Feel (Ristar) animations tape Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Pre-final tape Discuss this release on our Discord server! A few years ago, we purchased a few PAL SECAM VHS tapes intending to accurately transfer them to a digital format using the best, professional methods available to us. The tapes themselves were in decent condition considering that they haven’t been viewed in almost 30 years, around the time they would’ve also been recorded and viewed. When we received these tapes, we had every intention to transfer them as accurately as possible with any means available to us at the time. The transfers were done by our good friends at Kineko Video. First up, we have a rare, internal-use-only tape showing off various early production design options for the main character in Ristar back when the game was originally called Feel. We displayed this tape in its entirety almost two years ago during our Sonic Month 2020 stream showcasing Sonic Adventure 2 as a small bonus. The footage at the time was based on the original transfer that was done by the local video production company, so we didn’t want to fully release the video on its own without at least giving it another go. In late 1993, shortly after the game had started development, a demo reel showing off color choices, designs, and some animation work was produced by Sega of Japan and shown to executives and producers within each branch of the company to vote on. The design of Ristar in this early preproduction tape was shown in brief prerelease screenshots of the game when the game was still titled “Feel” across all territories. The design for Ristar would continue to be refined even after the game was released, making many of the character designs a little tougher to appeal to the Western market. Lastly, we have a rare, almost complete look at an extremely late prototype of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The tape consists of two almost complete playthroughs of Sonic 3 spliced together to represent each zone right up until the end credits. The purpose of the tape itself is unknown. The owner of the tape said that the tape was meant for progress reports for those living outside of the West during the original development of the game. However, we think that the tape served a different purpose instead. Sega possibly offered journalists a temporary VHS tape that contained footage of a playthrough of Sonic 3 that journalists could use to grab frames and write coverage on instead. This way, the game can receive mostly complete coverage without having to risk the ROM being spread all over the internet days before the release date. The prototype featured on the tape is extremely late, possibly just a few days before release. Despite this, we can determine quite a several differences that were changed or fixed at the last moment before the game was finished. Be sure to check out the article for more information! The write-up was done by our good friend fredbonze, who is known for his excellent Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Unlocked blog which details the inner workings and oversights in the original game. Be sure to check it out! Until next time, see you tomorrow!
This is really cool! Thank you so much to everyone involved for transferring these tapes and for the excellent writeup and comparisons.
Wiki it up, buds. Takahiro Hamano's credited in Sonic & Knuckles - perhaps it was Flying Battery content or something.
Looks like the plane in the AIZ1 intro isn't lowering at all like it does in the final. Edit: Really hard to tell for sure. Watching on a phone, and I don't notice it on final footage either.
This is a really cool find, especially the late Sonic 3 footage.. the more we learn about that game’s troubled development the better.. it’s amazing how close to final this footage is and yet there’s still changes being made
This article goes over some of them: https://hiddenpalace.org/Video/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_3/Pre-final_tape There’s not as many differences compared to the final build so don’t expect much.
Shouldn't this be fredbronze? What I find interesting is the timer disabling during Launch Base Zone - Act 2, after the Ball Shooter boss: November 3, 1993 prototype: timer is paused, no final bosses exist Video: timer is paused during cutscene and final bosses Sonic 3 final: timer is not paused Sonic 3 & Knuckles: timer is paused during cutscene and resumes for final bosses Sonic & Knuckles Collection: timer is paused during cutscene and final bosses (cf. video) Sonic Origins: timer is not paused (cf. Sonic 3 final) Weird how they were trying to work all this out.
The audio fluctuating on the Sonic 3 tape does make me think if some volume limiter can be applied to the audio to make it even with the quieter sections...
Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!! Noooooo! The HP site crashed as I was about to start editing! I'll put this here until the site's back up: 1. The tape seems to have a Genesis Model 1 running: if you listen very carefully to Angel Island Act 1's intro, you can hear LVD manifesting as a faint high pitched arpeggio. 2. The special stage actually reveals a bug that didn't get fixed in the final game: if you get snagged inbetween two bumpers and jump out of them, you will not go faster with the music. This breaks Sonic's jump as he gets lower and lower the more the music goes faster, and in the tape the player stays at the normal speed as the music increases in speed. You can press up on the D-Button to go faster in the final game to get out of this bug, but the player doesn't do that in the first special stage for whatever reason.
