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

Why concepts ? Maybe they has also a level art to reference

 

Made some screenshots – maybe this could be helpful.
https://at.tumblr.com/flyking-data-bank/palmtree-panic-salad-plain-dubious-depths/p949wsz2i25k

 

In the past I have theorized that the Dubious Depths level designer went to help with Tidal Tempest.
TT2 is completely different than the other Acts in TTZ and the rest of Sonic CD; every Act in Sonic CD feels like a speed stage (even WWZ) once you learn how to play it. Except for Tidal Tempest 2.
Tidal Tempest 2 is mostly devoid of the constant littering of speed tricks and setups that compose the rest of the game, and so it would seem to fit what Naoto Oshima said about DDZ not being well suited for Sonic's speed.
Tidal Tempest 1 on the other hand, is a stage you can pretty much blast through. Even the bottom route has a few really neat and fun speed tricks.

Perhaps the Dubious Depths designer worked on TT2's layout while TT1 was handled by the person who was initially doing the TTZ stage concepts?

 

I like the idea of some of RR's design being thrown into Tidal Tempest, as speculative as that is. I guess it really all depends on how much of the tech showcased was deliberate and how easy it would've been to 'repurpose' part of RR to have water as a gimmick.

I took the workflow for 'creating a Sonic CD level' as something like this, based on Jim's interview:

• Concepts for 8 worlds were drafted with a vague theme (grassland, ruins, water, metal, etc).
• Each 'landscape designer' had to work with the theme given to them and flesh it out more (come up with enemies, set pieces, and the actual level layout itself).
  
• Enemies and set pieces were drafted up first. Enemies might have received higher priority due to them being easier to 'repurpose' (hence only them getting 'ready to throw in the game' artwork).
• These concepts were then 'mashed together' through the level order/cutscenes to give the game a narrative flow (Amy falling into the hole in R2 level 1, Metal Sonic kidnapping, etc).
  
• Landscape pieces are drafted up to get an idea of what tiles need to be created to throw in.
  
• Work began on throwing the complete world into the game itself, with adjustments as necessary.

To me, I think what happened was:

• They initially liked the concept of 'Marble Zone 2: Electric Bugaloo'.
• Concept pieces are drafted up and thrown into the 'Little Planet concept art'.
• The team at this point feels pretty confident they can get the level in since it's part of the level order concept art. Concept art set pieces (we've likely never seen) are sent off to Studio Juno for reference.
• R2 might have been still around the time '0.01' was built? At least around whatever time the Time Attack menu was built.
• Uh-oh. Trouble arises now that the team has a more complete picture of what they're building. R2 just isn't panning out for one reason or another.
• The decision is made to axe R2, but the animation is basically complete at this point (the development team got the introduction back in time for the 0.02 build).
  
• A decision is made to just remove the animated segment that features 'R2'. The Pencil Sketch Test animation might have been left untouched as a little 'behind the scenes' look.

I guess the most puzzling thing is why Tidal Tempest seems to be the only level that never got any sort of 'animated segment'. I feel if the reference artwork was sent off so early in development, they had to had something that shows a Labyrinth-esque level. Seems weird not to include it if the workflow did look something like this? I suppose space issues for a longer animated cutscene could've been a concern, but nothing surfaced from the 'uncompressed' version of the credits in the PC port.

 

If we weren't 100% sure there were 8 stages planned for the game originally, I'd totally bring up the possibility that R2 became Tidal Tempest at some point. There are a few very small coincidences that would point in that direction, too (like there being a fan at the bottom of R2 in the wrld map sketch).

 

The ceiling trick works because of deliberate collision tiles set by the devs. Thankfully we can see enough of the way the levels were made in SonLVL. (This is the 1996 PC version of the level.)

I've routed all of the Future/Past stages as well. They're very much "Hard Mode" and remove the badniks you can bounce off of at the beginning of TT1. When I notice that, it makes it seem like the developers were conscious of being able to bounce off of them onto the ceiling.

