Finally, we have a readable pic of the "Last battle in space" section! Who will be the first to translate it?
I believe that Casino Night concept image is also brand new. It's different from both the beta and final design too, though the color scheme more closely matches the Beta. We already know Judy told them to redraw the Beta version into the final because they believed the artist didn't know what a casino actually looks like. There are also several mentions of Hidden Palace in one of the docs. Looks like we're about to get the real timeline of development on just about everything here. Judy Totoya knows what we want.
AT LONG LAST!!! Well done, Judy Totoya xD How long we awaited these unveilings... Now, the level maps are yet to be unveiled...
i get why they censored genocide city's name but its also very funny to me because to the uninitiated it'd probably seem like they named it something vulgar
So, 1) No Medieval time zone 2) Genocide City act 3 Full version seems not accessible for me cuz I have not subscribe for that magazine
I don't remember, but there was something on the plot plan that contained "Sonic go to medieval", or smth EDIT: Plus, there was Madness Mountain zone, which wasn't on any map
Medieval and Ancient aren't the same. Perhaps it's the Japanese grasp of English, or it's just a very informal notation. But it is curious that the timeline specifically uses the different terms. Edit: I hate how the forum keeps a history of what I initially type.
Full timeline images, the first of which we've never seen before. Someone get Windii on the line. Spoiler The fact that this article still only has the same level drawings we've seen for the last 10 years has me wondering if Totoya simply never drew any other levels and these were just a few examples. It's odd that we still haven't seen any more if he's dumping everything he has. I previously thought that he drew one for each confirmed zone and the others are just lost media, but now I'm not so sure. Of course it's always possible he simply doesn't have them, or that we'll see more in part 2.
I'm going to speculate now, but it appears to go something like this... Sonic fights Eggman in the present up to Metropolis, Eggman successfully time travels to the ancient era, you chase and try to stop him there, but he possibly alters the timeline and escapes forward back to the new present, you return to the alternate damaged present (think of it conceptually like Sonic CD's Present Acts without destroying the past generators, badniks are more common, some from the past have degraded, but not everything is completely ruined yet, just slowly decaying), where you fought Eggman up to some "Death Egg" version 1? Then he seems to escape into the past a second time (perhaps not as far into the past, the "medieval" era some speculated about, as an example), and you go through a Past 2. I'm guessing he successfully changes the timeline further, and retreats into the far dark future, sure of his success. Then, you go to the apocalyptic "Bad Future" version of the Island, which is where Chemical Plant, Casino Night, Genocide City, and a more completed, powerful "Neo Death Egg" all exist. Sonic utterly thrashes the place, destroying acts one by one (hence why they're burning), until you got to Genocide City 3, then the "Final Neo Death Egg" battle in space. I don't know how you would actually fix these timeline shenanigans. Maybe the Chaos Emeralds all undid the damage at the end of the game if you collected them all and unlocked Super Sonic? Hidden Palace could still be a place where Sonic unlocks his Super form, and the power of the emeralds could act in a way similar to the time stones at the game's ending, deus ex machina fixing the timeline at the very last second once you defeat Eggman in the future. Overall, this seemed to be a very ambitious plotline for a 1992 platformer, and certainly explains the themes for the existing zones we got, and some we didn't. Chemical Plant and Casino Night were never meant to exist in the normal world, which makes sense since they seem so out of place compared to the rest of the natural environment. Genocide City's name makes a lot more sense when you realize it is the ultimate end game bad future dystopia, as does its supposedly elaborate and very challenging 3 act structure. It also still exists in the same map location as Metropolis in the present, so the stages still have a loose association and it makes sense that they'd let one artist design concepts for both and share assets. And of course, once this entire outline was thrown out in favor of a simple Sonic 1 styles zone/act structure, they could just get rid of any stages that weren't close to finished and slap the final product together with Wing Fortress and Sky Chase (which seem to have been developed late in the game's history), to bridge the stages to a simpler ending.
The kanji on the right is 元通り (もとどおり, motodoori), meaning "as it was originally." I can't read the Kanji on the left, it's scribbled too poorly for me to make out. EDIT: Asked around, and now realize the left kanji is a compound written vertically, which makes more sense and is now legible. I reads 過去 (かこ, kako) meaning "past." In other words, the space battle changes the past back to how it originally was.
Actually, the fact that the one picture shows half the island on fire alone suggests a genocide-like scenario occurred. Maybe Sonic didn't directly destroy those stops, but instead some events occurring while at Genocide City 2 caused everything to burn, and thus its name.
Attempting to translate some of the first image... Below the 2ZONE text: Blue Highland(s). In the bottom-right corner: Death Egg escapes again. Warp from Hidden Palace. (There are multiple instances of Hidden Palace being referred to as a warp point in this image.)
Asked around, got a translation for the first image: Thing is, this is extremely hard to follow and I'm not sure where it all lines up in the image. I also don't know if everything is translated. From what I understand, the past would've only had one zone on the first visit, which is very odd given what we know. Should read "Eggman flees (earthquake)". It'd be really cool if Acts 1-2 were called Cyber City, then when Act 3 hits and shit hits the fan, the name changes to something far more sinister.
Maybe somebody already has a credible explanation for this, but now I'm really confused as to why the two separate maps of the Past period don't look anything alike. And it's not like the other map is just a ruined version of the other like with the Present and Future maps - the geography doesn't line up, just look at the mountains and the placement of the Hidden-Warp-Palace-Point-Shrine. Meanwhile, the eroded Present and the burning Future are pretty much identical matches to their less destroyed counterparts.
