Looking over the maps again and again, and crosschecking with the known prototype builds, I have a level order to to suggest, with tentative music selections based upon theme, progression, and known placements within the Simon Wai beta in particular. I could very well be wrong on the associated themes, but I feel fairly confident at this time with the level progression. Note that i did nix the medieval period considering how there was no map to work off of. Present: 1. Green Hill Zone - Emerald Hill 2p 2. Ocean Wind Zone - Carnival Night 2p 3. Wood Zone - Metropolis 4. Sand Shower Zone - Mystic Cave 2p 5. Metropolis Zone - Death Egg part 1 Ancient: 6. Rock World Zone - Game Results or Wing Fortress? 7. Tropical Plant Zone - Sky Chase or Metropolis? 8. Hill Top Zone - Hill Top 9. Blue Lake Zone - Aquatic Ruin 10. Olympus - Hidden Palace (Sound test 10) Present Bad: 7. Rock World Zone - Mystic Cave 8. Oil Ocean Zone - Oil Ocean 9. Dust Hill Zone - Emerald Hill Future: 10. Casino Night Zone - Casino Night 11. Chemical Plant Zone - Chemical Plant 12. Genocide City Zone 1 - Wing Fortress or Sky Chase? 13. Genocide City Zone 2 - Death Egg part 2 I concocted the zone order based upon the flow of the maps, with keeping in my mind where Sonic would end up during timelline transitions. I anticipated that Sonic would not always be traveling in the same direction. For instance, after some time shenanigans upon a presumed battle with Eggman at Metropolis zone, Sonic would be thrust right in the same location, only then known as Rock World zone. From there he works his way up the mountain, and down the falls to Olympus. I am equating Olympus with Hidden Temple, and that may very well be wrong. Time-traveling up from there, he gets plopped into the mines of Rock World Zones new present, which I am inclined to believe would be basically Mystic Cave Zone. From there he runs through the Oil Ocean facility (soon to be CPZ), until he reaches Green Hill Zone, only now its Dust Hill. Somehow he ends up in the future from there, working down from Casino Night to Chemical Plant, and finally the Genocide cities.
Sonic 2 is the gift that keeps on giving. It's crazy that we're still learning new things about the game's early development to this day. Would love to see the original zone maps and art get released and have fans re-create Sonic 2's original concept.
Evidence please. The others have posted lists based on the actual internal level order, they're not just theorizing away.
Hidden Palace introducing Super Sonic could still work with all this. If Sonic is already being transported across space to HPZ, why not across time as well?
Is that a giant egg in the mountains in all four time zones? It looks the same as the eggs where Genocide City 1 and Genocide City 2 are. Could the mountain egg have been Eggman's base of operations? Strange that it doesn't look like you'd actually be able to visit it.
My sources for the zone order was based upon the map sketches predominantly. In terms of internal level orderings, I was working off this arrangement from the Simon Wai beta, filling blanks based off the maps: (Which admittedly gets wonky around Blue Lake Zone. Perhaps it was a later addition to the mix, or they revised the order after the map sketches) 00 Green Hill Zone 01 Ocean Wind Zone 02 Wood Zone 03 Sand Shower Zone 04 Metropolis Zone 05 Tropical Plant Zone 06 Rock World Zone past 07 Hill Top Zone 0F Blue Lake Zone/Aquatic Ruin 08 Hidden Palace/Olympus 09 Rock World Zone present 0A Oil Ocean Zone 0B Dust Hill Zone 0C Casino Night Zone 0D Chemical Plant Zone 0E Genocide City Zone 10 Genocide City Zone 2
I don't know, I'm just trying to follow the concept art. It certainly looks like more of a past stage and maybe it was eventually going to be.
I just want to say, learning about the prospective Beach trope Zone adds some explanation for why the demo version of the 2P Emerald Hill track has a very distinctly reggae feel. Or perhaps I'm just reading too far into this sort of thing!
