, leftover from earlier layouts). Salad Plain Act 2 - There is a butterfly enemy near the bottom of the beginning of Act 2, that when broken drops a flower that just stands there in mid-air. - The pipe loop (which is also in the final) does not keep any of the speed you had going into it - in my case I came out of it much slower than when I went in. - The collision-less logs + scrolling platforms make an appearance here too and are just as annoying/confusing. - There's a pipe loop that makes Sonic: - hold the "in the air from a spring" sprite through it when you hold the right d-pad button while going right (because the spring sends you through it); - completely stop in his tracks, standing in the middle of it, when you go in from the left. - Beating Act 2 shows you a "COMMIN' (sic) SOON" screen. This screen can be skipped with a single button press and takes you right to the title screen again.
A version with this vocal take can be found on the Power Play -BEST SONGS FROM SONIC TEAM- album, and was also used in Sonic Jam's videos. I'm very surprised to see it in this build.
aaaah thank you! I wish the reaction setup we had on here would allow me to do multiple reactions (informative AND useful AND thanks)! Interesting, while one would assume originally, before this release, that it'd be a new vocal take, this proto makes it clear that it is an old one, and I wonder why they used it. It could be assumed that it'd be due to rights issues, except that the version I compare it to is the one I ripped from the 20th anniversary Sonic CD release, which it's different from...
Really then seems as though the mysterious animated level really didn't ever have that much work done on it, or it really was just kept out of the builds. I really can't wait to see what comes out of digging these. Also, that alt title music.
BizHawk with the JVC X'Eye bios forced won't boot the game... I may have to burn it and try it in my own console, but I am assuming it won't boot there either.
Boring but likely explanation: it's a fuckup. Since that take is used in this early proto, they clearly decided to use a different mix later in development, but then when they needed the song for CD releases later on someone grabbed the earlier version, not realizing there were multiple.
I mentioned this on twitter briefly, but it looks like the 2P 'ghost Sonic' is present even in this very early version.
pfft I found the sign before it was cool Well done to all those involved. Salad Plain is the best level. I know, right?
