Some interesting scans were posted on Twitter the other day: https://twitter.com/sonic_arena/status/1412439797289861125 The screenshots look like they're from the AOU Show 1996 build. What's interesting here is that the character select screen has different icons for Tails and Bark, who's sporting his earlier design. (The Sonic Retro page says that the AOU 1996 Bark is all white, but that looks like it might be down to poor photo quality. He's more noticeably yellow in these screenshots.) Tails' icon is similar to his Sonic Drift 2 art (Sonic, Amy, Knuckles and Fang's icons use Drift 2 art), but it doesn't seem to be a 1:1 match. The full magazine can be downloaded here: https://www.retromags.com/files/fil...e-to-fighting-games-1996-edition-spring-1996/
While not part of these screenshots, this did make me look at those AOU screenshots and notice something It shows an early look at Bean The Dynamite. Here he just has a Sonic-like side mouth, but in the final game it extends through his beak. The Next Match image stuff uses this original design.
I've purchased a copy of the Fighting Games mag with the intention to re-scan that page. I'm not happy with the image we have, but the magazine itself was damaged in transit making a full scan not possible.
A while ago Fang's character designer had this to say about Sonic the Fighters: Machine translated: So are there any noticable differences between Fang's moves in these early screenshots and the final? Can we see the transition from "cool Fang" to "goofy Fang"?
A wild guess, but I believe this is "cool Fang" and this is "goofy Fang", or they might both be "cool Fang" compared to the final used character portraits.
Oh you are right, I misread that. I don't think any of that would have carried over but all the "motion" names are in the ROM: Code (Text): MAIN_DATA:02C00407 0000000E C FAN_DAT_SIP00 MAIN_DATA:02C00415 0000000A C FAN_GUN00 MAIN_DATA:02C0041F 0000000A C FAN_GUN01 MAIN_DATA:02C00429 0000000A C FAN_SIP00 MAIN_DATA:02C00433 0000000A C FAN_SIP10 MAIN_DATA:02C0043D 0000000A C FAN_SIP20 MAIN_DATA:02C00447 0000000C C FAN_SIPKI00 MAIN_DATA:02C00453 0000000C C FAN_SIPKI10 MAIN_DATA:02C0045F 0000000C C FAN_SIPKI20 MAIN_DATA:02C0046B 0000000E C FAN_SIP_KUUHA MAIN_DATA:02C00489 0000000D C FNG_DB_GUN00 MAIN_DATA:02C00496 0000000D C FNG_DB_GUN10 MAIN_DATA:02C004A3 0000000D C FNG_DB_GUN20 MAIN_DATA:02C004B0 0000000D C FNG_DB_GUN30 MAIN_DATA:02C004BD 0000000D C FNG_HI_GUN00 MAIN_DATA:02C004CA 0000000D C FNG_HI_GUN01 MAIN_DATA:02C004D7 0000000D C FNG_HI_GUN02 MAIN_DATA:02C004E4 0000000F C FNG_YOKE_GUN00 In fact, I think Fang has the least amount of unique animations in the game...
