Dust Hill and Mystic Cave Discussion 2019

I was hoping that a mod would move all the Dust Hill debate posts from that thread here. Does XenForo not support doing that?

 

I don't know, to me, I'm not seeing enough proof either way. You can say we'll never get solid proof but I really don't see how a wrong title card or level select links are any sort of smoking gun. To me, the part quoted just reads like "well, they called the final zone of Sonic 1 Final Zone and were going to name a level Genocide, so... Mystic Cave is probably Dust Hill Zone!" and that's flimsy as hell, way too flimsy for what I consider to be Retro's normal standards for this kind of thing.

 

I'm honestly not seeing it. The maps didn't outright depict DHZ as a mine. All we know from them is that DHZ is EHZ from an alternate timeline in which it seems to be filled with boulders rather than palmtrees. It could as well be the desert level, which looks pretty rocky in the mock up.

 

There's just no proof at all that solidly debunks those two points which every single piece of evidence have consistently provided.

 

You said that the maps debunk Yasuhara's previous claim that DHZ was the desert. I replied that I don't see how they invalidate it.

 

But when it comes to something being objectively fact, we cannot say that these make said association true, just much more plausible / supported, because of the many holes that still exist with regards to our knowledge of the development process (and plausible explanations that also exist regarding the recent prototypes).

 

...Just read the other topic, guys, those things have all been discussed already these days. This topic as-is (having to repeat everything from zero once again) feels like a waste of time.
EDIT: Old posts have now been merged.

 

It honestly feels like to me that certain people have decided that Dust Hill = Mystic Cave and are trying to get everyone in agreement rather than find the actual truth of the matter.

Also, how is this thread a waste of time? Yes, it has been discussed in the other thread but there are obviously still discussions to be had - ones you don't seem keen on having? You haven't addressed anything I or Spikeball or anyone else for the matter have said?

 

This is no conspirancy against the integrity of the Sonic Secrets Community, it's just that:

• Dust Hill has been the old name of Mystic Cave in every single prototype and magazine.
• There was a desert level called "Sand Shower" which coexisted with the actual Dust Hill.

 

I'm sure some of you have seen this quote from Yuji Naka in the Sonic Jam strategy guide before:

It implies that Mystic Cave was based on a Haunted-house theme early in development which makes the name Dust Hill even more absurd. The map that Naka is speaking about here (I believe there is an image of it somewhere) is noticeably different sounding then Yasuhara's early concepts.

 

This still doesn't prove anything. The guys writing the mags were using an early build too, right? So they were likely getting the level names from that and have made the same mistake I believe we're (or some of us anyway) making now.

 

Okay, let's scratch the mags then.

 

Playing devil's advocate a little here, since I'm totally in the Dust-Hill-became-Mysic-Cave camp officially now. Do we have confirmation that Sand Shower was a desert level, or are we, again, assuming based on the name?

 

Do I really have to look for the maps again, post them here, show how the time zones fit with what the Banper sketches said about the Desert and Rock levels and explain everything once more?

 

We have the banper enemy concept art that directly references the desert (present) zone and rock (past) zone. The same relationship and locations Sand Shower and Rock World have.

 

Noted. That was an honest question, thank you for the clarification.

Was this in the previous thread? I admittedly just skimmed most of it.

 

I think that was in the previous-previous one... Or perhaps the previous-previous-previous one.

 

I don't understand where the sudden need to be so final with this came from?
The release of the new prototypes hasn't really changed the evidence available in any meaningful way as far as I'm aware.
The hard evidence we have hasn't changed in a long time and that is:

• Mystic Cave was referred to as Dust Hill during development builds

The thing is, we don't have anything that proves the scrapped desert stage was or wasn't referred to as Dust Hill Zone besides some old interviews where we can't vouch for the accuracy of the answers due to heavy suggestion in the questions asked, and the fact that the development of Sonic 2 was a long time ago for these people to remember minor details such as this.

I've always known Retro to be a facts-first, non-speculating community, so I think the best thing we can do is acknowledge that Mystic Cave was referred to as Dust Hill, and treat the desert level as a separate entity.
Though we have other names floating around from Yasuhara sketches etc., I don't feel like it's wise to try and attribute any of these names to a specific zone, considering we have only a low-detail sketch to suggest what the visual aspect of each stage might have looked like.
With the whole nature of this though, we might never be fully knowledgable of the entire development history of these games - and I think to attempt to be so final in a decision on "Dust Hill was never used for the desert level" is as equally misguided as speculating.
Until we have hard evidence, I think it's best to not mention it at all.

 

What I'm still not sure about is how Yasuhara could confuse the desert level he was shown with Mystic Cave in any incarnation we've seen.

Edit:

That's exactly the thing though, I don't think we have enough proof to definitively state this either. The real Dust Hill could be completely unseen for all we know, right? Could the scenario theoretically be that Dust Hill was being worked on and then removed early on when Mystic Cave was already being worked on, and Mystic Cave took it's level slot and they hadn't created a title slide or changed it's name in the level select?

 

Please tell me you're gonna add it to the wiki once your account stuff is sorted out. (I haven't even bothered to look at the wiki pages for Dust Hill since these threads started, given how chaotic they seem to be based on the comments here)