Chemical Plant Zone

It's basically the same model, just with different lighting conditions, and in the case of S4E2, a big chunk taken out of its underside so you can see the Little Planet.



True, it looks a lot better in S4E2, but that's just because black and purple are infinitely cooler than grey and faded light blue/yellow.

 

Oh fuck me, today I learned that both of these games in fact essentially use the same Death Egg model. Thanks for pointing that out! Rather surprised that I didn't notice this before myself. :v:

The lights on Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II's Death Egg model are far more apparent and sans the Little Planet exposition and lighting differences, it's the biggest notable difference to me. The lighting on Sonic Generations' Death Egg model just looks a bit plain and bland, really.


As for Chemical Plant Zone, I do wonder why some of its graphics look so similar to that of Death Egg Zone. It wouldn't be the first Sonic game to undergo Zone re-ordering during the development phase, either.

 

I really liked the Generations Death Egg model. Only thing I think that'd of made it better would have been if they removed that grin.

 

I always thought that Death Egg looked incredibly off model (plus where is the nose?), and no, the Death Egg is never seen in Sonic 2 save for that level select icon it has.

Now one thing I've always wondered, what in the hell would the Death Egg have done? Robotnik is so gun ho on getting that thing up and about but you never really learn what it's going to do. In the Archie Sonic comics it originally served as like a regional/global roboticizer. Once Sonic and Sally blew that up though it just became his floating base. In Sonic the Comic I think it functioned similar to the ark. IIRC, Robotnik got a chance to use the laser once but Sonic swiped the Master Emerald soon after. Is it safe to assume that it's really just the Death Star? Seems off character for Robotnik, seeing as how he wants a planet to control, not to blow up.

 

But wouldn't having control of an incredibly powerful weapon mean he would be able to control the world, since they'd fear he'd blow them up if they refused to do what he asked?

 

Well he did try that in SA2 but he was especially grim dark in that game. He really seemed more on the terrorist side of villainy than the mad scientist he normally is (Blowing up islands, holding Sonic at gun point, launching Sonic into space and then detonating the space capsule, blowing up half of the moon... I mean ya he wants to defeat Sonic in the rest of the series but he doesn't seem to want to kill him as bad as he does in SA2. Plus oddly enough SA2 was one of the few games where Robotnik didn't actually make anything. All the robot mech fights and most of the enemies in general are GUN machines, most of the bosses are either rivals or ghosts, and he just kind of stumbles upon the ARK but he didn't build it. Only thing I think he built was the Egg Golem, and he had some monkey robots and orbinauts lying around the pyramid base for good measure. Honestly the plot kind of boils down to terrorist is given missile codes). Plus at that point in the series, unlike Star Wars where there are multiple planets to go around to and take over, there is only the one planet. If they don't give in and he blows it up, well... that doesn't seem very satisfying in the long run.

Despite the Roboticizer not existing in the game canon I'd like to think the Death Egg functioned similar to how it did in the Archie comic series.

 

Actually, he held Amy at gunpoint... Yeah, he must have been really desperate to finally get rid of Sonic, considering the fact that he always whines about how Sonic messes up his "wonderful" plans every single time.

 

Chemical Plant, while a bit out of place in terms of possible story progression and natural difficulty curve (the former can be explained away and the latter, I'm not sure about to be honest - I never had too much trouble with it), works so wonderfully as zone 2 because it showed off what the engine was capable of in a very subtle way. Sonic 1 was more or less a platformer in the traditional sense with a few opportunities to 'go fast'. Emerald Hill was largely the same as this, but then they chuck CPZ at you and instantly you realize "Wow, okay, so this is what I can do" and the game just kind of opens up from there. If it were later in the game, I think people wouldn't remember Sonic 2 as fondly - not because it would be worse or anything, but because that subtle inclusion of it as the second stage quickly introduced people who maybe enjoyed Sonic 1 to the concept of using the momentum physics and really going crazy-fast.

 

Has anyone ever thought about this? Imagine that Chemical Plant Zone was actually after Metropolis Zone like originally planned; it would potentially have had a HUGE effect on the early franchise as a whole in the west.

Would Dr Robotnik's base of operations be Metropolis in the cartoons and comics? Would that have had an effect on the type of character that he was in the cartoons? Metropolis always sounded very 1984, and in vein of that, in the cartoons he was the ruler of a huge robot city infused with a robotic arm and minions that he'd effectively brainwashed.

Chemical plant is much more professor-like than Metropolis Zone, and the level placement could have had a huge impact on how the character of Robotnik was perceived. I always thought that Chemical Plant was in a city taken over with a laboratory being built in the middle of it. I probably would have thought of it more in-line with Scrap Brain Zone (all being built by Robotnik) had it been one of the later stages before the launch of the Death Egg. It being so early on didn't make it any more menacing.

I always wondered why those two levels shared some background graphics but now I've realised why.

Also, just a quickie as you guys were asking what the Death Egg was for.
The Death Egg in Sonic Battle houses the "Final Egg Blaster" which he uses to destroy a cluster of stars in a single hit (making it the most powerful weapon in a Sonic game EVER). He does this to trick Emerl in to becoming his slave (as he's bound to serve the most powerful being), however, Emerl goes out of control and sets a countdown to launch the cannon at earth, and Robotnik exclaims "Knock it off Gizoid! If the earth is gone, I won't be able to achieve world domination!"

So yeah, it's always equipped with some sort of huge laser (in S3&K it's in the eyes of the machine) which Robotnik intends to threaten earth with to get what he wants.

 

Y'all are pussies for thinking CPZ is hard.

I always kinda thought it made sense to have the base levels more spread out from a story perspective. It would be dumb to clump all your important bases together.

 

Eh, it's easier to die in the stage itself than Casino Night, but the Casino Night boss is hard, and the Chemical Plant boss is easy.

 

I think Aquatic ruin is a bit hard personally, less death pit, but more hazards, and more time spent underwater.
But of course it's harder than Casino Night. Almost every stage is harder than Casino Night. The only "Difficulty" to Casino Night is figuring out how to control Sonic well enough to use bounce trajectory on the bumpers to your advantage. When your a kid and don't know how 2 fyzikz, sure it's a gauntlet, but once you've figured out how to basically control Sonic, Casino Night is really a cakewalk.

Not that it's not a fun level mind you.

 

Chemical Plant makes a fine second level, but the final run just before the boss is a dick move unworthy of it. There's an arching downward incline, and the level taught you that downward inclines are always safe to start a full-speed run on (in fact, the layout is both encouraging you to do so and to run along the ground rather than jump at high velocities), but here, for the first time, you suddenly die in a bottomless pit if you follow the level's "flow" since those rotating platforms are a bit off-timing and positioned just where the screen abruptly ends due to arena cutoff (wtf - I died to a wall that wasn't even there...). Meh. I haven't played any of the re-makes/ports, has anyone ever fixed this by, say, positioning a pack of spikes to stop you before the boss arena bit or shaping the little path so it's not all "let's run!" and stuff? I don't like having to suddenly memorize levels, this isn't Sonic 2 GG... /rant

 

That huge incline right before the death pit should actually give you enough momentum to just sail right over it as long as you're going at max speed.

 

I'd say that last part of the stage is even harder than Mystic Cave, but then I got to play that level a bunch due to the multiplayer mode which ignores the boss.

 

In Sonic Pocket Adventure they made CPZ easier and Aquatic Ruin harder (DAT LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG underwater sections)