My thought about Hidden Palace Zone

The ramp being used to return to the area around the emerald block has always been my theory as well. Take a look at the water slides at the top of the ramp, the direction of the flow changes one "bump" after the start of the slides. It's possible you would've been dropped out at that point, if you held right you'd go on to the rest of the level, if not you'd be carried back down the ramp and have to get up there again. The way the zone is laid out I'm imagining it would've played like Labyrinth Zone, looping back on itself until you went the correct way.

Of course that whole area is the least finished part of the zone and the section most likely to have been cut had the layout been reworked.

 

Well, I have a theory. Even if you could break it, the tube wasn't ever finished, it just goes down. But maybe, you could break the fake Emerald, then you would fall in an underwater emerald shrine, like the S3&K one except for the ME, where you would get the ability to use Super Sonic, you would transform, and since Super Sonic jumps higher, you would exit the tube, then you would go up the steep slope, and you know the rest. :P

EDIT: Why do I always kill threads? I mean geez, I post in a thread, and bam, no more posting :disgust:

 

That actually makes a lot of sense, I may also add it is probably the only zone in S2NA aside from GHZ using S1 Monitors, and that it would fit using a 256x256 metatile system.

Regarding the layout, something that we are missing is the fact we don't know how much the zone was done from the layout we all know. That layout could perfectly be in the same state than CPZ of S2NA; that's it, severely incomplete.

Btw, it might be kind of random, but I've just realized the shield monitor next the first tube in HPZ was actually supposed to be a ring monitor if the zone was using S1 Monitors =P

 

I already mentioned the 10 ring monitor earlier. SO YOU LOSE SIR, GOOD DAY

 

Yes, but how do you know it was not a zone like HTZ or EHZ whose layouts and objects were almost complete at the time of the NA proto? However I do agree that we know to little to assume anything about the zone except the emerald was meant to break, the zone was in a cave, and it was intended to be finished but was cut due to time constraints. Oh, and the messed up pointers causing an item box switch effect.

 

I thought this was funny:

http://www.sonic-cult.org/community/index.php?showtopic=7256

It's a very similar idea though it's full of flaws (Like it being a Tails only level and such)
But I guess great minds think alike.

 

Wasn't it stated by someone that they had issues with the water rising and the looping of the Y-plane?


Something new occurred to me and it's something I haven't seen anyone else talk about. I completely forgot about the sets of rings that are on the slope. We have all noticed that there isn't an actual platform that raises Sonic up the slope. This led to speculation that Super Sonic is supposed to run UP the slope. I believed that theory for the longest until I realized the PLACEMENT of the rings (the rings that I had forgotten were there to begin with). They are arranged as 3 in a row, which suggests that Sonic can only grab them while on a raising platform up the slope. Now lets talk about the Giant emerald's tube. We know that it leads to nothing exciting. In fact it's cut off...because we aren't meant to see it. Nothing down there is of importance....except the WATER. Now lets make a little mental note about Labyrinth Zone: whenever the water level goes UP, the corks that Sonic stands on also goes UP. Perhaps the same could be said for the Giant emerald. The floating emerald can easily take Sonic up the center of the slope, allowing him to get the rings it has to offer. After that, he can jump off onto the water slide that would have taken him to where ever.

PROBLEM: For some reason they took a short cut and cut the slope into two sections to mimic the effect of one long slope without having large Y-axis values. Labyrinth Zone is able to use just one little section to loop over and over as Sonic is falling. No issues are involved because Sonic is going down and real water isn't involved.

http://info.sonicretro.org/Image:Lz3.PNG

Now back to our little HPZ shortcut:

We'll call the bottom on the slope "Slope A" and the top of the slope "Slope B" even though it's really at the bottom of the screen. Imagine floating up Slope A, when all of a sudden as the Change to Slope B occurs....Sonic is suddenly underwater because the water's Y location didn't change! Although Sonic is visually at the top of the slope in it's entirety, he's really in a lower location! The water level continues as Sonic's X-axis position changes (with or without him still standing on the giant emerald). Thus leaving him in a sudden underwater palace!

This error is just pure speculation, however who knows what problems actually occured.

My main point is that since the water level rises, it can't imediately reset it's location lower on the Y-axis as Sonic's X-axis location changes. I believe that the programmers couldn't figure out a way to make the water level suddenly drop, but not make it appear as so when Sonic reaches the top of Slope B. Basically, if they didn't cut the slope in half, this problem would have never occured, but my only guess is that they had a limited Y-field in which the level could be made, which is why they had to cut the slope into 2 sections......Only to find that this method was useless as well.


My Opinion? If this is true, then why not just cut the slope entirely? Problem solved!


I hope this gibberish made some sort of sense to others.

