From what I can tell, a lot of the Genesis-era Sonic dev teams tend to get details and exact timeframes wrong. We have more or less had to make assumptions for a lot of information based on combined testimonies and guess work constructed from the pre-release info/protos we have.
This is true for anyone talking about things that happened 30 years in the past, things they probably never expected to be asked about and promptly purged from their memories. A healthy dose of skepticism is always needed when relying on first-hand accounts of the past. To consider all of the possibilities here, though: It's possible the ring mechanic was changed to something else, and they decided to revert back at the last minute. Naka doesn't say they came up with the concept two weeks before the game was finished, he says they changed it two weeks before then. I wouldn't be entirely surprised by that, because the final period of development is usually devoted to fine-tuning difficulty levels. There must have been a lot of debate about whether or not the one-ring mechanic made the game too easy.
If this is true then it's definitely something that needs to be documented on the 2013 version's wiki page.
Can double-confirm the original unused background bits are restored in 2013 Sonic 2. Mania's version also appears to incorporate some elements of it in OOZ1.
I apologize for what may seem like a dumb question, but... who developed Sonic the Hedgehog CD? The internet at large (including us) either lists the developer as Sega (technically accurate) or Sonic Team (which I thought was working on Sonic 2 then, right? Not that I doubt they had some level of contribution, but theyre the only MCD dev our article lists, beside a generic "Sega" and Toei's credit for the opening.) Outside of two references to something like "Sonic CD Team", does anyone know which internal Sega development team actually made this game? Sega CS?
It'll be a "CS" team in the sense that it was built in the "consumer" section of Sega rather than the arcade (AM) section, but I'm not sure you can filter it down any further than "a bunch of Japanese developers". "Sonic Team" causes issues because it turned into a fully fledged division of Sega, but in the old days I don't think it was anything more than a fun little title for people who worked on Sonic 1. It could have just as easily been "Cool Team" or "The Best Team" or whatever. Most projects didn't bother, and I think it was only in later years where Sega decided to reorganise themselves into distinct CS divisions*. *although there might have been divisions in the sense that they worked on different floors of a building (or different buildings). It's really hard to know - those issues of Harmony might shed some light.
Saw an odd image in my Twitter feed that I wanted to bring to attention just in case. This binder cover(?) has a screenshot of Sonic 3, Carnival Night Zone in the background showing what appears to be an odd sprite of Sonic. The arms/legs are posed identically to the final Sonic 3 sprite but the head appears unique. I went ahead and did a reverse image search to see if I could find some previous discussion, and haven't seen it mentioned, but I did find what appears to be a different item using the same image, a Trapper branded hole punched portfolio: This shows the full thing, and luckily has a HUD which we can see is the final one (no 1103-style shading). I correlated the location to Act 2 near the beginning (right before the first underwater section) and the using the HUD as an anchor, the location of the sprite on screen is "legal", that is, this isn't off center like the Sonic 2 mockups for instance. So what's the deal with the sprite? Is this sprite possibly an in-between of the Sonic 2 sprites from 1103 and the final version? Or, is this just a trace-over done for the image? It's hard for me to tell whether it is higher resolution than the surrounding screenshot as there is a lot of blurring/blending going on from the poor image quality (both the screenshot and the photo of the item). I tried to make an overlay of this with the final sprite (corrected for perspective and attempted to sharpen/enhance the contrast), it's pretty sloppy but there is definitely alignment between the two. There are some things to notice here that argue in favor of this being a trace-over: The head is larger than the final, but Sonic's bottom two spines overlay perfectly, which suggests the final sprite "could" be there but drawn over. The right leg, main body and mouth seem oddly rounded though for pixel art, though it could be CRT blending at work. There's a bit of an odd "black spot" by Sonic's neck, like they erased his head and put a new one on or something. But, again, CRT blending does some weird things some times and it may just be that the dark blue that's supposed to be there blends against the skin shading to cause a dark spot. You can kind of see that under his right arm too. But... at the same time, there's something that argues in favor of this being an actual sprite, or at the very least, a trace-over of a slightly different sprite. Check out the top of the head and back of the first spine, and there are what look to be sharp pixel edges as opposed to the smooth line. With the two overlaid, it's definitely not the pixels from an underlying final sprite, as it's too high to be the case. That's enough to stop me from writing this whole thing off immediately. Plus, why would they go through all that work to redraw just the sprite (or maybe even just the head??) when they could just take a screenshot and leave it at that? It's not like they have to cover up a Sonic 2 sprite or anything. What are your thoughts? Personally, I'm not sure, so that's why I'm bringing this to everyone's attention. I'm not 100% convinced it's a direct sprite, but something is suspicious about it. I think there is a very high chance this is a redraw of some kind, but honestly? Without better scans, it's inconclusive. Honestly, even with a direct scan, it might still be inconclusive because the screenshot itself looks to be rather blurry.
His face looks a bit too detailed for a tiny sprite. Not to mention it's less blurry than everything else. I'm positive it's indeed a redraw.
Some good content from the opening of the first Joypolis theme park in this scan of Harmony #130: Something which should be noted on here in particular - from what I can gather, the initial locations had "Segasonic & Tails" shops (now "JP Store"). The idea was that, alongside restaurants + cafes, these stores selling exclusive Segasonic & Tails-brand merchandise would be one of the side draws which made these places more than a big arcade with simulators. There's even a logo here, which someone more skilled than me could colourise based on what we have
I would guess the screenshot they had was stupidly blurry, so an effort was made to make sure you could "see" Sonic. You're looking for Trapper Keepers. They were... things.
I thought they had discarded the SegaSonic brand after Sega secured the rights to Sonic's name? They were still using it by '94?
@Gryson's article on the dispute covers this matter in its final paragraph: Not only did Segasonic & Tails concern merchandise, it was also associated with the arcade/amusement industry, where Sega generally remained wary of using the Sonic name for a while.
Another little question. One of the last "References to Sonic in video games" on my list is this: some people claim the background of Mega Water S's stage from Mega Man: The Wily Wars is a reference to Green Hill Zone's background. I can absolutely see it, but I was holding myself back because it almost seems like a stretch. I mean, its just a couple of waterfalls with green tops and brown terrain right? But, I don't know, maybe it is a reference... what do you all think?
Looks more like something from Contra to me personally. If it was Wily Tower only I'd lean more towards Sonic though. If it's from the three original game's I'd be less inclined to agree.
That's actually what's been keeping me from forgetting it altogether. It is from one of the Mega Drive-exclusive levels, and for that reason I can absolutely seeing it being a small homage. Which begs the question, do any of the other two "Mega Whatever X" stages have any minor references to anything Sega? I'll have to look into this more. EDIT: Checked the other two MD-exclusive boss stages and nothing stood out to me...
Rocks and waterfalls exist in real life too - I've seen them! No I think that one's too much of a stretch, unless one of the artists turns up and says it was specifically inspired by Sonic.
A "check cable" error screen in Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine for Game Gear. The uploader says they "used a hex editor to choose a menu option that didn't exist". It seems that this screen was first mentioned online in this thread at Giant Bomb: https://www.giantbomb.com/forums/ge...st-unexpected-startle-scare-in-a-non--480423/ It doesn't look like anyone's figured out what causes it on actual Game Gear hardware.
