Sonic CD's Mysterious Cut R2 Level Discussion - Post Origins Edition

Sand is dust, but not every dust is sand.

 

O.K., I've just recorded two videos (gonna upload them to YouTube and share tomorrow).

Tap the (i) button - you'll get more info and the checkmark:

That's how this R2 / Dubious Depths conversation started:

 

I believe Devon was replying to this post, rather than questioning the authenticity of the account.

Not really. Among other differences, sand grains are bigger than dust particles, and are formed from minerals (dust might or might not come from minerals).

 

This is a massive discovery. Thank you so much!

Just to list all the Zone names out and let it process:
Palmtree Panic
Dubious Depths
Collision Chaos
Tidal Tempest
Quartz Quadrant
Wacky Workbench
Stardust Speedway
Metallic Madness

Awesome.

 

I watched The Mummy last night. Sand can most definitely be dust! Hollywood doesn't lie.

I'm willing to believe the name was Dubious Depths. Master Dreamcaster has posted some other things of noteworthy substance. So he gets the benefit of the doubt from me.

 

Like the name, fits well for what presumably would have been mostly an underground setting. So I'm thinking it would have been loosely based on Marble zone from Sonic 1 with ruins, lava, breaking platforms, rainbow waterfalls, lots of sand (maybe quick-sand with some Sandopolis vibes) with those worm & antilon badniks. The wind-turbine things (as shown off in the Little Planet concept art) to push Sonic upwards. Sounds like could have been a fun stage.

 

Something about the rainbow waterfalls makes me feel like it would've been a thing in the Good Future; it's a concept that seems a bit too pristine for a Present stage. Since Dubious Depths seems to be a Marble Zone expy (much like several other Sonic CD stages are Sonic 1 stand-ins), I could see them changing lava (or sand) in one time zone to water in another.

 

Or the Past, to show a peaceful time Robotnik is ruining.

 

I think the angel statue could have been a better fit for DD:

 

I can also see sand replacing the Marble Zone lava with a quicksand feature. Or maybe even falling into areas where the sand can bury you and you have to escape like this segment.

 

Apologies for my improper formatting and potentially offtopic garbage, but I have a bunch of trivial information that might be relevant to timelining R2's removal, and since this place is active I figure it warrants a post.

I've been disassembling Sonic CD 0.02 and found that the system program has some leftover commands for playing CDDA tracks, appearing to actually match the final game's number of track playback commands. They point to a numbered list that goes up to 0x7 and then repeats 0x2 for another 14 entries.


This would account for R2's removal and the switch to using PCM past tracks. More interesting is the leftover level event index which has R2 pointing to R1's events at this point:


Make of this what you will. My impression is that the zone was removed by this point, but it's possible it just wasn't implemented yet, although, unlikely. R3 and R4 were seemingly implemented, but removed for the demo. The IPX file is a glorified way of running R1 at this point, so nothing there.

 

So like Sandopolis Zone Act 2?

 

I asked Mazin about this a ways back and none of this was actually made for R2.

https://twitter.com/Jon_TD_/status/1332788476576747530

EDIT: Just noticed this was posted on page 4 but the link is broken ATM.

 

I guess, while we don't know what the plan is I'm envisioning them more simple like that screenshot and not as elaborate as Sandopolis Act 2. Could be though.

I'm just glad he Ohshima actually revealed something about it instead of being top secret area 51 about it like other people in the past.

 

I actually briefly mentioned this in an earlier post in this thread when talking about Collision Chaos existing at that point in development. Also mentioned another instance where Collision Chaos is checked for.

 

Just wanted to say thank you for this - I believed you already but this is pretty irrefutable!

It's really nice to know what R2 was called after so many years of speculation. It's nice to see some progress made towards solving one of the biggest remaining classic Sonic mysteries.

 

Can't believe it's another DD, now 1993 not-Marble and 2011 not-Sand Shower/proto-Mirage Saloon can't be identified by initials at a glance anymore, that's gonna be ever-so-slightly inconvenient
Hoping that shoving a "p" or "z" on the end becomes the standard notation, feels like that's the cleanest way to differentiate them


DDp - Dubious Depths
DDz - Desert Dazzle

 

It's wild to see one of the biggest mysteries of Sonic CD becoming so much clearer; I never thought we'd get a proper name for R2.

I'd be interested in seeing someone try to fully realize Dubious Depths, honestly. We have enough pieces that it's becoming pretty possible to understand what it would've been like.

 

And all you had to do was ask on Twitter