Looks like they mixed up Sparkling Zone and Star Light. Note how the levels are already in the final order, if the numbers are anything to go by.
(as posted earlier) have we ever seen a screenshot of the ball in action? This is the first time I've seen it personally, interesting.
I've never seen a few of these pictures before... like Labyrinth, Spring Yard and Clock (W)ork having different backgrounds. And even though its confirmed that Star Light was originally called Sparkling, Spring Yard had a lot more "sparkling" in its original background, if you know what I mean. Man, seeing stuff like the UFOs in Marble... some of these images blew my mind. I hope someday someone comes across the S1 Beta... or that the douche who keeps it for collection purposes finally lets someone dump the game. :/
What the hell, no. Sparkling zone was the original name of Spring Yard zone. What I had meant before is that whoever made that article mixed up Star Light zone with Sparkling zone.
Have I travelled back in time - these proto shots have been documented across half a dozen sites for years, including... this one. http://info.sonicretro.org/Game_Development:Sonic_the_Hedgehog_%2816-bit%29 we even host all the scans These forums used to physically force you to read about this to have a chance of posting. UFOs in Marble Zone shouldn't be much of a shock these days.
In all fairness, the wiki is freakin' huge. And there's a lot of content, and pictures. If we repeat something, so be it. Yes, I've seen all those pictures on the previous page before, but I've also been around since 1996, so you can expect that. But even I forget a picture here and there and will occasionally think, honestly, that it's something new. So, I don't see the big deal.
Please forgive me, being a casual fan of Sonic I neglected to read every page on the Wiki. p.s. I registered and took and passed TWO different versions of the trial member test a few years apart, the first time it was a quiz about Sonic 2's development, not Sonic 1's, hence Simon Wai's Sonic 2 Beta.
SEGA SHOULD have archives of almost everything they ever did saved somewhere, doesn't mean they do :P
Didn't they destroy all the tapes they had when somebody found out about a warehouse with lots of them, and the massive Hidden Palace prototype release was from a tape that was rescued before that?
Huh? Sorry, I wasn't referencing something you said. I honestly thought Star Light was originally called "Sparkling" all these years. >.> Makes more sense now, though. Spring Yard originally looked a lot more Sparkling. :P
This, they just took up space for no reason, by getting rid of those tapes they'd get more room for other stuff. For some reason they didn't get rid of other old stuff that's just as worthless for them though, just the prototypes. On that note, for the same reason they most likely got rid of the source code for their old games, since now they can just emulate. Unless it was STI, then probably the source code lurks around in some old disks at the houses of the developers because organization was a disaster... (this was how Sonic Spinball's source code was recovered!)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134641/where_games_go_to_sleep_the_game_.php?page=4 Of course, it isn't in our hands, but now it's in a much more modern media so it's likely to last longer =/ EDIT: changed quote to make the point more clear.
Ah, thanks for clearing that up. I thought you were implying it was in community hands or something :P
Or it was some clever magazine editor who decided it'd be neat if it looked like it was in the game. Nothing says that's in-game to me.
Yeah, I'm inclined to agree—but mostly because it kinda looks less blurry / higher-resolution / sharper than the 'rest' of the graphics, making it hard to believe it's being rendered by the MD.
