Is there any proof Tails was originally not meant to appear in SA2?

Was looking for references on that. I see a lot of people mentioning an art contest for sa2 as a concrete fact, but was just doing a quick watch of an Eldarin video covering AAUK quotes about Blaze for reference. It seems while the documents shared were from the 2005 or so Rush development era, the concepts might have been from earlier but that was a bit of a question mark for Kevin. I had some notes somewhere when I was going back through a bunch of chatter to research this very topic and I'll have to see if I can find more of what I found.

 

EGM's earliest previews of Sonic Adventure said that the game was going to have a 2P mode, and it was one of the few concrete pieces of info they had from their extremely short blurb on the game -- if the characters are all retaining their respective gameplay styles, who are they playing against? Eggman against another, different-color Eggman? Seems far less likely. Even if Tails wasn't part of the original mechanic designs -- I certainly agree with the idea that the question of gameplay modes focuses on "how do we make a game that has Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman playable" hence their prominence in prerelease video -- I don't really buy the idea that you'd make the game, and plan a 2P mode, without a counterpart character for each of those modes. So of course Eggman's rival is the character who's nearly as old as the series is, and specifically the child prodigy who's already been established by the story as an engineering wizard.

Whether or not they were intended to be playable in any sort of story mode from the start is one thing, but I can't really fathom a version of SA2 where you'd develop these counterpart characters and not have them be designed as obvious rivals in multiplayer. And then given that's your approximate starting point, what we ended up with makes a lot of sense, because you can get nearly double the content for a lot less upfront design work.

 

I'd love to see what the original plan for the stages was. Because some stages, like City Escape and Pyramid Cave, have no counterpart at all. Radical Highway's counterpart is Mission Street, and Sky Rail's counterpart is Pumpkin Hill. And while most of the counterparts happen parallel to each other (as, I assume, was originally intended) some of them happen at completely different points in the story.

 

You're right, my bad. For some reason I thought the logo was only made for The Trial. But I still think it makes sense to consider the logo as an unfinished version of the final for demonstration purposes, it basically already resembles the final logo but in black and white. Even our wiki states states that the logo was black and white because Sonic Team weren't ready to discuss Shadow yet at that point. As for the storyline, the dichotomy of good and evil is clearly a central point with Sonic and Shadow's quills being prominent features as well as the color scheme, I don't see any reason to speculate on the gray outline.

 

Bah, I should have thought the cannon firing thing through a bit more before posting: I'd actually thought about it before, but forgot half of the conclusion that I came to.

One anomaly is that the cannon activates, and is blown up, right as Eggman nabs the final emerald. There's no way he ran to the control room and inserted the final emerald in the 2 seconds between grabbing the emerald and the cannon activating. After all, Sonic had to go all the way through Crazy Gadget to get between those two locations. I think the activation that Sonic stopped is not the same one that Eggman tried to start with the 7th emerald: after shooting the moon, Eggman began a countdown until he fires on the planet, and the cannon activated the moment it reached 0 - it's automatic. IIRC, after the moon is blasted, Shadow explains that the cannon needs time to recharge, and to fire again immediately, the 7th emerald would be needed. So, the countdown hits 0, the cannon tries to fire, Sonic stops it but doesn't permanently destroy it, Eggman uses the 7th emerald to attempt an immediate refire, and it's interrupted by Gerald. Yes, it could have just been 'interrupted' because the cannon is destroyed, but, in retrospect, the Shadow game shows that the cannon still works (flimsy excuse, I know), and also why would Eggman even try to fire a cannon that he presumably saw destroyed right in front of him (even flimsier excuse, I know)?

Why would Gerald's plan interrupt an attempted firing of the cannon? Well, his threat did mention making the people who took everything from him 'feel [his] loss and despair': death by a giant laser is just too quick and easy. If that wasn't the case, then Gerald's doomsday plan could have had the cannon fire at full power to blow the planet to pieces, but it didn't: instead he had the ARK ram into the planet over the course of quite some time, giving people plenty of time to watch in horror as their doom approaches. Perhaps ramming the planet instead of blowing it up with the cannon was also to ensure that all those who happened to be aboard the ARK would die at the same time as everyone else, which wouldn't be the case had the deed been done with the cannon.

I've gone so far off topic what have I done

 

I want to know how late in development the bonus characters were added. Always intrigued me.

 

I really wasn't trying to imply that any of what I wrote was fact. But that Knuckles would have had his own story separate from the Sonic/Hero and Eggman/Dark stories is the prevalent interpretation of what the supposed S/K/E model would have been like. Hence why I prefaced my post with "it's generally believed", and even then I was talking mainly about the light/dark theme being in the game. Even before I wrote that post, people were talking about how barebones and disconnected from the main conflict Knuckles' story would have been. By mentioning the possibility of Knuckles serving as a neutral character or a wild card and the logo analysis I simply meant to bring people up to date on the talk people had in the previous thread on how that might have worked (like I said, it wasn't even my theory), though I now realize I should have been more clear and specific.

