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Hirokazu Yasuhara revealing all kinds of Sonic development stuff

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by TimmiT, May 22, 2017.

  1. TimmiT

    TimmiT

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Member
    So Hirokazu Yasuhara is speaking right now at Digital Dragons in Poland, and there he is revealing a whole bunch of development stuff about Sonic games. @necrosofty is posting stuff from it on Twitter.

    Unused overworld maps from Sonic 2, showing unused zone names:

    [​IMG]
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    Source

    Sonic 2 being originally planned to have time travel. At the time Yasuhara didn't know Ohshima was doing the same thing with CD:

    [​IMG]
    Source

    Design sketches from before Sonic 1:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Source

    A note on the last one: the Twitter user is trying to convince Yasuhara to share more of this stuff on Twitter. You should retweet his tweet to show people want to see more.
     
  2. This is AMAZING. Those little Sonic drawings are cute too. So new zones... wonder if there was any art drawn up for them...

    Sand Shower Zone
    Ocean Wind Zone
    Blue Lake Zone
    Rock World Zone
    Tropical Plant Zone
    Olympus
     
  3. Lord Nero

    Lord Nero

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    By god, it's so nice even after all this time, to still see new stuff from the old games pop up. That overworld would've been a nice touch if the game went as originally planned, hope more stuff get's shared.
     
  4. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    Wow Sonic 2 could have been a very different game. This stuff is really cool though.
     
  5. Knucklez

    Knucklez

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    Refreshing to see sketches that old finally being put out for everyone to see. That's at least a game worth of previously unknown scrapped (concepts) levels, plus the few we've already known. Great stuff. I hope there's more to come.
     
  6. LukyHRE

    LukyHRE

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    My god, this is insanely amazing. We can actually see which zone was originally planned as a future/past version of which zone.

    I can't see how a mountain area (Hill Top) was going to be the past version of Green Hill... most surely they reutilized some names along the way.
     
  7. Linkabel

    Linkabel

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    It's kind of funny how he didn't know Oshima was doing the same thing. Sounds like every company ever where various teams are working on similar projects.

    I'm glad they chose not to go with the time travel aspect for Sonic 2 though.
     
  8. DarkVDee

    DarkVDee

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    [Screaming on the inside] OMG YES! MORE BETA CONTENTS OF SONIC 2!!! More please for the love of GOD!!!
    I'm going to retweet this. As always Sonic 2 beta contents is a gold mine
     
  9. GoldS

    GoldS

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    Something worth noting is that the level order seems to sorta kinda fit the internal level order in the Simon Wai prototype:

    (PRESENT TIME)
    00: Emerald Hill (Green Hill)
    01: BLANK (Placeholder for Ocean Wind?)
    02: Wood
    03: BLANK (Placeholder for Sand Shower?)
    04: Metropolis
    (SONIC GOES BACK IN TIME)
    05: Metropolis Act 3 (Already filled in the Rock World slot)
    06: BLANK (Placeholder for Tropical Plant?)
    07: Hill Top
    08: Hidden Palace (Olympus??)
    09: BLANK (Placeholder for Blue Lake?)
    (SONIC RETURNS TO A RUINED PRESENT)
    0A: Oil Ocean
    0B: Dust Hill (Same name in stage select, slot already taken by what would be named Mystic Cave)
    (SONIC GOES TO THE FUTURE?)
    0C: Casino Night
    0D: Chemical Plant
    0E: Genocide City
    0F: Neo Green Hill
    10: Death Egg
     
  10. AkumaYin

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    From what I can tell, Chemical Plant and Genocide City (with the latter zone presumably being a transformation of Metropolis) seem to take place in a future timeline, a la Sonic CD. I suppose that makes sense, considering that the zones in Sonic 2 had a bit of a strange variety. Hill Top being a "prehistoric" variant of Emerald Hill also makes some sense, with being a clone for the most part.
     
  11. Chainspike

    Chainspike

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    This is amazing! I wonder if Rock world zone was the actual name for Rock zone. These other zones might explain some of the completely unused level slots in Sonic 2 like ID 09 & 01! Also, it looks like Green Hill was going to be in Sonic 2. No wonder it was in the level select for so long.
     