 

I’ve personally never been sold on the notion of CD being based on 2 in any way. Much like the drop dash being a funny coincidence in mania, the similarities between the two show that the move set and iconography of the games are a natural progression of sonic and common tropes of 90’s media.
I also never believed the ports and CD being related are a thing either. You’ve already pointed out how strict the timing would’ve been, and it is very compelling to believe they progressed from a port to a new game. What makes it kind of fall apart to me is that we can make fairly good estimations of the entire developmental period now and CD had a longer dev cycle than most games of the time. To put it in simpler words I don’t think they would’ve had enough time to do that.

The only exception I can make in my head is if they were doing a port/s to test the hardware for an original game then they would’ve been codeveloping a port and CD at the same time. This however is purely a guess on my part and I have no actual facts to back up that claim :p

 

Not to speak for others but I sorta felt that the whole "Sonic CD was Sonic 2 Enhanced" died permanently after the early Sonic 2 Map documents were shown off in Mid 2017, which helped to further separate the two projects as their takes on Time Travel varied vastly.

It is interesting too that the infamous Sega Summer 1992 Catalogue (do we know when this was dated?) appearance of Sonic CD was seemingly the origin of that entire theory, which its description referencing Sonic 2's plot instead, not only that but the earlier Time Travel version of the plot? maybe it is a mix of the two.

 

I've fixed this. A remnant from when we didn't know nearly as much about Sonic CD as we do now.

 

It's Sonic the Hedgehog 2 CD's fault.

Mega-CD versions of Sonic 2 were reported by magazines, then assumptions were made (specifically with this article). It needs fixing.

In fact I have a feeling Yuji Naka might have denied Sonic 2 CD's existence at some point (which doesn't mean the project wasn't planned and promoted by Sega of America, just that no code was probably written).


Check all the things.

 

Apologies if any of this is redundant. I'm having difficulty following the timeline of events. Do we know when Ohshima was made aware about the 'Sonic 2 project'? I could see him being asked to supervise a 'Sonic 1 port for the Sega CD' shortly after work wrapped up for 1. Then information about a Genesis followup to Sonic 1 being commissioned reaches the team, and then the team/Sega management deciding it would be better to make a completely new game at that point. A souped up port for your brand new Sega CD add-on seems like a bit of a raw deal compared to an entirely new game that already runs without that add-on.

The 'Sonic 2 Development page' (which claims to be a bit outdated) has a statement from Mark that Sega went from thinking a sequel was 'too soon' to 'needing it now'. Maybe the CD team just didn't know until around the time that 'we need it now' statement was made? I don't know where the 'Sonic 2 CD port' fits into the picture.

Speaking of, the 'Development Process' section for Sonic CD's 'development' article is a wee bit outdated - no mention of 'Dubious Depths' and it still refers to 510 as the earliest publicly available build. Not quite sure how to tackle re-writing that since I've never contributed to the Wiki? Perhaps someone who is a bit more coherent with their ramblings than I could tackle it.


(Very off-topic and not in any way related to the R2 discussion

Are you referring to a move similar to the Drop Dash existing in the Sonic 3 prototype? Taxman did send a Tweet when asked about it that seemed intentionally a bit 'cheeky' to me (with the alien emoji at the end). I always got the impression from the tone in that Tweet that he did learn about this scrapped move through one means or another while developing Sonic Mania. Unless he outright stated 'yeah it's a complete coincidence' elsewhere. Perhaps I'm reading far too deep into this.

 

Perhaps we can try to ask Ohshima on twitter (or any of the Devs) if the project started as a Sonic 1 port?

I suppose it's an easy, non threatening any sega contract question, right?

 

We have videos of Sonic 1 running on a Sega CD, so we kinda have already have that question answered.

(3:20 if you wanna jump to the "SEGA CD - Sonic the Hedgehog" section)

 

Well, it's included in the Sega CD line-up but there's really no way to tell if the footage is from an actual Sega CD port. Could've also just been Sega plonking in their hot new mascot for the sake of it as well, unless there's differences I'm missing.

 

Yes and no. Sonic team used to have a picture uploaded to their website showing off a disc that was supposedly a build of sonic 1 for Sega CD that I know someone here has a picture of but I’ve forgotten who it was. Sonic Team claimed it was the only one in existence.

 

You mean this?