[Ambil]

Excellent review, Tweaker. Mind if I translate it and post it at Sonic Spain?

So this is the deal, I felt indeed that Metropolis act 3 was very different from that. Now it's not difficult for me to imagine that level combined with the early concept art of Cyber City.

About Hidden Palace being the place for Sonic to become Super Sonic, I remember back in time when everybody here said it was stupid to say the 'Master Emerald' was the place, because Craig Stitt said that was just a breakable object. But then, Naka revealed this.

Simon, on Oct 2 2005, 02:34 AM, said:

Hoho.... so the n00bs were correct about Sonic getting his Emeralds power in Hidden Palace?

But now there's a problem: What Naka said conflicted with what Craig Stitt said.
http://www.s2beta.co...s/hidden_palace
I guess Naka's words takes precedence.

Expect a news update soon.

Old stories.

Haven't read about the other issues (early GHZ, FBZ+ICZ), so expect another reply.

[Tweaker]

For the people trying to make the Emerald Hill-->Hill Top connection... I don't think there's anything there. The only connection those two zones share is the fact that they used the same graphics, which was likely a plan they had from the beginning. Following the trend of things, if Hill Top was a timezone of Emerald Hill, it would have been scrapped like the rest of them.

What I believe is more likely is that EHZ and HTZ share a connection like Desert Zone and Winter Zone did—they shared the same graphics with a palette change, spread far apart enough in the game so that the player wouldn't notice. Of course, they didn't count on the fact that we weren't retarded, but that seems much more plausible than slapping a timezone theory on every zone.

The bulk of what I said is associating scrapped zones in Sonic 2 (save for Hidden Palace, which had other reasons) with the concept of time travel. Any zones left in the game do not have that association.

Vangar, on May 23 2008, 05:55 AM, said:

What the hell is going on here? We all had this information before... why is everyone so shocked to re-read this? I'm not going to bother searching topics but by all means go ahead and find that we already knew all of this. We already had strong indication that there were time zones and we already had a discussion about the Sonic Jam information, and led to the same conclusion. Did everyone get amnesia?

This is just like a told Quexinos—you believed and "knew" these things, but you believed them for the wrong reasons. Now the pieces are starting to fit together, and the ideas actually hold some credibility.

MathUser, on May 23 2008, 10:00 AM, said:

I don't know about this time travel malarkey. Hill top and emerald hill zone were in the game since the nick arcade beta. They look quite different and have a totally different layout from one another, not to mention the different backgrounds. I say this is proof Time travel was abandoned at least by the nick arcade prototype.

That would be a good way to debunk this if EHZ and HTZ had any relation, but they don't. :P

[ICEknight]

MathUser, on May 23 2008, 01:38 AM, said:

One thing we don't know is what enemies, or bosses would be placed here. We also don't know the music that would be used.

It would make sense if Mecha Sonic was originally planned for that level... and about the music, it could have used the Death Egg tune, while the Death Egg would've just had the final boss music like the "Final Zone" did.

By the way... I think it was Tom Payne who told me the guys at SEGA just weren't too happy with Brenda's work, partly because she was too slow when making them. No time travel conspirancies here.

Also, remember that the time travel stuff was already ditched when all the people we've contacted started working on the project. So all the stuff that involved time travel (ie., Rock Zone) wouldn't have benn assigned to anybody.

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 23 May 2008 - 11:25 AM

[RAMPKORV]

flygon, on May 23 2008, 07:41 AM, said:

that's a good observation there :P, the only argument I can come up for any sort of time travel stuff there is that earthquakes forced mountains up very rapidly.

Or the water level decreased. However, I think there is no connection at all, other than they thought the graphics would look good in both levels, and reused because of lazyness.

This post has been edited by RAMPKORV: 23 May 2008 - 01:03 PM

[ICEknight]

Vangar, on May 23 2008, 04:55 AM, said:

What the hell is going on here? We all had this information before... why is everyone so shocked to re-read this?

Yeah, really. We only got some info from Naka agreeing with something we had been told already...

We won't find any new info about these games by just talking about them in a chatroom, unless there's some ex-SEGA employee in it.

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 23 May 2008 - 11:34 AM

[FinalBeyond]

Whether this is accurate or not, I have to say, it opens up a heck of a lot of possibilities. I'd love to see a hack in the model of some of the things suggested in here.

[Tweaker]

ICEknight, on May 23 2008, 12:24 PM, said:

By the way... I think it was Tom Payne who told me the guys at SEGA just weren't too happy with Brenda's work, partly because she was too slow when making them. No time travel conspirancies here.

