Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: John Calibur - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

oh man! Cart tipping memories as a kid. I was always curious why 3D blast acted the way it did. I guess you learn something new every day, huh?

Game design is an extremely demanding artform, even for an entire team of people.

In the mainstream industry, there are alot of deadlines to meet, especially when it comes to the holiday season. When making a game there's alot of contingencies too, and when deadlines aren't met, and things don't meet quality standards, that's when things start getting cut and cut.

In the end, the Sonic CD we know and love is a very unfinished product that the devteam settled on, and it's a little more skimpy than what the game designers had originally imagined. The sad thing is that this almost always happens with every game ever. Developers run out of time, and then they have to compensate by sacrificing aspects of the game.

If they had all the time in the world to perfect the game, we'd have things like R2, and Naoto's original vision of instantaneous time travel with the level changing all around you, and who knows what else. We'd also probably not see the game for a few years too, and that's no good.

What appeared in Sonic Jam was the uncut intro and outro animations.

In terms of the intro, the FMV in a copy of Sonic CD is pretty gimped compared to the original. A few transitions were cut or shortened, like the one where Sonic does his wierd frog-skip swimming before running along the side of the alcove. Also, there's an obvious contrast in quality from the source animation. The reason for this I read along time ago, but now it aludes me. something about framerates or something.

The outro, specificly the cut antlion scene pretty much tells us that the animations used in the FMVs were made quite some time before the game was finalized and R2 was cut. The little scenes of each level are pretty vague anyway, only slightly resembling the levels they correspond to, and the Race with metal sonic apparently is taking place during the present Stardust Speedway, which never happens in game. Perhaps they only used the initial concept art to create the scenes used, very early in the games developement.

Everything included in the pencil test, baring the first segment with the smoketrail and the stars, was cut in 1 way or another. So the water-skipping, the antlion scene, and Sonic's running and spindashing demonstration weren't seen in the original Sonic CD except in pencil form. However, at that point in time, full color versions of each of those animations probably exsisted, I don't think they went out of their way to color the antlion scene after the game was released. I imagine putting the scenes in pencil form allowed them to bypass the color limitations that are visible in the intro, and probably saved space on the disc, while also evoking the feeling that this content was from the cutting room floor. So I can see where you might be confused.

If it wasn't already clear enough, the antlion scene was removed, and so was R2, so it is assumed they correspond to each other, but who knows! Maybe the animation was for something totally different, like what they though tidal tempest would've ended up like? It's all speculation anyway, it's probably just R2. The scene pops up in the pencil test and sonic jam as a little bonus, much like the deleted scenes of a movie.

I have a question, bear with me though, cuz I'm musically living under a rock.

What's up with the SNCBNK*B sounds? It's just like... 1 note of all the instruments and voices from that zone. The other ones have a little loop, we're all familiar with that, but the B ones are foreign to me. I wonder if they'd help narrow down the search at all for you guys?

I always though the slight hint of Wild West in triple trouble was appealing. I mean, not just Fang, but the sunset park boss too.

I'd love to see more Fang, but then I remember the whole "careful what you wish for" mindset cuz they could just as easily remake him into shit.

also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I could've sworn I read somewhere that the fact that he has only 4 fingers was suppose to be a yakuza reference or something. might just be some total conjecture, but still.