 

All right, I just did some digging and found one of the magazines that made the claim of S/K/E being the only playable characters:



From the UK Official Dreamcast Magazine #14: "Sonic Adventure 2 is going to be quite different to the original, that's for sure. Gone is the extended cast -- only Sonic, Knuckles and Dr. Robotnik remain."

There you go.

 

I linked to that same magazine page in page 1 of this thread. Like I already said, I think that's where the rumor started. I couldn't find a direct quote from any Sonic Team employee stating that those were the only planned characters originally though.

 

Yeah, no Sonic Team member actually saying that is interesting. I think its likely ODM seeing the trailer footage only having those three characters and assuming based off that.

 

Welp, then I guess the above drama about how supposedly all we had to go on was people's memories and no one could find the original magazine was over nothing

It's not a developer quote, no. But FWIW, that article states that they chatted with Naka to get their information, and has some SA2-related quotes from him that I assume are separate from the interview.

 

For sure, I'm just pointing out there's a game of telephone going on here. It doesn't even say those are the only playable characters, but rather that out of SA1's cast, only those 3 characters remain, which doesn't preclude Rouge/Shadow.
Speaking of Shadow, we do have Naka outright saying that Shadow makes the game incredibly different from SA1, and that everything about him has to stay a secret, which I don't think would be the case if he was never gonna be playable. What exactly was there to keep secret about him if he wasn't playable? I guess his storyline, but it seems like in this interview you could see they had bigger plans for Shadow than just being a boss fight.

 

Yeah, reading that makes me think there's some mistranslation when they went with Naka.

Next time there's another meet and greet with Iizuka we should really make a thread with some of the questions we have. This is definitely a great question to ask him (along with the story branch system they supposedly had in mind.)

 

Just throwing some dates in:

Sonic Adventure 2: The Trial was built on 15th November 2000, more than six months before launch. Only Sonic is playable, but remants of other characters, including Tails, Rouge and Shadow, exist on the disc.

(Maybe you should document this in more detail, Retro)


As far as I can see, no information on Sonic Adventure 2 was released to the public between E3 2000 (mid-May) and the announcement of this trial version (late November, early December). Which means, if the version shown at E3 2000 only had three characters, the other three must have been added in that six month period.

News of playable Tails, Rouge and Shadow doesn't seem to have come to light until about April 2001. I still have some magazines to check though.

 

That’s interesting for sure. So us Brits are to blame. Haha.
But I am glad that article was found.

I’m still interested in knowing if there is more to it though.
Not saying that they couldn’t have actually been told that and are doing good reporting.
But feels kinda odd that such a big change for the sequel is only mentioned in the UK magazine. (As far as I know).

I’d imagine what they say to one magazine is basically what they would say to another one. Feels like if they were going down that 3 character route it would be reported more in others.
(I know the trailer lists only those 3 characters but it also lists ‘Master Emerald’ so not really sure if that counts of proof that they are limiting the roster or just listing Sonic things haha)

 

Just some speculation, but perhaps Radical Highway would have come right after City Escape if you (Sonic) choose to fight off GUN instead of giving in, making it technically a counterpart to Metal Harbor? It would have fit right in, considering the urban setting, the fact it takes place at nighttime (just like the Big Foot boss battle), and the fact it shows the player escaping from GUN through a highway and some bridges.

FWIW, the Japanese version and Sonic X make it clear that Sonic could have fought off GUN but chose to give in, as he thought he could learn more about Shadow at Prison Island.

 

Agreed. The article doesn't even say that Naka told them that, like it does with other bits of info.

Even if they had asked (which it doesn't seem like they did), it's unlikely Sonic Team would casually confirm new or returning characters months before they had footage or screenshots of them to show off.

 

I believe he was asked about the branching story at SOS or Sonic Boom or some such event. The question was clearly geared towards SA2 development, but he gave a rather stock answer about it being used in Shadow. Whether this was because something was lost in translation or he can only say so much pertaining to development, I don't know.

Granted, the reveal was 20+ years ago, and I could easily see it as merely a small example of the general story idea ("Will you choose to save the world or conquer it? Will you pilot the sub or escape it?") Although I also thought the one-eyed Shadow thing was a weird misinterpretation until the concept art was released so who knows.

 

Ah, when I have time I'll go over some of those Q&As and see if I can find it.

 

Not sure if this was brought up. But 2021 interview:

https://soahcity.com/2021/07/22/new-sonic-adventure-1-2-development-details-revealed/