I believe that Sega staff isn't allowed to talk openly about scrapped material and unused ideas without the higher ups' consent. Tails wasn't scrapped, so he's fair game.
There are penis jokes I could make about this but I'm going to refrain from doing so. Worth noting though, Ohshima and Naka have both brought up Sonic's legs in Greg Martin's art in the past. Ohshima in 2014: Naka in 2020 (DeepL translation):
If that's the case, that makes no sense. If they're so vehemently against scrapped content and ideas being talked about, why would they allow Hidden Palace to become a finished, official level in 2014 and in Origins? Why was Yasuhara allowed to reveal so much at Digital Dragons 2017? What, did he have to ask SEGA for permission or something? I don't buy it.
I think Nintendo is actually a good place to look to for reasoning here. We know from that Gigaleak a while ago that Nintendo does actively archive all their prototypes and concepts that ultimately went unused. Their reason for not releasing it all is that their developers tend to look back through the archive for inspiration. My understanding is that this is a common trend with Japanese developers. They won't release scrapped concepts because they may revisit them in the future.
I'd imagine they're open about Hidden Palace because it ended up getting used in Sonic & Knuckles (not to mention that it was plastered all over the marketing before Sonic 2 came out)
Pretty much. For the most part, employees are only allowed to talk about stuff that was published. Scrapped material generally doesn't leave the company's archives and is preserved as assets for potential future use, so they're supposed to be kept in secret. Yasuhara was probably allowed to talk about the early Sonic 2 concepts because he didn't go into detail about the scrapped levels, and many of them ended up getting remade for later games anyway. There might be level concept art that hasn't been released yet because it wasn't used for for any implemented levels. Edit - Assuming they only published level concept art that ended up getting used for released zones, I'm trying to guess what became the implementation of each concept: Tropical Sun: Angel Island (S3K)? Secret Jungle: Mushroom Hill (confirmed). Not counting Wood Zone, as it was scrapped Ocean Wind: Emerald Coast? Jungle Joyride? Casino Night: Not scrapped Emerald Isle: Not scrapped, likely just an early name for Aquatic Ruin Blue Lake: Aqua Lake? Cyber City: The Machine (confirmed) Madness Mountain: Marble Garden? Mystic Cave (going by DefinitiveDubs' theory)? Metropolis: Not scrapped, but it also served as the basis for Flying Battery (confirmed) Death Egg: Not scrapped, but it likely also served as the basis for the S3K Death Egg Special Stage: Duh I think that's all of the published level S2 concept art? Some S3K concept art is speculated to have originated for S2 like IceCap, but those weren't officially released AFAIK. We only know about them from that MTV special.
If SEGA wanted to make a quick buck, an "Art of Sonic the Hedgehog 2" book with new exclusive artwork, development information, etc. would certainly be a good idea...
i.e., company secrets. Why talk openly about something that hasn't been done yet only to reveal the ideas to your competitors? American companies do this too. Though the Japanese seem much more strict about it in the realm of video games than American companies.
I think a much simpler explanation is that these games were made over thirty years ago by people who have done a lot of things in their lives, and they probably don't remember the half-baked ideas that didn't get in as much as they remember things like creating famous characters.
I've seen a bunch of Sonic art books, but not any for Sonic 2 specifically. Do you have a link to it?
Well, the Cook & Becker art book may not be about Sonic 2 specifically, but it DID have exclusive artwork in it that had never been seen before. Namely, the Ocean Wind, Madness Mountain, etc artworks. Given they also appeared in Sonic Origins with nothing new, I think that's all that exists in SEGA's archives and anything else lies in the hands of either Yasuhara or possibly Masa.
I'm going to go on a slight off topic rant. Can we all please try to refrain from reaching out to past developers every single time a shred of new stuff is released? If I was a developer who was part of a team who had their hand in making a ground breaking game 30 years ago, and every single time something was dug up from it I ended up getting blasted on every form of social media possible with the same repetitive questions, do you know what I would do? I would avoid releasing anything so I wouldn't get bothered. It wouldn't shock me one bit if the reason we don't get anything, is not because of company secrets or tradition, but because every time something was released, I would get constantly harassed. If you think it's a good idea to take it upon yourself to reach out to a past developer, it isn't. If you think you're a "professional", you aren't. Get a general consensus from the community first, or at least do a shred of googling before you even think about it.
I hate to disagree with you, but I do. I think when you've made something that results in millions of fans all over the world, it should be expected that some of these people are just going to ask you questions. I believe these developers anticipate this. Yamaguchi uses Tails as his avatar. That seems pretty inviting to me. I think he, like certain others, are willing to answer questions as they choose. If they wanted to avoid that, they'd create private accounts and only use them for family/friends. Or if they want to go beyond that, they could even stay off social media. But you can't expect nobody to ever talk to someone just because they have so many people who like their work. That's counter-intuitive. What I think WOULD be intrusive would be getting their private house/cell number and calling them. That would be a serious problem for me. But on the internet on social media? I don't really see the problem.
Actually, we pretty much agree. I'm gearing it more towards those who do what you stated in your second half of your post. I hate that it has to be said, but there's a difference between posting a question or two on twitter after they may have posted some old work versus hunting their personal information down and emailing them at personal or work accounts, pestering for an interview or something. I'm not saying to never interact with them at all -- but know boundaries. These guys are people too.
I've always found it interesting how different Ohshima and Naka's view are on American Sonic stuff. Naka seemed to imply that he wasn't a fan of the story and design changes of Sonic in America. Naoto, meanwhile, seems to imply that he liked Greg Martin's design and even stated that Greg's style inspired his own artwork. Naka seemed to imply he wasn't a fan of the American Sonic cartoons, while Ohshima has stated on Twitter how he not only owned a cel from SatAM, but also liked and supported the show. It kinda reminds me of the TMNT creators, as co-creator Peter Laird seems to dislike most of the TMNT stuff that he himself didn't work on, while Kevin Eastman has always been very open and accepting of new interpretations of TMNT. Kevin even wrote an episode of the 2012 show and worked a bit on the IDW comics. He even supported that terrible Next Mutation TV show and the character of Venus, despite Peter Laird absolutely hating the show and the character of Venus.
For some clarification, Kevin Eastman basically made the IDW TMNT Universe with Tom Waltz. Kevin Eastman has a hand in the vast majority of the IDW TMNT stories.
