Sonic 2 Development Lore

If I were to guess, this is where I think the music was:
- Hidden Palace = Mystic Cave 2P
- Sand Shower = Oil Ocean 1P
- Ocean Wind / whatever the beach level is = Emerald Hill 2P music
- Winter Zone = Sky Chase music
- Oil Ocean = Casino Night 2P

I don't know what Wood Zone or Cyber City's music would be, and I honestly couldn't tell you. I think there's enough to say Wood might've been an extension of Metropolis Zone, considering the shared assets, but Wood's entire existence seems really messy. As for Cyber City, I think it really depends where that stage was supposed to be. Was it right after Metropolis? Is it the original version of Wing Fortress? Is it inside the Death Egg? There's no way we can really know before we check out those 500+ pages of documents soon, and even then who knows if it'll tell us.

 

So the single reason I doubt oil oceans theme belonged to sand shower was due to ice knight pointing out the good bad and ugly motif in aquatic ruin, which is commonly used in anything western. You can actually hear the same pattern in both mirage saloon acts in sonic mania. Mirage saloon has it in the whistle but ARZ has it as a backing track.

 

That just leads down the path of saying Mystic Cave 2P goes in ARZ (which I don't think fits the song at all), which leads to saying that's not HPZ's original track, and in it's stead goes track 10, which I thought was mostly assumed to be a cutscene track. It's demo doesn't loop, and Naka is on record for saying there was a planned cutscene made for becoming Super Sonic.

I still subscribe to the idea that the music and visuals of Sand Shower were made with different ideas for what a desert level could be, and that mismatch could've contributed to why it was scrapped. Of course, we're all talking off of speculation, but the community came to that conclusion a long while back and I feel like it's a pretty sound theory.

 

I am very hesitant to get into the circular debate again over music. But it looks like my fingers want to type anyway...

*sigh*

I made my points before over desert music and how getting hung up over the *type* of desert the level became is not a good reason to deny what is very obviously desert music to everyone's ears. We may not have a smoking gun like a song title or something of that nature, but I feel about as sure as a person can.

I also don't really buy into the idea that CNZ 2P music could have been GCZ music. Sure, anything is possible. But it doesn't fit very well in my opinion. I don't even think it's a particularly strong fit for Oil Ocean, but I think it probably works better for that than GCZ. My best guess is it's not an accident that OOZ is assigned that song in the prototypes.

So what of WZ and GCZ songs?? I said this before too, but I think it's at least a remote possibility they wanted to double up on usage of a few songs. The alternative: songs were simply never composed and/or put into the game.

And that 2P results song... was it intended to be a level song? I think it's possible. But it doesn't fit particularly well with any levels that come to mind.

I believe MCZ 2P was for HPZ. They decided to use the final HPZ song as it fit the mood of a mysterious place. The fact some people insist HPZ music is "too short" I feel aren't listening to it carefully enough. It's has fewer but more elaborate sections. That doesn't make it short. That's taking larger slices of the same-size pie.

 

I apologize if it comes across as me trying to say anything definitely. I just wanted to get a feel for what people think when they close their eyes and try to imagine. I also struggle putting Casino Night 2P anywhere as the song doesn’t really capture anything in my mind.

 

Food for thought: no matter what Masa was thinking when composing, there was nothing stopping the devs from remixing what he composed if they wanted to repurpose it for other zones. The final themes already differ from the original demos in a number of ways, and Casino Night sounded wildly different in prototypes.

I'm tired of debating this topic, so I'm just going to list what I think the original soundtrack as intended by Masa was:

• Ocean Wind -> Composed, but never implemented
• Secret Jungle -> Mystic Cave 2P
• Sand Shower -> Oil Ocean
• Tropical Sun -> Emerald Hill 2P
• Blue Ocean -> Composed, but never implemented
• Hidden Palace -> Unused Song
• Winter Wonder -> Sky Chase
• Oil Ocean -> Casino Night 2P
• Cyber City -> Death Egg
• Death Egg -> Wing Fortress
• Map screen -> Options
• Password -> 2P Results

Everything else is as-is in the final. And yes, "Winter Wonder" is my made-up name for the ice level.

 

People..
STOP. WRITING. ABOUT. ARZ->SSZ. PLEASE.
Have you ever heard Masa's demo?

You guys really thinks that it go well for hot desert, but not with rainy jungles? What's wrong with you?
Instrumental of demo (instruments here are similar to Mystic Cave 2p) makes me belive that is for jungle level, like Aquatic Ruin. If instrumental would be a different, it would be a really another story.

Also MCZ 2p demo sounds for me like something pre-historic, mostly when I listen it and look at early HPZ mockup with the cave at background, but I can understand why somebody thinks that it go well with jungle thematic.

 

See, with the steel drums that seem to be in use, I get a Caribbean or Latin vibe to the song. The track is rather unusual in what instruments and motifs it uses.

I know it's a long shot, but has anyone considered asking Nakamura-San himself about the track or if there are any he wrote that ultimately never got used?

