The Sonic Adventure 2 that almost was...

^ We're not. That's exactly what is not supposed to happen. We'll leave that for now. I just messaged MarkoMan with the explanation.

 

Well the fact that there isn't an established "canon" aside from character bios and whatever the head of each individual project decides to use in their game aside, Sega's official statement on Nega (and assumedly Blaze) is that he's from another dimension and that he was only from the future in sonic Rivals to explain the card mechanic. (No, that doesn't make any sense to me, either, but if you have a problem you should take it up with Sega.) I can dig up the interview if you guys want, but you should be able to find it on either Cult or GHZ (forget which one I read it on, it's been a while). The Rivals games were also never released in Sega's home country. If you're trying to come up with a timeline, that would probably be important to consider. I guess. Sega tried to make a canon after the Adventure series for a while but that sort of fell apart once multiple teams started developing new Sonic titles.

On topic:
One thing I remember reading before SA2 was released was that the winner of a create a character contest Sega of America held online in 2000 or so was named Nails the Bat and would be featured in SA2... I can't really find anything about Nails being the winner right now, but I definitely remember that contest. (My entry was a red hedgehog named Blaze who was just like Sonic but slightly slower and had a stronger spin dash called the break dash... I was 10 so it seemed cool at the time)
Does anyone else remember this or did I hallucinate the whole thing?

 

I'm pretty late to the party, but I'm glad that SA2's development is being discussed right now.

But we should keep in mind that Rouge isn't actually evil in SA2 (I know you added "quote marks", but it seemed like you were stressing Rouge as an evil character). In the final game, she's playing at the side of evil so she can gather intellegence because that was her job by the government. She is an undercover spy. Unlike Eggman and Shadow, Rouge had no real malicious intent throughout the game. Her real motivation however (harmless for the most part, aside of stealing Knuckles' M.E.), was jewels, and not destroying the world. Point I'm making is that perhaps she (still) was Knuckles' counterpart as a neutral character at some point in SA2's development.

As for her original name Nails, I can certainly say that I too have heard of that name before along with a pre-production polygonal model of her in an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly in 2000. If you may, I will try and find the page through my huge collection of gaming magazines from the 90s. I'll report if I find anything.

Please keep in mind, that I had to wrap up this post in a pressure rush. There may be some fragile points I made so I guess feel free to point out anything in my post.

 

This topic makes my panties wet. I especially enjoy the fact that if this is to believed, Knuckles being a tweener character may have prevented his descension into character purgatory. Knuckles' role is what intrigues me the most.

 

I think you have that backwards. Shadow the Hedgehog happens after Sonic Heroes, which occurs after Sonic Adventure 2.

Think about it - if Shadow the Hedgehog were to take place before SA2, then it would make no sense for nobody to know who Shadow is in SA2. Plus, if you prolong the Devil Doom fight, Eggman mentions sending one of his robots to retrieve Shadow as he fell from the ARK - which means that SA2 comes before Shadow the Hedgehog.

 

Uh... Pretty sure he was talking about Sonic Battle...

 

I think I saw scans of this in Sonic HQ's news section way back when (they were some of the first images of Shadow and Rouge online). I'm not sure if it's still hosted on the site now, but you may want to check their archives.

And Blanche, you're probably right about the Chao thing.

 

I wasn't saying continuity didn't exist from Sonic Adventure onward, just that trying to place the spinoffs and handhelds in sequence with the main console games like you had was just guesswork and that SEGA themselves had probably never even considered it. Of course Battle happened after Adventure 2 and before Advance 3, but there's nothing to indicate any relation to Heroes, ShtH, or 06. That's why I said you were overthinking things.

I'm not making a "How Sonic was or what Sonic was to them, or what it still means to them" argument, just saying that it seems to me that 'SEGA didn't think' and they really don't consider continuity within the larger series when writing stories to the games. Most of it just seems to be determined by fan demand, like bringing back Shadow after SA2. After 06, many fans had grown tired of all the story arcs and supporting characters so SEGA simply didn't use them or acknowledge them in Unleashed. It seems to me that currently SEGA is actively moving away from the idea of an overall continuity for the series.

Getting back to Sonic Adventure 2, if it really was as dark as some of the dropped concepts seem to indicate and it was released that way, could it have killed the series? I mean there was Shadow and 06 later, but if they had released a darker game at the end of the Dreamcast's lifecycle, how would it affect the rating, and would it sell well enough to warrant a port to other consoles?

 

I couldn't find it.

 

Sorry then. I'm pretty sure it was the HQ site, but hopefully you or someone else can find it elsewhere.

 

Google 'the wayback machine', if they had it up there and didn't archive it, you may find it on there.

 

I couldn't find it there, either.

Unless they used a different domain name back then. :v: But that wouldn't account for it, would it?

 

Was it Sonichq.org you tried? That was their original page. I'm looking at August 2000 pages now.

In the games list, it mentions "Sonic Police" and "Sonic Square" but no page exists for either of them.

 

That dark side preview also has a different sounding "throw it all away" theme, or at least, it seems quite different to me. more guitar heavy and different chord progression.


That shadow eye intriges me. I would like to belive that is what we're looking for, but in a later scene seen in the trailer, shadow's eyes are perfectly fine. I doubt they would mix such different characther design for the same characther in one video.


anyways, where is this video from? the final game? or some sort of preview from a show or something?

 

I just searched all over those pages and still didn't find it.

It can't be the ONLY site on the internet to have posted it, though.

 

I wouldn't rule the eye thing out as being just an animation error.

 

This does sound familiar though I think I've heard one or two conflicting stories. I personally seem to remember a character creation contest here though for some reason I also seem to want to pair that with the Sonic R toys given away at Burger King (this was around the time of Sonic R's PC release, so late 1998, early 1999). My memory's a bit hazy about all of that.

"Nails the Bat" also sounds familiar though.

A quick google search shows that barely any dreamcast magazines have been accounted for. I mean there were at least three dedicated Dreamcast mags in the UK alone. I think there might be something of value if someone was to dig this stuff up.