New Sonic 2 development lore drop - Genocide/Cyber City palette and art!

It may have meant new as in, the future? The remains of what was of Olympus or something that isn't a horror show genocide city. It's literally the progression of Olympus much like we see remains of Rome.

 

Considering its placement right before Neo Death Egg, I can only speculate that Neo Green Hill was an early form of Launch Base. Obviously Sonic would have somehow boarded the NDE from there, and I find it suspicious that 3&K uses an identical concept not once but twice with Sky Sanctuary as well. Not to mention the other instances of a mechanized Green Hill from around the same time.

 

Interesting, thanks. I guess we have no reason to assume anything about Neo Green Hill, but it's entirely plausible that it didn't buck the trend of the darker, industrial second half of the game. We may never know for sure.

 

I get what you're going for, but that doesn't change the fact that ARZ would be a lush, green jungle level in what is otherwise an urban and industrial dystopia. For Eggman to leave a place like that completely unharmed would be seriously out of character.

Besides, none of the concept art we have of the future island has any places with either ancient ruins or vegetation.

 

Sonic 2 stage artist Judy Totoya (A.K.A. Yasushi Yamaguchi) had an interview with Japanese magazine Beep in February 2024, which likely contains information not yet documented online. Now, it being in Japanese wouldn't be a problem, if it wasn't for the complete interview being locked behind a subscription. The full version apparently contains 35 more images and information on the design for all the zones in the game (and some of the cancelled ones).

(Machine) translated snippet:

 

As far as I know, this topic is already being tackled on the thread New Sonic 2 development lore drop - Genocide/Cyber City palette and art!.
There's no need to make an exclusive thread for something related to the dev lore thread.

 

So, is it pretty much confirmed that Craig Stitt's burning forest was nothing more than a concept that never went anywhere?

Because we now know which artist did the graphics for each level, and none of the levels with trees or fire had any involvement from him.

 

Didn't one of the early time travel outlines talk about a volcano stage just before the final battle?

Is it possible part of that could have involved a burning forest? Obviously, the end results was nothing more than a very loose concept, but it's the only place such a visual could plausibly exist.

This topic has slowed down tremendously lately. We seem to be getting towards the end of major talking points here unless more interview material surfaces.

 

Stitt specifically mentioned that the forest was burning due to having been "ravaged by Robotnik" à la Angel Island Zone, not because of natural causes.

This is purely my speculation, but since Tropical Sun's concept art was seemingly reused for AIZ, could it be possible that it was supposed to be more of a tropical jungle (fitting its old name of Tropical Plant) than a coastal area? Because if that's the case, then maybe the zone was meant to be green and healthy on the first past visit, but burning down on the second. Again, this is just my speculation with no basis in actual knowledge.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing. December gave us the largest amount of Sonic 2 development material since Yasuhara's presentation in 2017. Things slowing down is only natural.

That being said, I'm willing to bet that there's still a lot more to be found within those 500 pages. I imagine that most people on this thread have only briefly looked at their surface level.

Besides, didn't Frank say something about possibly interviewing Brenda Cook?

 

A new video on Sonic 2's development just dropped. Despite some inaccuracies, it's worth taking a look at if you have an hour and a half.

However, there's several major oddities with the video's structure; Things are often brought up in the wrong order and repeated over and over again. I wonder if it was written by AI?

 

Doesn't that account pay here?

 

What inaccuracies? Like could you elaborate? The video has a 40 page script full of sources to back up much of what was said in the video: [LINK] I'm also confused why anyone would think this script was written by Ai. Mike Alexander put a ton of effort into writing the script.

 

There is a bit of a stigma, with Sonic YouTube content. Didn’t watch the Video yet, might gonna see it later.

 

A lot of people who worked on the video are heavily passionate about the Sonic series. @Overbound produced video, while also doing most of the video editing and editing of the script. I provided a lot of gameplay, worked on art assets (including stuff that was previously used in the SONIC 2's Time Travel video), and I did additional video editing for the last twelve minutes of the video. So regardless of any stigma you mentioned, people from this community are the only reason why this video exists.

 

No offense in the slightest, but there were some mistakes, or at least misunderstandings. For example, the desert Zone was never intended to palette swap into the winter Zone mid-level, nor was Madness Mountain intended for a "Medieval time" separate from the other two Pasts.

And again, no offense to anyone who spent a lot of time on this video, but it absolutely is structured weirdly. The specific phrase "Tom Payne, who responsible for the infamous cut level known as Genocide City Zone" is said on like three separate occasions, as if the viewers wouldn't remember who he was otherwise. Also, the Emerald Isle concept art's relation to Aquatic Ruin is explained early on in the video, but mentioned again towards the very end like that's the first time it's ever been mentioned here. The narrator even says "More on that later", but it's never followed by anything, almost as if the second mention was intended to be earlier in the video than the first one.

 

Oh, I don’t have anything against the video or people who made it, I’m just merely stating that there is a problem with Sonic content creators. From my observations at least.

Why? I don’t know exactly. Maybe, people are sour about YouTubers taking all the knowledge, that was uncovered by others, and presenting it on video? But that’s just how internet works.

I don’t really know.

 

"Definitive" except not then?

Lads, the Sonic Retro wiki should always be the most up to date source for information - spend your time maintaining that rather than regurgitating its contents. Unless you're using YouTube as an excuse to learn video editing, it's a much better use of your time.

 

Different topic, but here's something I noticed with the "banper" concept art.

Spoiler: Large images

Remember how Sand Shower's sand was designed to palette swap into snow?

The enemy was even given rosy/flushed cheeks for Rock World's art, a universal symptom of cold weather. Note that the concept lists this for the past Rock World, so what does the map show?

A mountain with an ice cap. This wasn't just a background decoration, as this specific mountain also appears in the "tsunami" version of the past map.

It looks like Rock World was always an ice stage from conception, which lines up with Brenda stating that Sand Shower's map was designed with the winter palette swap in mind.

 

So, what does this mean for the ruined present's Rock World?

I thought that the timeline concepts, level slots and their music tracks implied that it was the winter Zone, whereas this past Rock World was cut early on.

 

It's possible that Rock World (ruined present) had a different theme from Rock World (past), but it's also possible that both were ice themed and represented single acts like Genocide City on the future map. We simply don't know.

The "banper" concept art would be from the time Yasuhara was creating the rough block maps for the artists, alongside the gimmicks and theme. If the two Rock Worlds had different themes before they were merged, my assumption is that Yasuhara kept the ice theme and discarded whatever his original idea for the ruined present version was. Otherwise, if both versions were always ice themed, then it was simply a matter of Rock World no longer being visited in the past, just the ruined present.