Sonic 2 Development Lore

Or Madness Mountain could have been Rock World. One of the overworld maps depicts Rock World as being inside a mountain.

 

Let's stop searching dust hill in Quartz Quadrant and start to looking on things that has facts:
https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/unused-leftover-level-maps-in-sonic-2na.36742/

Somebody who good at disassembly would research for it

 

Reminder that there is essentially a zone "removed" from Sonic 2 8-bit, it was the very first zone shown off. It's the white and grey zone with the checkerboard tiles, of which the intro seems to be based off of.

 

Is it this one? It was confirmed in the Autodemo from 2014 that it was an early version of Green Hills just before it got an overhaul graphically, the other zone was also an early version of Sky High with floor that matches Green Hills but the Sky High trees, this was also in the autodemo but not the version from the magazines, as they were an in-between version.

 

Weird that they made a Green Hills "before colors were invented" version in the first place. I'm reaching here, but maybe they had some very early refferences of a ruined Green Hill/Emerald Hill from the 16 bit version and were going with that for whatever reason?

 

Also I want to remind, that Casino Night would have another chunk data
As well as Chenical Plant would has animated tiles on bg:

And we have an earlier Chemical Plant zone boss from N.A. build, that were found by Devon.
Actually, I think we have a lot things to discuss about S2 lore.

 

Sad thing is, we don't know if Sonic 2 GG had time travel as concept...
Also, the title cards use Mega Drive sprites - with tails. I wonder if this is a late addition?

 

Citation needed. A few things here are new to me, so it would be nice to have some sources to help solidify this as fact instead of hearsay.

 

I always felt that weird isometric image was just from an much older game, it doesn't feel sonic in the slightest and reminds me of late 80's to early 90's visuals in the way it's drawn, idk.

 

Haunted House:
Dust Hill/Mystic Cave being a haunted house during development was something Naka talked about in the Sonic Jam JP Strategy Guide. I like to think Madness Mountain was this early incarnation of the zone. The Masa demo tape fits this scenario, some level gimmicks seen in the concept art are present in the final Mystic Cave, and it is somewhat accurate to Naka's descriptions in the guide.

That makes me think the individual zone concept arts were made before the Time Travel maps were completed, because Madness Mountain has already changed to Dust Hill at that point.

Last Battle In Space:
I remember that it came from the Yasuhara docs revealed at GDC, but I don't think there would be a secret "True Final Boss" like Doomsday. To me it seems more likely that before the Death Egg Robot section, there would be a complete map for Neo Death Egg, but it would end after the Mecha Sonic fight. And then it would proceed to the actual Final Boss. That's actually pretty similar to how S3&K handled the final boss fights.

Tornado Transform/Hyper Sonic pallete:
These were revealed by Yasushi Yamaguchi/Judy Totoya on Twitter during the 30th anniversary of Sonic 2.

The only one I'm not sure about where it came from is the Hidden Palace cutscene. I remember Naka talking about it somewhere, maybe in an interview, but I've always interpreted it like this was the backstory for the zone lore-wise, not that it wouldn't be playable.

 

(why is there a poll)

There a lot of little changes between the prototypes that often get glossed over - it's why I was keen for full maps and tilesets, so we can track the evolution.



I know the full extent of Chemical Plant's background changes wasn't documented until a few years ago when I uploaded these shots on the wiki. It stands to reason other zones would have received similar touch-ups.

 

The closest thing I can find about the "last battle in space" is this tweet that draws a comparison to S3&K, though it seems to be talking about the Death Egg's launching, rather than a secret final boss: https://twitter.com/judy_totoya/status/1602251450113228800?s=20

Tornado's transformation: https://twitter.com/judy_totoya/status/1595485842382127105?s=20

Super Sonic: https://twitter.com/judy_totoya/status/1594389202682384384?s=20

 

I believe the last battle in space was separate from Neo Death Egg, as it was in a different section (timeline):
https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?posts/892120/
https://imgur.com/fLnrQMt

As for HPZ being a cutscene-only area. According to the above document and Yasuhara's words, it was originally a place from where Sonic would time travel. Note that the document mentions it and says that Sonic would activate it to travel to the past, but doesn't list it as a level. DefinitiveDubs went more into detail about it here.

 

But it's obvious from Yasuhara's maps and planning that Dust Hill was a ruined version of Emerald Hill. And presumably, it would've used the same tiles as Emerald Hill and Hill Top. So why would Madness Mountain change its theme entirely from a haunted castle to something like that, after they had asked Masa to compose for it? And then change it to a cave and bring back the "haunted" elements? It doesn't make any sense. There's no logic in that. It only makes sense to ask Masa to compose if they knew what they wanted the zone to be.

I don't think it would've been like 3&K, right. It would've just been a Final Zone, just like Sonic 1's Final Zone. The timeline concept art does in fact list 17 zones if you count Last Battle as its own zone, and there are 17 level slots in the game. It makes sense.

Right, so here's everything Yuji Naka has said about Hidden Palace:
December 1992:

September 2005:

June 2011:

However, there are many inconsistencies with what he says:

• Naka claims the zone was completed. Considering the prototypes we have from September 1992 to the last week of development, this sounds like bullshit. However, if it truly was being worked on up until the very last minute, that would explain why the Unused theme is set to play there. But the claim that it was due to a lack of memory simply can't be correct. Of course, in the 2005 interview he says it was due to a lack of time, and then in 2011 he said it was due to a problem with the Special Stage transition. So maybe he has no idea why it was cut.
  
  
• Naka claims that you would encounter the stage through normal play and that it wasn't actually hidden, but then he says you got there by collecting the Chaos Emeralds. So which is it? What did he mean by this?
  