Yeah... see, I'm challenging that. Didn't Roger Hector say that all of Michael Jackson's music was removed from Sonic 3? It would have made sense to take the word of the developers, but when we find things that can completely topple what they say, don't you think it's time to open up to the possibility that they could have been wrong?

I've had huge discussions and thoughts about Sonic 2's development. I think there's something deeper going on here. I think we've connected some pieces here they didn't make any sense before. And I think one of those pieces that still doesn't make sense is that statement of why things like Wood Zone, Desert Zone, et al were scrapped. I don't believe it was simply "not good enough."

Quote

Also, remember that the time travel stuff was already ditched when all the people we've contacted started working on the project. So all the stuff that involved time travel (ie., Rock Zone) wouldn't have benn assigned to anybody.

But do you know that for sure? When it comes to Desert/Rock Zone, those were already gone pretty early on. Ditching the Desert Zone as a whole, though, does not completely close off the idea of time travel—there are still Wood Zone and Cyber City drawing parallels with other levels. It's possible to ditch a zone and not a concept.

In this sense, Rock Zone wouldn't have been assigned an artist because the zone it was meant to parallel was already gone. The other levels suggesting that concept were still alive and well at this point, however.

Remember that we still have a pretty shallow range when it comes to the evolution of things like Cyber City and other zones. By the Wai prototype, Cyber City had already been transformed into Metropolis Act 3—we don't know anything that happened before that.

Something I want us to do is draw a timeline between the airing of the showing of Nick Arcade with our NA prototype, and the date of the article with the first mockup for the Desert Zone. I had always thought that the Desert Zone was in the game at a very early point, but it's possible that may not have been so now.

[ICEknight]

Tweaker, on May 23 2008, 11:39 AM, said:

ICEknight, on May 23 2008, 12:24 PM, said:

By the way... I think it was Tom Payne who told me the guys at SEGA just weren't too happy with Brenda's work, partly because she was too slow when making them. No time travel conspirancies here.

Yeah... see, I'm challenging that. Didn't Roger Hector say that all of Michael Jackson's music was removed from Sonic 3? It would have made sense to take the word of the developers, but when we find things that can completely topple what they say, don't you think it's time to open up to the possibility that they could have been wrong?
I've had huge discussions and thoughts about Sonic 2's development. I think there's something deeper going on here. I think we've connected some pieces here they didn't make any sense before. And I think one of those pieces that still doesn't make sense is that statement of why things like Wood Zone, Desert Zone, et al were scrapped. I don't believe it was simply "not good enough."

...What did I miss? We haven't found anything to disprove that Brenda's work was slow and sloppy. In fact, seeing how not even Wood Zone was ever finished and how flat it looked, I'd say that it makes sense they ditched the zones she was working on. Had they have to wait till she finished, they wouldn't have met the deadline anyway.
He also told me about the third act being added to replace Cyber City, before Naka's quote was found. So I'd say he has some credibility on this.

Quote

Quote

Also, remember that the time travel stuff was already ditched when all the people we've contacted started working on the project. So all the stuff that involved time travel (ie., Rock Zone) wouldn't have benn assigned to anybody.

But do you know that for sure?

Well... None of the American SEGA guys we've contacted could tell us a thing about any time travel or alternate zones.


Really, this is so 90's I can't believe I'm reading it in this board. Please try to contact somebody else from the Sonic 2 staff before we start debating about Ashura's family. =(

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 23 May 2008 - 12:06 PM

[Scarred Sun]

Frankly, I'm not sure that the two ideas are incompatible at all—if "time travel" was dropped due to time constraints, certainly having sloppy and slow work being produced would be part of what went in to that decision.

[Tweaker]

ICEknight, on May 23 2008, 12:49 PM, said:

...What did I miss? We haven't found anything to disprove that Brenda's work was slow and sloppy. In fact, seeing how not even Wood Zone was ever finished and how flat it looked, I'd say that it makes sense they ditched the zones she was working on. Had they have to wait till she finished, they wouldn't have met the deadline anyway.
He also told me about the third act being added to replace Cyber City, before Naka's quote was found. So I'd say he has some credibility on this.

If it's because Brenda is slow and sloppy, then that's one thing—but, as Scarred Sun just said, who says it can't be for both? I'm a firm believer that time constraints had a lot to do with why this game is gimped, so that could be one part of it. What I'm suggesting is that there's more to it than simply that, and that Brenda's poor ability to make zones in time may have played a vital part in why the time travel concept was scrapped. I mean, with Wood Zone and the Desert Zone gone, that leaves only one level exploring the time travel concept... why bother keeping it around then? It's out of place, and no longer has an important part in the storyline. Note that they reused Cyber City's layout—they didn't have a reason to scrap the zone outside of time travel being dropped, so they simply snagged the layout and used it in Metropolis Zone. Makes sense to me.

