Naoto Ohshima, Twin Star, Wonder Hedgehog, 1990 Tokyo Toy Show, and other goodness

There's at least one concept drawing of a split screen 2-player mode for Sonic 1: https://twitter.com/SNick_WT/status/1338511317444014087

(From the disks Tom Payne had.)

 

I have seen that scan, but thought they were just two panels drawn on a page. I didn't realize it was trying to show a two-player mode. Interesting.

In any case, I recall folks finding some bit of code in Sonic 1 that was later reused in Sonic 2 for the two-player split screen. So they may very well have actually toyed with the idea early in the game's development.

 

I’d be interested in reading about that. Is it anywhere on the wiki yet?

 

I think this twitter user is compiling an archive of Sonic 1 concept art. He’s someone who may be able to help fill in gaps. That said I do not know him and am not endorsing him as a source or person. Just raising a possibility

On yeah you absolutely can’t expect Ohshima to always get back to you. I was more concerned about giving him a chance to respond to the new timeline prior to the video’s publication (in case there was a misunderstanding in the article due to the language barrier). You’ve done that already so I’d say you’ve done your journalistic due diligence

 

I get that, I’m more worried about where that Rabbit fits into all of this and honestly I refuse to believe they went hedgehog - rabbit - hedgehog again

 

They could’ve been considering the rabbit and the hedgehog at the same time and went back and forth between them. It’s prob not a good idea to refuse any possibilities that are not eliminated by primary sources.

 

Yeah, I don't see why that would be impossible. Ideas get used, thrown out, and then reused again as projects go along.

 

The last thread that tackled the subject also talked about Sonic and Madonna is a dreamland, which immediately sparked allusions to the eventual NiGHTs Sonic Tea, would make after Sonic 3&K. Even now, wishes and dreams are a recurring theme and throughline in the series in the Sonic we got. That said, it really stands to reason that the desire to work on NiGHts , (and even Balan now looking at things) stems from this original concept Ohshima and the team and the Team were heavily impassioned about before we got the Sonic we got. While I greatly love the Sonic we did end up getting, it makes a LOT of sense why they worked on Nights instead of immediately working on the next Sonic during he Saturn with this in mind. This was a vision they were in love with that they wanted to be properly realized but couldn't have as they originally envisioned with Sonic.
It also explains why games like Sonic CD look so...esoteric by comparison to the games like Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, and why the beta's of Sonic 1 look more esoteric than the final version. There was an active attempt towards grounding the series in a more "real" and "concrete" space in time as the series went on via influence from the SoA side (which I think was for the best personally, but that's neither here nor there).

Both series very much are designed around the raw experience afforded to the player through the experience of play, which is very resonant with the themes of realizing that which is in ones heart without letting it be tainted or inhibited at the heart of Sonic team's work.
Thanks so much for sharing this. I find it so incredibly fascinating and affirming to find this kind of stuff and how it slots into all the conceptual and design info regarding the series as a whole.

 

Re: the Tokyo Toy Show 1990 demo - interestingly, since the OP was posted, another image of the booth the demo was displayed in has been uploaded to TCRF - although what's on screen isn't clearly visible, it does include a view of the Mega Drive unit hooked up to the booth playing the Sonic demo, along with the cart inserted into it. Unfortunately the scan quality is well below acceptable standards, with a lot of the image obscured by excessive JPEG artefacts. The source is listed as the August 1990 issue of a Japanese magazine called micomBASIC - does anyone have the know-how to try and track down this issue to see if a better scan can be obtained?

A better scan may also give a better basis for figuring out what's on the screen, as it does look like the demo is actively running from what little can be made out in the present scan - I think I can just about make out what looks like Green Hill's grass on the lower left and one of the large clouds in the upper left, though with the heavy compression artefacts in the current version it's hard to be certain.

 

I may be mistaken, but is that Hoshino-san in that shot?

 

He looks older than him at the time, plus didn't he join Sega around the time of CD's development?

 

Update on this - having done some searching, it seems a better quality scan already exists as part of a PDF of the full magazine over at archive.org. The image in question is on page 215, and while it's small (and what's on-screen remains frustratingly obscure) it's clearly way better quality than the artefact-ridden mess that's currently been uploaded on TCRF. Won't have the chance to until tomorrow, but if nobody else has already done so before then I'll rip the higher quality version and replace the one on TCRF accordingly.

 

I feel like it's a stretch to say "most likely yes" to Question (a) here based on the information available. It's definitely possible, but I don't see any concrete evidence either way. Separating the two questions is an interesting exercise; if Question (b) is a yes then (a) is definitely yes, but if (b) is no then as you say that's no guarantee that (a) is also a no.

 

Come to think of it, Twin(kle) Star sounds like a name Naka would come up with. He was the one who coined Phantasy Star's title.

This, coupled with the previous reports that the roll mechanic came from him, makes me think that maybe Ohshima is misremembering and these design documents are actually from after he (Naka) joined the team.

I mean, even in the cited quotes here, Ohshima claims that the main character became a hedgehog after Naka came, and these documents show a hedgehog-looking character curling into a ball to attack enemies, which is described as "a 'rolling attack' (Wonder Hedgehog)."

I agree with Blugenesi that the notion that these elements precede Naka and the hedgehog concept feels farfetched and makes for a really contrived development timeline.

 

Is it just me, or is the Nightmare Thirteen resembling Kirby's Nightmare in Dreamland final boss?

The whole Twin Star concept is super interesting to me, the character design from the early art has Alex Kidd in Miracle World vibes, the early Sega stuff that I really like.

Mr. Oshima should write a biography book / developer diary or sth, and include some documents within it (the ones he can of course). I would love the one from Naka too.

Everything You guys post here is just pure gold, Thank You.

 

There was also a proposed armadillo. Based on an old docu, at least one of them looked like this:


Given the predilection of armadillos and curling up, and the giant Jean Claude Van Damme arm (ARM-adillo, har har) suggests that both rolling and grappling were considered at some point. (and, as I already noted before, the same video features a distinctly not-sonic rabbit and kangaroo, for whatever that's worth.)