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

So this whole story got quite moved up since.

1. Nik Pi, say it's you who trolled lol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyzWOG8WxLU

2. The guy who started this whole story made an entire google drive with all the songs present in the disk so we can check everything: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1p1aeLvQhhcRPtYLLV_QdG1jM0flsHQ73

3. It's me Giganto, i could finally have an account, for context about this Sonic Retro bashing i made, it doesn't really come from me tbh, i do not hold a grudge against you. I am thankful about the work Mr.Hez made for Cyber City for example.

4. I would like to go back to that FACT makasina gave about the metadata of the SCD tracks, how the hell can't you all check those, it's literally right in front of our noses.

So, let's go back to the metadatas, shall we?

I extracted the tracks from SCD 2011 a long time so let's check them, if you open them in Audacity for example, go to export the song setting:

Now go to the "edit the metadata" setting and it should bring you to the metadata of the track:

The year 1993 confirms the track comes from THE ORIGINAL SONIC CD OR ELSE THE YEAR WOULD HAVE BEEN 2011.

For Palmtree Panic Bad Future, it's metadata is 4/44, ok, now let's check Collision Chaos Present shall we ?

As you can see, the metadata of the track is now 9/44, between R1D and R3A, there are missing tracks, those tracks are from non other than R2 itself. NOT DESERT DAZZLE.

With this in mind, it confirms (as it wasn't obvious enough) that R2B, R2C and R2D tracks were composed, i would like to point out that the past tracks does not have any metadata and not any past tracks since it's the PCM Past tracks, we miss the CDDA Past tracks sadly.

 

This proves nothing. ID3 Tag metadata can be edited again and again and it can say something different anytime. Whitehead could've simply put the ID3 Tags like that already knowing about R2, as it was known at the time it was missing. Big nothingburger here.

 

Try to explain why there is more than those missing tracks too then. There are way much more empty slots than the R2 one.

 

What seems to have happened is Whitehead took the Sonic CD tracks from the '93 version, removed the songs that couldn't be added (creating those empty slots), (the R2 tracks metadata were still present in the '93 disc, i guess as a leftover) and he put all of this in the 2011 version, leaving all of this there this whole time.

 

yawn

 

still more interesting than five pages of arguing over if the guy playing Shadow brings enough emotional depth to his character or not lol

 

So, as I said previously, it's 100% fake. It's not even iso, it's wav, so probably it's just a fake. Mine is better

Still better than talking about "were WWZ statue a part of level or not
This forum had a lot of unuseful discussions, and tbh, this one, about metadata is most underrated.

I do not exclude this fact, but keeping in mind that Whitehead wanted to make Desert Dazzle as his R2 vision, we shouldn't don't pay any attention to it.

Spoiler

Youll never catch me, woop-woop-woop

PS.: Giganto, please, don't make a double posts.

 

No. That didn't happen.

 

How is making fakes in an attempt to start a discussion and trolling any more productive than “WWZ statue” stuff, if anything, you muddying the discussion with false information has made it actively harder to actually try and figure out facts now.

 

Yeah, I don't the point behind bringing up fake stuff just to talk about how fake it is

 

Here is question about this video, not mine joke. I explained my behavior to Giganto and others.
I actually thought that they will get that it's a joke because I put freaking YT track there, c'mon
Anyway I really sorry to people who believed in Bunper Polis. I thought this thing will never out of the server. Dude really did video about it while I was sleeping.

Actually now, when we solved that metadata and track is fake, I'm feeling fool myself, lmoa.
So, yeah. Sorry that I spent time, your and mine .

Also, thank you for knowledge about metadata

 

Since Nik Pi presented apologies, i think mine is just more than necessary.

I actually never knew CD's from the '90 don't have metadata, i am fascinated by that period of time and i guess i learn things the hard way (for the better or worse)

Thank you for your knowledge, it's really helpful.

We're all here because we love this mystery that has been around for literal years and i also think, like many other people, that fakes shouldn't be discussed too much.

I would like everyone to blame only me for this, not Nik Pi, he got dragged in this because of me. Sorry for all this inconvenience that happened.

PS.: I hate my memory so hard, i keep forgetting things, that's why i sometimes make double posts.

