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The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by McGuirk, Jan 10, 2007.

  1. Adamis

    Adamis

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    I didn't spot the quills difference, nice catch !
    I did post the Beep Magazine scan a few pages ago too. Gotta love Sonic CD's art style ;)/>
     
  2. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    I love the hand-drawn animations as much as the next guy but those screenshots you've uploaded. They're significant.

    Really significant.

    (and that's not just because after almost 25 years after they were first published, nobody apparently noticed that Palmtree Panic had a different background until now)


    I've been glancing over Sonic CD's development as I've been doing my rounds on the wikis - as far as I knew, Sega released a couple of screenshots in early 1993 (one, two), and then I assumed the 510 beta got sent around. What your screenshots suggest is that there was, in fact, an earlier build shown in some form... and early Sonic CD builds may have a whiff of R2 about them.


    The first thing I did was cross-reference thsoe screenshots with the collection and top spot, this issue of EGM has the same screenshots. This suggests that they originally stem straight from Sega (much like our early Sonic 2 screenshots), and therefore leaves the possibility open for higher quality versions being found.

    These were not captured by the magazine. Observe the abormally tall screenshot on that EGM scan that appears to be stitched together - here it is again at the other side of the world.

    Sonic's life counter is misaligned in one of those shots - that will make the build easier to recognise.



    Looks like we need to do some hunting!
     
  3. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    Yep okay this is definitely something for me to do after work tomorrow.

    http://retrocdn.net/index.php?title=File%3AMegaForce_FR_14.pdf&page=28

    Sonic CD, Palmtree Panic present... using Palmtree Panic Future's background.

    eeeep
     
  4. JaxTH

    JaxTH

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    Jack shit.
    Is it really that early that they're calling it Sonic 2?
     
  5. DigitalDuck

    DigitalDuck

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    The magazine date is February 1993, so I'm guessing it's an error.
     
  6. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    Sega did spend most of 1992 drilling in the idea of a "Sonic 2 CD" coming soon. If you're not quite on the ball it's easy to get confused.

    One thing you also find is that a lot of "Western" magazines use the likes of Famitsu as a source for Japanese news, so things often get lost in translation.
     
  7. SonicGenesis89

    SonicGenesis89

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    I'm actually tempted to buy this issue of Beep! just so I can get a high resolution scan of the page. It has really nice art of the enemies on it as well as an early prototype version of the illustration of Sonic and Amy. It's colored slightly differently and Amy's dress is shaped differently and more pointy. And of course we can get a better and clearer view of the storyboards on the lower right hand corner. We may have gotten the one in good quality now but the other one we still don't have. It's a storyboard for the ending of the opening animation sequence when Sonic is standing on top of the mountain and sees Little Planet chained to the Eggman rock and then proceeds to jump off the mountain to curl into a ball and climb the chain.

    For many years I have been obsessing over the prototypes of Sonic CD. I used to be really obsessed and I used to play and study the 510 Beta all of the time and documented all of the differences between it and the final build. There's so many different things I liked in 510 Beta that the final version of the game lacks such as the different flowers that matched the stages better in my opinion and were unique to each stage. They even had animations and changed colors depending on what time period you were in. They were so cool! :) Then the final version of the game has more bland and generic looking flowers compared to the 510 Beta and they didn't change color in different time periods either. It always bothered me why they changed something so simple and minor. I really want to know why they changed the flowers. But anyways, I'm going a little bit off subject. For years I always researched Sonic CD and always wanted to find an even earlier prototype than 510 Beta. A prototype of Sonic CD that's earlier than 510 Beta is like the Holy Grail for me. It's something I've been wanting for years now. The early screenshots showing Palmtree Panic with a different background I've known about for a really long time now and I've been wanting to mention it to everybody. I was actually quite surprised that nobody else seemed to notice it because it was the first thing that I noticed when looking at the one screenshot in particular where the background is very early and empty. I believe there are multiple different prototype builds besides 510 Beta out there somewhere.

