Sonic CD's Mysterious Cut R2 Level Discussion - Post Origins Edition

There was an album released where one of the songs is a arrangement of the Bad Future tracks from Sonic the Hedgehog CD, but some of the music doesn't match up to any of the Bad Future tracks we know, so is suspected to be of Dubious Depths.

 

Oh, right, it seems I forgot/missed the previous mention of it in this thread. That makes sense.

 

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This sounds quite good, like an actual level theme from DD / RR / R2. Just put it with looped animation of Toei Sonic that shows the level, and it fits pretty good in my opinion.

Also, don't know If any of you noticed, but in the same animation, the direction from which Sonic runs, looks like some underground caverns. Like he just entered a ruins area, from a cavern one.

Anyway, it's great to see this thread alive again. There aren't as many Classic Sonic mysteries today. R2, Tokyo Toy Show and Saturn Chaotix prototype are probably the last ones...

Edit:
Oh, and Sonic SMS / MD similarities.

 

Just found this. Seems well-done. What you think?

 

I really like that Bad Future theme. I've added it to my Sonic CD Bad Future playlist on Spotify and it fits snugly alongside the others.

But of course, it's only an approximation. I wouldn't be surprised if the official version sounds very similar but we can't know for sure unless Daddy Iizuka decides one day that our ears are worthy enough to hear it. (If the original tapes even still exist, though I'd like to imagine they do.)

 

Oh, I bet it still exist. If only Sega or the Devs could provide us with the data... Well, maybe one day.

 

Out of all the development materials that have consistently survived, music tapes and demos seem to be kept around by various composers and developers (if simply because the medium is well suited for it). Jun-san seems to have copies of all of his work (even if some of it has only surfaced due to Mr. Burton), so it wouldn't surprise me if the composers of Sonic CD do as well.

 

To help, I've made a list of the things we DO know/have regarding R2:

• Its names, Dubious Depths and Ridicule Root. (DD sounds like it was the last name it had before it was cut, while RR sounds like it was an earlier one, but that's just speculation on my part.)
• The segment of the ending animation showing Sonic running through the ruins and encountering an Antlion.
• The present music, which became the D.A. Garden theme. We also have a good idea of what the bad future theme sounded like thanks to a brief remix of it being in Techno Power Mix, and Sonic Stream may house portions of the good future theme.
• A few pieces of concept art: the temple with rainbow waterfalls, the one showing the progression with a few planned gimmicks (e.g. the fan, swinging platforms, a substantial underground portion), the one showing that Metal Sonic kidnapping Amy was planned for R2 before getting moved to Collision Chaos, and some enemy art. (I think it's also likely that this Eggman concept art was an early iteration of the R2 boss based on the sprites we have.)
• The sprites of the enemies and boss shared by Taxman.

What we DON'T have is:

• More detailed concept art, if it exists.
• Level and object layouts, if they exist.
• Level art, if it exists.
• The original bad/good future and past mixes, which most likely do exist (though we've never heard them, so we can't be certain).

Given that Masato Nishimura confirmed the original Sonic CD design docs still exist in 2020, there's almost certainly more to Dubious Depths that we haven't seen yet. And with how much we've learned about it over the past few years, I don't think the discoveries are over yet. I'm optimistic it'll no longer be a mystery, eventually.

 

I wonder if it would be possible to reach out to people, who worked on animation and ask anything about concept arts provided by Sega. Do we know any names from Studio Junio?

 

The animators knew they could pass off R2's segment as Tidal Tempest. Work smarter, not harder.

 

My guess is that they didn’t get art for Tidal Tempest, but did for Dubious Depths. But there’s no way of knowing unless a developer tells us.

 

hmmmm possibly although the order of the animations seem to be in level order, if they really wanted to pass it off as tidal tempest why wouldn't they move it after collision chaos?

 

It wasn't on the original SEGA Mega CD release, so I think they simply forgot to remove it from the credits when recompressing them for later releases.

 

It's strange to think that this implies if they remembered to cut it in later releases, the entire animated sequence for R2 would never have been seen by the public, and simply be assumed to not exist.

 

The Dubious Depths segment is still present in the Pencil Test, iirc. I'd guess it was a matter of space or not fitting with the timing of the credits.

 

Pencil Test only shows some animated sketches of it. I'd think they didn't bother digitizing that scene beyond what's shown in Pencil Test due to DD getting cut.

TBH I've always felt it was kinda tacky how later releases kept the full DD FMV in the credits. I feel it would have made more sense to move it to Pencil Test.