Sonic 2 Development Lore

Yes. It was all planned from the very start. The clues were there. You just never noticed

 

Didn't Craig Stitt explicitly say that he had no idea what the zone's name was gonna be when creating its graphics? Hell, I'm pretty sure he also said that he would've drawn a completely different looking level had he known that the name was Hidden Palace.

 

Maybe ARZ is not Olympus, but there are some clues:

• On the maps, Olympus looks like a Greek / Roman temple in the middle of a lake, surrounded by water.
• ARZ art is made of Greek columns and temple ruins surrounded by water.
• Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece.

 

So what was it, a tsunami, volcano or both? The latest shown documents mentioned a volcanic eruption rather than tsunami.

At first glance I thought it was fake, but the red circles cleared it. Looks legit.

Could there be a chance that due to the massive cut on the story and zones, ARZ evolved from maybe a cutscene Olympus to the full stage Aquatic Ruins? The concept of Emerald Isle is there after all, but mayhaps it wasn't meant to be two full zones from the beginning?

 

Pure speculation, but maybe ARZ was made later once most things had been scrapped. It may be based on various assets already done for other things, reused and glued together to form a full zone.

 

I've always held the belief that Aquatic Ruin is secretly a Kinda Weird Zone. Not obviously strung together last minute like Wing Fortress, having a weird and winding history like Metropolis with Cyber City, or being a full mystery novel like R2, but just. Kinda weird. It does feel like it just appears outta nowhere in the Wai build as someone mentioned earlier, I could very much believe it wasn't properly conceptualized until after the initial plans had been scrapped but before sky chase/wing fortress were thought of.

 

honestly even its existing aesthetic is kind of weird? I'm wracking my brain but I can't think of any "superficially greek aesthetic + Water Level" levels in other games? but even then Aquatic Ruin's aesthetic is just. all over the place. it wants to be verdant with stuff hidden in the leaves. it wants to have those inexplicable greek pillars. but then the brickwork is there too and it doesn't work one bit weathered. Even the badniks and animals are weird: grounder is, I assume, a mole, and then you have the annoying bugs and the (thematically appropriate!) evil fish, and the animals are....generic blue flickies and penguins?

re: the music, I'm still standing by it definitely not being a western whistle. It doesn't match with the backing instruments at all aesthetically (which are very island/carribean), and the tone is too "open" to be a proper whistle instrument. Tbh I think it's a complete coincidence. The demo is absolutely not western themed - it's too slow, the backing beat is the wrong format for those "traditional" western tunes, the backing instruments are generic steel-drum types.

When I think "western homage", what comes to mind immediately is the Hidden Village theme from Twilight Princess. Compare that kind of thing directly to Masa's Demo and it really, really doesn't match, to my ears at least.

 

Also about the whistle, I wasn't getting the tarzan's thing but that was cos I forgot how was it. I remembered the iconic scream, and honestly yeah it is a perfect match, that also fits with the jungle theme and as I already did mention, it does add some mistery. Buut, I wouldn't know if that would be a common reference for japanese people, especially at that time.

 

I can think of several, which is because they're all inspired by stories about the lost continent of Atlantis. And not to get too off-topic, but I've always hated it when Atlantis is given an aesthetic with Greek architecture, even though Plato himself wrote that the continent sank thousands of years before ancient Greece as we know it even existed. Obviously none of this matters since the whole place isn't real, but still.

And as for Aquatic Ruin feeling out of place? I think we put way too much weight on those map illustrations. They most likely represent an extremely early, purely conceptual vision of Sonic 2 that predates all other concept art. If I had to guess, most of the level names and even some of the level themes were only placeholders.

 

I think the fact the past map depicts Olympus as being just right there in the middle of the water without any visible land underneath gives off a very Atlantis-like vibe. Like it rose from the depths of the lake, rather than being on an island:

 

That would make a lot of sense if it was a Hidden Shrine. Perhaps a series of events would cause Sonic to unearth it from the surface, only for Eggman to tragically steal what was inside.

Here's a fun thought: what if ARZ really does take place in the Past...but after the tsunami had hit? What if it took place during Sonic's second visit to the Past era on the ruined island? It would explain why everything was flooded and broken yet also seemingly unweathered by time.

 

The base of ARZ's aesthetic certainly isn't that unusual (Atlantis is a common influence in media, as mentioned already) but the decision to mash it with a jungle is a tad left-field. My guess is that, being conceptualized/added later then the initial batch of stages, it was somewhat cobbled together from other pre-existing ideas, but not being a last minute thing it was a lot more cohesive then SCZ/WFZ/DEZ.

S2 in general is probably the least aesthetically cohesive classic game (least cohesive classic game in general, really) due to its mess of a development so I don't think a lot can be gained from the observation that ARZ is Kinda Weird, but still. A stage conceptualized independent from the other groups, all on its own.

Honestly the more I think about it the more I feel like it's general look fits more in S3&K, I wonder if it was an influence for that direction.

 

I mean

 

Not to get on the music train again, but has anyone ever considered that maybe the two player results screen was once a level tune?