Indeed, he told you the third act thing before this quote was found. The problem is, this quote has been around for 10 years! Why did it take this long to find it? That's pretty absurd.

Quote

Well... None of the American SEGA guys we've contacted could tell us a thing about any time travel or alternate zones.

American Sega guys... wasn't that Desert Zone concept in Japanese? And wasn't that Japanese concept art what pretty much confirmed time travel was planned for the game? Something tells me we're going after the wrong SEGA employees.

Quote

Really, this is so 90's I can't believe I'm reading it in this board. Please try to contact somebody else from the Sonic 2 staff before we start debating about Ashura's family. =(

Wow, you're a dick. In the 90s of this scene, there was absolutely nothing credible to even suggest this. Now that we've got all these pieces slowly fitting together, it makes sense to actually revisit and consider how big of a role that time travel had in this game. I'm well aware this speculation has been raised before, but I like to think that we've brought about a certain degree of reasoning about it that makes more sense than "Metropolis Zone act 3 is a bad future of the normal zone."

Finally, I believe that giving your own insight rather than screaming "OLD" all the time will prove to have much more a positive, useful impact on this discussion. You're not better than anyone else—explain yourself! I sure did.

[ICEknight]

Tweaker, on May 23 2008, 12:05 PM, said:

Wow, you're a dick.

No U.

Quote

In the 90s of this scene, there was absolutely nothing credible to even suggest this. Now that we've got all these pieces slowly fitting together, it makes sense to actually revisit and consider how big of a role that time travel had in this game.
[...]
I believe that giving your own insight rather than screaming "OLD" all the time will prove to have much more a positive, useful impact on this discussion. You're not better than anyone else—explain yourself! I sure did.

I've already explained everything I said... Thing is, we need to get the facts from the devs, not from using our imagination.

Quote

Something tells me we're going after the wrong SEGA employees.

If you can do better with the interviews, please be our guest.

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 23 May 2008 - 12:16 PM

[MathUser]

Besides the japanese concept art that referenced time travel, we also have this article:

http://www.sonic-cul.../Sonic2Prev.jpg

No idea what its dated, or what magazine it is, and all the pictures provided are mockups. So I guess it was from pretty early in the games development.

[ICEknight]

Sure, but at the moment we can't know why or when was the concept dropped, or if any of the scrapped levels were related to it, unless we can contact somebody who worked on the game and remembers that stuff.


EDIT: Did anybody manage to contact Judy Totoya, by the way?

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 23 May 2008 - 12:36 PM

[Tweaker]

ICEknight, on May 23 2008, 01:27 PM, said:

Sure, but at the moment we can't know why or when was the concept dropped, or if any of the scrapped levels were related to it, unless we can contact somebody who worked on the game and remembers that stuff.

Is the concept of speculation alien to you or something? For one second, can you take a step outside of the box, read what I've proposed, and debate ideas in the theory itself rather than repeat yourself like a broken record? Could you, rather, based on what is written, reason whether or not it makes sense in your mind? That is always what these topics are about.

Of COURSE we're not going to know anything thing for certain until we get some sort of word from a SEGA employee—that much is bleedingly obvious and doesn't need to be said. This isn't 1999, I'm not random newbie idiot #279, and I'm basing my reasoning off a combination of observations and facts that I believe lead themselves to fit together in a sound, coherent matter. You're being a dick by completely disregarding that and instead stating the ultimate conclusion to any topic; but this topic has just started, and I see absolutely no reason to try and end it so early.

You have seniority on your side. If you want to rip my theory apart, then do it using your own facts.

[Spexfox]

I'd like to say that Tweaker makes a good point in that we haven't contacted anyone from the Japanese side of the development team. I remember (unless I'm wrong) that American devs we talked to mentioned a language barrier being there, so it was hard to communicate what was going on at times. Especially given how Naka prefers to have a hold on his games, I wouldn't be surprised if the American devs weren't that well informed of what was going on aside from what needed to be done to get the game out the door when needed. Plus with the rushing in mind, the office must've been a center of chaos.

I think it's plausible to say that language barriers might've contributed a bit to how things went down and why American staff members may not know as much about certain game elements we think existed.

EDIT: Also, on a different note - This topic is a good opportunity to get another Skypecast going.

This post has been edited by Spexfox: 23 May 2008 - 01:03 PM