[Hez]

Too bad there was no solid proof found that Tails was ever playable.

[Sodaholic]

Hez, on 10 September 2014 - 11:20 AM, said:

Too bad there was no solid proof found that Tails was ever playable.

Given how this was only late '91 and how he's not seen anywhere, including the title screen, I'd wager a guess that we'd need a slightly later build to see signs if they ever intended to implement him during gameplay in some fashion. I strongly suspect that it was at least an idea they really wanted to do, even if never acted upon. Why else would he have a full sheet and appear on all of the level title cards?

[Black Squirrel]

Is Tails even in this build, in any form at all? The character might not have even been invented yet.

[SpeedStarTMQ]

I haven't seen anything to suggest so.

Have we got any dates for the Sonic 2 Beta? I'm not aware of any on the wiki. If we DO though, how early is this in comparison? This is Dec 1991, so it's pretty friggin' early.

[minichapman]

Black Squirrel, on 10 September 2014 - 02:08 PM, said:

Is Tails even in this build, in any form at all? The character might not have even been invented yet.

Perhaps with the invention of Tails later on, it was maybe a sensible or mandatory decision of Tails' inclusion as a form of connection (albeit in a loose and NPC state) for the 16-bit sonic 2?

[David The Lurker]

Well, development for the 16-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 began in November, so it is entirely possible Tails wasn't in any decided form by the time this demo came out. Also, who knows what sort of communication the two teams had. Even if Tails was one of the first things Sonic Team created for Sonic 2, it's hard to say when Aspect saw any of that work.

[Ravenfreak]

Which could also be the reason why there's no spindash present in Sonic 2 8-bit unlike it's 16-bit counterpart. I'm also assuming that they ran out of time to do much with Tails and randomly decided to go with Tails getting captured by Robotnik at the last minute which is why he's present on the title cards.

[Orengefox]

SpeedStarTMQ, on 10 September 2014 - 04:02 PM, said:

Have we got any dates for the Sonic 2 Beta? I'm not aware of any on the wiki. If we DO though, how early is this in comparison? This is Dec 1991, so it's pretty friggin' early.

The time stamp on the earliest Sonic 2 prototype we have, Sonic 2 Nick Arcade is no good to us because it's same one off Sonic 1. It's hard to pin point when exactly the Nick Arcade version was built. The earliest report of its existence was when it was at the Chicago Consumer Electronics Show on May 28 1992. As for when it was on the TV show "Nick Arcade", the episodes were apparently tapped in 1992 (the details for each episode can be seen here) with a couple sources claiming when the episodes were shown on TV here and here.

So while there's no exact date of when the Sonic 2 Nick Arcade was built, it's safe to assume it was before May 1992. Even then, check out these German video game magazine scans that were published on May 1992 from a company called Gamers here, here and here. Looks a lot like the build that was shown in the Sonic 2 Sega Solid Gold Guide which came after the Sonic 2 Simon Wai build but before Sonic 2 beta 4 build. Gamers would have been sorting that article out before May 1992.

Here's a bit of trivia regarding Tails in the 8-bit Sonic 2 taken from here:

Quote

While Tails was designed for the 16-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the developers of its Master System/Game Gear counterpart decided to also use the character, albeit as a plot point only. Even though he was reduced to a kidnap victim, the game was released a month prior the Mega Drive version, making this Tails' first appearance.

[SpeedStarTMQ]

Excellent, thank you for the informative and well thought out post!