 

I've never heard of the emerald being rideable (is that a word?) before... it's interesting to say the least, but it doesn't line up with the slope. I did hear theories about it being a cork though and it seems reasonable. It's hard to say, I don't think the programmers didn't know what they were doing, I think they just never got around to it. :P

 

Esrael was able to make the "ride up the slope and wrap the screen" deal work fine, even with the water... I don't think it would be as huge of a problem here.

That does make sense, though—I mean, if you removed the emerald, the top of the tube is still solid. The water making the Emerald rise is both a neat and plausible idea, and definitely different than the usual non-existent lift theory. The only thing to ever suggest a lift is the fact that the area is sloped, which isn't much credence at all. However, the water filling up the level makes even more sense, because you have that water slide at the "top" of the slope, and you have the unused tiles of water falling off the sides of the water slide. A huge waterfall or something in the middle of the slide that would overfill the level with the player riding the Emerald to safety, making it to the top, then riding the slide to the end of the level (which already seemed to have been plotted out) makes perfect sense.

 

Then throw in a BUNCH of those Star-fish Badniks from Metropolis and you've got yourself one hell of a stage. Or at least a hard dodging game.

Also, I really with everyone would stop calling it "the master emerald" or assigning any real significance to the object. It's baseless conjecture, seeing as the idea of a controlling emerald was introduced for Sonic 3K, rather than S2. If Hidden Palace was to be "where the chaos emeralds came from", than the CHAOS EMERALDS are the significant objects, not this petty destructible scenery. If the all-powerful chaos emeralds came from here, there's bound to be quite a few MINOR gems of various sizes, seeing as a gem must be CUT before it can be of a Hexagonal shape, as the Chaos Emeralds DID appear in Sonic 2.

 

Since everyone is posting his theory about HPZ, I'm going to post mine.

Think Super Mario 64's cap stages. If you have all the 7 emeralds you are allowed to go to HPZ in some way (with the starpost, if you support the "you can be Super Sonic whenever you want" idea, or between SCZ and WFZ if you support the "you can be Super Sonic only at the end" idea; personally, I like the starpost idea better).
Now, you warp to HPZ, you begin as Super Sonic with N rings (N possibly = 50), so you have N seconds to get to that slope. If you manage to arrive there in time, your Super Sonic powers would allow you to climb it and reach the good ending of HPZ where you're confirmed your powers or something; otherwise, if you are too slow to get there and you turn back to normal Sonic, your only way out is to break the emerald, fall down and fade out (you won't die, though).
An alternative is that if you jump on the emerald while being super, it would react with your Super Sonic powers (instead of breaking as mentioned above), confirming them, and allowing you to go to the slope. This would really be like Super Mario 64, with the emerald being like the button.

Just my two cents.

And now that's a nice hack concept. I will implement it in Soni2Neko.

 

personally, I'd make a series of rotating box platforms be the solution to getting up the slope. Think Chemical Plant Zone's rotating box puzzle but at an angle.

 

In my opinion, the Level was designed to have a normal signpost ending, cause there is such a platform under water. I think there should be a lift, and when it reached the top, it went to the bottom of the screen and then the waterslide followed, which leads to the end of the stage. The slope with the huge Emerald was something like seen in Sonic Delta. About the position in the game, it could be everywhere, there are not any links between any levels...

Regards,
Soldier

 

If we ever get to see the original map for this level (I think they used millimetric paper for those before they were implemented), I doubt it will resemble the level we know, except for the first half.

 

Alrite, first time poster, long time reader. Hope to be enjoying contributing to topics as I have been reading topics.
Think about it, when sequels are made, the majority of ideas that are used are from ideas that weren't used from previous games probably because of space or time limitations, and im sure that the way you see Hidden Palace and to be Hyper Sonic, Knuckles, Super Tails, is based on the early idea of how to be Super Sonic in Sonic 2.
So based on this, I think that in this potential hack, you collect 7 emeralds before wing fortress, and you get transported to hidden palace zone. you start the level with a cutscene like how Hidden Palace is in Sonic 3 when all the Super Emeralds are collected, but then when the emeralds are flying around you, white light surrounds the screen, and Super Sonic takes Sonic's place, and for the whole one level, you go through Hidden Palace zone as super sonic on one fast, super adrenaline rush through the level, and straight to Death Egg in Super Sonic or just normal form.
And that's my two cents.

 

I'm not sure if this has been stated yet; if it is, sorry in advance.

That means that restoring the level doesn't have to as complex as others have suggested. Instead of basing the restore on the original intention of the level, anyone that wants to do this hack could just restore/create everything necessary and make it a normal two-act zone.
That's just my suggestion, though.

 

PROTIP: Wikipedia isn't always reliable.

 

It's from the Sonic Retro wiki.
http://info.sonicretro.org/Hidden_Palace_Zone_(S2)

 

Yeah, and that's real anyway... he said it in an interview, as the test says. It was done by, uh.. GamePro, I think? I honestly don't remember.