Spinball's music was a super last minute change so I would imagine copies sent to the press for review would have had the old music. Might be worth checking old TV shows from around that era - we don't really think of it as such, but Spinball was a fairly big deal on launch so it should have its fair share of coverage (second most important game for Christmas 1993 after Aladdin?) Speaking of Spinball, something that will end up on Sonic/Sega Retro at some point: https://archive.org/details/megaaction11/page/n79/mode/2up Mega Action magazine compares all the Sonic games and claims Spinball is the best (after Sonic CD). None of these old magazines are particularly good at the whole "reviewing" thing (aka perhaps best not to get hung up on what a 91% perfect Mega Drive game looks like), but I do find these contemporary opinions fascinating. What people expected out of video games has changed radically in the last 30 years, and it goes a long way to explaining why certain genres have never taken off in the UK (e.g. RPGs). Gunstar Heroes - 60-70% in 1993. Highly rated in 2020.
I was reading through some old Mean Machines Sega reviews last night and both the 32X ports of Space Harrier and Afterburner were absolutely panned simply for being "old". Although I was probably more amused at them claiming in the letters pages that Streets of Rage 4 was in development and would be out next summer.
Reviews tended to be pretty ridiculous back then, especially GamePro's. I remember it heavily criticizing Wonder Boy in Monster World for not having more realistic graphics, and Shining Force II for not using real-time combat.
I've heard that an old 3D beat-em-up from the time called Fighting Force was at one point slated to be SoR4. It was in a Guru Larry video.
Whoever replied at the magazine said it wasn't being released on the 32X or Saturn, this was late 1994 so doubt they were referring to Fighting Force. They *did* refer to FF once being considered for conversion to SoR4 when they did a small preview for that game though, along with screenshots of that prototype with the SoR-style fonts.
Not long ago, I revisited SatSR's concept art in the Special Book and noticed something on the piece of concept art for the World Rings; The World Rings themselves are made of a glass-like substance. Makes me think that they're smooth to the touch and that the patterns are a type of gold inlay.
I’m not sure if this needs it’s own topic, since it seems this is all we will see of it https://twitter.com/mazin__/status/1251400918370676737?s=21 It’s really cool, but we won’t see anything of it unless he changes his mind. https://twitter.com/mazin__/status/1251712173337800705?s=21 However, he claims Crazy Toy Box was the original name of Wacky Workbench
Additionally, Tails was never meant to show up in Sonic CD. https://twitter.com/Mazin__/status/1251775253824430085 also lmao he laughs at a dude asking for Sega to officially release this, then elaborates that it'd be very difficult https://twitter.com/Mazin__/status/1251914363914477568 https://twitter.com/Mazin__/status/1251917470559948800
That's too bad, but it's neat what he was able to release. I've added a mention of "Crazy Toy Box" to the prerelease page for Sonic CD on TCRF. Also, it's a bit reassuring to know that at least something of R2 besides those sprites Taxman released probably still exists, even if we won't see it for a while, if ever.