 

additionally, the usage of katakana here instead of kanji and hiragana is suspect and dumb because katakana is used almost exclusively to spell foreign words and would never be used for native names, and extra additionally, the Sonic CD 20th anniversary OST release has individual credits for each track (that is, not just a scattershot "Masafumi Ogata & Naofumi Hataya" for every track). As a general rule of thumb, 99.9% of the time a general lumped together "every single composer listed together on every single song" is a sign of unofficial metadata by someone who couldn't be bothered to look up the proper credits on vgmdb before tagging their rips.

EDIT: Aaaaand an additional point, the credit is also wrong because looking at the CD credits, each composer took up a specific zone to make all the tracks for. There is no "Hataya & Ogata" credit because they seemed to work pretty independently on each zone. For instance, Hataya handled all of Stardust Speedway and Ogata handled all of Tidal Tempest. So it's not just wrong in syntax and methodology, but appears to be outright contrary to the process of the original release.

 

Additionally... his name isn't spelt "Masahumi" here.

 

Also fwiw, assuming this wasn't just a typo on GerbilSoft's part, that katakana strangely misspells Ogata as Ogatata. lol

 

Here is my theory about Round 2 and early names of levels in Sonic The Hedgehog CD.

Short version:
R1: Salad Plain -> Palmtree Panic
R2: Ridicule Root (that level had only one name)
R3: ??? -> Collision Chaos
R4: Dubious Depths -> Tidal Tempest (both names fit the level)
R5: ??? -> Quartz Quadrant
R6: Crazy Toy Box -> Wacky Workbench
R7: ??? -> Stardust Speedway
R8: ??? -> Metallic Madness

Full version:
When Naoto Ohshima revealed the name of R2, my first thought was that Dubious Depths is an earlier name of Tidal Tempest. The word "depths" is usually used to describe underwater areas.
Later, Masato Nishimura mentioned another name: Ridicule Root. And if R2 never made it past concept stage, why would it have a name change, like other levels?
Something really conspicuous happened with R2 and R4. We assume that R2 actually had an animated sequence in Sonic CD's ending.

But when I asked Ohshima about that sequence, he replied: "I don't think this cut is in Zone 2." My first logical explanation was: "Then it has to be Tidal Tempest, because all other Zones are already represented." Well, the truth is probably somewhere in between.
We know that R2 does not appear in the game, and R4 does not appear in the animation. Or does it? I compared colors, machinery, plants in Tidal Tempest to what is seen in that segment of the ending. It looks similar.

But where is water, and why R2's Antlion appears in that clip? My theory is that it represents neither R2, nor R4. That's why it was not featured in the original Mega-CD version of Sonic CD.
Let's look at the map.

There are two underground Rounds. Main differences: 2R is much bigger than 4R, the latter has a lot of water. Basically, that's it. Those areas are rather sketchy. Developers probably wanted locations with more room for Sonic to run around. Judging by experience from Sonic The Hedgehog (1991), they could see that Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone are not very suitable places to use as a basis in a new fast-paced platformer. So they had to decide which of two Rounds should appear in the final game. From the beginning of 1992 (see the map)...

...to the end of that year (level select is from December demo) the decision was not made. At some point, they had to deliver concept art to Toei Animation, and the studio would make animated opening and ending for Sonic CD. The latter would include all Rounds from the game, just like credits in Sonic 1 showed all Zones from that game.
It seems that development team could not decide which level they would use even after they sent concept art to Toei. So the studio created a sequence based on some artwork, completely unknown to us. It's not like rainbow waterfall, that is associated with Round 2. But it features roots, just like in the name "Ridicule Root."
The fact that this clip appeared in later editions of Sonic CD can mean 3 things:
1. It was included for "completion" reasons. And if the full animated ending is now complete...
2. ...Toei never created a clip with a water level. Why?
a). developers wanted to use only one underground Round. Water would only slow Sonic down, so at one stage, Ridicule Root was in priority.
b). animation specialists were instructed very vaguely about two locations that can look very similar, so one can replace the other.
3. Toei created clips for all 8 Rounds, but for some reason Tidal Tempest one was lost, so SEGA opted for using Ridicule Root clip as a bonus, even if that level was not featured in any edition of Sonic CD.
But that's only guesses. What we actually have is Sonic CD with Ridicule Root in the credits and Tidal Tempest in the game itself. Strange, isn't it?