    In this screenshot here it's very early. The background is extremely empty looking. So much so that it stuck out and it was the very first thing that I noticed when looking at it. It lacks any green trees and vegetation and the mountains themselves lack detail and look very unfinished. I believe this is one of the earliest builds of Sonic CD that may be laying around. This could also be the build that has the Palmtree Panic enemies in Collision Chaos and the different time travel animation. It will also probably have R2 still intact in it as well. This is one of the builds I would do anything to find and get a hold of.

    [​IMG]

    Now in this screenshot you can see that this is a slightly later build and more work has been done in the game. The background has more detail and looks more complete. The mountains are completely detailed and no longer look like unfinished blocks and now there is a new layer of detail which is the green plants and vegetation with the waterfalls. This build may also be out there somewhere, just waiting to be found. This build may also still have the Palmtree Panic enemies in Collision Chaos and R2 still intact. These are the prototypes I want so desperately bad to find.

    [​IMG]

    Even these early screenshots of Collision Chaos look slightly different than in the final. The background looks slightly incomplete and the mountainous shrubs are smaller and everything is more yellow colored.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    These two different builds may even have the original Special Stages in them.

    Either this one with the R2 looking Special Stage background and the hot air balloons.

    [​IMG]

    Or this one, back when it was completely different and was like some kind of pinball machine themed Special Stage.

    [​IMG]

    Even though in these early screenshots Palmtree Panic's background looks similar to the Good Future version of the stage, they are in fact completely different. I quickly played Sonic CD and checked before adding these screenshots to the Wiki just to be completely sure and there is significant differences. The Good Future version looks more futuristic and the mountains are also smaller and completely different too.

    [​IMG]

    They are similar though and were probably made together at the same time. The background in the screenshots is completely different and unique. I have a theory as to why they might have changed the background for the Present. They probably felt there wasn't enough differentiation between timelines and wanted to make each time period stand out and show a gradual change and difference. They wanted each timeline to look very different and unique. Sonic CD was actually a pretty ambitious game for 1993. There was a lot of great ideas that wanted to be fleshed out and you can see that they were still playing around with color palettes, level layouts, and ideas up through the 510 Beta. In the 510 Beta, there are several stages that have different color palettes than in the final version of the game. To name a few, Stardust Speedway Good Future, Wacky Workbench Past, and Collision Chaos Past all had slightly different or completely different color palettes. Collision Chaos' Past orange sky was a much lighter color, Wacky Workbench Past was blue instead of green, and Stardust Speedway Good Future was also blue instead of purple. There's also an early screenshot that I found of Collision Chaos Bad Future that has a completely different color palette. It predates 510 Beta because in 510 Beta Collision Chaos' Bad Future has it's final color scheme. So that would mean that this version of Collision Chaos shown in the screenshot could belong to the same builds that have R2 still intact, Palmtree Panic with the alternate background, and the Palmtree Panic enemies in Collision Chaos.

    In this version of Collision Chaos, the clouds and shrubs are a bluish green color, the pipes in the background are red, the neon signs are green and blue, and the foreground is a grayish blue color.

    [​IMG]

    Here's a look at the final version of the stage for comparison. In the final the clouds and shrubs are a red color, the neon signs are red and blue, the pipes in the background are green, and the foreground is a brownish gray color.

    [​IMG]

    I was surprised that nobody noticed this screenshot either and I had been wanting to add it to the Wiki for a very long time now. I'm glad that I was finally able to share and add everything to the Wiki and finally be able to discuss it in depth with everyone. I also have a theory as to what happened with R2 and why it is not in the 510 Beta. I strongly believe that R2 was eventually turned into Tidal Tempest. This would make sense as to why Tidal Tempest has no animated sequence in the ending cutscene while R2 does. R2 was the original stage. I don't think they had even planned Tidal Tempest by the time they sent their resources to the animation team to animate. You can see a lot of interesting differences and prototype-ish things in the animated ending sequence with other stages as well. For example, I was watching the segment for Collision Chaos a little while ago and I noticed something really interesting.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Does anything look familiar? If you look really closely you can see a traffic light, a traffic sign, an air horn, and a microphone on the neon sign that Sonic is standing on. Now look at this concept art here.

    [​IMG]

    You can see some similarities. I always thought that this was possibly Stardust Speedway concept art and now I'm not too sure anymore. I also really wish I can see what was going on in the background a little bit better.