 

Well, that IS where the Amazon tropical rainforests are.

It's not exactly easy to strike up a casual conversation with an international pop star.

At best, we could petition for a new "Deluxe" release of the 2011 Sonic 1+2 album, which includes demos that possibly weren't included the first time and have never been heard before.

 

Yup. He is known all over the world..

He is Japan pop star (maybe, idk), but yes, it could be problematic to contact with him.

 

Hence the longshot comment lol.

So a personal anecdote that isn't quite comparable but whatever, when I was in College 2 years ago, I was the Animation Programmer for the Las Cruces International Film Festival and as a longshot hit in the dark and see if it lands sort of thing, I reached out to Sega of America to see if we could have Chao in Space be a part of the festival. To my absolute shock, they were receptive to my email and Chao in Space got added to the festival's animation block in 2021. I did not expect it to ever happen since I was this college kid reaching out to a large and famous corporation for a frankly (despite the name) no-name film festival.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is, I wouldn't dismiss the idea because of how famous the guy is, you might be surprised if you find the right way to send a message. That said, I will absolutely concede the difficulty in getting touch with a Japanese popstar rofl. I know he's not on Twitter, but does he have any way to reach him via that blog he has?

 

Just a heads-up for anyone who doesn't keep up with the SatAM Animation Archive thread - lots of early design sketches of Tails from the development of Sonic 2, including many previously unseen ones that seem to be very early, have been posted in that thread as part of a batch of reference materials sent to from SEGA to DiC when they were developing the show's pilot.

I'm flagging this up here for folks not usually interested in the TV shows etc. who might not have checked out that thread, especially because the most recent post also includes a scanned printout of an early revision of Tails' in-game sprite that predates the Nick Arcade build! It seems to have a different colour scheme (reddish brown fur and a peach muzzle/chest) and different proportions, with a much shorter snout and way thinner tails. The tails also appear to be part of the sprite at this early stage, rather than separated from the to allow them to animate independently as in the final game.

With this and the upcoming Genocide City scans, it's amazing how much new Sonic 2 development material is being discovered after all these years, sometimes from surprising sources...!

 

Wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki.

 

OH MY FUCKING GOOD!!!
It's like when we found proto-Knuckles sprites, but here is scan.. and no alternatives. BUT it really COOL THAT WE HAVE IT!
Thank you.

 

I'm glad you all enjoy seeing the early Tails stuff I've been posting, even if you're not into Sonic's old TV media. Thank you for linking, McAleeCh.

I know a lot more about 2D animation development than any of Sonic's game development, so all I can really do is lurk in these threads and be interested in what the rest of you debate about haha

 

Oh my god, so that's why Tails looks the way he does in early western media! Pretty on-model, but the model was just very out of date lmao

 

Dear god. So DiC never redesigned him at all, that's just what he originally looked like.

...DiC-style Tails sprites when?

 

https://twitter.com/judy_totoya/status/1596470181194530816

I feel like this is an twitter thread that's forgotten, but should be repeated.

Totoya reiterates that he regrets not being able to finish either Death Egg as a unique stage (and says it wasn't meant to just be based on Chemical Plant), and also regrets not being able to finish Hidden Palace. Explicitly confirms both were cut due to major time crunches.

Additionally, he makes it clear that no one should ask him for old data anymore, because he simply doesn't have that material. He left it all at SEGA when he stopped working for them.

I wonder what he and Yasuhara will think of the upcoming S2 dumps we'll be getting in the coming days/weeks? (and other surprises like the early Tails sprite!)

I hope they'll be happy to see elements of their old work come back to light again (since both were involved to some degree, even if most of it is Tom's work).

 

I am wondering recently. Shall we assume Wood Zone, as a level name, was the real name for Secret Jungle, or is it the other way around? After all, we have Genocide City / Cyber City where Cyber City was the intended name despites Genocide City being written in the level select and in concept maps. What do you think?

 

I think "Secret Jungle" was probably intended to be the final title, however most other information (Betas, concept art) seems to still call it Wood Zone so if anything its possible the title was more of a tentative "this would be the name but for now its Wood Zone until we commit to it".

There's also the potential theory that Secret Jungle was just a weird side-incarnation of Wood Zone that never made it past that initial concept especially since Wood Zone as we know it doesn't seem to have that gimmick featured so prominently on the concept art but that's just a baseless theory.

(Or maybe they really wanted to use "Wood Zone" because they were so happy they implemented a 'W' in the font.)

That is incredible, I did NOT except Tails to have looked this substantially different, and I guess its no surprise DIC would've seen that but it still surprises me a bit, guess you never really know where stuff could be. SEGA back then seemed really willy nilly about using prototype materials in place of the final versions of things (thinking about the Knux sprite in Gamecom Sonic Jam, the music in S&K Collection, Toot-Toot Sonic Warriro on that Sonic Team Comp CD. I get it's still early so nothing was set in stone but its still interesting to note) I'm glad they changed it because that looks really rough (his tails look weirdly detached) but it is still so cool to see.