Sonic 3 Level Concept Art Research Thread (with HQ Pictures)

Yeah, it's definitely possible to beat CNZ2's boss as Knuckles, you just need more time because you have to wait for when it lowers to the ground to pick its green thing up.

Besides, if the jump height really was a concern, they could just have added temporary platforms like they did in MGZ1, or make the boss hover at a different height like they did in ICZ1.

 

I have to wonder what Zone 5 would've been for Knuckles, since the concept art seems to confirm he wasn't intended to go through Flying Battery. Perhaps he'd go directly to IceCap? Or another level that was designed specifically for him that wasn't included in the Origins concept art?

 

The intention seems to have been for him to have at least two unique Zones - the Carnival Night ("Neon") concept says he proceeds to "Zone 5 for Rival", and one of the character sketches has some brief attempts at sketching "Zone for exclusive use of Rival" with nothing but the heading, a start point and a "5" in the margin. Presumably this was supposed to be used to sketch his unique Zone 5, but was then used for character sketches - it's unknown whether any actual sketches were made of this Zone, but if they were they didn't get scanned for inclusion in Origins.

The Sandopolis ("Sand") sketches likewise end saying he proceeds to "Zone 10 for Rival" and none of the subsequent Zones have Knuckles paths planned, so presumably the alternate Zone 10 would have been the Rival's final stage - however, no actual sketch was included in the Origins scans. The Doomsday also seems to have been planned at this point in some form as the Death Egg sketches end with a cutscene transitioning to it where Sonic turns Super and flies after Eggman (which, oddly enough, has no actual equivalent in the final game), however no sketch exists for that Zone either.

I think that last one is the biggest indicator that there could be other sketches we've not seen that are part of this same set - the other being that, even though the only sketch of the Rival's Zone 5 seems to have been abandoned before any real work was done, the idea seems to have survived long enough to potentially have affected the planning of Flying Battery's actual layout, as even in the final game it has precisely zero additional paths for Knuckles to encounter. At the very least, even if the Zone 5 was scrapped early on as appears to be the case, it seems the idea to have Knuckles not pass through Flying Battery may have survived longer than the idea of the Zone itself.

 

Ah, I stand corrected. In that case I really wonder why they didn't give him Sonic's boss.

Looking at the level layout, his final area doesn't really have room for a boss fight. So I'm guessing that him lacking a boss in that act was a deliberate design decision, likely made after they cut Knuckles' final path from the drafts, rather than a last-second choice. The layouts of the S3 zones were already finalized when S3 alone came out IIRC, with even the teleporter to IceCap being there.

 

So does the prototype Sonic 3 have both the Carnival Night and IceCap teleporters? How complete is Lava Reef in the prototype, are Knuckles' paths in there?

 

It has the CNZ2 teleporter. The ICZ1 teleporter is absent, but the room for it is already there:


Speaking of which, we could use maps of that proto. At the moment we only have HCZ and FBZ maps.

 

Great stuff! Having skimmed through, I just have one note - following the arrows on the storyboard for the ending sequence for "Temple of the Sky" (aka Sky Sanctuary), it seems Eggman pops out from the Death Egg to confront Sonic rather than Sonic chasing him in. He's also labelled "EGG" just as the other boss encounters are, so I'd assume the plan was for some sort of upside-down boss fight on the Death Egg's outer hull to end the stage. What a way to introduce players to the following stage's anti-gravity mechanic...! = O

Interestingly, it seems there was no solid plan to bring back Mecha Sonic at this early stage, but no solid plan other than the anti-gravity mechanic seems to have been planned for the Sky Sanctuary boss either, as the boss is still depicted as a generic Eggman-in-Eggmobile placeholder as seen in many of the other stages.

