I just played a bit of the Sep 24 97 (beta 8) version... I didn't see too many differences besides the "Sonic and Tails In" screen.
Special Stages seem to have a different level layout scrolling speed (slower) and the ring scaling seems to be different from the final as well. Also, first stage uses the second stage's palette and I think the ring counts are different and such.
Kill Sonic somewhere high in EHZ, and watch his sprite fall down with the camera following it. Also has a Sonic 1 styled level select that appears behind the logo, activate it by pressing A+Start at the start screen. Dust Hill level selection (behind the logo) takes you to Mystic Cave, with the Mystic Cave title card.
This is the first version with the new intro and title screen, but contains the old Sonic 1-style level select.
Hidden Palace Zone is gone, even though it's on the level select screen, albeit unselectable. Savestate hacking reveals it's the same garbled mess as the final version. Debug mode is present, but in the debug counter only. You can't turn into anything.
In deathegg, you can run completely past Robotnik's mech before he gets in, which is silly. Debug not required, though is captured in this screenshot. If you die, he'll keep doing whatever it is he was doing. Not sure how different that is.
In the ending (yes this one has an ending) after Tails catches Sonic on the wing of the plane, they fly off to the right and then the game starts over.
First build featuring super sonic without hacking. Pretty much complete, however the super form is not "lost" at the end of each act.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7...86894&hl=en Nice little glitch I found last night on my first play through.
I played around with it a little further... sadly, it does eventually eject Sonic once you reach Time Over, though it takes a couple more cycles.
Oh, blah, fair enough. How about an actual find? Wing Fortress's start is different - this is the last build it is, in fact, as of Beta 6 it's the final layout. It's possible to get 44 Rings in the final (and from Beta 6 onwards) up to the first chicken, and at the the start you have this: Whereas in Beta 4 and 5, you have this, and there's only 27 Rings up to the first chicken: If you hit that object in 4 & 5, you'd better be quick on the release & reapplication of the R button, or you'll fall off into infinity. The cheapness of the death is I suspect the reason why this section was changed. =P
Usually when Sonic is killed the level pauses however in this beta if you get killed anything such as a badnik or a boss continues to do what they usually do.
