Sonic 2 Development Lore

Oh, my bad.
Anyway would be interesting if water in Ice Cap would be a "hi" to Sonic 2 Winter zone conception.

 

Azure Lake and Desert Palace seem repurposed from Blue Lake/Sand Shower too. Would make sense since 3&K otherwise tries so hard to squeeze in proto-2's zone ideas.

And this is more anecdotal but if you told me Chrome Gadget's background was meant for Genocide City, I'd buy it. Especially with the fixed color palette.

It shares Metropolis Zone's bouncy wall mechanic too...

 

I honestly always chalked up the unique Zones present in Competition Mode as some sort of 'compromise' by the developers once they decided to go with the non-full screen approach. Sort of a 'Eh sorry you're technically looking at smaller sprites compared to the last game, but here's something more unique than 2 Player Angel Island'. Most of the Zones in Competition Mode also resemble pre-existing 1-Player Mode Zones...save for Azure Lake and Chrome Gadget.

With what's been uncovered about Sonic 2's development though and what went towards 3, I could buy some of the Competition Mode areas being repurposed from 2. Sort of like what happened with the other bits of Sonic 2 concept art for 3's development.

I also understand the smaller more unique Zone approach for Competition Mode was done since a majority of Sonic 3's Zones just straight up wouldn't work in a 2 player competition setup, but as a kid playing Mega Collection the smaller sprites immediately caught my attention more than anything else. It was probably decided early on to do something unique with the complications the regular Zones created.

 

Hmm, that gets me thinking... I wonder if they could have considered a 320x448 resolution for 2P VS in Sonic 3 at some point early on in the game's development. For example, is there a good sized portion of Angel Island Zone's patterns ordered such that they can be displayed in 8x16 dimensions as evidence of such a direction?

Just a random thought. Has nothing to do with Sonic 2 other than Sonic 2 being the base upon which Sonic 3 was built.

 

Why would a compromise be needed? Even as a kid I found the smaller sprites in S3's competition mode to be an upgrade from S2's 2P mode. Instead of the screens being vertically squashed, they're properly zoomed out, keeping the graphics' proportions and letting you see further ahead.

 

Winter Zone pixel art? Blue Lake layout?

We're eating good.

EDIT: The actual mockup hasn't been shared on this thread yet

Spoiler: Winter level mockup

 

Not to really bring up this whole thing again but the video they did specify that the Desert Level was Sand Shower. We kind of had that confirmed indirectly for a while now, but I thought it was interesting to hear especially for the reveal of the original mockup art. Rip Dust Hill

 

Brenda's portfolio also has a Wood Zone mockup in it, though I'm unsure if it shows anything unique. Background might be a different color? Though that could very well just be the vhs quality.

 

It sort of matches the tall buildings with creepy red lights that you see in Casino Night (beta), too.



Though, that might be simply a design choice for the games.

 

The gimmick of individual spikes rising through the ground was new, though it could've been just something made for the mockup rather than an actual planned gimmick.

 

Ooo I notice that the good ol "Dust Hill" mockup layout is pretty much exactly the same.

The croc badnik makes more sense for a desert so I assume the snow zone was drawn over this? Or vice versa?

 

They're actually both animated, so I don't think that it really matters which one came first.

And as for the enemies? I think they're just placeholders, as enemy assignment wasn't Ross' responsibility. Real life crocodiles don't exactly hang around deserts either.

 

And here's a sketch of the scrapped water level, which might or might not be Blue Lake/Ocean.

Spoiler: Water level

Honestly looks more like Ecco the Dolphin than Sonic.

 

That sub looks familiar.

 

The centre of the conveyor belts is something of note; instead of the swirling pattern seen in Simon Wai and the August Alpha, it uses a pulsing effect.

Also, the conveyor belt overlaps with some regular level tiles, so maybe that might have been a thing at some point?

 

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g'joob

 

That's just Submarine Attack (1990).

 

Here's the full page, along with a second one that... wait a second, is that a Balkiry?

Spoiler: Water zone, animals and enemies

If it was originally supposed to be an underwater enemy, then the Sky Chase mystery only deepens.

 

Balkiry being based on a shark originally makes a weird amount of sense given the overall shape + tail fin