Strange "EXIT" graphic loaded in VRAM in the Special Stage. Like Stego, the old Crawl design got a nice update before it was discarded.
I honestly did not expect to be able to do this - trigger splitscreen in Sky Fortress Zone. Oof god, that's one ugly garbled mess. (Also of note is that the platform there seems to be solid, so you can't jump through it from under like you can in later builds (IF I remember correctly).
OK, so I figured it out; Highlighting 2P Versus before hitting A + start SEEMS to allow you to enter (non-water) levels in splitscreen. Unless I am a total doof, and am missing something. XD EDIT: Looks like Splitscreen allowed for the area past the final boss arena to be revealed, showing that at least part of the exploding passageway was put in (no explosions, of course). The camera stopping where it did when not in splitscreen mode made whether this was in place a bit of a mystery (TO ME, at least) given the incomplete end of stage bits (like CNZ2's stage end triggering while still in the boss arena area).
Interesting that OOZ still uses what became CNZ 2P's music, and HPZ still uses what became MCZ 2P's music, despite the full soundtrack being in the game.
I think my previous notion about enabling splitscreen, that you need to highlight 2P Versus before going into the level select to be able to do 2P splitscreen in stages w/o water, is further supported - when I tried to go into the special stage from the level select after highlighting 2P Versus, the game crashed. Hahaha EDIT: Potential epilepsy warning for anyone who tries to play Metropolis Zone w/ split screen enabled, hahaha EDIT2: Aside from the flowers being garbled, Hill Top looks almost good/great graphically split screen.... except for the boss, of course, which is a garbled mess. Also, lava in the boss area doesn't hurt you.
Also fun to note: That Sonic 1 style spike behavior (with regards to hitting spikes / hitting spikes while getting rebounded from hitting spikes) - no temporary invincibility - is STILL PRESENT in this prototype! You can, if debug mode is enabled, get out of it by going into object mode. Most likely - and, on that note, said magazines had to have gotten that name from somewhere. Here's something else that is interesting: You can go into Chemical Plant 1 in split screen due to there being no water, but it seems like the game removes the sign post at the end (as there was one when I played normally, but none when I tried to go through act 1 in split screen). Did the game have code built in to remove the signpost if the next zone, and/or act had water in it, to prevent issues from trying to load a water level? (pardon the quadruple post) Also of note: In Sky Fortress, after opening the passage to the boss (erm, the nonexistent boss, I guess), if you hang a left back the way you came after dropping down, instead of hanging right to go to the boss area / catch your biplane to the Death Egg, there is no wall/barrier preventing you from walking too far. AS a result, if you go too far left, you will walk off the floor, and fall to your death.
OK. So that START text in the special stage. Is that just the highlight mode being used for that? Clever if so.
Hey, that's the same "Đ" they used on the recently released Sonic CD beta, it's probably the same handwriting.
About that Oil Ocean Zone music that was still used from the Simon Wai prototype. Maybe the final music used for Oil Ocean Zone was actually earmarked for Sand Showers Zone early on when mock-ups were being produced. Maybe someone was reviewing the music and told the developers it sounded better to swap it. It would also explain why the credits have a 2P track in it and not the final for Oil Ocean. EDIT: I obviously haven't listened to the credits theme in a while. It's there along with the other 2P music. Oil Ocean's final music is still missing in the credits anyway. I wonder how early in production the music was made before it was programmed into the game. Also what other zoned two-player music was meant to be used for full fledged zones before they got canned. Like 2P-Emerald Hill Zone sounds like it would fit the mock up for Tropical Sun or Ocean Wind. And Sky Chase's final music going for Blue Ocean. What if the Results Music was actually zone music, given how long the music runs before it loops (~0:42). Would be interesting if the musicians could be interviewed about how they made the music, and if they recognize certain of those concept zone sketches.
Huh, I actually kinda prefer this design. It's a lot clearer and I wouldn't have thought that badnik was some kinda duck slug for my whole childhood
Damn, TWO new Sonic 2 protos? This is awesome! While Sonic 3 & Knuckles was always my favorite, the Wai proto got me into looking into video game prototypes. Having a new Sonic 2 proto today and another one coming tomorrow (or I suppose later today, depending on time zone) is great news!
I'm not much of a poster but I just want to say how cool this whole thing is, in 2019 we are still finding new things in Sonic 2 which is wild. I'm very interested to see this 2nd prototype since unlike the Sonic CD protos, these were split between two days, makes the imagination run a bit.
I'm not sure if today's proto is another Sonic2. No hints last night to confirm that. One can hope it's so, or it could be another bomb, like Sonic3K or something. Gotta wait and see.
Oh! Then let it come! Hoping for new findings. No offense taken xD I watched the stream until the end, but failed to notice that. Sorry.
I'm not convinced the Dust Hill title card is definitive proof of anything either. I think it's worth pointing out a little oddity in Sonic 2 that shows some of the devs just blindly went with what was already in the game, regardless of whether it was 'correct' or not: In Chemical Plant Zone, the doors are graphically bugged: The sprite on the left is what you normally see, however, the ones on the right are the intended design. The reason the game uses the wrong sprite is because all of the door objects in Chemical Plant use the wrong subtype value, So case closed, right? Chemical Plant's doors are bugged, and the broken sprite was never the intended design. Well, if we start going by the 'something else deliberately does the same thing therefore it's all deliberate' logic, then no. Here's that same door in Death Egg Zone: This sprite data is only used in Death Egg Zone - this is in contrast to the previous sprite data, which is shared between all doors in Hill Top, Metropolis, Aquatic Ruin, and Chemical Plant. The reason the bugged Chemical Plant door design even exists in the first place is because it's actually Hill Top's sprite data, being used with Chemical Plant's graphics. So why does the Death Egg Zone sprite data resemble the Hill Top sprite's pattern? Well, there are two answers: either the guy that made the Death Egg sprite just blindly went with what Chemical Plant's doors looked like in-game, or this is 100% definitive proof that Chemical Plant's doors were intended to be an ugly glitchy mess haha take that you silly non-believers how does it feel to be wrong? Personally, seeing people take this title card as 'definitive' proof sounds like you're falling for a game of Chinese Whispers. For all we know, the title card is just the result of some dev echoing whatever the level select says. You know, like what you guys have been doing for the past 20 years. Point is, this could potentially be no more 'proof' than those old magazine articles that also called the zone 'Dust Hill', because that's what the demo they were given said.
While you folks are contesting the Dust Hill/Mystic Cave connection, my mind went somewhere entirely different; The title cards being present, but Hidden Palace being in the state it's in almost implies that there's an earlier prototype out there with title cards and an intact Hidden Palace (most likely identical to how we see it in the early prototypes).