https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File:GamePlayers_US_0708.pdf&page=7 Fresh from Retromags, alongside the prototype cover. Guess this is an official screenshot.
Finally got around to getting the actual source and archiving it as well. https://twitter.com/NaotoOhshima/status/1503404195277262854 https://archive.ph/59rjd
Knuckles concept art posted by SegaBits. I'm reasonably certain there are some people in here who've seen this before, but I haven't, so I just wanted to post it for the record.
I guess that concept art explains why western artists gave him conjoined eyes at first. Curious how it mentions the weird bit with the island's Emerald(s) disappearing that was mentioned in the Japanese Sonic 3 manual and promptly forgotten by S&K. It also refers to it in singular. Fan translations of that manual tend to translate it in plural, were they off all this time? I recall people interpreting the S3 manual as Angel Island having its own set of Emeralds separate from the one Sonic has at the start of the game, before being retconned and replaced with the Master Emerald. This document implies that that's not the case and it was always intended to have one (Master) Emerald. Weird how Knux was originally going to destroy walls by creating whirlwinds. Perhaps he wasn't planned to have super strength at first, but they gave it to him by S&K in order to simplify his gameplay?
I've had that toy since childhood and have always wondered what was up with it. That seems like the most reasonable, and most likely, context behind it.
Umm... so a cartoon character based on an australian animal species was meant to do whirlwinds to break walls... And then they probably remembered Taz-Mania existed. Jokes aside, Knuckles being able to unnaturally glide plus this whirlwind thing would probably have been a cool elemental theme for him along with the elemental shields themselves.
also http://segabits.com/blog/2022/03/19...known-lightgun-game-art-uncovered/#more-77225 Scans, wiki etc.
Knuckles does have moves in the Adventure and Advance games where he spins quickly, causing whirlwinds as he goes. I assume this is what they always intended but couldn’t get it to look good on the MegaDrive, or just not having the need to animate it.
I've been doing a bit of research and I am pretty confident that our oldest Sonic CD "v0.02" prototype, the one almost certainly built for Yuusei Sega World in December 1992, aso appeared at Winter CES 1993 in January 1993. That is to say, it did leave Japan and people saw it after the Sega World event. Here's a wonderful thing about the various CES shows (and early E3s) - the press were very selective on what they reported: Winter CES 1993 Summer CES 1993 Winter CES 1994 Summer CES 1994 Winter CES 1995 E3 1995 I've spent the last week or two digging up sources, and even the magazines which claim to have the full lowdown of events... don't. My assumption was that you'd go to the Sega booth and make a note of everything you saw, but turns out you need four or five magazines, per event, to get an idea of what was actually on show. Sonic CD shows up in Winter CES 1993 but a) I don't think it's playable. I think we're talking about a handful of carefully selected official screenshots (which we have on the wiki). b) It's not "news". The press knew the game existed and may have even reported on it from Yuusei Sega World. So why report again? c) Sega weren't really drawing attention to it. I think they were very well aware that the game wouldn't be ready for another 9 or 10 months, but I guess even then you needed Sonic in your press kit*. d) To the untrained eye, it looks like Sonic 2. Which was also at the event (and wasn't widely reported because it had been out since November). Better yet I think this particular event might have been press-only, so this is less about enticing customers to by consoles, and more about inspiring developers and retailers to invest in Sega. The push on the Mega-CD front was very much full motion video, CD quality audio - it was things like Star Wars: Rebel Assault that were drawing the crowds, as hard as it is to believe these days. *Sonic Spinball and Sonic Chaos wouldn't be announced until Summer CES, so Sonic CD was the only game known about at the time.
That and some grainy Sonic 3 screenshots are probably what lead to the creation of this drawing I'm guessing:
The shoes and socks being the wrong colours does suggest it could have been a blend of both art and screenshot. I’d say nice find, but I’m more of the opinion that it should be killed with fire
What makes me laugh are the little bits of backstory that end up sticking through to the final release. Sure, we don't have a name, but dude likes grapes. Important info right there. That said, could the Knuckles name have been finalized around the time they simplified the whirlwind move to just his fists? And could the whirlwind move itself have been concieved as an alternative counterpart to Sonic's Spin Dash? It's worth noting that Espio's whirlwind functions as a Spin Dash too.
