I recently bought the Solid Gold Guide for Sonic 2 by Tony Takoushi off eBay. I was annoyed to find that it was missing the colour pages (I got a refund for it, so I'm happy with the seller, however). I then bought a second one from the same seller (the last one they had) and it, happily, did contain colour pages - 14 of them (7 leaves). I'm wondering if any other members here, perhaps from the UK, own this book and can confirm for me that this is indeed the number of pages it should have. I would have suspected there should be 16 pages (8 leaves), but it doesn't look anything has been torn out or otherwise removed. And finally, for those who don't scour the wiki thoroughly, some of these pictures I took of the book might be interesting. Frank talk of Hidden Palace and Dust Hill way back in 1993: Picture of Aquatic Ruin with "Neo Green Hill" Title Card: Picture of early Beta Level Select with "Sky Fortress" (!): Pictures of Sonic CD (what appears to be similar to the 510 version's FMV player and an early Special Stage): Unusual art of Tails: I will post the whole thing eventually, since I have a spare copy I can scan.
I've seen some of these before on Sonicology, but not the Tails or Sonic CD shot. I remember contacting the author a while back (he doesn't have any betas).
This is awesome! So now we have an official confirmation that dust hill is, in fact, Mystic cave? ( maybe we had before? it's not the first time I hear this, but I thought it was only well though theories and speculation)
Wow, this is certainly interesting, never suspected that anything outside of magazine previews and publications waaaaay down the line would actually mention Beta material. Thank you for this look into this guide, I look forward to seeing the rest of the material once you finish scanning and uploading!
I've had this book since I was a kid, was the first place I saw those early screens before the Internet came into my life.
I have about three copies of this and you'll find one at pretty much every british car boot sale. I'm sorry but how is any of this news? This book is really common.
I don't think the book has been properly scanned. Maybe I just suck at looking through the wiki, but I've not found it on there.
Not personally but head over to ebay, it's like shooting fish in a barrel http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sonic-the-Hedgehog-2-Takoushi-Tony-Paperback-Book-/111020910892?pt=Non_Fiction&hash=item19d95ca92c
I had this when I was younger. Presumably it's since been subsumed by the sands of time. Which brings me, as a Britfag, to this: In Britain, maybe. Mercury doesn't live in Britain. You can't assume that the book got much, or even any, official release in other countries. If it didn't, then it's easy to understand how it's news to non-British members.
Awesome, please make some good scans out of that thing. It's the only source for some of those prototype pics! Speaking of, did nobody save the log for that online chat with Yasuhara? I haven't been able to find the whole thing, and there must have been more questions and answers than those two in the Dust Hill article...
Not to spoil your dream of some secret, extended interview, but I'm pretty sure those were the only questions that had been asked of Yasuhara at that particular time.
Seriously? I thought people would have taken the opportunity to ask about other interesting stuff... oh well.
The wiki is pretty comprehensive, I figured this would have been entered in a long long time ago that's all.
My theory has always been that the three additional music tracks for the 2p mode in Sonic 2 were originally intended for the beta levels. Specifically, Emerald Hill 2p is for Wood Zone (the music is similar in style to Jungle Zone), Casino Night 2p is for Genocide City Zone, and Mystic Cave 2p is for Dust Hill Zone. Since they had this extra music, they just re-purposed it for the 2p mode courses. Hidden Palace's music was left in limbo.