EDIT: Actually, one other note... There seems to be an assumption that the events at the start of the "Temple of the Sky" (Sky Sanctuary) page - where Sonic falls in, meets the Rival and teleports up to the main temple - are a continuation of the previous Zone's ending cutscene. This is indeed how things play out in the final game, with both the "Volcano" cutscene and the events shown here consolidated into a single sequence within Hidden Palace Zone. However, I notice that everything on the "Temple of the Sky" page, including this sequence, is under the "Zone 11" heading - they could easily have written the heading above the sky segment if that was where the stage was intended to begin, which is indeed what's been done on earlier sketches featuring multiple Zones. I'd therefore argue that falling through the collapsing floor at the end of "Volcano" was supposed to be the stage transition at this point, and that the underground segment with the Rival/teleporter was actually the start of "Temple of the Sky", beginning in a short underground section before teleporting outside. The map sketch above the storyboarded sequence backs this up too, as it shows Sonic falling through the floor beneath the Chaos Emerald altar with an arrow marked "Zone 11". This would also be consistent with the earliest of the two Sonic 3C prototypes we have access to (and also our earliest available glimpse of the stage in action), which refers to Hidden Palace simply as Sky Sanctuary Act 1.

 

Thanks - just a heads-up, I updated my post slightly while you were writing that, as I realised I'd misspoke slightly re: the Sonic & Knuckles prototypes - it's specifically the Sonic 3C 0408 prototype which refers to Hidden Palace as Sky Sanctuary Act 1. I also noticed the map sketch corroborates that the Zone transition was the collapsing floor, as that too shows Sonic falling through the floor beneath the Chaos Emerald altar, leading to a downward arrow marked "Zone 11".

 

So the rival would have had his own zone in place of Lava Reef. But from these documents, what is Hidden Palace in the final game was part of Lava Reef, and Sonic and the rival fought there. So assuming that the rival's story took place concurrently with Sonic's at this point, perhaps the rival's 10th zone would have been Hidden Palace itself, with the Emerald Altar section and rival battle arena being treated as part of Lava Reef in Sonic's story?

 

Remember, the decision to group it with Lava Reef and share it's music came later, as it's Sky Sanctuary Act 1 in Sonic 3C 0408, complete with sharing it's music. I wouldn't be surprised if the decision to group it with Lava Reef in later builds had its roots in the original plans though, as the majority of the stage seems to have originally been planned to be part of Lava Reef. Which ironically makes Sonic Mania's Lava Reef more faithful to the original plans than Sonic 3 & Knuckles' in that regard, haha!

 

Thinking about it some more, I do wonder if maybe there was an interim step here, in-between the stage being Sky Sanctuary Act 1 and becoming Hidden Palace, where it was counted as another part of Lava Reef Act 2 despite being a separate level slot, in the same way as the Lava Reef Act 2 boss fight. It'd definitely explain the level select arrangement and fit well with the revised music choice... Obviously without access to a build of Sonic 3C between the ones we have, all we can do is speculate.

Anyway, I'm getting a bit off-topic here, so I'll leave it there for now unless I think I'd any more observations relating to the actual concept sketches. = )

 

Come to think of it, the music tracks for Lava Reef's two acts sound rather different from each other, especially compared to other zones. Perhaps one was composed for Lava Reef and the other for Hidden Palace, with each being intended to be one act long? Then after they extended LRZ into a 2-act zone, they repurposed HPZ's track for its second act.

 

ehhhh LRZ Act 2/Hidden Palace do share melodies with LRZ Act 1's music. The backing synth for instance is just the main melody for LRZ Act 1's introduction.

 

Perhaps, but they don't sound nearly as close to each other as with other zones. Them having similarities while being more different than other examples makes sense if Hidden Palace was going to be the rival's counterpart to Lava Reef.

I've also always felt that the LRZ2/HPZ track had something of a mystical? vibe to it, which fits HPZ better than LRZ IMO, what with it being the location of the Emerald Altar and having magical? teleporters and premonitory murals.


Come to think of it, there was just one other zone where the two act tracks had significant differences. Launch Base, if you listen to its proto tracks. And as mentioned in the opening post, LBZ was originally going to have one act. Perhaps one of these two tracks was intended for the other rival-exclusive zone?

 

They're actually more alike than you think.

 

I think you're looking too far into it. LRZ2's vibe is so different because the lava cools down, that's all. I'm also really surprised to hear that people don't realize the proto LBZ tracks share the same melody?