  
• Naka claims multiple times that it would've been its own dedicated zone. This would make sense, as its level slot placement lines up with Yasuhara's timeline concept, being between the Ancient and Ruined Present eras. However, if that's the case, then why the hell does Yasuhara's map and timeline concept not list Hidden Palace as a zone? It's counted separately from all the others. I'm guessing this is because it would've been like it is in S&K where it's little more than a playable cutscene even though it technically would've taken up a level slot. This would be consistent with Naka also saying the one in S&K is pretty close to how the zone was "intended to be". But then why, in the prototypes, are there enemies and evidence of alternate pathways like any other zone? Why did Craig Stitt say it was initially two acts? And what does Naka mean when he says S&K's version was very different than what was planned, if it truly was meant to be like a playable cutscene?

 

Final Zone is treated as part of the same area as Scrap Brain Zone, even being partially visible at the end of Act 2. It's basically SBZ Act 4.

"The Last Battle in Space", on the other hand is treated as a different timezone/timeline from the one Neo Death Egg is in:


NDEZ is in the timezone/timeline labeled as "Future is changed again".

If only someone could translate the name of the level placed in the "The Last Battle in Space" era. I don't think we have any good enough pics for it to be readable.

 

I forget where I read it, but I think the overhead map was identified as belonging to another game, much like how the Chiki Chiki boys torches were left-over in the ROM data. In any case, it looks absolutely nothing like a Sonic game's art. If they were going to show a map at all, it'd likely resemble the concept art much like the island map in S1 8-bit.

I'm pretty sure the desert mockup was Sand Shower, and that OOZ's music was for it. Remember that the artists were not given very clear descriptions (or any concept art AFAIK), so it makes sense that an American artist when told to draw a "sandy desert" without specifying that it was meant to be an eastern style desert would have ended up drawing an American style desert. As for the music, remember that Masa wasn't given very clear direction either, so being an easterner he made music that would be fitting for an eastern style desert. Just some miscommunication that led to a mild mismatch, that's all. Also, note all of the sand in the foreground and background. There's a chance it could be Rock World, but I doubt it. The OOZ music is assigned to the slot that likely belonged to Sand Shower, and SCZ's music is assigned to the slot that likely belonged to Rock World, and that song sounds very "wintery". So chances are, Rock World was meant to be the snowy palette swap of Sand Shower.

Also note that Sonic 3K's two desert levels have very eastern desert sounding music and have eastern style deserts to match, and that we know they reused Sonic 2 concept art for Sonic 3K. So Sand Shower was likely meant to be an eastern desert all along.

As for Aquatic Ruin/Neo Green Hill's music, sure, it bears some mild resemblance to Good, Bad and the Ugly, but that's likely coincidence. OOZ's music still fits a desert far better IMO.

 

My interpretation of this is that it's not hidden in the sense that an alternative route would lead to it (think Retro Engine Sonic 2/Sonic 2 - The Secret Zones). Rather, collecting all Chaos Emeralds would unlock it? It seems weird he wouldn't describe it as a 'hidden' level in that sense, but most 2D platformers I can think of have levels 'hidden' away through alternative exits rather than player inventory/collectibles. That might be his reasoning for not describing it as a hidden level.

The 'merge' comment puzzles me though. The best I can think of is that the player would've been taken to a full level that they would've had to complete in order to be granted access to Super Sonic/continue on with the game? Maybe they also found having to play a whole Zone to get Super Sonic a bit 'too much' for a player to do (in addition to a very tight schedule).

 

Possible it would've worked like how the big rings work in the S&K side of Sonic 3? Always personally feel that the way Hidden Palace is handled in S&K was a repurposing of how it was meant to work (a bit) in Sonic 2, With the Hidden Palace being a sort of in-between zone from the regular levels and the special stage. Of course in S&K It is handled solely as a hub for the special stages, but the Sonic 2 version of Hidden Palace may have just been a final 'challenge' after finishing the 7th special stage.

There are a LOT of weird things in the Autodemo for the Game Gear version. Underground Zone is entirely different layout wise and has a lot more weird and unique elements even if they aren't functional. Makes you wonder what the hell they were trying to do with it so early on. I wouldn't be surprised, since most of the source images of Pre-Invention-Of-Color Green Hills come from the autodemo era, if a lot of the checkerboard patterns were just temporary while they got the layouts down. Since those graphics date back to Dec '91 which is absurdly early in development for Sonic 2. Maybe they realized "God this looks dull, lets inject some more color into it" and overhauled the two zones that shared the same visuals.

Sky High, of which we have later images but an earlier build in the Autodemo also of course shares the same colorless checkerboard.

Also worth nothing that, atleast to my eyes, even with the graphical overhaul Sky High and Green Hills got they still share the same tiles, just different palettes. Makes you wonder how development overlapped, or if it was just entirely coincidence. Considering Sky High and Hill Top do share similarities by their location and general color choice. We do know, also, that levels were shuffled around during development in some capacity. Green Hills initially meant to start the game with Underground taking the spot of the fourth zone, where Green Hills is in the finished product. (according to the Autodemo internal level order)

Sonic 2 GG has a WEIRD obsession with Chekerboards. An early screenshot of Aqua Lake 2 (or what we can assume to be Aqua Lake 2) has a much different floor.

Sonic 2 GG in general is just a WEIRD game.

 

I doubt that map image thing is even part of the game; in the ROM, it shows up in what appears to be uninitialized memory (of which Sonic 2 Nick Arcade has a lot of) and cuts off partway.