Wait a minute... - Dinosaur as the original design - Whirlwind move could mean spinning a different way to make the winds - Could walk on walls and ceilings instead of climbing - Was one of the potential lead billings for Chaotix, a game seemingly in development simultaneous to 3 ....was Knuckles originally Espio? He could've either been a character pitched by Miyake (similar to S2 where they got sega staff all over to pitch their own mascot ideas?) and his stuck at first, and that metamorphized eventually into Knuckles.. or maybe Miyake just did a character spawning off the original idea. The former thought would definitely make a lot more sense out of why Espio is the ONLY original character in Chaotix, though, and second only to Knuckles at that.. everybody there that originates in Chaotix is a leftover from an obscure or scrapped Sonic thing, except him. But what if he's a leftover like the rest of them?
Really interesting speculation. Espio being even a little bit conceived of at this stage would potentially also help explain why he was the only Chaotix character to persist into other games before Heroes. I always figured it was down to some favoritism or specific appreciation for the character, but this design background would give context to why he'd be treated that way.
Not to mention the potential deference during development of Espio having Top billing rather than Knuckles! That could mean there's another weird mid-way point between the dinosaur-like design and the Chameleon, assuming that Espio was only named during the creation of the camouflage aspect of his character. But it was obviously important enough as an aspect of his character to develop and devote a cycling palette to when they could have easily just left him purely purple, meaning that there was clearly a lot more effort put into developing Espio at some point, even if it never took off. Same goes for Vector, who was another hold over that they always wanted to do something with, even when other characters were lost. On that note, while I'm thinking about it, the hidden placeholder character string of "NUTS" in an early Chaotix prototype, rather than my assumption long ago of them considering using Ray the Flying Squirrel along with Mighty (Nuts/Natsu being a play on Squirrels and the Japanese word for Summer, and possibly hence Door into Summer) since it was a name listed with Vector, could they have perhaps tried to reuse the Monkey character from the band along with Vector? Monkeys in this series do have a habit of being called Coconuts. Anyway, Chaotix pondering aside, and back to Sonic 3. Could this scrapped whirlwind mechanic explain Mushroom Hill/Valley and why there's a weird out of place wind lever that Knuckles pulls to blow Sonic upwards to a new section of the stage, and why Knuckles' "home area" has wind mechanics like the chickens? Could it also be a thematic branching point with the rising spinning whirlwind platforms in Marble Garden? They rise as they spin, and also break obstacles. It could be that Sonic needed to use them to essentially chase Knuckles throughout the island. Either way, design wise, it is curious that the character in this early design doc is red rather than pink but still seems less lizard-like than the Proto-Knuckles that existed in the Sonic 3 beta (prior to them using a 3D render of Knuckles' head to finish the sprites more quickly/accurately). It makes me wonder why they stuck with a pink palette rather than red in the final game, even when the S&K screen went with a purely red Knuckles? It would be interesting to get a proper production timeline on all this stuff and see how the various parties involved communicated with each other.
Good catch! Knuckles' abilities described in that document sound just like Espio's, and I had never realized that the latter's design could pass off for an anthropomorphized triceratops, particularly in his classic look. Speaking of which, I'm guessing the dinosaur thing is where Knuckles' "last of his species" trait originated?
It gets better. You know how the Sonic 2 Hidden Palace had a bit of a prehistoric theme, with dinosaur badniks and the cave theme? And Naka stated that the level was closely tied to the Chaos Emeralds, being the place they came from in-universe. The implication seems to be that the Emeralds were supposed to have existed since prehistoric times, possibly tying into the "they give energy to all kinds of lifeforms" lore. You see where I'm heading with this? That might explain why Knuckles was initially a dinosaur. His concept is that he's the last member of a species that had been guarding the Emerald(s) since ancient times. The original lore might have had them guarded by a dinosaur tribe since the beginning of time. Then when they changed him into an echidna, they downplayed the prehistoric theme in S&K's Hidden Palace, and came up with an explanation as to why Knuckles' species went extinct that they put in the S3 manual.
