https://www.facebook.com/groups/segaretrogamers/permalink/2919255668178782/ Anecdote from Craig Stitt:
Actually, it kind of looks like Metal Robotnik. I figure Metal Robotnik was based on the Death Egg Robot, and that is supposed to be a Death Egg Robot, it might be shared design elements from the base.
Design wise ya I think the forces robot is closer to Metal Robotnik, but I thought overall it looked more like the ... whatever those things were called (almost swatbot like but fatter) due to the color palette. But the forces robot is almost like a hybrid of both ova robots, buttt with random spider appendages.
Translation request: https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File:SSM_JP_19960322_1996-05.pdf&page=220 Is Hiroshi Kataoka saying that Bark was originally planned to be an orangutan, or is he joking around?
The second image won't load so I can't see what you're referring to. The direct URL isn't linking to a specific image file.
I don't like the game itself, but it's an interesting take for HPZ with those hidden paths and many more slopes than the original (unfinished) level design. I also like the health system concept, halfway between having rings and a flock of flickies behind.
I have to wonder if they were using a modified Sonic the Hedgehog 2 engine, like how Ristar used a modified Sonic the Hedgehog engine.
You can clearly tell which assets needed to be redrawn and which not. Could be important if someone has plans to recreate the prototype in Sonic 2.
https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File:SegaPro_UK_09.pdf&page=19 Sonic 2 Nick Arcade build at Summer CES 1992. "a real disappointment", said Sega Pro.
I actually liked Golden Axe II more than the first one, so props for whoever wrote this, 2 misses out of 2. I must admit Emerald Hill itself is not a big change, but dicking about 2P mode...
This makes me wonder what other magazines thought of Sonic 2's Versus mode at the time. We know it required some real ingenuity on Naka's part to pull off, but were the gaming press impressed by it? Sonic 1 was an impressive game at the time, you'd think having all of that happening on the screen twice would be a bit of a mind blower.
My eyes may be deceiving me, but was some of the art in that demo (but not in the Sonic 2 prototypes we have) used in the Retro Engine version? Some of it looks like it was, and IIRC it’s been confirmed that Taxman and Stealth did have access to some prototype assets.
If you've got 2-3 days to report on potentially hundreds of games (and it's 1992), you're probably going to prioritise the ones that are so important that they've got their own security. Imagine if, when you get there, it's the Nick Arcade prototype, a version of Sonic 2 so early that it that doesn't even have its own music. I think I'd probably take a similar view. Really it's too early to be shown, even to the press. But I suspect the issue was more that this was the only big event before November. The next year they had to sell Sonic Spinball, but rather than they just put up a barely playable prototype, they stuck some mock-up footage on a screen. The response seems to have been more positive.
A little bit more Astropede / Segapede info from Craig Stitt: https://www.facebook.com/groups/segaretrogamers/permalink/2937612299676452/ Some of Craig's replies in the comments: In response to a comment about the story seeming dark:
