[Retroman]

Gamester454 said for someone to ask Naoto Ohshima about Sonic CD's r2 level, so I'm his unofficial spokesman asking instead ^^
So, question here: does he remember that scrapped level's name from Sonic CD? any details of what it looked like, the planned boss, good future, bad future and the development on there?

This post has been edited by Retroman: 26 September 2011 - 02:36 AM

[OKei]

Would Ohshima be the right person to ask about those SNCBNK.BIN files in one of the Sonic CD betas?

Shadow Hog, Posted 05 November 2006 - 05:02 PM said:

In short, the unused files are bridges to the CD audio. It'll play the CD track - say, Palmtree Panic Present's - then, when it reaches the end (which, in the beta, does not fade out), it would play the relevant SNCBNK file to hide the fact that the CD audio has finished, then when the SNCBNK is over it would play the CD audio track again from the start. The end result is a (mostly) seamless loop - a nifty idea on Sonic Team's part, I'll have to admit.

Now, granted, they ultimately opted AWAY from that and toward fading out the CD tracks when they finished, but hey, it explains why the tunes were on the CD in the first place, why they don't loop, why they're so short... pretty much any question I've seen about the SNCBNK, all in one fell swoop.

Granted, it's a very specific topic. But I'd like to ask him if this theory is actually the truth behind them omitting these files. The experimention behind these files is to me quite interesting in itself, and it shows how the devteam tried to go out of their way finding a creative workaround for looping music.

Questions to Ohshima are in bold.

EDIT: Another idea I have for a (rather dumb) question would be, why was Sonic CD once called CD Sonic?
EDIT 2: Hell, while we're at it, Sonic CD featured PCM voice samples for Sonic. Do you remember who the actual voice artist was for Sonic?
EDIT 3: According to old news sources, Sonic CD was to have been released sooner on the Mega CD in March 1993, what caused it's delay?
I'm not much into the assumption that Sonic 2 caused it's delay, that didn't stop Sega later with releasing Sonic 3 a few months after Spinball & CD.

This post has been edited by OKei: 26 September 2011 - 03:21 AM

[Hitlersaurus Christ]

After giving up on wading through the whole interview (I am not as strong as I thought) I was going to translate some of the questions in this thread. Then, I realized my Japanese kind of sucks and gave up.

I did translate two of my questions. If whoever's translating these questions is better at it then whoever was translating in the interview (I know it's difficult to do on the spot and even harder to do verbally, but I noticed some questions and answers having their meaning lost in the process), then of course feel free to translate and word these in a better fashion. Otherwise, well, here you go.

"In America and Europe, Dr. Eggman's name was changed from Eggman to Robotnik. His character design was also changed. Did you know about those changes? What's your opinion?"

アメリカとヨーロッパで、ドクターエッグマンの名前は、エッグマンからロボトニックに変わりました。キャラクターデザインも変わりました。その変更は知っていますか？大島さんの意見は何ですか？

"In Japan, the first Sonic manga had a character called Charmy and a character called Amy. Were Sonic CD's Amy Rose and Chaotix's Charmy Bee based on those characters?"

日本で最初のソニック漫画は、チャーミーというキャラクターとエミーというキャラクターがありました。ソニックCDのエミーローズとカオティックスのチャーミービーは、そのキャラクターを踏まえましたか？



A simpler way to phrase the R2 questions, by the way, would probably be to just ask short things like "What kind of level was the scrapped level in Sonic CD? What was it called? Is it the ruined area shown in the game's ending animation?" rather than prefacing it with stuff about the R numbers and stuff.
The R2 question was asked in a Gamasutra article, and he answered that each level had a team working on it, and that particular level just wasn't up to the quality of the rest of the game. I don't think he'll have much information about the more technical stuff.

[GeneHF]

I also recommend possibly including the clip from the full ending animation of Sonic CD with Sonic in that ruined lab with the unused badnik. It might help jog some memories after nearly 20 years. Remember, in the past, some of our questions were met with memory recollection issues. Usually having something to show helps jog memories.

[ICEknight]

OKei, on 26 September 2011 - 02:41 AM, said:

Would Ohshima be the right person to ask about those SNCBNK.BIN files in one of the Sonic CD betas?

Shadow Hog, Posted 05 November 2006 - 05:02 PM said:

In short, the unused files are bridges to the CD audio. It'll play the CD track - say, Palmtree Panic Present's - then, when it reaches the end (which, in the beta, does not fade out), it would play the relevant SNCBNK file to hide the fact that the CD audio has finished, then when the SNCBNK is over it would play the CD audio track again from the start. The end result is a (mostly) seamless loop - a nifty idea on Sonic Team's part, I'll have to admit.

Wouldn't it be better just to ask him without giving him a made up answer that he can reply to with "oh sure, whatever you just said"?

[Shadow Hog]

OKei, on 26 September 2011 - 02:41 AM, said:

EDIT 2: Hell, while we're at it, Sonic CD featured PCM voice samples for Sonic. Do you remember who the actual voice artist was for Sonic?

I think I can answer this one: IIRC, Keiko Utoku, the woman who sang the theme songs.

[Neo]

Shadow Hog, on 26 September 2011 - 08:52 AM, said:

OKei, on 26 September 2011 - 02:41 AM, said:

EDIT 2: Hell, while we're at it, Sonic CD featured PCM voice samples for Sonic. Do you remember who the actual voice artist was for Sonic?

I think I can answer this one: IIRC, Keiko Utoku, the woman who sang the theme songs.

Pretty sure this is an urban myth. The 510 prototype title screen has the cryptic line "Vocal: Utoku (Mi-Ke)" which some magazine ran with and misinterpreted it as being the voice for Sonic. Of course there's no proof as to what I'm saying, but then again there's also no proof of the contrary.

[The KKM]

Well, I'm utterly confused. It seems the interview was done (and done a bit awkwardly, but beggars, choosers, etc.), so why are questions still being asked here? Are we planning to mail him, now?

I'll throw in then the question I think I threw in last time there was going to be an interview with Mr. Ohshima-

What role did you have on the new art style for Sonic Adventure? Did you just define the superflat-esque art style, or also Sonic, Tails, Amy's etc. new designs?

[Techokami]

The KKM, on 26 September 2011 - 11:09 AM, said:

Well, I'm utterly confused. It seems the interview was done (and done a bit awkwardly, but beggars, choosers, etc.), so why are questions still being asked here? Are we planning to mail him, now?

He's agreed to field questions in text format, so we're asking our questions here to be compiled and sent off.

[Sik]

Shadow Hog, on 26 September 2011 - 08:52 AM, said:

OKei, on 26 September 2011 - 02:41 AM, said:

EDIT 2: Hell, while we're at it, Sonic CD featured PCM voice samples for Sonic. Do you remember who the actual voice artist was for Sonic?

I think I can answer this one: IIRC, Keiko Utoku, the woman who sang the theme songs.

Sorry, but Sonic sounded definitely male in Sonic CD. No way a woman could have recreated that voice.

Also I guess it may be a good idea if when asking about R2 we didn't mention the cactus in Little Planet or the ruins level in the video (anybody noticed there are two possible candidates for R2?). Not that it'd prevent him from just searching around and stumbling upon whatever theories exist out there.

Also, unrelated to Sonic, I wonder what he thinks about some people still trying to make games for a console on which he had worked 20 years ago. "What do you think about current efforts for making homebrew games for the Mega Drive?" (example if needed - yes, shameless plug =P You could link a video to Pier Solar too I guess)

[muteKi]

Sik, on 26 September 2011 - 01:54 PM, said:

Shadow Hog, on 26 September 2011 - 08:52 AM, said:

OKei, on 26 September 2011 - 02:41 AM, said:

EDIT 2: Hell, while we're at it, Sonic CD featured PCM voice samples for Sonic. Do you remember who the actual voice artist was for Sonic?

I think I can answer this one: IIRC, Keiko Utoku, the woman who sang the theme songs.

Sorry, but Sonic sounded definitely male in Sonic CD. No way a woman could have recreated that voice.

What if they altered the pitch?

[Sik]

muteKi, on 26 September 2011 - 02:08 PM, said:

What if they altered the pitch?

That works sometimes, but not always. Doubt that's the case though, really, for all we know it could have been some random developer (which isn't common in game development) =/

[David The Lurker]

Sik, on 26 September 2011 - 03:19 PM, said:

muteKi, on 26 September 2011 - 02:08 PM, said:

What if they altered the pitch?

That works sometimes, but not always. Doubt that's the case though, really, for all we know it could have been some random developer (which isn't common in game development) =/

Well she is the one singing in the game over screen, so there is that. And isn't she credited in the credits anyway? It's on the wiki :D

Also, yes the Interview could have gone better. It could have gone worse, too. He could have not agreed to taking more questions. And...I mean, Skype with translators who haven't done this live before was bound to cause problems. Heck, I didn't know this was happening until an hour and a half beforehand. And the livestream did make certain things drop out. Either way...

I have many questions for the man.

[Pengi]

QUESTION: Sonic 2 on Mega Drive, Sonic CD on Mega CD and Sonic 2 on Game Gear each had their own different robot versions of Sonic as the second to last boss. Was there any communication between the three development teams about the idea of a Sonic robot, or was it a coincidence?

QUESTION: Some of the music in the Game Gear version of Sonic 2 was based upon music from Sonic CD. How did this come about?

QUESTION: Whose idea was it to include Flicky in the Sonic series? And who designed Sonic's other animal friends such as Ricky, Pocky and Cucky?

[Sik]

Pengi, on 26 September 2011 - 04:01 PM, said:

QUESTION: Some of the music in the Game Gear version of Sonic 2 was based upon music from Sonic CD. How did this come about?

This is also true for the later 8-bit games. Even Sonic Drift 2 o_o;