Sigh... this is a long story... sorry you had to finally hear about it. There is an ongoing war at the spanish speaking Sonic fandom regarding Sonic CD chronological placement at the series canon. One side says it is placed between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, while the other thinks it comes after Sonic 3 & Knuckles and before Sonic 4 episode 1. The latter came from a video one youtuber made (I wont mention names, it doesn't really matter who did and this issue is pretty harsh right now so I prefeer not to attack anyone. Lests call him X for now) with "undeniable proof because this is what SEGA says" that it happened after Sonic 3K. Most of his proof are the - now down - Sega America's Sonic 4 site and several assumptions like "taxman included Tails in his Sonic CD, the steam achievements say " see you next game" so that means tails was going to be playable at the next time you started the game ( as "game" in spanish could be translated both like next saga installment or next time you play). The "see you next game" easter egg from the original was going to be used when you unlocked Tails at the original Sonic CD, but it was scrapped" and many other assumptions taken from old SoA manuals ( like "Sonic 2 manual says it is the direct sequel from Sonic 1, so Sonic CD cannot be between them"), or that the Taxman Sonic CD's announcement trailer said " see where Sonic 4 began" means that Sonic CD takes place inmediately before Sonic 4 and such stuff. He even made some racist jokes saying "only europeans think Sonic CD comes between 1 and 2" ( as this guy is Latin American and most of his fanbase is too) Another youtuber ( we will all him Y, not real name, he is European Spanish. I state this so the racist jokes from before make sense, not that it really matter where is anyone from) made a reply video with his proof that Sonic CD comes between 1 and 2, linking to the sources ( many of them, from here) like interviews with Ken balough saying maketing materials are not made to alter the canon, just marketing, and interviews from Beep Megadrive with Yamaguchi ( Tails creator) who literally says Sonic CD happens between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 chronologically, current Sonic 4 webpages like the Steam, Google Play and iTunes Sonic 4 store page descriptions that literally says Sonic 4 comes right after Sonic 3 K and many things more. That should stop the war, right? Well, it did not. X made another video belie-ing every proof from Y, calling him a liar. This looks like the regular "sonictuber" drama right? It shouldn't take a second thought if it not were that now hundred of his followers are now attacking viciously everyone who do not say it comes right before Sonic 4 as "his proof are undeniable and Y is a liar, you are just his/her fanboy" and things pretty worse like personal attacks to anyone and threats ( even me, I have not entered this "war" but people attacked me anyways because looked at olf tweets of mine saying Sonic Cd happens between 1 and 2) and even hacked the personal accounts of Y. This is not the first time it happened, since a few years ago, both X and Y also made a video about the chronology of Sonic CD and the same thing happened. Also, now most of the Spanish Fandom thinks Sonic CD is canonically after Sonic 3&Knuckles, rewriting the history we fought so hard to preserve at the general hivemind. Some random asked Mazin if Tails was going to be playable at Sonic CD back then, mostly because of this confussion. Also, this X youtuber posted this wiki Scan asking Mazin "if there were never plans, why does this here says Sonic CD would star Sonic and a buddy"? . After some banter ( and help from a friend who is a Japanese speaker - Noken 4 diploma) , I noticed that nothing the Retro translation says is actually at the Sega Summer Cataloge scan. It is probably mixed from another scan from Sonic 2 . You can check this yourselves using Google translator app, since it can translate from images. The text is not even close. I'm working with this japanese speaking friend for a more faithful translation to improve the wiki one) Aaand.. that is for now. Basically, yes. There are MANY people who think that Tails was going to debut at Sonic CD thanks to this guy. And this guy himself asked at the same tweet to Mazin about it! And this all whole madness at least was helpful to find an inaccuracy at the wiki and fix it ( soon) so... all's well that ends well?
Well, X sounds like a massive twat as well as being completely wrong. Sad to see he's messed the Spanish community up that much.
I'm sad to hear you guys have to put up with that, but laughing at how much X's fans resemble those of a bigger, more orange cartoon character in my own country. I always got the idea they were kinda "oh well, whatever" about where Sonic CD fits in. Like they were aware of Sonic 2 but didn't really think too much about which game went where. It's like a DBZ movie, you could try, but somehow a hole's gonna get poked in it.
I've been meaning to ask - what is this "Sega Summer Catalogue". Where did that scan originate from and why aren't there more?
Mr Hari Hari, webmaster of Japanese fan site Act Select, scanned them for me back in 2004, and I released them on the GHZ (It's still alive!). He scanned the Sonic Drift and Sonic CD ones because they had beta pics. He didn’t scan the Sonic 2 one as it didn’t have any beta pics, but he did translate the description for it. The rest of the catalogs didn’t have anything interesting so he didn’t scan them. When I released the Sonic CD scan and Sonic 2 description, I did make clear that they were separate. But I think when people reposted it, the distinction was lost so a lot of people thought the Sonic 2 description about time travel and Sonic's buddy was actually about Sonic CD. And judging from the tweets @Mazin__ has received that misunderstanding lives on...
The Collision Chaos mockup also originates from the Summer Catalog. Speaking of Sonic CD, we need to do some updating for the so-called "Bonus Stage". A recently translated developer interview revealed that it wasn't a separate bonus round - it was the original Special Stage and was based on Sonic 1's; it got reworked because it wasn't fast and didn't show off the Sega CD's technical prowess.