For the most part of 1992, CD Sonic was supposed to be a game with 8 levels, CD-quality "Past" mixes... It looks like that by 1993 developers realized there would not be enough space to include all this stuff. So they had to make the hardware handle "Past" music and leave only one "slow" stage. They could have excluded Wacky Workbench from the list, right? Well, the logic was different, I suppose. Yes, Wacky Workbench is not a "fast" stage, but it has a gimmick that's unique. Sonic 1 did not have anything like that. And when the team finally decided to use Tidal Tempest instead of Ridicule Root, "uniqueness" came to the front. Because it's the only place on Little Planet where Sonic can explore underwater depths. In other words, there had to be at least one water-themed level in Sonic CD. Even if it's an expanded remake of Labyrinth.
My other theory is that there are different development documents that cover what was left out of the final product. Naoto Ohshima could have found information about a dungeon that never made it into Sonic CD and "Dubious Depths", which could have been an earlier name of Tidal Tempest – and that Round was not used, too (in animation, that is). Masato Nishimura could have looked up "Ridicule Root", probably the only name of R2. It would make sense if R4 was called Dubious Depths at one point of development. Right at the start the only way is down to the depths of uncertainty.

Developers had changed names of levels which made it to the final list. Even aforementioned Wacky Workbench was called Crazy Toy Box earlier. Why would they rename Ridicule Root, if they would not develop R2 further? Instead they probably decided to move elements of R2 to other places.
Fans would appear in Tidal Tempest, just like the whole "underground" theme would be further explored in that level (especially in "Past" version).

Antlion was planned to appear in R8: Metallic Madness.

While at Toei, the robot was featured in Ridicule Root clip. And rainbow water – in the intro.

Music of R2 would be used in "D.A. Garden" mode and remixed on Sonic The Hedgehog - Remix album. Soundtrack to Ridicule Root has a forest/jungle vibe to it, just like the name. Judging by the map, surface level played a role in the whole concept, what with trees, swinging platforms and stuff. That's why Dubious Depths doesn't fit as the final name of R2 – it only describes, well, the depths. R4 has a very short surface part at the start, that's all. That's why Dubious Depths would fit R4, maybe more than Tidal Tempest.
Concept art for R2 continues a "tradition" of Marble Zone: using ancient architecture (this time it's Roman aqueduct instead of Greek structures), mountains in the background... and no sign of any underground areas.


Marble was mostly about that dungeon with lava and spikes, but it had places above, too. I suppose Ridicule Root was something like that. Aqueducts above, traps and roots below.
Let's look at boss of R2.

The main motif here is a big spinning wheel. How do you make an underwater version of it? You replace tires with bubbles!
Also note that R2 boss art is rather sketchy, with no background, compared to R4 boss art.
Before you finish reading this, you would probably think that what I'm trying to say is "R2: Ridicule Root evolved into / merged with R4: Tidal Tempest." It's not exactly so. Tidal Tempest just seems to have "inhereted" the most part of Ridicule Root. Other locations feature ideas from R2 as well. Even musical theme of the lost level is called "Little Planet", like its influence is in every part of the game. Maybe Round 2 did not appear as a level in a way we are familiar with, but it spread its roots all over Little Planet, the Remix album and maybe even Botanic Base from Knuckles' Chaotix (some key people from CD team also worked on Chaotix).

In conclusion I would like to say that the only way to know for sure is to hear what developers of Sonic CD say and read what they write. Information does not appear out of nowhere. People share it. We could have waited years, decades even to find out the name of R2. And it would go like: Ohshima / Nishimura / Hoshino decide to share a bit of trivia and post on social media something about development of Sonic CD. "I've been cleaning up my house and found a design document. Here is a fun fact: Stardust Speedway was originally known as ... " – a developer would write in 2034. Or someone could just ask him/her in 2024. Anyway, that's what I did last year and got an answer that I could have had if I just thought about writing to Ohshima much earlier (say, in 2015). I had an honor to find out stuff and it's not an indication of how cool I am, but actually how cool Ohshima is. He found time in his busy schedule to check out information from 30+ years ago and share it. With a fan of Sonic. It could have been you, who are reading this right now. I am not encouraging to start sending hundreds of messages from everyone in Sonic community to developers of our favorite games. Let's just come up with a question and ask them politely. Like: "Could you tell please, why Tidal Tempest was not featured in ending sequence of Sonic CD?" You can ask that, I can ask – but let's not do it together and at the same time. We are all people, and it can be irritating to get the same question from everyone. It's better to think what other puzzles still remain unsolved in history of Sonic and what we can ask to get closer to solution. And if a person doesn't remember / doesn't want to answer / doesn't have time – the best thing to do is to leave that person alone.