    I had also heard that one of the reasons why R2 was cut was because it was visually lacking compared to all of the other stages and they felt it wasn't interesting enough. So, I think they completely revamped the stage entirely turning it into Tidal Tempest. It could explain why Tidal Tempest has ruins in it like Marble Zone which R2 was supposedly supposed to resemble and take after. From what little we know of R2 is that it had round archways, it's Good Future had rainbow waterfalls, and that short animated sequence in the ending gives us an idea of how it might have looked and some of the gimmicks such as sinkholes and antlion badniks.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Then there's the unusual graphics and angel statue in Wacky Workbench's Past in a secret room. I think that could have been left over assets for R2 that they decided to utilize in some way instead of just not using it at all. The tiles match a Marble looking foreground and the angel statue certainly matches the whole ruins and archways motiff. Another interesting thing to note is that if you look at the R2 concept art with the rainbow waterfalls, the brick designs on the foreground and walls match the bricks in the secret room with the angel statue.

    [​IMG]

    Another reason that makes me believe that R2 became Tidal Tempest is because a long time ago, one of my good friends asked Naoto Ohshima some questions about Sonic CD and R2 Zone and he said that there were always seven levels. There was never anymore levels beyond that. So if that's the case, then Tidal Tempest didn't come into the picture until much later in development long after R2 was scrapped. Tidal Tempest in 510 Beta also has a lot of issues with it even though it has complete Acts with enemies and objects in place. There's the issues with the color palette in the water and the fact that they didn't program drowning into the game yet. My intuition is just telling me that R2 eventually evolved into Tidal Tempest and we had only just missed seeing R2 in 510 Beta. I feel like if we had found a slightly earlier build we may have still seen R2 intact.

    Another interesting thing to note about the Palmtree Panic background in the early screenshots is that it more closely resembles the background of Green Hill Zone. Although still entirely different, you can see the similarities. Originally Sonic CD was going to be a port of Sonic 1 before evolving into it's very own brand new game and adventure so it makes sense that originally Palmtree Panic more closely resembled Green Hill Zone. Just like how Collision Chaos Act 2's level design is very similar to Spring Yard's Act 2 level design. There's even a few sections of Palmtree Panic's level design that is similar to Green Hill's.

    [​IMG]
     
  8. JaxTH

    JaxTH

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    Jack shit.
    FTFY. ;)
     
  9. Adamis

    Adamis

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  10. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    ...Best Sonic drawings ever.
     
  11. SonicGenesis89

    SonicGenesis89

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    I just added these to the Wiki. :) I love these drawings so much. <3 Words cannot express how happy I am that this person is sharing art for Sonic CD's animated cutscenes.
     
  12. AnimatedAF

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    I hate smoking IRL but man if that Sonic staff room art isn't the coolest Sonic art I've seen in a long time I don't know what is..
     
  13. Beltway

    Beltway

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    I actually asked about the following bit sometime last year, and didn't get much of a response, and then kinda forgot about it.

    Sonic 3's is widely said to have been split into two games due to the vague reason of "time constraints"--this has apparently been clarified to mean that the game's development time was at risk of breaching a promotion deal Sega had forged with McDonald's related to the game. Apparently the game was set to be released for February 1994, which is when McDonald's to their end of the deal had a set of Happy Meal toys (which, oddly enough, were based on the recently-premiered Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog show rather than the game) and a sweepstakes promotion to coincide with the game's launch; both the toys and the sweepstakes deal are mentioned/featured in this commercial. Since the game wasn't set to be completed by the point, that is when the decision was made to split the projects. (It is also worth noting that Burger King in the UK also featured Sonic toys for kids meals during November of the previous year--not only were the toys also based on AoSTH, but the promotion reportedly started the same week AoSTH began airing. In light of this, it's possible Sonic 3 may had been actually expected to be released for the 1993 holiday season, but the deal ended up being pushed back a few months due to the game's development. A commercial for that event can be seen in this video --43 minutes in the video--, major kudos to Xilla for mentioning it when I first brought the subject up.)

    [​IMG]

    (Promotional flyer back when the Sonic 3 logo had the old Sonic 2 "blue in yellow" color scheme.)

