I've found an old spanish magazine supplement celebrating Sonic's third anniversary, from 1994, talking about all the games released in that time ( or at least, the ones released in Spain, nothing about obscure games like segasonic arcade). The supplement in itself is pretty mediocre, but has a few interesting info tidbits... It mentions "Feel" as the next new revolution of gaming who wiould oust Sonic as Sega's mascot, and also tells a few interesting tidbits of info: - Sonic Chaos's beta name was Sonic red chaos emerald - After Sonic & Knuckles release, Sega would release " Sonic Arcade" for Megadrive 32x - "Sonic Chaos 2" ( Sonic Triple Trouble) was planned to release in both Master System and Game Gear,and have some beta screens ( although I don't see anything different in them) This comes from Mega-Sega, the spanish version of Mean bean Machines, who was half-official for Sega Spain back in the time ( there was also other sega oriented magazines, and sega supported them all with it advertisements. When Sega stopped paying adverts on it, it was discontinued.). This magazine was also known for being very critic with Sonic , and also, for making up info when they didn't have enough to say ( in this very same supplement, they say Sonic's maker is " a short japanese guy called Yuji Nava who did drawn Sonic himself", so I would take this with a pinch of salt but...they alse knew about "feel"...so they really had inside info. Could that " Sonic Arcade" be that early Sonic mars project that was rumored to be in development for 32x? Or a real port of Sega Sonic Arcade we have no other info of? And that beta name for Sonic Chaos? Do we have any other info about its naming process in the west? I remember seeing in that magazine, long time ago, some beta cover for Sonic Chaos... I've wrote an article about it in Sonic Paradise, so you can read it if you want. also, here are the scans of the magazine ( in spanish) if you want to take a look.
What a coincidence... Just yesterday, I plugged Sonic Chaos on my Japanese Mega Drive for the first time, and for a second I was expecting "Red Chaos Emerald" to appear, before I remembered the Japanese name was Sonic & Tails. Then "Sonic Chaos" appeared on screen. =P I also remember another magazine talking about Sonic Chaotix in the reader mail section, and then another one saying that SEGA would release Sonic 3+ or some other similar tentative title... It was in a small booklet given away with a magazine (also featuring the first ever screenshot of Smurfs GB, which showed the stork level).
I've also just read that " Sonic Chaos was first called Sonic 3, and then Sonic red chaos emerald". Forgot to say that in the article and here, ugh
How weird, they'd have a good reason to call it Red Chaos Emerald too, the opening scene explicitly shows Robotnik flying off with it, and the quest is to get it back. Perhaps it was talked about- it's not really a very good name though, but chaos itself is also a wierd choice. I always wondered why it was simply "Chaos" whereas other titles had some sort of rhyme as to why they were so named- One and Two are obvious. Triple Trouble is due to Knuckles, Nack and Eggman. 3D Blast is self explanatory, as are all the others. Chaos is just a very vague word associated with the action in the game, whereas the Sonic games were always aptly named. In any case, we definitely need further study. Has anyone ever hacked Sonic Chaos fully? If I recall, SOST had a few hidden sprites in a jumbled sheet but nothing else. From all the other media only showing the title as "Chaos" it's probably safe to assume that it never got further than a planned name rather than a title change in game, but still.
I also wonder why they renamed it from the Japanese "Sonic and Tails" name, which was very apt at describing the selling point that HEY IT'S HANDHELD TAILS!.
many magazines talked about SegaSonic Arcade coming to the 32X - EGM, Gamepro, Gameplayers, etc. I wouldn't doubt that, at some press event, a rep made that claim, based off of how many outlets reported it. In any case, I would expect thats what this magazine is referring to, probably from the same source all those other magazines got their info from, too.
