I made a video on the Development of Sonic 2!

Hi. First, I want to say up front that I like what you're doing here. And cool accent. Southern accents, unite!

That said, I do want to inform you of mistakes around the Simon Wai version of the game. There's conflicting information on the internet (including Retro apparently), but I have the definitive details:

Simon Wai found it in 1998 sometime but never bothered telling anyone, because that version was not at all uncommon to find in Hong Kong where he was in his youth. Discussions on Usenet were taking place during the latter half of that year from fans obsessed with secrets behind the game. This spawned Tom's Hacking Station, Secrets of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2 Hacking Guide, and others.

Andre Dirk (or his "friend"... it's a little unclear) had a copy of the Simon Wai version on cart. He tried to auction it for a lot of money. Just when it was looking like he was going to make a good profit, Simon Wai showed up on Usenet and decided to help out people who wanted to play it by pointing them to the ROM he had come across earlier. The link was shared on Jan 1, 1999 (yes, I'm sure of this -- this is wrong everywhere else).

Evidence suggests the Simon Wai compile was likely in June of 1992. It is extremely doubtful (and likely even proveable through magazine dates) that it was ever done in August.

I know you can't simply go back and change your video, but I thought you might want to know those details, including the fact it was shared in '99, not '98.

Edit: Just one more thing: There is no evidence Aquatic Ruin music was intended for Sand Shower. That's a theory with absolutely no hard evidence. When in doubt, one should either assume the music actually assigned to stages is correct until proven otherwise, or say it's debated by fans.

I hope this post doesn't come off as just an overabundance of criticism. I really do think what you're doing here is great. You give great summaries of these prototypes. Keep up the work.

 

I'd just like to back this up and say that, though anecdotal, I have vague but still somewhat vivid memories of the rom finally dropping in very early 99 rather unexpectedly. Namely because I considered it a surprise not long after my 13th birthday (Dec, 31st, 1998).

Very similar to how the Sonic 1 beta was dumped on December 31st 2020, making it yet another birthday week surprise for me all those years later.

So I want to back up everything said here as best I'm able.

 

Would you mind elaborating more on this? I haven't seen any preview coverage of Sonic 2 that wasn't either the Nick Arcade build or Sega-provided preview shots from before October 1992 (which makes sense given magazine lead times), so that would be interesting to see.

I believe the origin of the "Wai is from August" claim is that drx was offered a prototype cartridge from SOA with the Wai/1.54 build on it and a label saying something like "Beta 8/92".