Sonic 2 Development Lore

I don't know, this looks so distinctly not-Sonic 2. The texture in the rock, the very conspicuous moon in the sky (I don't think there has ever been a moon in a Sonic stage? Let alone a crescent one? Could be wrong though). Even the very large pillar! Everything in Sonic 2 looks so... thin. Does that make sense?

I could very well be trippin, but the vibes don't match.

 

Just gonna post one of my favorite Sonic level backgrounds again.

Those hieroglyphs on the top/bottom of the pillars are giving me distinct Marble/Labyrinth Zone vibes. But yeah it could have just as easily been meant for Kid Chameleon or whatever else, though IIRC that game didn't have any checkerboard floors unlike the concept...

 

Looks definitely like GHZ clouds, but, probably it's just an example art. Not KK or S2/SS

 

Unrelated to what's happening right now but thought it deserves to be shared here. A user on Twitter (guilherme_0426) who listens to 80s jpop frequently has found another song that seemingly Nakamura was inspired by, akin to Chemical Plant w/ Prince. One of Aquatic Ruin Zone's sequences shares a heavy resemblance to the track Aburakabura (アブラカブーラ) by Yumi Morio (森尾由美) from 1983. Take a listen.

 

I loathe many music comparisons out there, because too often folks try to twist songs into pretzels to make them fit.

BUT, this one seems like it could hold a genuine link to me. The correlation is so striking, I think it's far more likely the link really exists as opposed to it being a coincidence. Thanks for sharing!

 

I agree that we can't come to any conclusion, I would just like to propose that the image bears a bit further investigation.

Based on what was said before, my observation is that it's almost entirely reused assets from her Sonic work, save the mountains in the background, the pillars, and bricks, and the second floor on the bottom. Literally everything else is a recycled SSZ asset, which in a game that was planned to use pallete swaps for several zones, does make one wonder.

The concept is not a sonic mockup, but again, the chaotic nature of development makes it possible that different levels were dumped at different stages. She may have never been asked to make it a Sonic mockup before her work was dropped entirely. It may have been rejected swiftly (it does not fit as well with Sonic's style, despite being copied and pasted from a lot of assets meant for Sonic). I'm also reasonably confident that those 'are' green hill clouds, which is an odd thing to put in if the are had no ties to sonic since she clearly did not draw them.

And as a rejected concept, it has never appeared in any other SEGA game that we're aware of. It could of course be just an original piece for her portfolio, or part of yet another unreleased title, but who knows? Hopefully when Frank finally does sit down with her she opens up and can discuss some of these pieces specifically.

That is, if the interview ever happens.

That said, I'm satisfied with at least one version of Rock World being the Winter Zone. I just believe that both versions of "Rock World" would have had different visuals, and it seems logical that if they did, a pallete swap was again likely. The fact that the 3rd piece of art fits that logic is itself a nice coincidence, but doesn't do much to change my theory even if the art itself is not from that level. We have no other reference point to explain what a possible (non winter level) rock world would look like, so it is what it is.

Also, I'd just like to remind people that Rock Zone's 2nd incarnation may now be the only level which we have no visual reference for (if it's not the above screencap), since Aquatic Ruin seems likely to be tied to Olympus, and Hidden Palace is highly likely to be a variation of "Warp Point". Which is fascinating to think about. We now have visual concepts of nearly every stage, with only a second unusual recycling of a stage with the same name being a big mystery.

What a time to be a fan of this weird and wacky game mystery.

 

Many people here are convinced that all of this concept art actually came late in development, and while there's some proof for it, I still find it hard to believe.

And yeah, none of these "Aquatic Ruin was a late addition" -theories have ever sat right with me. ARZ isn't a very popular level, but it's a strongly designed one with a very coherent direction and a polished feel. It's nothing like Wing Fortress.

Why isn't it on the maps? What's with the names? Who knows, but I don't think that either serves as proof of the level not being an early concept, especially since we now know that the level name labels were stickers that were added on top of the maps after they had already been drawn. That's such a major detail that we've kinda just glossed over.