  12. DigitalDuck

    DigitalDuck

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    Concept art level order - Sonic 2 data order

    0. Green Hill Zone - Emerald Hill Zone
    1. Ocean Wind Zone - (unused)
    2. Wood Zone - (unused, Wood Zone in beta)
    3. Sand Shower Zone - (unused)
    4. Metropolis Zone - Metropolis Zone (acts 1 and 2)
    5. Rock World Zone? - Metropolis Zone (act 3)
    6. Tropical Plant Zone? - Wing Fortress Zone
    7. Hill Top Zone - Hill Top Zone
    8. Olympus? - (unused, Hidden Palace Zone in beta)
    9. Blue Lake Zone? - (unused)
    10. Oil Ocean Zone - Oil Ocean Zone
    11. Dust Hill Zone - Mystic Cave Zone
    12. Casino Night Zone - Casino Night Zone
    13. Chemical Plant Zone - Chemical Plant Zone
    14. Genocide City 1 Zone? - Death Egg Zone
    15. Genocide City 2 Zone? - Aquatic Ruin Zone

    Dammit, GoldS beat me to it. Fuck it, I'm still posting my interpretation anyway.
     
  13. Devon

    Devon

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    So, judging from the maps, Wood Zone was NOT gonna be the past for Metropolis Zone, but rather for Casino Night Zone. I'm not surprised that Hill Top was gonna be the past for Green Hill, since Hill Top was just a blue Emerald Hill. Dust Hill looks like it was gonna be the ruined version of Green Hill (maybe that's where Forces got its inspiration for sand in its Green Hill :v:)

    Also, doing some rough translations (via Google Translate lmao), I dunno what this medieval shit is all about, because Casino Night, Genocide City, etc. are referred to as future zones, and I see the map with "Olympus" as the ancient time zone.

    Also, the map sketches look pretty similar to the overworld map in 8 bit Sonic 1:
    [​IMG]
     
  14. Montblanc

    Montblanc

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    So Dust Hill Zone was originally Emerald Hill (Green Hill) future? Hill Top Zone also shares its position in the map with Chemical Plant. Seems Oil Ocean had a clean version of it called Oceand Wind Zone. There is also Sand Shower with Rock World, that contradicts DHZ being the future of Rock Zone, unless the two were merged together.

    And where is Hidden Palace Zone, if its development began before Wood Zone and Genocide City Zone?
     
  15. Devon

    Devon

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    From the looks of it, there are 5 time zones. There's the normal present, which we start off with. I believe Eggman just goes to the medieval times to ruin shit but we don't see what's actually in the medieval times, since the maps don't seem to fit medieval times. There's then the ruined present, a.k.a. "NOW 2". Then there's the ancient times, with Olympus and shit. Finally, there's the future, with Casino Night and Genocide City.
     
  16. Liliam

    Liliam

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    Adding to what others have summed up, here is my attempt to transcribe the zone themes in the above image:


    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


    Seems like at some points you would get sent back to previous stages. And it isn't mentioned in the other slides, but it looks like at least the name "Death Egg" was already conceived at this time.

    EDIT: Fuck I forgot something important. Dust AND Sand. Dust Hill Zone is not the desert level. Sonique (I think it was her?) BTFO.
     
  17. DigitalDuck

    DigitalDuck

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    Olympus looks like it would've been Hidden Palace Zone.
     
  18. TimmiT

    TimmiT

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    [​IMG]

    Source

    It appears that Digital Dragons usually upload video of the presentations held at their event, so we may see video of this here: https://www.youtube.com/user/DigitalDragonsKrakow/videos
     
  19. Sparks

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    It's crazy to finally see in detail what those plans for time travel in Sonic 2 were meant to be. It's also fantastic to analyze because we can see what ideas stuck early on and what didn't. It paints a very different image of the zones and their relation to each other.
     
  20. Montblanc

    Montblanc

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    Looking at it again looks like Olympus could be Aquatic Ruin Zone, the past of Chemical Plant Zone. Makes some sense with all that water to release waste. Perhaps the name "Neo" Green Hill Zone was a leftover of the scrapped time travel idea.

    Metropolis was a "good" present Zone and not part of a bad timeline. But its place is missing in the ruined present.

    And the warp point, that looks like a pyramid... Perhaps that was Hidden Palace? It says that to do a time travel you have to activate something "hidden".