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Knuckles' Ringstar (Chaotix) pre-1207 Prototype magazine scans

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Prototype, Aug 25, 2017.

  1. Shoemanbundy

    Shoemanbundy

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    In case no one has caught on, all of this is available on Emuparadise.


    Funny enough, it appears they do know what a beta is. Take a look at this Garfield scan (together with a photo of the lost viking level).

    [​IMG]

    You'll notice they explain what a beta is at the bottom left of the page. I think they probably did just superimpose their own pic onto a blank screen that Sega hadn't filled with graphics yet. If you look throughout the issue and others you'll see that all of their previews have a titlescreen shot that notes the system, system bits, and region. If the proto came with nothing discernible on the title, it makes sense they'd come up with something in order to avoid breaking tradition. After all, Sega wasn't so technically inept with new gen hardware at this point that they wouldn't be able to provide a properly colored Knuckles pic.

    It's probably just their own mock-up. It may have been an earlier time, but lets not assume they weren't capable of knowing a thing or two.
     
  2. LukyHRE

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    Native spanish speaker here. The translation is correct. They are indeed confirming a playable Tails. Maybe there was a proto before 1207 where his art was still intact? Or maybe that's the info Sega provided to the magazine.

    Kinda off-topic, but all the bugs that plagued the protos we have, were those emulation related? I can't think of magazine reviewers playing those buggy builds...
     
  3. Sappharad

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    It's wrong. 'Coprotagonized' is not a word. :ssh:
    + - (In case it was not obvious, I'm joking here.)  
    Complemented maybe?
     
  4. LukyHRE

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    Hahaha I said I was a native spanish speaker, not an english one :P

    Anyway, the correct word is "Co-starred", for the record.
     
  5. Mastered Realm

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    I read somewhere it was a faulty sound driver!
     
  6. ICEknight

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    Man, that "Nat the Armadillo" name brings some memories.

    I think there was even some fanart that used it being published in magazines, before the game's release.


    Regarding SEGA España, there's some interesting articles (in Spanish) detailing how things worked there, by Raúl Montón (AKA The Punisher), an ex employee who also happened to work in the Super Juegos magazine:
    Also of interest:
     
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  7. Black Squirrel

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    The worst I've read about in this regard is Acclaim Entertainment bringing horrendously early Mortal Kombat prototypes to various CES shows.

    Builds so early that you basically just have two characters on a screen. And they can walk.

    They can't fight, there's no backgrounds or music or any meaningful gameplay to speak of, but you could go, as a member of the public, to Acclaim's booth in 1993 and play this thing. On multiple platforms. That's how they would sell a game 25 years ago.


    So the bar is really, really low. Though I'd be very surprised if they sent out a copy with a faulty sound driver like our earliest (non-Crackers) Chaotix prototypes. I don't think they'd show off something that actually hurts to play.
     
  8. Overlord

    Overlord

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    Is a wonky sound driver the worst thing in the world for a games show? I've been to more than a couple of shows like that, and half the time the game's sound is drowned out by the surroundings.
     
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  9. Prototype

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    First of all, thank you for the articles, ICEKnight. Even in poorly translated English, they're fascinating to read. Also fascinating to note that the Nat name did gain some traction back then! It's always a blast to see the old fanart in those magazines, they're a nice capsule of where the audience were at at the time.

    I did see some speculation that those Chaotix prototypes were prototypes that suffered bitrot, but I did read later that that was false, and it was indeed a sound driver issue. Now, I can understand sending copies like that to tradeshows, for the reason that Overlord suggested, but from what I can tell these were sent to various magazines to be played in-office, right? So is it possible that the sound drivers somehow got corrupted in a later build due to changes made to the ROM?

    I'll take Google Translate's ability to translate accurately with a grain of salt, but from what I'm reading, the version(s) that would have been sent to magazines like Super Juegos and Hobby Consolas were on EPROMs, meaning they likely would have been erased afterwards, and providing that they didn't make a bunch of copies (and why would you? I don't think they could have foreseen this interest in prototype/game development, though I could be wrong) that would mean that it's extremely unlikely any of these versions would still exist. Am I correct in my assumption?
     
