Naoto Ohshima - New Unheard Info Of Early Sonic 1

Fan-plot:

Robotnik is dropped into a nightmare. He's scared of that speedy hedgehog coming after him. So Robotnik builds an army of robots to find the chaos emeralds to transport himself back to the real world. But instead, that evil speed demon goes around destroying his robots, and steal those emeralds to harness for himself.

This must have been a human perspective game, rather than a Sonic perspective game!!! Also explains Madonna falling into this unusual world!!! The humans had to team up to run away from those dastardly creatures!!!

I kid, I kid.

 

If anything, I think it'd be interesting to swap Sonic for the blue rabbit that tossed stuff. Have that guy in a trippy nightmare world with a band, Madonna, all those demon creatures, and you'd have something that pretty much in no way resembles the Sonic 1 we got.

 

I saw this comment earlier in the week and said to myself "good point".

But then I thought about it some more. Eggman was once the protagonist, so it would be Eggman's world of dreams.



A bit like Little Nemo on the NES.




Eggman.



Egg timer... filled with sand.



Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream.



Alarm egg, NiGHTS into Dreams...


But that might be too clever.

 

It's neat that the themes that eventually made it into Nights have their roots this far back.

It's also cool because you could fold the early concept material into the canon simply by having Sonic go on a dream adventure, sort of like Mario 2 and Subcon.

 

I guess I'm a bit late to the party!
I always did find it odd how far off from the final game the initial concept seemed to be in all the interviews and guidebooks. Eggman in bee jammies and weird demon looking creatures, etc.
This on top of the visual elements present in the Sonic 1 Prototype we got earlier really makes it a lot more clear where the inspiration for NiGHTS into Dreams came from. Seems it was essentially a reboot of the concept they never got to fully commit to.

Given the history books on the matter, it would suggest the shift was prompted by the western side, and given their track record of more gritty and grounded aesthetical choices in general, even when just looking at the series itself, I think it stands to reason.

Even just looking at Sonic 2 vs CD makes it quite apparant if you ask me.
CDs general aestethic can be seen in things like Ristar for example, while Sonic 2 i would argue leans more towards things like Comix Zone by comparisonm

For my money, the sort of compromise between the two was ultimately for the better. (As tends to be the case with Sonic in general in my honest opinion)

Much like how Tails having the full name Miles Prower, or Eggman having the surrname Robotnik, the added stylization to mostly grounded evironments gives Sonic's world a unique appeal that is much more distinct, timeless and stronger than either would be on their own.
I think even the original devs would agree to this at least.

Itd like to see that sort of balance return if you ask me. Its reflective of the nature of SEGA as a company. The sort of complimenting of eastern and western sensibilities to create something wholy unique.

Truly fascinating stuff.