The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

Hey again everyone, I'd like to share something which hopefully is of some interest and perhaps gives us a bit of a glimmer of hope regarding the original Sonic The Hedgehog prototype.

I was looking at reviews for Sonic The Hedgehog (16-Bit) recently and read a hint from a reviewer which intrigued me somewhat. The hint reads "At the very beginning of Labyrinth Zone, Stage 1, you can skip some obstacles by jumping up out of the screen in to the hidden level. You can't see Sonic but the screen will scroll by".

I've played Sonic 1 at the very least a thousand times (no kidding) and thought that this sounded odd, as I'd never done this before. I went ahead and just tried to do as this hint suggests (on all Acts just to be safe) to no avail. At the beginning of Labyrinth Zone Act 1 there's a gap above you but there's no way that you can circumvent the brickwork, and even if you could, the screen locks at the top so you can't go beyond the boundaries even with debug enabled:



I then remembered seeing on SoST that Labyrinth Zone Act 1's start was a little different in the beta version. In the beta, there's a little ledge that one could jump up to:



That'd be a bit coincidental wouldn't it? That the screenshot of the beta we have just seems to match up with an incorrect hint the reviewer gave us about the very start of LZ Act 1.

Quite likely is that the reviewer was sent a pre-release version which ended up being reviewed early in time to be printed in the magazine for the game's release. Perhaps they were told it was pretty much the finished version thus why they reviewed it? Whether they got to keep the copy though is another question entirely, but if what I'm saying's correct, it means there must be printed copies of the pre-release game floating around out in the world somewhere.

I tried a search for the reviewer and any links to their name "Boogie Man" but have so far come up with nothing. GamePro also shut down in 2011.

What this also could mean is that the game was being changed and worked on right up until the deadline for printing/shipping.

Thoughts, anyone?

 

Not directly related, but that ledge is still there in the final! The gap is just occupied by a block object.

 

I've always thought it was a bit odd that there was a "block" object since that kind of stuff belongs to the level structure... Is that the only place where it's used?

 

That chunk? Or the object? MZ likes to make use of its identical block object to cut down on similar-yet-mostly-duplicate chunks, and this LZ chunk looks like your usual staircase chunk.

EDIT: The block object is used all over the place. 21 in act 1. The chunk is used 3 times in act 1. The missing 'ledge' part is in fact part of a stair-like structure, according to its usage anyway. OF the three are the one at the entrance, one where it's just used a part of a winding tunnel, and the other is like the first: the upper part isn't used as a part of a tunnel, but the block underneath the 'missing' one has a gargoyle attached to it.

 

Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone like to use these block objects everywhere to fix little issues with chunks (like the noobish issue of having a marble zone layout with lava that should be flowing out, it simply floats in place), as well as to make some repetitive areas (like the jumping y-looped area before Labyrinth Zone's boss) seem a little bit less boring. They can get really annoying when hacking, as their graphics are separate from the level tiles, requiring the hacker to change their art work before they can fit properly into levels with lots of edited art.

 

/co/ was doing character edits and then this happened:

 

Seeing that reminds me of just how forehead-heavy SA1's design was.

 

That's cool except for the girly pose, which would have suited Amy better.

 

I love how they added that shit eating grin

 

oh

I wonder what autodesk sketchbook-using /co/mrade wasted time doing that

(the reason it started from Minnie is that the thread was about removing an iconic piece of wardrobe, which someone did to Minnie. Then people kept saying to remove stuff to make it Mickey, but it was suddenly hijacked into Sonic)


also, bonus round

 

Those LCD Sonic-related handhelds given away with McDonalds happy meals a few years back.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/131189286376
http://www.ebay.com/itm/141285831013

Looks like in the Philippines they were bundled in watch form. Someone might need to go hunting.

 

I suspect that the "game watch" description might be the seller's way of saying "Game & Watch" as in "regular LCD game", rather than an actual watch.

The boxes look interesting, though...

 

Yeah they look cool. I still have mine. Safely tucked away!

Also, a few years back? Talk about 9 years ago, if not 10 by now!

They were advertised with Sonic Heroes.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PHD92YDQls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAwmjGGzrV4

I like that you can play these unrelated music tracks together to create an offbeat Wrapped in Black remix.

 

Say, remember how in SA1 Dreamcast, if you went into the soundtest, you could find entries for sounds that would play during each overworld's title card? They were all blank except for the Egg Carrier's, which was just occupied by the ship's transformation sound. The actual sound files are in the PC port. In the SONICADVENTUREDX\system\sounddata\bgm\wma folder, under the names:

• titl_egg.wma (Egg Carrier)
• titl_mr1.wma (Mystic Ruins area 1)
• titl_mr2.wma (Mystic Ruins area 2)
• titl_ss.wma (Station Square)

Despite being an unused element of the game, I don't see this documented on tcrf.net or our wiki's Secrets pages. Are they not the files I think they are, and are just leftovers from the online feature of SA1 Dreamcast?

EDIT: I have to stay, stuff like this would've really spiced up 06's loading screens.

 

it was a true mistake not having a midi organ playing the song from sonic advance's neo green hill zone in the background during the 06 loading

 

Close enough.

 

"titl_ss" is actually used on the "Thanks for playing!" screen when you complete a stage in the PC trial version.

 

Does this behaviour date back to any DX Gamecube trials?

 

So I recently picked up a CIB Sega Game gear for a local flea market. The box is a bit beat up, I apologize if that ruins the quality for what I'm about to show, but it was worth the money I paid for it.
This version came with Sonic The Hedgehog 2, hence it being called "The Sonic 2 System". Take a look.



And here is a picture of the back of the box.



Hey wait a minute... That screenshot of Aqua Lake looks a bit odd... Let's have a closer look at that...



I don't ever remember there ever being checkerboard floors in the 2nd act of Aqua Lake... Hm...