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Cancelled SegaSonic game SegaSonic Bros. (1992) found

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by TimmiT, Feb 4, 2016.

  1. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    Not sure what you point is... I mean, they would indeed have the same composer whether they were commisioned for each of the games or just the same track picked from a music vault and then adapted to the different formats.
     
  2. Are there not usually separate credits for "Music Composer" and "Music Programmer" if such is the case? Perhaps this is something to look into?
     
  3. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    Sonic 2 MD has "Music composer" and "Sound programmer".
    Sonic 3 has "Sound Project Coordinator", "Music Composers" and then "SEGA Sound Team" with the usual SEGA names (and speaking of, aren't those all the composers they had at Sega of Japan for the whole lifespan of the Mega Drive?).

    I've also noticed a "Compose" credit in Sonic 2 GG, but it seems to be a bad translation of "Game design/Planner" as seen in other credits given to the same person. The composers there are credited as "Sound" and the sound programmer/s might just be under the generic "Programmers" credit.
     
  4. biggestsonicfan

    biggestsonicfan

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    ALWAYS Sonic the Fighters
  5. Zycor

    Zycor

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    Beats me.
    Wow, those are quick conversions there. I tried the Mega Drive one and it's not bad but man, I don't know why I can't seem to get a hang of the mechanics all that well. Same reason I can't ever reliably get a high chain in Puyo Puyo probably. Anything past 5 is hard for me to plan out. This game I've only gotten mostly lucky with my encasings of color.
     
  6. Blue Spikeball

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    Finally tried it and while I feel it goes too fast at times (possibly because I'm not an avid player of puzzle games), and most of the music could be better, I'm having a blast with it. Clearing huge areas at once feels so rewarding. I honestly find it a bit hard to believe that Sega deemed it unsatisfactory based on the gameplay.

    Call me crazy, but I suspect the reason they canned it may be that they felt the implication Sonic has a couple of siblings that look like recolors of him is heresy. Sega is known for being very protective of its mascot when it comes to his portrayal, after all. Not to mention that Naka disapproves of Sonic's siblings from Underground, and it's known that Archie was forbidden from introducing relatives of the game characters.
     
  7. Segasonic Bros. unused sprites:

    The members of Sonic the Hedgehog Band: Mach the Rabbit, Max the Monkey, Sharps the Parakeet and Vector the Crocodile would appear in the game.
    Now we know what the colors of Mach, Max and Sharps would look like.

    https://www.spriters-resource.com/arcade/segasonicbrosprototype/sheet/111877/
     
  8. Overlord

    Overlord

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    You know, of all the things from this ROM, that might be the neatest thing. The band members actually got into a released game - kinda.
     
  9. Pengi

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    I was thinking just the other day about how it was a shame the Sonic Band weren't in SegaSonic Bros., what with it being so Sonic 1 based and them being cut from Sonic 1 late in development. It's amazing to finally see those guys in sprite form, and with their finalised colours (the existing colour art was inconsistent).

    It wouldn't surprise me if these sprites are borrowed from unused Sonic 1 assets/concept art. "SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works" has some very early Sonic 1 concept art - one image shows Mach the Rabbit held prisoner (along with the smaller animals) during an early version of the wrecking ball boss, so it's definitely a Sonic 1 idea.

    Notice how Sharps and Vector are depicted with their "Version 2" designs:

    [​IMG]
    ^ VERSION 1

    [​IMG]
    ^ VERSION 2

    Mach's design is also updated in SegaSonic Bros - he has a clearly defined muzzle, and his nose is red instead of black.

    Sharps' light turquoise-blue colour harkens back to his original, pre-Sonic design.

    It's also interesting to see Vector without his headphones. They were originally part of his design because he was a keyboardist, so it makes sense that he wouldn't be wearing them when away from his keyboard. The "Blues Brothers" style Vector didn't have headphones either. Then the headphones were brought back for his "final" design, plugged into a Walkman.

    The sprite artists didn't draw the spikes on Vector's tail and back - but they were barely noticeable in his Sonic Band era designs.

    Can anyone explain the technical reason for why Vector's in-game palette was wrong, with the purple highlights?
     
