Dust Hill and Mystic Cave Discussion 2019

Interesting. So it’s the same kanji for Medieval and Ancient? What would be the literal translation?

Is the time period with Casino Night, Chemical Plant etc. actually referred to as the future?

 

To add to the confusion regarding the past of Sand Shower, there seems to be a weird dissonance between the art and the labels in the past map:

As you would expect, Rock World is in the same spot as Sand Shower from the present. However, it looks more like a tropical area and seems to match the look of the Tropical Sun concept art, while the place marked as Tropical Plant has a bunch of rocks and boulders, with no palm trees on sight. It's like they switched labels!

And then there's the map of the ravaged past:

In which the tropical-looking area is still there, but this time it's labeled as Tropical Summer! What's going on?

My guess is that the artist drew the maps thinking that the tropical zone would be the past of the desert zone, either due to miscommunication or changing plans. Then whoever placed the labels did it based on the concept documents, which stated that Rock (World) Zone was the past of the desert zone.

There's also the possibility that the maps were drawn first, then they came up with the zone themes and connections based on them. They decided to change some things in the process, leading to the inconsistencies.

 

If you look closely at the ruined past map, Tropical Summer still takes place at the same location as Tropical Plant: below the warp point pyramid. No label switching theories needed.

 

That still doesn't explain the inconsistency between the labels and the art in the past, or why Tropical Summer in the ravaged past looks closer to the Rock World from the original past than Tropical Plant.

 

The Tropical Sun concept was likely for Tropical Summer, not Tropical Plant, but we don't know what these zones looked like for sure. Rock World could have taken place on that huge rock above the name for example. There's nothing concrete to go off of.

 

The timeline document mentions "Tropical Sun" in the Past, in the same spot (going by level order) as Tropical Plant:

グリーン Green
オーシャン Ocean
ウッド Wood
サンド Sand
メトロポリス Metropolis

トロピカルサン Tropical Sun
ブルーオーシャン Blue Ocean
ヒルトップ Hill Top

ロック Rock
オイル Oil
ダスト Dust
デスエッグ Death Egg

ヒルトップ Hill Top
ブルー Blue

カジノ Casino
ケミカル Chemical
ジェノサイド Genocide
ネオデスエッグ Neo Death Egg

It makes no mention of the Tropical zone in the ravaged past.

Not if it's supposed to be the past of Sand Shower:


You can clearly see that the tropical-looking area matches the location of Sand Shower, with the mountain you mentioned being to the northeast of it.

Also, the Rock World label is closer to the tropical-looking area than the mountain.

 

You're right, I missed that. So we have a clear link for that piece of concept art to the Tropical Plant level. I still feel that you're reading too much into the label positions here, but I'll bite: How do you know there aren't little palm trees under this Tropical Plant label for instance, there's the same shadows there that the other trees have if you look. The concept art itself does show massive rocks in it too.

None of the rocks have these shadows.

 

I'm pretty sure those are pine trees, not palm trees. They're there in the present too, where you can better see them:


As for the rocks, the concept art shows a rocky mountain on the sea, but no rocks in the foreground area:

It even has a waterfall coming out of it. By contrast, the rocks in the map are on the ground.

 

That doesn't prove anything. The past and present maps have multiple differences between them. We can't say for certain if they are palm trees in the past or not.

Trying to compare exact minor details such as rocks and trees between these two concept pieces is questionable too. We don't know how early the Tropical Sun concept is compared to the level maps. The only thing it tells us for sure is that Tropical Plant was called Tropical Sun at some point.

Nothing supports your label swap theory. The order listed is still:
トロピカルサン Tropical Sun
ブルーオーシャン Blue Ocean
ヒルトップ Hill Top

ロック Rock

The same order as the arrows and labels seen in the maps. And as I pointed out earlier, both tropical levels are in the same location: below the warp point pyramid. Any perspective inconsistencies are due to these being hand drawn concept art, they never made it into the game.

 

Look closely at this:

You can see the bottom leaves of the trees in the past map (middle). Palm trees wouldn't have the leaves that low, nor in that shape, as you can tell by comparing with the palms on the right.

It seems there's a misunderstanding. I'm not saying that they swapped the levels, I'm just saying that the art suggests that the artist drew the maps thinking that the tropical zone and the rock zone would be in each other's place on the island. Whether that stems from a mixup on the artist's part, a change of plans, or whatever, I don't know. I just threw multiple hypotheses at the end of my post as to how this could have happened.

 

Ah, I understand what you meant now. My bad.

 

So I just remembered something from the Mystic Cave section of the Sonic Jam Official Guide:

There's a lake, a mountain, Genocide City under construction and... I wonder what the cave could be.

 

That cave must be Madness Mountain! Haunted house in the daytime with a wooden draw bridge accompanied by that spooky music taking place in the medieval/ancient past time. What a change of scenery! And to think the zone was supposed to be grey/green instead of purple, lol.

 

I think people don't question why it's called Hidden Palace despite being a cave because we already know the reason. Craig Stitt stated that the level looks like that because he was unaware it would be called Hidden Palace when he drew its art.

I don't think Tropical Plant/Summer are separate levels, as the alternate Past is supposed to be just the Past after some tsunamis razed the place. Hence why its other levels are the same as the ones from the regular Past. The tsunamis would have caused some of the zones to get destroyed, not a whole new zone to pop up out of nowhere.

The name inconsistency in the maps could be a result of the two Past maps being drawn at separate points, with the level getting renamed in between.

 

Regarding all the "Mystic Cave was a replacement for something else" talk...they had at least 3 empty level slots. Would it actually have been easier to overwrite existing data than to just start working in a blank space? You guys would know better than me about programming stuff.

 

I'm starting to think that the time travel feature was more about the island map than the individual zones. Just levels in the island at a determined time period.
There are different zones and even a different number of them in each interation of the island, they didn't have to be the future or past versions of another like in SCD. Simply put, some areas (zones) were just replaced by another because the previous one was destroyed, doesn't exist anymore. Each time period would act as a different world with diferent levels a la Super Mario Bros 3., but travelling in time, not space.

 

https://i.imgur.com/jmwOHeh.png

I'm probably way overthinking this but the 塵 character kind of reminds me of the mystic cave level layout.

What this spells out to me is that the rock zone was the past version of the desert stage and badniks would remain constant minus a pallette change.

 

Metropolis name doesn't make sense either. Sega wasn't really competent at making names.

We literally do. It was linked on this topic "Genocide City or Cyber City" written on the enemies page.

 

Yeah, but also this:

 

So...if I were to call the Desert level 'Sand Shower' is it less likely to cause an argument?

*returns back to hole after posting for the first time in seven years*