New Sonic 2 development lore drop - Genocide/Cyber City palette and art!

To think there was a time Genocide City was the most mysterious scrapped Sonic 2 zone. We knew literally nothing about it other than its name and level slot.

Now we have its concept art, level art, palettes, layout, intended level order, alternate name...

We've really come a long way since the community's early days. It's amazing that new info of Sonic 2's development is still surfacing to this day.

 

It's just showing the specified chunk layout with Metropolis' chunks as placeholders. Of course the actual chunks would have been different, giving a presumably totally different background. I'm probably not using the right technical terms lol, but hopefully that makes sense. Basically we have the layout of the puzzle's pieces but can't see what's actually on the puzzle.

 

It might be one point towards The Machine's background using modified Cyber City art I guess, since it actually uses a lot of similar blocky horizontally symmetrical patterns, I think even more so than the other Spinball backgrounds.

 

Not quite, according to the concept art:



(this is the point where we say "steam age = past, cyber = future" and get excited)

 

Holy moly Black Squirrel, that first image is huge. If I were you, I'd put it in a spoiler block. Good point about the possible Victorian era inspiration, however.

Oh, you mean we know the 16x16 pixel metatile layout of the chunks, but just don't know which art was meant to be used in said metatiles? If that's what you meant, I think I understand better now.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the background was recycled Cyber City art rather than being made for Spinball specifically (though it could have received modifications).

 

Metropolis was in the present tho. And the island map with Genocide City wasn't clear on whether it was in the present or the future.

Though GCZ being more advanced than MZ makes sense, given it was in a bad timeline where technology had overtaken the island.

 

Basically, you summed it up correctly. Either they had a lot more replacement pieces in mind for this (which very well could have been, as a lot of pipe graphics are duplicated or basically the same) or it's literally placeholder 128s that they mixed together to test another varient of MZs background. With the spacing, it's clear it was two seperate backgrounds at one point.

I'm almost certain you are right. Toxic Caves uses a heavily modified HPZ background. I'd say it's not a big stretch to say this isn't the same.

 

Typically in game development concepts are iterative. Tom Payne's concept art of Metropolis is constantly referencing the "steam age" (this one even says "Industrial Revolution"). Whatever super early plan there was for Metropolis, things have clearly moved on by the time art is starting to be drawn.

To be honest I think by the time Genocide/Cyber City was actually at the "let's draw some art" stage, it was less about time travel, and more about how to make a new stage that recycles art from Metropolis (similarly to Emerald Hill/Hill Top). Perhaps the map was made laid out but the art wasn't finished, and rather than faff around trying to replace all the pressurised water tanks with something more "cyber" they gave up and made Metropolis 3.

(the running theme in Sonic 2 is developers struggling to make backgrounds - I wouldn't be surprised if that was the blocker on Cyber City)


Sonic Spinball has the steam-powered Lava Powerhouse followed by the more computer-y The Machine. So the two ideas did co-exist in a Sonic project eventually.

 

I love how we made a long way from "A spooky city with the Sonic skull boss" theories to concepts for objects, layouts, complete 4th palette line and fact, that it was "Hill Top but for Metropolis".

Just imagine how in parallel universe we hate Cyber City and dreams about finding assets for mystical unused Hill Top Zone :p

 

EMERALD HILL BUT WITH DINOSAUR ROBOTS AND DEADLY LAVA TRAPS!? WE WERE ROBBED I TELLS YA!

 

I can't believe we live in a world where half of Sonic 2's stages aren't just pallete swaps of each other.

Seriously though, I'm so happy this level was scrapped, we dodged more than just a few bullets here if Metropolis 3 is anything to go by, and as a bonus we got a cool development mystery in our hands. I'm still shocked we got to see objects from Cyber City, what a journey

 

Hill Top is funny to play

 

I would love to have gotten a Sonic 2 director's cut, even if it meant a few story tweaks and things to make it all fit in. Would have been a surreal experience.

We can still do that ourselves of course, and I know there have been a few efforts over the years. However, many of them fall short of the "authentic" feel I think a lot of people would desire to have. Someone with too much free time on their hands, no job, no wife and kids, living rent free, and maybe with the help of no real-life friends or interests outside of their computer screen could make this dream come true! C'mon, you'd be a hero (on these forums at least)!

 

Ok. I have too large ego, but man can dream :')

 

I was THE hacking guy on Sonic games for several years, but not because of superior intelligence or anything like that. I was simply more motivated and dedicated than most others during the early years. In other words: pretty much ANYONE can do this stuff if they try hard enough. So get up off your butt and make us proud, and don't come back until it's done! =D

 

Hold my beer.



However, I'm a married man with 2 kids now, a work as embedded software engineer in a big company. I'm trying to learn pixel art the hard way and do my best for this dream come true one day.

 

This town ain't big enough for both of us..
Also I have a free time, good artist and composers......

 

Mother of god....

In all seriousness, I'm kind of in the same boat so if you ever want some of my assets I've made over the years to fill in the gaps in this feel free to reach out. Due to time constraints, we can't all do this alone anymore.

 

I get the impression that enough people have done their own takes over most of the zones over the years, to where if you combined the best of them together (participants willing, of course), you could amalgamate them into a theoretical "Sonic 2: Original Vision Edition" or something. There's dozens of desert stages interpretations, a growing number of Cyber City and other zones, etc. Heck, you could reasonably have just one or two people work on one or two zones at a time.

Dunno, just an idle thought. It's certainly a much more daunting task than trying to restore R2, that's for sure.