R2 - The Lost Level From Sonic CD

The Miracle Planet name is interesting in that the Fleetway comics actually gave that name to the Little Planet as a whole.

 

I remember this being posted a while ago. The lower screenshot shows a similar "warp" effect to the one I found in Sonic 1, back in the day.

 

If it was really scrapped because they weren't happy with the result, chances are they just didn't want to show that stage and thus it never got published on magazines - if you want to showcase your game you would want to show the best screens you can possibly get.

 

If you listen past the first few seconds of Little Planet, it really sounds like level music. And the birds stop pretty soon, listen to the whole thing. Also, is it common knowledge that ufo's and other things fly around if you wait long enough?

 

What's weird is how it uses a sprite set similar to Sonic Spinball for the characters.

 

UFOs, Flickies, shooting stars, Dr. Robotnik, Metal Sonic and Tails. I think that's all the things I have seen flying around in D.A. Garden...

 

Not to veer off topic or anything, but here's a cliche "I don't get why people say that" post:

Sonic CD really wasn't that good. It had great music and fantastic art direction (some of the best in the entire franchise) but the game itself feels very messy in comparison to the rest of the 16bit Sonic games and the level design is sort of haphazard and pretty much fights you every step of the way concerning how fast it lets you go.

I mean, c'mon. The Super Peelout looks cool, but as a workable game mechanic it's pretty much worthless. It's the spindash without the benefit of rolling (though you could just roll after shooting off, making it sort of doubly worthless). Sonic CD's spindash is garbage, requiring you to actually sit around and wait for it to charge up before being usable. I've seen a number of fangames implement the Sonic CD spindash (and I think even a few romhacks) and it baffles me as to why people would actually be willing to take a step back when the Sonic 2 spindash is so streamlined and easy to use.

It was purdy to look at and interesting to listen to, but the controls leave a lot to be desired and it's the most platforming-focused Sonic game to date. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but a balance is nice, I think. Outside of that, the only thing the game has going for it is the (arguably really, really cool) time travel mechanic; but that alone is not enough to earn this game the "best Sonic game ever" status most people seem to give it.

tl;dr: Sonic CD has far too many problems regarding how polished the game and its level design is to be worthy of the praise I see it given.

It's a good game, don't get me wrong, just not... great, or even amazing. It needs a lot more work for that to be possible. Sonic CD polished to the same standards we got in Sonic 2 - now that would be the best Sonic game ever. As it stands, it's probably one of the worst of the 16bit Sonics for me - but that's also like saying it's "the least shiny piece of gold".

But, y'know, that's just like, my opinion.

 

You're playing it wrong then. Once you get into Time Attacking it (which is the main point of the game), the "messy" level designs will suddenly make sense and you'll realize it's the absolute best in the series. Hell, in every platformer ever!

HAHAHAHA Dude, wow. The peel-out is like the most useful move (aside from jumping of course) in the entire game! It accelerates you to a high speed, and since you're running instead of rolling you don't automatically slow down. Yet again, you seem to be playing it wrong.

I prefer it over S2s because for me it makes more sense to charge something for it to be powerful instead of smashing buttons. Speaking of which, that's also the thing that makes S2's SD so awkward. Given you can hit them fast enough it's fully charge in an instant,or sometimes you'd jump in place for some reason.

Being platform-focused is a bad thing? And you forgot to mention it's also the fastest Sonic game to date, and the one that requires the most skill and immersion to actually be good at it.

Play it the way it's supposed to be played then. >:O

The fuck. Sonic CD is the most polished game of them all (IN MY OPINION), sporting such perfect level design that often makes me mentally bow to the designers for actually fine tuning it to such a degree of perfection when it comes to both expansive exploration as well as the primary thing of speedrunning through them. The music and graphics are the most surreal, unique and creative ones I have seen in all my life, and I never grow tired of this astounding masterpiece.
I never liked Sonic 2 and S3&K. I regard them as the good/great games they are, but that doesn't change my feelings for them. Unlike Sonic CD, which heavily focuses on replay value and immersion into its world, these 2(or 2 1/2, or 3) rather set out to make the player exerience an epic yet slightly shallow adventure. One that is made to be fun as long as it lasts, but doesn't offer the level of both gameplay-related snd artistical depth of a Sonic CD. And they succeed in that (except that I have absolutely no fun playing Sonic 3 (except for Hydrocity Zone) because of the long-ass stages which in my eyes take way too much time to complete.). However, I simply prefer shorter games with lots of replay value over long ones with few. (Which is why I also love Majora's Mask or Wind Waker whereas I detest Twilight Princess, to name a non-Sonic example.)

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This post sums my thoughts perfectly. Though I'd disagree with you on the peelout point, I personally find the peelout to be awesome.

 

Well, that's all I needed to see.

"You're playing it wrong" is pretty much the weakest argument you could make regarding the game, because if I'm playing it wrong, the game is doing a poor job communicating the "right" way it should be played, henceforth, all my points still stand that I don't think it's deserving of all the credit it receives.

The rest of your arguments are just rose tinted glasses nonsense, if you ask me.

But whatever. This argument doesn't belong in this topic, and I've said all I need to say on the matter.

 

HEY SONIC 06 IS OKAY IF YOU PLAY IN BETWEEN THE GLITCHES


Also the past music doesn't loop in the PC version because it's stored as CD audio rather than a set of PCM samples like in the original. [It cuts out early, too.]

 

By "playing it wrong" I meant that I assume you probably spent most of your time with the game in the main game, as opposed to the Time Attack mode which I am convinced of is the core of the game.
...this smilie always creeps me out.

 

I've never had that problem, actually.