  10. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    I'd like to add that Mach's color scheme looks closer to his look from this illustration, with blue and pink fur (assuming the light blue sections in his sprite aren't intended to be white fur with blue highlights). Max being pink rather than purple may be just a result of palette limitations.
     
  11. Pengi

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    The colours are all a bit of a mess in those "Sonic vacations" pictures - Flicky is green, Pocky is pink, Rocky is purple, Pecky has green hair. Even Max and Mach's Sonic-shoes are the wrong colours. In one of the others Sharps still has his "Version 1" design.
     
  12. Blue Spikeball

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    I noticed that too, but Mach's fur color being close to those illustrations suggests the SegaSonic Bros devs may have based his palette on them. Which would make sense, if they were given just the uncolored band concept art.

    Edit:
    He has a similar color scheme in the Story Comic as well, although in this instance the lighter sections of his fur look more skin-colored than pink:
    [​IMG]
     
  13. Prototype

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    Interesting that Sharps' hair/crest was consistent throughout the pre-production (at least from what resources we've seen) as a pompadour. A hairstyle which is associated with Yakuza or general young hoodlums. Was it this association that resulted in it being changed in the game itsef to a generic bird crest? It's possible, given that in Japan, Sonic was promoted heavily in arcades where young children would be ever-present.

    Very cool to see these band members in an actual game though.

    I imagine that the aversion to Sonic recolours would be the case (the irony) but it could also be an instinctive reaction to that early localization idea about Nebraska!Sonic having a bunch of siblings. It could also be that by '92 they'd started work on Sonic 2 and had an idea for the future of the series that didn't jibe with the early Sonic 1 ideas like the band. Kind of interesting that the two scrapped ideas were mashed up in Sonic Underground though.

    By the way, just when did SEGA forbid Archie from introducing relatives to the game characters? Because we had Uncle Chuck for a good while there, and possibly also Sonic's parents IIRC.
     
  14. Zycor

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    Beats me.
    Those unused sprites are quite similar to the ones used for Amy in Chaotix Cool Sweet and Catchy!
     
  15. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    So not only does Max have Knuckles' tail but also his original Sonic 3 colors? Hmm...
    [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
  16. Blue Spikeball

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    I'm not very savvy on Archie, but from what I understand, that was a mandate introduced relatively recently, after SoJ took a more firm grip on the franchise. Prior to that, it was mostly up to SoA to decide what was or wasn't allowed in the comic.
     
  17. Laughingcow

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    It was part of the Ken Penders clusterfuck. Note that Uncle Chuck isn't an Archie character but someone from the original Satam cartoon said comic was based on. This mandate exists because at this point, Ken was fighting for ownership of said characters despite how nonsensical owning a fake relative of Sonic and co would be. This was exacerbated by Ken wanting ownership of Knuckles himself but going into detail on this very long very lolcow subject is best left to someone more qualified than me.
     
  18. Pengi

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    I think the sequence of events was probably:

    *Sonic Band is planned for Sonic 1
    *Sega decides to use Sonic branding on a new puzzle game
    *Sonic 1 assets are shared with SegaSonic Bros devs
    *Sonic Band is removed from Sonic 1 at the last minute
    *SegaSonic Bros devs learn that the characters were scrapped, so remove them from their game too

    Yuji Naka talked about the Sonic Band in a 2005 interview:

    I wouldn't be surprised if the SegaSonic Bros team had access to these graphics, just as they did all of the Zone graphics.

    The Jheri curl over the forehead makes me think it was another case of Ohshima being inspired by Michael Jackson's look on the Bad album cover.

    It was unrelated. Just a rule Sega put in place about what can and cannot be done with their characters. Even when Ian Flynn was still writing established characters like Tails' parents, he couldn't dirctly say that they were his parents in the script.
     
  19. Prototype

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    I always found it interesting that the band wore the same shoes as Sonic. Was that intended to be something of a band gimmick? Like how The Beatles all wore identical suits for a period?

    Of course, these characters were scrapped and Ray and Mighty were introduced, both with Sonic-style shoes. So who knows?
     
  20. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    I was thinking that maybe they were set to appear in the undeveloped "1 Player" mode that can be selected from the alternate menu.

    They could have been freed whenever the player cleared a screen of a Puzzle mode or something.