Look at the Past map again. It begins at Warp Point, then Tropical Plant Zone, then Hill Top Zone. It would presumably then go to Blue Lake Zone and Rock World Zone, circling back to Warp Point to take Sonic to the "Now 2" time zone.
Solid point, I must have missed that arrow towards Hilltop. Messes up the numbering more, making HTZ the sixth instead of seventh stage. Placing Rock World at the end of the Ancient period would make for a convenient jump right into Rock World's present. Also removing Olympus from the order. 05 Tropical Plant Zone 07 Hill Top Zone 0F Blue Lake Zone 0? Rock World Zone past 0? Rock World Zone present There are no arrows guiding which way the Now 2 path goes, but if the Ancient ends at Rock World into the pyramid, perhaps Sonic would venture outwards from the "present" Rock World.
I know this may seem dumb now, but why is everyone equating Olympus with Hidden Palace Zone? I guess it makes sense as it is significant in Greek mythology as the throne of Zeus (and it could house the emeralds since they're imporant as well) but would Aquatic Ruin Zone fit better as it gives off more of a Greek feel? I know we're speculating now.
It also says that the bumper/crawl was going to be a badnik for the desert level but it ended up being placed in Casino Night, even when the CNZ name was already in that map from the beginning. The game changed so much through time that is difficult to answer every question with only one answer, it can change as the development of the game progressed. That document scan only shows the enemy, not the level design, and the map only tell us the names of the originally planned Zones. The map doesn't even mention a cave or a mine and there is Mystic Cave in the same ROM than the Dust Hill name. If Brenda Ross points her level design as Dust Hill to me it has the same validity as an enemy document with a white background. If the level design was made after the map who knows if she was right and the name Sandy Shower was replaced for DHZ just like the crawl badnik. Edit: Do we know if when the mockup was made the time travel was still a thing?
What's the relevance of this? Thing is, the documents we have so far seem to match! That document was telling us that the rock and desert levels were past and present of the same thing. These new documents are telling us that "Rock World" and "Sand Shower" are past and present of the same thing, and that they coexist with another level called "Dust Hill" in the present. Everything else you're talking about are old memories, stuff that can be incorrectly recalled, along with speculation of your own. This is the stuff, the real deal.
So Death Egg was originally going to be called Neo Death Egg. This was dropped but later on Aquatic Ruin Zone gets the name Neo Green Hill Zone. I wonder if there's any relevance to the word Neo being used? It seems like it would imply something involving time travel. Either that or it just sounds neat? I think there's a lot of red herrings since these documents are clearly very early and once they shifted from them, a lot of levels evolved on their own with no relation to how they were originally intended to correspond as past/future iterations of other levels. Aquatic Ruin Zone is a good example since the pillars feel like they'd be from an Olympus stage, but it could be possible they're just a left over assets from the Olympus design. If Mark Cerny only got as far as some rough art, it's not too unlikely he would have designed pillars first of all. All speculation, of course. It would be interesting to learn if Masato Nakamura ever wrote tracks for any cut levels that didn't get included in that CD.
Wow, I never actually read the Brenda Ross interview until now. I wouldn't take that as any kind of proof that the desert level was called Dust Hill. She clearly had no idea what the zone was going to be called - I get the impression she didn't like working on Sonic 2 either (Craig Stitt told me a few years back that some other artists were really pissed that their art didn't get in).
So if Dust Hill was supposed to be some bad future version of Emerald Hill, did that inspire Forces to add sand to GHZ to show it in ruins :v:
Dust Hill as a ruined Green Hill makes sense. Dust doesn't mean sand, but ashes. So badly destroyed there's nothing left, only "dust".
You know what the dustier places on Earth are? Caves. Now, what could be a good name for a cave level that's supposed to be an alternate present for a long-ago crumbled Green Hill? I must remember you guys that all the known prototypes (with their redone level select screens) and press articles have always pointed towards Dust Hill being just the original name for Mystic Cave, and giving that name to the desert was something started by random fans that stuck with the fandom because "it made sense", in case anyone was wondering how it all began.
