Dust Hill and Mystic Cave Discussion 2019

Back on CuLT probably.

 

Finally, Dust Hill is confirmed as Mystic Cave. Amazing find!

 

I'm so happy we finally have incontrovertible proof that Dust Hill was just an early name for Mystic Cave Zone.

 

Someone on the Retro Discord asked me to post a list of changes I posted there to the forum, so why not?

 

Nice wording there.

 

I honestly don't think this proto outright confirms factually that MCZ = Dust Hill.

I mean, if anything, it just counts as supporting evidence, not as anything definitive. Going by title cards using particular names alone just feels like something littered with pitfalls, seeing how much we still don't know about development between the Nick Arcade prototype, and the Wai prototype.

I mean, using that logic, one could claim that Emerald Hill Zone was originally just gonna be called Green Hill Zone (since the Green Hill Zone name lasted at least through when each zone got the text on their title cards working), but we don't know if between the NA proto, and Wai proto, what became EHZ moved from the Starlight Zone slot to the Green Hill Zone slot, for instance.

Likewise, we have no idea whether something was meant for the slot, whether trying to get title cards worked out came before making sure names were definitive, etc.

We should be careful about throwing around terms like "proves" with things where a lot is still unanswered.

 

For Christ's sake, people said for YEARS that Dust Hill was without a doubt the desert level based on one interview taken 10 years after the game's development. Now we've got multiple prototypes labeling the cave level Dust Hill AND design documents showing the name Sand Shower, which can't really go to anything but a desert or beach, and NOW you choose to be skeptical?

 

Sheesh, calm down. For the record, this is my first time (to my knowledge) in the over 15 years (err, if I count the SWS2B days, and SSRG days of lurking, and posting under other aliases, over 20 years now) lurking and posting here expressing this opinion - what OTHERS post here is irrelevant, my opinion is my own (and those of whomever else agree/share it).

There are plenty of theories that don't stand up completely, even with some decent evidence - anyone who has been here long enough has seen their share.

 

I have a hard time they would go through the work to make a title card for a zone that had already been canned, and not bother to make a title card for a zone that is near finished. Like why would they leave that one zone using the wrong name?

 

They did it with Emerald Hill (still being called Green Hill), and with Hidden Palace, so *I'd argue, at least* it's not exactly unprecedented, depending on how you look at it.

Regardless, IMO, certainty (or rather, definitively) is a big word to throw around, and should be utilized with care.

 

I can think of one possible reason: poor communication, something that was extremely prevalent during the game's chaotic development thanks to the language barrier. The person in charge of the title cards may simply have looked at the zone names in the level select and used them, unaware that some of the names were obsolete or inaccurate.

 

To which I ask again: where was this skepticism before, when everyone was so sure the desert level was Dust Hill?

 

People had been using "Dust Hill Zone" for the desert level prior to the interview with Brenda Ross, though. Where did that originate, magazines?

 

That's implying they didn't mean to call Emerald Hill "Green Hill" at one point, which the preproduction art and title card shows that they always did until very late in development:



Also, you can't have a "Neo" Green Hill Zone without having a "Green Hill Zone". :P

 

Fascinating.

This seems to suggest that Mystic Cave was indeed called Dust Hill at one stage - that it wasn't just an error in the level select (that is, assuming the title cards aren't reading data from the same place). So yes, points to whoever.

But it absolutely does not "definitively prove" that the name hadn't been recycled. That may never happen until someone contacts the original developers to get a "definitive" answer. Unless one turns up later today.


Oh and Tails has Sonic's name in 2-player versus mode. So yeah that's a thing.

 

"Dust Hill" certainly doesn't seem like an appropriate name for the aesthetic of Mystic Cave, unless MC used to look very different. Come to think of it I wouldn't say "Dust Hill" was necessarily an appropriate name for a desert/wild west themed stage either. So perhaps they just kept the name Dust Hill until they managed to think of a better name more suited for the zone i.e. "Mystic Cave".

I've played the prototype. Fascinating stuff. The Sonic 1 spike glitch being present is so annoying, caught me out a few times, haha.

Looking forward to the next Sonic 2 prototype.

In case anyone is wondering; In order to unlock debug mode you need to enter the following sequence at the title screen: C, C, Up, Down, Down, Down, Down, C, C, Up, A+Start (the same as some of the other betas). This takes you to level select, you then need to choose an act and press A (hold it) and press start. You then need to press B in the stage to go into debug mode.

 

You guys are overlooking something: The Sonic Team of old had a history of giving stupid or inappropriate names to things:
1: Sonic 1's painfully on-the-nose Final Zone.
2: Sonic 2's Genocide City, which was chosen because the Japanese devs thought it sounded scary, without knowing the meaning. The Americans on the team then suggested Cyber City, before the level was scrapped entirely.
3: Sonic 3's Get Blue Sphere was originally Get Blue Balls, before an English-speaker told them not to.
4: As badass as the name sounds, there's nothing really doomsday-ish about The Doomsday Zone. Eggman's doomsday machine was just destroyed, and Sonic was just trying to stop him from escaping with the Master Emerald.

Now, we know that Dust Hill was intended as the bad future of Green Hill, perhaps Eggman "dusted" the area with bombs, and the ruined underground sections were all that remained. In that context, and ONLY in that context, would the name Dust Hill make sense for the cave level. Later, when the time travel gimmick was dropped, it didn't work anymore, but perhaps they said, "Let's just get the actual game finished, and change the name later."

 

No, it originated from Sonic communities. Magazines used Dust Hill for Mystic Cave.