 

The only thing I know for sure is Sonic 2 was designed with a two-act approach, except for GCZ whose third act is occupied by ARZ and GCZ only listing two acts on the level select. And the fact ARZ isn't explicitly (by a name we can clearly identify it as at a minimum) marked on the map makes a darn good case for it being a sort of "change of plans".

But I agree that we can't say with 100% certainty. But why does it occupy zone index 0F? I've wondered that for 25 years, and it's still not clear.

 

Yeah ARZ would feel empty and far too short without the water. It's clearly meant to be there.

Don't we still not really know what Olympus was supposed to be? Why are we even sure ARZ (in some form) isn't on the map? They obviously weren't sure what to call the level at the time.

 

Olympus is often theorized to be Aquatic Ruin, but the reasoning for it has always been dubious at best.

"Both are associated with water and Greek columns so they have to be the same" is what they say, completely disregarding the fact that Olympus is depicted to be in pristine condition, whereas Aquatic Ruin is so overgrown and dilapidated that it barely even looks like a building any more.

My personal theory is that Aquatic Ruin was a later revision of Blue Lake, which itself was a later revision of Blue Ocean. Both levels having concept art wouldn't rule this out either, if we assume that the ridiculous "level art first, concept art second" -principle from Hidden Palace applied to other levels too.

 

"Neo Green Hill Zone" was always an odd name. Like it was meant to be Green/Emerald Hill in some earlier or revised state, despite not looking much like Green Hill Zone at all.

But clearly it was higher up on the priority list because it was one of the first zones playable from beginning to end.

 

The level maps show two names, tropical plant and tropical summer. Is it possible aquatic ruins first name was tropical plant, that would also place the zone in the middle of the origanl level order.
The reason it's after gcz/ccz in the final could be they had already the water programed for that zone id and the zone id tropical plant most lines up with would have been after metropolis internally, and it taken by metropolis act 3.
The neo green hill could be a left over of green hill from nick arcade proto type. Tho I don't know why they would keep green hill past that prototype.

 

If Olympus became Hidden Palace and they based ARZ on Olympus' original concept it would make sense.

They showed Craig Stitt the Olympus layout and gave him some tips. Craig went on to make art for a cave-themed level, either because he wasn't given enough directions, or due to the language barrier.

After that they decide to revive Olympus' original concept as a separate level, which became Emerald Isle/ARZ, and sacrificed one of the two GCZ slots for it.

Might be why Hidden Palace has water, its layout being originally planned for an Atlantis-like level.

Mix ups like that might why they decided to produce concept art for later levels to better communicate their plans to the artists.

 

I don't know if the building not having enough cracks in it or whatever is actually relevant. It's just a point of reference. I see flooding and Greek-inspired architecture. Clears it up to me especially since there doesn't seem to be a coherent alternative to where ARZ could've been on the map. It's very odd that we have like no info at all about this apparently unique 'Olympus Zone' with how much we now have from the other cut zones. I just don't know why they'd bother with another level theme that just so happens to also be Greek-inspired as well as flooded.

 

This would make the most sense in my opinion.

Looking back, it's easy to say that not paying attention to the language barrier was a massive oversight on Sega's part, but was Sonic 2 the first major video game developed as a multicultural joint venture? Because if it was, then you can hardly blame STI, Naka, Yasuhara or anyone else for not being prepared.

Except the maps explicitly show a ruined and abandoned building in the form of the ruined present's pyramid; If they wanted Olympus to be a structurally compromised building, Yasuhara would've given it such details.

Also, while we do not truly know what Olympus was, we certainly know that it was not a regular, full level called "Olympus Zone". Just like Warp Point, its name differs from all the other levels by not ending with the "Zone" -suffix and by being on an oval-shaped label rather than a rectangular one. It was clearly meant to be different, unique and important.

 

Yeah the building itself was clearly cut and probably the thing that made Olympus/Emerald Isle/Aquatic Ruin more significant than it ended up being. It not having cracks in it still isn't proof of anything and just isn't relevant since the building isn't in the final game at all. The zone theme is still very close to the final ARZ and there's nothing else on the maps remotely like it.

