It was a little cameo. They probably had no plans to use Mecha Sonic again, but they still gave him (and Metal Sonic) a fun cameo for fans, and updated his design while they were at it.
I'm gonna ask Ian Flynn about it on the next Bumblekast stream, because I'm 99% sure that how SEGA treats it currently is there is more than one Gizoid.
Will you be asking specifically about the 4000 years ago era? In Sonic Battle, Gizoid is only ever referred to as a singular robot, that single-handedly wiped out a civilisation. Then at the end of the game it almost does it again. It was treated as a Perfect Chaos level threat, so the idea that there was more than one isn't what was intended at the time and doesn't make much sense.
Why go to the effort to redesign something you're not going to use, then don't go to the effort on a literally more prominent character (Metal Sonic) that appears in a story cutscene?
I dunno, ask Sonic Team. They're the ones who created the SA1 Mecha Sonic design only to do nothing with him beyond a cameo. But if I had to make a wild guess, Metal Sonic was too iconic to undergo a similar drastic redesign. Mecha Sonic was less well-known and had never had a consistent design to begin with, so they allowed themselves to go wild with him.
Yeah, I've always taken that other Sonic robot in the tube to be the Sonic 2 Mecha Sonic. Would be interesting to hear if Flynn has a stance on it or if he's been mandated a stance on it by Sega.
I'm just pointing out how they've got to all that effort for no reason. Also, the old designs are clearly referenced in various points. Perhaps Tubed Mecha Sonic was an intended boss fight for the Saturn/early Dreamcast, like the dragon, before being literally shelved... Honestly, there's too much difference for it to be so. If it had the blades in the head thing, maybe, but...
It's certainly possible, but I wouldn't put if past the devs to create his design and model just for a cameo. The Sonic Team of old had a knack for detail. They liked to put extra work on stuff most players wouldn't pay attention to, like the A-Life in NiGHTS, or the nameless NPCs' unique dialogue and character arcs in SA1, or the obscure character traits and lore details you could only read about in supplementary material.
Which then returns to the question why Metal Sonic is unchanged. It can't be iconic: everyone else has changed, and there was a debate on if Sonic CD was well known in the first place at one point.
I've always wondered why Metal Sonic changed so little compared to everyone else. My guess is that they just couldn't think of interesting ways to update his design. There was also the fact the others were specifically referred to by their names. Even if Amy looked little like her classic self, SA1 left no doubt it was her. But Metal Sonic? Not counting SADX, he has only small cameos in the game and is never called by his name. As for Metal Sonic's iconic status, he was the robo Sonic used in the OVA and manga. The western comics also used him primarily, with Mecha Sonic only getting minor appearances. Metal was also on the box art of Sonic CD, had his own character profile in the manual, was present in nearly all levels (if only as a hologram), and was extensively advertised, with Japanese SCD ads making a big deal out of him. By contrast, Mecha Sonic was just a boss most players wouldn't know about unless they reached the last levels.
Worth noting that Amy and Eggman are the only characters whose Adventure redesigns really messed with their silhouettes and outfits. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are broadly proportion stretches with dashes of extra detail, and that's just about what Metal got. So it doesn't feel alien to me that this is how things shook out.
I guess nobody is going to mention that at the end of Heroes, Metal Sonic reverts to his classic look from Sonic CD. He didn't get an updated design like Sonic or the others did until later. Sonic Team clearly had no intentions of giving him a "modern" look until way later down the road.
I wonder if they came up with Neo Metal Sonic as a way of giving him an actual modern redesign while explaining why he looked different from his classic-esque Dreamcast appearance.
I always assumed that at one point Metal and Mecha Sonic were going to be involved more in Sonic Adventure and were scrapped during development, but since the models were created they were used for cameos. No proof for this btw, but that's the feeling I get since I don't see them wasting time to create them just for a flashback and put them in tubes. Hope they do a Q&A during an event again to have a chance to ask them if this was the case or not.
Well, we know that Metal Sonic was going to be a playable character unlocked after you get all emblems, but due to time constraints they didn't implement him until SADX. So that might be the original reason they created his model. Of course, SADX ended up using a new, higher poly model instead, but still.
Oh, I've mentioned it before: https://twitter.com/Instrutilus/status/1309139665895723011 It's one of the reasons I didn't buy the whole "completely alternate dimensions" thing that book was saying, when Classic Sonic was meant to be a completely alternate dimensional Sonic over a younger Sonic. First appearance of Modern Metal Sonic was Sonic Rivals 2. Regardless, I don't think it's Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive)'s Mecha Sonic. It's too different, even for a redesign: if it had chainsaw spines, then I'd see it, and I don't buy that they'd put all that effort into designing and modelling one thing stood still, while not changing Metal Sonic who is doing more. There's a few references to the classic designs, which can be implied to be older art of Sonic and friends before they grew up. Yes, I'm not forgetting Amy's cutscene or Tails' cutscene where they used the current models, but I think that was just for time and memory storage reasons. Sonic Adventure's Mecha Sonic is mostly likely the same thing as the dragon: a cut boss, and they opted to use it for a set piece instead of wasting the effort like the dragon. I'm not sure if this has been done, but is there anything in the game's files other than the model that might indicate intent? Animations or anything to that effect? Either way, this would indicate Robotnik is still building Mecha Sonics, even up to the Sonic Adventure games...
I'm not sure we can speculate that the Mecha Sonic was going to be a boss. It's a piece of scenery like the other pieces of scenery on the Egg Carrier. I do however think something is up with Metal Sonic in Adventure. Something that really bugged me as a kid is how Metal Sonic breaks out of his tube at some point in the game and it's never explained why. What I mean is, at some point his tube is cracked and he's missing. Couple that with the fact he's actually moving slightly up and down in his tube and I think he definitely was originally intended to have some kind of role, even if just a minor boss. Actually it's been a while since I played SADX. Does this happen on DX or only on Dreamcast? Mecha Sonic in contrast is just a static scenery object.
