What really was the Sound Test #10 in STH2 going to be used for?

You DO know there are oil refineries outside of the Middle East, right...?
You're jumping to conclusions whether you believe you are or not.

 

To be honest, I personally also find it hard to believe that the Arabic influenced song wasn't intended to go along with the Arabic influenced Oil Ocean stage.

It's very likely Wood Zone plays tge wrong stage theme (since Metropolis has a city theme), so why wouldn't Oil Ocean?

I'm also utterly unconvinced that Mystic Cave was going to be called Dust Hill, so that could also point to errors in the prototype.

 

Of course their are! You can continue to believe what you think, but OOZ's theme wasn't just slapped into the level just because the concept art hasn't been discovered. Do I think it's a bit deep for U.S. level designers to make fun of and point out the "evil" dependency on foreign oil? Absolutely, but that's what happened here. Had the game been made after 2010, it obviously would be less fitting after the Deepwater Horizon BP Oil spill :v:

Thank you. The Arabic nature was intentional....even with the possibility of it being originally for another Arabian influenced level that didn't make it. Meanwhile, we still later ended up with Sandopolis and Oil Desert Zones, the latter of which was Jun Senoue's poor attempt at modern Arabian Pop Rock.

 

Why? Cyber City Zone was originally called Genocide City Zone, so I don't see any reason why DHZ =/= MCZ

 

This is an opinion whether you agree or disagree.

You cannot prove or disprove that it was simply placeholder music in the Wai proto. Placeholder music would be the Sonic 1 tracks in the NA proto. It seems more likely IMO that they were testing and tweaking tracks to match level art and seeing what works during the Wai proto, ultimately deciding to go with OOZ's final track in the final product after deciding it was more fitting and Sand Shower Zone was scrapped. It's entirely possible that CNZ2P was OOZ's original track. Things change a lot during game development.

Which means nothing. HPZ doesn't use MCZ2P in the final either, for example. This doesn't prove that the 2P tracks weren't considered for these zones at some point in development, it only shows the final result.

A cut and dry case would be OOZ using its final track in the Wai proto like all the other levels (minus the cut HPZ) instead of CNZ2P. We wouldn't even be having this discussion had this been the case.

This was my argument, that OOZ's track was possibly composed for Sand Shower Zone originally since its level slot was assigned the song. We know that Sonic 3 reused Sonic 2's concept art, so it's not too much of a stretch to theorize that Sandopolis Zone was based off of Sand Shower's original concept. Since we have yet to see said concept art, we have no idea if Sand Shower Zone was originally more middle eastern like Sandopolis Zone before its later created, more western looking mockup/level art .

 

"Cyber City" and "Genocide City" are both describing a city, whereas "Dust Hill" and "Mystic Cave" are two completely different names. Emerald Hill is also called Green Hill in the Simon Wai prototype, which further proves the theory of an outdated level select.

 

It says Green Hill in the overhead maps, so that was most likely intentional.

 

I'm going to need you to sit down when you read this. Are you sitting? OK good....The Nick Arcade prototype had Sonic 1 levels listed in the level select. Its almost like, they expanded the level slots at one point and decided to rename all of them while they were at it, and never looked back. Isn't that insane? Could you imagine?

 

If you take HPZ without the context of what the stage was in Sonic 3, with the way the stage is designed Hidden Palace zone seems to be more of a "mystic cave" IMO.

 

And yet we still got Oil Ocean as a returning stage in 2017's Sonic Mania.

 

As someone from Louisiana, I can assure that nobody here gives a shit about Oil Ocean bearing any resemblance to the BP oil spill. It's definitely not the first (Bass Enterprises, Barataria Bay, heck the Taylor Energy oil spill didn't capped off until.... yesterday after 14 years) and probably won't be the last, either. BP was already vilified to hell and back when the incident was a headliner. If anything, Eggman spilling oil is just a fitting narrative for a villain.

 

Lol, why are you being so aggressive :v:

Just because they renamed the levels after the Nick Arcade prototype doesn't mean that therefore every time afterwards all the levels were named correctly.

I do find it interesting though how many people here think Mystic Cave was originally called Dust Hill.

 

It looks like people are starting to believe what they actually see.

 

I'll always believe dust hill was just a prototype name for mystic cave until I see some hard facts proving otherwise. "It just sounds good as a desert level" doesn't cut it for me.

 

Yeah, you'd think the reveal of the name "Sand Shower Zone" would prove that Dust Hill WASN'T the desert level, but I guess some people just can never change their beliefs.

 

In concept art that predates the Nick Arcade prototype, along with Hidden Palace which was shown off alongside this desert level. I'm willing to believe Dust Hill is an early name for Mystic Cave whenever we find some more evidence. If we ever find that build with the "Neo Green Hill" title card in Aquatic Ruin and it also has a "Dust Hill" title card for Mystic Cave, then that would be good confirmation. Until then, the level select text has a good chance of being outdated, likely due to more pressing developmental concerns. Beta 6 still has Green Hill, Dust Hill, Neo Green Hill, Sky Fortress, and Hidden Palace in the level select, all of which would have been severely dated by this point. Even Sonic 3 still has S&K levels in its level select which only further proves this practice.

 

All the prototypes and magazines previews point towards that.

And we're talking about prototypes with differently arranged level select entries, even.

 

You're assuming that the level's names were changed after title cards were implemented. You're purposefully making assumptions to reinforce your unprovable belief. Stop doing that.

 

Perhaps a list of things we can say for sure, as opposed to "I think this prove me wrong":


Masato Nakamura's demo tracks differ significantly from the final product and the Simon Wai prototype.


It is extremely unlikely to me that these two "Mystic Cave" tracks were originally intended for the same part of the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYFUR350JDE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS7B0PHutF4

One sounds like a haunted house, the other sounds like a prehistoric dinosaur thing.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLxS3MwF_No

"Casino Night Zone" is a jazz number, which you tend to associate with American casinos and glamour and that sort of thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNclH-WGMJY

"Casino Night 2P" doesn't sound like anything. It's just a bunch of synths. It's really not obvious to me what the intention was.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jXdSEDp65g

"Emerald Hill Zone" sounds like the sort of thing you'd use in a non-descript sunny first stage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P7DPA4FiqA

"Emerald Hill 2P" sounds like reggae. Sounds to me like a tropical island beach or something.




At the very least I'm confident in saying two thirds of the 2P music was repurposed from these original intentions. As to when that repurposing happened... that's a tough one to say.


As far as Oil Ocean Zone goes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyPePmuWZ8o

This sounds like it's been pulled from a CD version of Prince of Persia. While Nakamura might not have been writing it with "oil" or "desert" in mind, it's relatively clear where in the world this was inspired by. I guess you could reason that "make me some music, p.s. there's time travel" might lead you onto Ancient Egyptians or something of that ilk.



Our friend Dust "Desert Level" Hill Zone suggests a North American desert, of the "Wild West" variety. With native Americans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOuMEv5RJok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFa1-kciCb4

Ooooh scary.


But


It is dangerous to suggest that Masato Nakamura had access to any concept art. Or at least, the bits you're looking at.

Unlike Sonic 1, it doesn't appear the team had a clear plan in terms of levels, which is probably why so many were cut. The brief (alongside jingles) will have likely been to make "level music" - "concept music" to go alongside the "concept art", and see which things stick. And then they go back at a later date and say "make me Sky Chase Zone".