 

According to TCRF, though without a source, it states under Olympus that Yashuhara described it as the "Shrine" during the Digital Dragons 2017 event. I ended up finding (google searched) a video of the showcase, but I don't speak Japanese so I only had the auto generated subtitles (so take what I say with a grain of salt) but he specifies that Olympus is a shrine in the middle.

So I'm in mindset that Olympus was conceived as Hidden Palace, then Hidden Palace became it's own thing (visually) and the idea for Olympus was later consolidated into Emerald Isle which, of course, went on to become ARZ. Olympus initially used as a way for Sonic to get back to the future after being, most likely (somehow) stranded in the past.

SO... this asks a question: What about the "Warp Point" location makes it so it helps Sonic go back to the past but not forward. And why do documents make mention of Eggman escaping by time machine. To me, the "Warp Point" is the thing that really sticks out and is causing a lot of confusion. What even is it supposed to be?

I've come up with a speculative theory on this:
The Warp Point building is the Time Machine, of course. While it isn't really specified if it is an ancient structure of an Eggman creation, either can really be true and still fit. The important part is that the precursor level to The Warp Point is Metropolis, almost as if the Metropolis Zone with all of its gizmos and gadgets powers the Time Machine that Eggman uses. To me this makes it seem like the Warp Point is, at least, partially an Eggman creation. Though again, we don't know. The Now 1 map specifically points out that the level order goes Metropolis *then* Warp Point.

When sonic arrives in the past he is trapped. What causes this? Considering that in the next map, Now 2, the Warp Point is now decayed it makes me think that either prior to being warped to the past or during his time in the past that Warp Point gets destroyed forcing Sonic to find an alternate path, Olympus, to return to the present. Shown in the Past map by Sonic leaving from Warp Point to go to Tropical Plant but *not* going back. That would explain (story wise) why there are two distinct locations that Sonic uses to "warp" between times.

The warp point being replaced by one of the big Cyber City (specifically Act 1) orbs in the future also points it towards being specifically a machine, where Metropolis is the start of the machine, Cyber City is the end result of it.
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My theory doesn't really account for the warp point type building seen in the Tsunami map, though it also doesn't really appear in any prior map so its an outlier.

It's also possible, likely even, that all of these weird unresolved dead ends is just the natural result of multiple drafts of a story that got entirely cut mid development.

 

Tcrf also states that on the timeline, one entry is called secret shrine, which they state line up with Olympus and hidden palace.
https://tcrf.net/Prerelease:Sonic_the_Hedgehog_2_(Genesis)/Concept_Art

 

Anyone else think it would be a good idea to combine the two existing threads so discussion isn't weirdly split? (Or something similar?)

 

That idea kinda lines up with my idea of Hidden Palace's purpose being 'retweaked' during development? I think it was meant to be a full-on playable Zone with story significance, Time Travel gets scooped out so it becomes a glorified cutscene, and then it's scooped out completely.

• Both it and Emerald Isle are the same at one point and coined as 'Olympus'.
• Craig gives back some art that doesn't envision what the other half of the team wanted.
• The two become separate ideas, but both exist as a way for Sonic to 'Time Travel'. Sonic clears a full-on level/Zone, cutscene plays, and Sonic is warped to a different time period?
• Time Travel is dropped completely as a concept, but the idea of the level is kept because the team really likes the idea of 'Where do the Emeralds come from?'
• The plan is to 'shrink' Hidden Palace down to a 'secret level' ala the way it is in 3K for the Super Emeralds. Get all the Emeralds, you're warped to it, and tah-da Super Sonic. This is what Yuji is referring to in an earlier interview?
• Eventually Hidden Palace has to be junked because they simply don't have the time to 'shrink' the level down and confirm it actually works okay when the player gets all 7 Emeralds?

I feel this creeps back into 'Zelda Timeline' levels of speculation though, but Aquatic Ruin and Hidden Palace being absent in the maps is just...odd. Olympus looks close to Aquatic Ruin and we have a lot confirming Hidden Palace had a bigger role at some point. I'm also not sure why they would try to add another Zone when time is already kinda short.

(Editing my post to show support for these being merged/becoming a new thread. It's a bit messy at this point.)