Nakamura likely composed the songs based on concept art sent to him. Since we have yet to see concept art for desert/Sand Shower Zone (or Dust Hill/Mystic Cave sadly), we have no idea what the zone looked like at that point. His demo for the song has a very Egyptian feel to it IMO: And Sonic 3 (& Knuckles) is known to have reused Sonic 2's concept art: Perhaps Brenda's art clashed with the original zone concept and that's why they were dissatisfied with it? Who knows?
I figured they would save the best for last. But I really doubt it will be a Sonic 1 proto. Even Yuji Naka doesn't have any prototypes of that game. Would absolutely love to be wrong though.
So, object 5A is the unused CNZ Crawl badnik, but it's an older version. It was made for the old art that's in the Simon Wai proto that got removed and replaced with newer art. In this video, I have restored the art and allowed it to be placed in debug mode:
At the bottom of Hidden Palace's updated Sonic 2 post it also says "The support we have received over the past few weeks have really made us excited for what’s in store next. The next prototype we have to show you will be something you’ll never forget. But in the meantime..." which makes it sound like this next beta is something really special. I'm still in doubt that it'll be Sonic 1 just due to the absolute lack of betas emerging over the past 25+ years, but you never know. Maybe it could be an early Sonic 3 standalone build? Correct me if i'm wrong but aren't the only betas that have been found for that game so far been very late prerelease ones with little differences? An early build could be incredibly interesting on a music point alone. (also hi i've had this account for ages but forgot to post on here before. I also don't remember what pending member means, sorry if i'm supposed to do something to fix that it's been ages.)
An early Sonic 3 build would be amazing to see. The Tails whistle, S2 sprites, surfboard intro, MJ music, etc.
It's on Hidden Palace, check their website and look for the Discord link on the left. And yes, I would place my bets on an early Sonic 3 proto. I mean, I got the most recent release guess right, might as well try for a second.
Pardon my ignorance, but is it possible for it to be a post-Genesis/Mega Drive proto? It would be wild if we got an early Adventure/SA2 proto or something.
drx has released post-Genesis protos before, but I think Saz hyping up a non Genesis proto is less likely.
I don't know you guys, but for me it was very satisfying to play Hidden Palace again after a decade (even tho's there's almost no difference from the Nick Arcade / Simon Prototype) in a new build. Especially the fact it's the first time we play Hidden Palace in a build that has the final sprites for Sonic and Tails. And it STILL uses the 2-Player Mystic Cave music while the "$10 track" is present in this build as well. That was a trip. I am also making all my bets that the next prototype will be Sonic 3 using Sonic 2's sprites.
Great, now we are gonna spend an entire week speculating what's next instead of looking at the pretty major Sonic 2 prototypes we've just got.
A relatively minor thing, but I remember everyone agreeing that the reason that the Wai beta didn't start with the SEGA logo was because it was tempered with by pirates. It's interesting that it's also missing here. I'm guessing the devs very quickly got tired of seeing the SEGA screen on every bootup and just set the game to start at the title screen.
Holy crap - two protos famed for appearing in magazine/book scans, now accounted for! Amazing stuff, drx - I never thought we'd see the proto with final sprites in Wood Zone dumped, or that we'd finally get to see the more-complete pink Casino Night, and yet here we are. Incredible stuff! This August build is surprisingly close to the Wai build in a lot of areas - makes me think the Wai build is later in development than we'd previously assumed. Interesting that Stego has been added to the HPZ debug list - am I right that it's using its updated art, but still pointing to the second palette line (as the original art would have required) rather than Sonic and Tails' palette? I also find it interesting that the Special Stage is basically at a proof-of-concept stage in the September build, only a month or so away from the final game! It seems things really got down to the wire with this game's development... Thanks also for the streams showcasing these finds - my life circumstances right now mean I don't have time to explore these protos for myself yet, so being able to at least see a video run through of them is very much appreciated! Looking forward to next week's finale with eager anricipation - sounds like it's gonna be big! = )
What I personally believe is that they disabled everything that is still Sonic 1'd / Unfinished. For example, the SEGA boot screen, the title cards, the end-act score tally, as well as the capsule at the end of a boss. As soon the Sonic 2 'SEGA' screen was finished, it was never disabled again, which would, in my opinion, be the case for longer if the reason was SEGA being sick of seeing the screen. Lastly why Nick Arcade still did had the SEGA screen was either because it just was that early, or because they wanted people participating at Nick Arcade to know that SEGA made the game since they left the demos run through the whole show. ---- Now that I've made my first post I just want to thank drx and those involved in the amazing way this Sonic Month is executed. This is so much better than just seeing randomly a thread on here with a Sonic proto dump. The hype, the number of people that get together in the twitch chat seeing the proto for the very first time played is a great experience, and I've been watching every week since Sonic CD's release. At first, I was expecting minor Sonic protos, and the last week being something on the level of Sonic 2, but the level of protos already released so far is unbelievable amazing. The early Sonic CD, the 2 missing magazine protos from Sonic 2, and a Sega CD demo that had a lot of rumors behind it. I've not been so excited about something in long time as much as the next coming week. Personally guess on a 'RING' proto of Sonic 1, or Sonic 3 with the Sonic 2 sprites. Either get me very excited just thinking about it, but I wouldn't be disappointed at all if its neither. This month has been great, and nothing will stop that!
