Hirokazu Yasuhara revealing all kinds of Sonic development stuff

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning... Can you please explain what you mean?

 

I can see a bad present Rock World Zone as Mystic Cave easily enough, just like I can see a past Rock World as Hidden Palace. I do not see where Dust Hill fits in there though. Beyond the level slot connection, that is.

 

Well if the 2 zones were linked by time travel, it'd make sense to me for it to go in the place its unfinished "present" level should be. Especially as we know that Mystic Cave was copied into the Dust Hill slot.

 

You mean as in, it was not its original slot and they moved it to that other one for a reason?

Are you basing that affirmation on any specific info that we have?

 

It came out ages ago that Mystic Cave was moved into that slot. There were interviews confirming that Dust Hill was the "Desert" level seen in screenshots, so if "Rock Zone" is indeed the working name for what became Mystic Cave, then it ties the whole thing together. They either coped the "past" zone in, or moved it to its current slot from its original slot.

 

you mean the interviews from after 1999 when the fanbase was already calling the desert level "Dust Hill" without any documentation to connect it. (also that youtube video is of a rom hack)

 

No. I mean the interviews with the people who made the game, I believe 2 or 3 of them have said Dust Hill was the desert level.

 

The competition stages, Hidden Palace, Death Egg in the mountains preparing for launch, a desert and pyramid stage, a forest stage.
It seems like Sonic 3K carried over a lot of what they didn't get to do in Sonic 2.

 

Oh my god, where did you find this amazing thing?

 

Wasn't someone asked and they pointed the Desert level out as Dust Hill?

 

Foggy memories?

Also there is something that bugs me. If Yusuhara made a search, why he didn't look for Mystic Cave being the suposed final name, or recognized the level as something different? Even after looking for the name he found the desert level and he was ok with it. We can't just forget the developers testimonies just because of the time it has passed. Craig Stitt even remembered his HPZ background in Spinball.

But I don't see the point of debating this without new information, we have evidence both in favor and against it, even in the map and betas.

 

Where did the clean version come from?

 

Yeah, could be!!! I see it now!
maybe.....Blue lake in Sonic 2,,,, looks like it could be alternative to launch base zone. and Tropical Plant is where Angel Island zone is located lol.
(I'm also picturing the lake level from the S3's competition mode as being blue lake, and having death egg sitting in it. ( wow too much of a stretch on my end with that last idea?) Hmm... well It does have Mountains in the background.

Both have the mountains and tree line near the water thing going on.

Spoiler

Offtopic thought I had.
I never really thought about this B4,,,,But looking at that map, It looks like if knuckles didn't spring his trap on Sonic causing him to fall into Hydrocity zone, the next stage would have been Marble Garden.( I always felt that Marble garden was some random location on the island.)

 

So now I'm not the only one to see the similarities between the Death Egg sorrounded by water and mountains in the S2 proto map and Launch Base Zone.

What about Hidden Palace Zone? You warp there and there is a teleporting device that sends you to Sky Sanctuary, could it be a rehashed idea of the warping point?

By the way... In this new map, where is HPZ supposed to be?

 

maybe we should get scans of the Japanese Sonic 3 and 2 manuals too.

 

Funny, I remember seeing that someone had posted the S3K Japanese manual map the other day; think it was in the thread regarding the geography of Angel Island. And, yeah, I agree that it looks incredibly similar to the design sketches of Sonic 2 - one does have to wonder if a simplified version of the original plan for the Death Egg (Minus the time travel plot, obviously) managed to survive as the basis for S3K's 'crash, relaunch, crash again, make it into orbit' saga.

Just a minor thing, but do we have absolutely anything to go on regarding what the pyramid actually is, other than a presumed time travel machine of sorts? Clearly, Metropolis is located nearby, and I've seen a few folks who've speculated that the pyramid/warp-point is in fact Metropolis itself. I've also seen other speculations that it may be some extremely early rendition of Hidden Palace (Either in form or function). Despite this, though, I seem to recall a quote involving Craig Stitt's art for the stage, and how it was rendered more as a 'cave' than a 'palace' due to the language barrier - thus suggesting to me that Hidden Palace's art was created specifically during that phase of the game's design. That said, I'm no expert, and I can't seem to find the damned quote, so it's entirely possible I'm misremembering. Regardless, I suppose it's all speculation without further evidence. We know that the pyramid is present in the 'Past,' 'Now,' and 'Now 2' maps. What is presumably the Death Egg is visible in all maps (With three in the Future map), and without any actual word on it, I'd hesitate to even begin speculating as to what its original form and function was meant to be - let alone how it was 'created' (Or should that be 'hatched?').

 

Hidden.

 

Not exactly on topic, but I did a quick labelling of the Sonic 3 map, and outside of the Pyramid-building hinting at Sandopolis's location, is there really any indication it was also showing off Sonic & Knuckles locations?

I particularly struggled to place Mushroom Hill or Lava Reef. (And on the S3 side, Carnival Night.)

[Edit] I did go ahead and do another though:
http://i.imgur.com/gkl9kRB.jpg