    [​IMG]

    Screenshot of the Happy Meal commercial with the logo having the finalized "yellow in blue" color shceme.

    This Sonic Gear website page also has a few more pictures of the tie-in Sonic Happy Meal toys too, which also includes Sonic-related Happy Meal toys related to a different event--in particular, Sonic being used among other franchises celebrating the Happy Meal's 15th anniversary; and some other events/restaurants Sonic got restaurant kids' meal promotions (including the later Del Taco Sonic Boom tie-in toys). There's also a page on this "Sega Memories" blog (posted by our own Gagaman, actually!) that also has other photos, which has more details about the Sonic 3 Happy Meal promotion (namely regarding to flyers, the duration of the events, and even differing toys for when it was used for countries outside the US, namely the UK and Japan); the author says he got the information from a McDonald's Collectibles book.

    This news has been reported to be in the Pix'n Love of History Sonic book (apparently recounted by Iizuka himself), and also has been mentioned in the 2014 Console Wars history book (IGN has an article comprised of facts related to Sonic adapted from the book, the Happy Meal deal is mentioned as the last fact in the article). Retro also had a short-lived discussion about the topic when talking about the Sonic 3 half of the game a long while back. I originally brought it up a year ago to note it hasn't been mentioned / added to Sonic 3's Game Development page and was wondering if there was any reasons it hadn't been added yet. Now I'm currently mulling over the possibility on adding it to the page myself (under the presumption there's no reason preventing its addition), though I'm trying to figure out how to add it without disrupting the existing narrative flow the article currently has.
     
  14. AnimatedAF

    AnimatedAF

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    I don't recall any UK Burger King toy sets based on AoStH, the first set was Sonic 1 and 2 themed (marble zone, a animal capture capsule, Tails and a sonic 2 box art styled Robotnik, 7th picture down here) but the set might have released in time for the cartoon yeah. The only other UK Burger King set was in 1998 to promote the PC version of Sonic R. That did include some AoStH Robotnik designs though.
     
  15. Windii

    Windii

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    Hey again, guys. This morning I decided to rip all the in-game trailers from Sonic Adventure 2 (that one from The Trial and the story previews you get after you complete one of the stories), deinterlace them, and encode them to .mp4. Turns out that they play at a gorgeous 60 FPS if deinterlaced properly. They're pretty neat. Have fun!

    The "June Trailer" is the one Sonic Team made in early June 2001, first only available to download at a crappy 240p resolution and not even 60 fps. My encode from the 25th anniversary selection OST's DVD should fix this horrible oversight.
     
  16. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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    Yes I do pick magazine scans at random for nuggets of information.

    When the Simon Wai Sonic 2 beta was leaked, Sega went into lockdown, blaming the gaming press and refusing for a while to send out prototype builds. Instead, the press were invited to Sega's London offices every now and then and got to play things in controlled conditions.

    http://retrocdn.net/index.php?title=File%3ASegaForce_UK_15.pdf&page=6

    Here's the UK's Sega Force apologising for not being able to preview Streets of Rage II, Chakan or Shinobi III because of these policies. I did have a source to hand once that specifically mentioned Sonic 2 was the root cause - it's on Retro CDN somewhere but I forget where.



    Just a thing.
     
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  17. Felik

    Felik

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    Can someone enlighten me on why NGPC was powerful enough to let Sonic Pocket Adventure to have a fully functional 360 engine while Master System/Game Gear weren't.
    I know that term "8 bit" doesn't really mean much but wouldn't these consoles be about the same in power?

    Also why did Master System/Game Gear games universally have much nicer graphics that NGPC/NES? I guess it has to do with more colors being allowed on screen but I'd love to hear an explanation.
     
  18. MainMemory

    MainMemory

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    According to Sega Retro, the Neo Geo Pocket Color is a 16-bit system, by virtue of its Toshiba TLCS900H processor.
     
  19. Atendega

    Atendega

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    So apparently the sound effects for the Iblis Taker in Sonic 06 are based on the same sounds that Klesk from Quake III uses.

    Weeeee.
     
  20. Blue Blood

    Blue Blood

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    Ha! That's really cool to hear. It's like they used the same stock sounds.