  10. Shoemanbundy

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    Assuming you're not so familiar with how prototypes work, here's the basic answer.

    Whether these specific prototype cartridges that the magazines got still exist or not depends on if they developer (Sega) had the prototypes returned to them. There are actually a lot of prototypes that have been dumped over the years that were originally sourced from a cartridge/cd that came from a magazine. My impression is most magazines probably weren't being too pressured into sending prototypes back, so they ended up just keeping them. Sometimes individual journalists would hold onto a prototype they received, or the magazine would just have it laying around in their offices somewhere until its thrown out one day.

    The EPROMs most likely got erased if they got sent back to the developer, but if the magazine kept it, then it likely stayed as-is. I can't tell if you're clear on this or not, but keep in mind it was the developers erasing EPROMs and then uploading new data onto them, not the magazines. A magazine didn't have the equipment, since it was the developers that had the data to upload onto them. At most, some magazines had spare PCB boards and developers would just send them EPROMs to put on the boards themselves, rather than sending an entire populated board (populated meaning that the board already has EPROMs on it). This stuff was pretty costly back then, after all.

    I'm sure these versions still exist in Sega's archives somewhere, though.
     
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  11. Black Squirrel

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    It would be if you were trying to push a new console as being the best thing ever!

    You'd have to check the dates on all these things, but I'm not sure Chaotix was actually taken to any shows save for Winter CES 1995 in January. That's supposedly where it was unveiled to the public... though Superjuegos #33 is the January 1995 edition... which means it was probably printed in December 1994... and who knows.



    Maybe they were trying to hold back information until WCES so that they could guarantee characters' arms wouldn't detatch.
     
  12. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    Re: scans


    https://archive.org/stream/Todosega_23#page/n23/mode/2up


    https://archive.org/details/superjuegos
    https://archive.org/details/todosega

    I knew I'd seen collections before.

    The problem with these scans, and why they're not on Retro CDN, is that they're kinda crap. Some files are huge, and they all need cropping, but there's hundreds of issues and I can't do everything. So the options are either to upload to Retro CDN as they stand now, or open up your image editor of choice and grab a coffee.



    (I live in hope that someone will take the inititive some day).
     
  13. LukyHRE

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    I assumed machine-translating from spanish to english worked well nowadays, but if it's an issue, I can dedicate a bit of my time in translating work for the community. Though as all scans are uploaded like images, I don't know where to pour that work in the wiki.
     
  14. Mastered Realm

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    Send them to me using the forum email so I'll ne reminded to do it on the weekend :)
     
  15. Black Squirrel

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    this was an accidental find:

    https://picclick.co.uk/1993-Cracker-Jack-Sega-Sonic-The-Hedgehog-3-152681928669.html

    i.e. they scanned in a bit of pre-existing Knuckles art, rather than make it from scratch.
     
  16. Prototype

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    Nice find, Black Squirrel! Now the question still remains, was it actually the title screen, or a mockup? I daresay they would have kept the original art's colour scheme if it was a mockup, but the one used on the "title screen" has a more reddish hue to Knuckles, with the little chest-ring being the same yellow as the surrounding ring, suggesting it's just using a simple palette.
     
  17. ICEknight

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    Why in the world would SEGA make such a crappy mockup of the title screen? Seriously.
     
  18. Dark Sonic

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    [​IMG]

    :v:
     
  19. Blastfrog

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    I'd argue that Crackers' title screen, while exceedingly simple, looks far more competent than that appalling drawing.
     
  20. LukyHRE

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    When I read the "I'd argue that Crackers' title screen..." part I thought that you were going to say that Crackers' title screen was fake, and another flamewar would start :P

    Anyways, for the record, the art in that mockup was also shrinked horizontally, but it's nevertheless the same art.