So might it be related somehow to the Sonic Mars project? maybe they first had the idea to port segasonic, and from there, decided to ditch it and make a completely new game ( Sonic Mars). I wonder how much ot if was actually ported, if they even passed the planning stage. Is there more scans or sourcers about Sonic Red Chaos Emerald? It suits the game too well, so I kinda think they might have made that up. It's easy to see a red chaos emerald and say "so? it's sonic red chaos emerald". Are there other sources that confirm it? About Triple Trouble in Master System, I'm pretty sure this is true, as I remember seeing it in release lists and even in shops cataloges, but it never came out.
That Sonic 3 logo with Sonic and Tails in it, while just some thing thrown together, is really cool looking and I would greatly prefer that to Sonic 3 finals title screen.
I've found something more! About that surfing Sonic in Great Turquoise, I've found some video footage of that, in a Sega Spain promotional video. In 2:10/2:15, we can see surfing sonic in great turquoise!
Nice find! Must have been a much earlier build because the scenery is totally solid there in the actual game and there's no room to surf at all!
Nifty, woulda been neat to see the surfboard mechanic used more than just one level in that game. And yeah, the title thing always confused me a bit. Red Chaos makes more sense than just Chaos, but even then I would have preferred if they just stuck with Sonic and Tails. :v:
I wonder if you put the Board item into Great Turqouise, would it still work on the water? edit: why did half the words in my post disappear?
This is really interesting to me, because in my Sonic Freedom project I added a surfing event to Great Turquoise Zone. I had no idea that the beta had it!
I have no qualms with the vague title of "Sonic Chaos". "Triple Trouble" is kinda meh, "Sonic Red Chaos" sounds like a bit much, but christ does "Sonic Red Chaos Emerald" sound stupid. I imagine it was nothing more than a working title, and for whatever reason this magazine picked up on it. I find it curious that even though this bit about surfing in Great Turquoise Zone didn't show up in the final game, the footage is labeled as belonging to the English-(re)titled "Sonic Triple Trouble" -- even though the video is clearly directed at a Spanish-speaking market, including translating the Next Level tagline. I imagine this is just a sign of the times, that there was little interest/funds for translating what little text there was into various languages? So between regions and name changes we went from... Sonic & Tails > Sonic Red Chaos /Emerald > Sonic Chaos Sonic & Tails 2 > Sonic Chaos 2 > Sonic Triple Trouble It's like seeing those two thin red objects next to "Sonic Riders" in the sequel's logo - and logically thinking "Okay, so it's officially called Sonic Riders 2. That's cool." ...Only to see "Zero Gravity" at the bottom and think "Okay, so it's called Sonic Riders 2: Zero Gravity. Bit long and over-descriptive but whatever." ...Then seeing it namedropped everywhere and thinking "Where's the numerals? Everyone's forgetting the damn numerals man!" Of course "Riders" is still part of the series' title so it's still clear that ZG (and Free) is a sequel so Iyou adjust quickly. I might've preferred "Sonic Chaos 2" if only for that missing sense of continuity that Japan has. :v:
I don't think the localization of names is a matter of founds, but more about traditions. Games almost never get their titles translated to spanish, even if the game is fully translated and dubbed into spanish, titles usually keep their english names. It's not strange at all that Triple Trouble's name in spain is...Triple Trouble. In fact, the only sonic games who has got their titles translated into spanish were Tails and the music maker ( Tails y el musico), Sonic and the secret rings ( Sonic y los anillos secretos), Sonic & the black knight ( Sonic y el caballero negro), Sonic Chronicles the dark brotherhood ( Sonic Chronicles: la hermandad siniestra) and the olimpic games. all the rest have their english titles untouched ( and generations was the first one dubbed into spanish!) I think Adventure was the first subbed into spanish, too. Usually only movie games get their titles translated, or games focused to kids/casual gamers. In fact, in that very same video, the only game with it title tranlsated is "El Rey Leon", the lion king.
That's what I figured. Now I'm wondering how long it was between the change from "Sonic Chaos 2" to "Sonic Triple Trouble"? I figure it might give us a rough estimate of when the surfing feature was taken out. I'm tempted to guess it was removed late in development, but others have pointed out what looks to be a different level layout in that clip than what appeared in the final.