It sounds really tropical. Even as a kid when I heard it, I thought of a beach when I heard that tune. I can't take credit for suggesting it being a level tune, but the more I listen to the demo I could sort of see it. It's another two player cast away that you hear for less than a second if you're a kid mashing through the results screen to have another go at it with your friends.

 

Huh, I can hear it now that you mention it.

Two repurposed tropical songs (this and EHZ 2P) also makes sense, considering there are two scrapped tropical zones (Ocean Wind and Tropical Sun).

What's more, if we take it as a level song, then we have enough songs to fill all 16 zone slots (11 used in the 1P zones + 3 used in the 2P zones + the unused song believed to be for HPZ + this song).


Edit:

If we go by song order, this song might actually have been intended for Green/Emerald Hill, with the final EHZ song being intended for Ocean Wind:

01: VS Game Results (originally Green/Emerald Hill?)
02: Emerald Hill Zone (originally Ocean Wind?)
03: Mystic Cave Zone 2P (originally Wood/Secret Jungle as hypothesized by DefinitiveDubs?)
04: Oil Ocean Zone (originally Sand Shower?)
05: Metropolis Zone

It matches the present era zone order suspiciously well...

I believe DefinitiveDubs or someone might have done this comparison before?

 

So, where does winter fit into all of this? Since that shows up in concept art. Sorry if it’s been repeated before but it doesn’t really seem to match any of these map sheets we’ve seen before. Was it brought in super late or something?

 

Based on its placement in the sound test, and the fact that a 16-18 zone game almost certainly wouldn't ship without a password or save system, I theorize the results theme was intended for a password or save screen. It actually sounds similar to the Sonic 3 save theme, which sounds tropical as well.

I didn't invent the theory that MCZ 2P was intended for Wood Zone, but the theory is based on two things: its placement in the sound test, and the fact that of all the music in the original demos, MCZ 2P is one of if not the most radically changed. The percussion in the demo is very tribal-sounding, fitting of a jungle, yet the percussion even in the Wai build is entirely changed, both the instrument and its chord progression, to sound stranger and more mystical. It's always made me suspicious that whatever this music was composed for, even if it wasn't Wood Zone, wasn't meant for Hidden Palace. I also think that since Wood Zone lasted longer than the other cut levels, yet we can match music to those others, Wood Zone's intended music almost certainly had to have been programmed into the game.

 

The song order as seen in the final game's sound test is vastly different to what was in the Simon Wai Prototype, and yet, outside of Oil Ocean using its original theme (a feature that lasted up until the pre-beta, after which it was swapped out), none of the tracks were mis-assigned compared to the final in Simon Wai. Emerald Hill was still Emerald Hill, Sand Shower was still Sand Shower, Metropolis was still Metropolis, etc. I don't think the order of music tracks in the final game's sound test means anything.

 

Mcz = Mmz is most stupidest theory
And as long I think about it- it becomes more and more logically...

Mountain Madness looks like appearing from nowhere and goes to nowhere...
Pretty absurdly, we have no tips on how it would've working, and where....

Also it's pretty surreal, that during this year appeared a lot of stuff about Sonic 2: early Tails, new map images, GenoCyber City maps (that still unable for us, cough COUGH)
Will be funny, if something big also will appear in December, then we will can call 2023 as year of Sonic 2 leaks, hehehe...

Also, pretty interesting, that during this year appeared a lot of s2 "betah hacks", s2 archives, unlimited, definitive (probably will appear, keeping in mind how good is s1 one), some 2013/absolute mods, and it's only hacks that you could heard about. Some of hacks just started development.. its all pretty creepy


I just hope that in near future we will get new rare s2 proto with some answers, or, at least we will get some documents with interesting information for us.

 

On the topic of 'The 2 Player Zone tracks were very likely composed for some of the dropped Zones seen earlier in development', I'm surprised I haven't seen much discussion about the Staff Roll featuring them? It always struck me as strange to feature those songs in the Staff Roll since if the player never touched 2 Player Mode prior to beating the game, they will have never heard these tracks. Depending on when the song was composed during development, it might give an idea of how long certain Zone concepts stuck around before being dropped? I'm not quite sure though. A majority of the Zone tracks are represented here, and the track first appears in the 'Alpha' build of the game.

The only Zone tracks that aren't represented in the Staff Roll track are:

• Oil Ocean (1 Player Mode)
• Sky Chase
• Wing Fortress
• Death Egg

Oil Ocean 1 Player being the only 'non-Finale' Zone not properly represented here and the track being swapped once the game entered the 'Pre-Beta' phase makes me think they just wanted to find a place to use this track and swapped it out without realizing (or potentially caring) that the new track for Oil Ocean isn't represented here.

I guess it all depends when Nakamura composed the track or if he was even informed what did and didn't make it (though the tracks typically associated with the Desert/Snow Zones and the finale areas is...certainly odd). For reference, while Sonic 1 had a lot less Zones, all of them are properly represented in the Credits theme for that game.