The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

God DAMN this is good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrrQ7G_cJjU

 

Naoto Ohshima posted this on Twitter. A picture of Ray, Mighty, Sonic, Vector and Max (yes, he said he's called Max)

 

Unsure if this has been talked about before but I'd like some clarification.
I was watching old episodes of Gamesmaster and I came across an episode which previews Sonic 2. A few things grabbed my attention. The big standout was the music slowdown, which bears similar resemblance to PAL Sonic 1. The footage and sound however plays in real time (the clock moves in real time unlike PAL Sonic 1).

Secondly, are the black background title cards possible in-game or is it part of an effect? Also Emerald Hill is still Green Hill in this preview.

Finally, at the 10:28 mark, Sonic slows down to almost a a complete drop where I would usually think the momentum would carry him at least a little. Would this be due to the Speed Shoes wearing off and/or the player holding left as they drop off that cliff?

Footage starts at 10:05

http://youtu.be/9iP3ySOKV9I

 

Max is also a parrot, apparently.

 

Mighty is literally Shadow.

 

Ray looks unwell.

This is bloody sigificant stuff though - I hope someone is uploading these things to the wiki~~

 

...I didn't get the nominal connection between Ray and Vector until now. Maybe I'm stretching, though.

 

Is there any trace of Vector or Max on the files for the Segasonic arcade? From those rweets it seems they were planned to appear on it but were dropped along the way.

 

This looks to be Chaotix era. You can tell from Mighty's shoes.

 

Oh my god... What in the world was that lineup for?? Was that a Sonic Chaotix concept even before Tails and Knuckles existed? That could explain why the Sonic Crackers sprites are based on Sonic 1/CD.

Also, Ray's already redesigned shoes (similar to Mighty's) and Mighty's lankiness suggest that this artwork wasn't made available to the Mania team, which bothers me a little since they should have been given automatic access to any available Mighty and Ray concepts.

 

Perhaps they were originally going to use that roster on Chaotix, before they decided to replace Mighty, Ray and Max with Tails, Knuckles and new characters. Then they brought back Mighty to fill in for Sonic when they decided to remove Sonic and Tails.

So the lineup's history may have gone something like this:

Sonic, Ray, Mighty, Vector and Max -> Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Vector, Espio and Charmy -> Knuckles, Espio, Mighty, Vector and Charmy

 

The art is from a Chaotix era, most likely. The Vector art is almost 1-1 to the artwork used in Chaotix, and Mighty's head is as well.



Maybe Max was a proto-Charmy, being able to fly around, and Ray wsa a proto-Knuckles or Espio? Possibly VERY early in the "Lets make a shit ton of Sonic games, quick, what characters can we make or use?" which probably happened in the middle of 1992 / 1993.

 

It really looks like that's a case of the air speed cap kicking in.

 

What does the Japanese text at the top of the drawing say? Sonic of...?

 

Sonic's Friends

Doesn't take much to run things through Google Translate, lads

 

Charmy Bee dates back to the Sonic the Hedgehog manga series, which would have pre-dated SegaSonic arcade.

Although... the idea of a bird with shades is thought to have pre-dated Sonic himself, so it's a bit confusing:

http://info.sonicretro.org/File:GD_Sonic1_Concept_Sonic_02.png



This is a genuine issue - a lot of Japanese Sonic stuff between 1991 and 1994 is blending together a bit now, and I'm getting confused between what was specifically designed for the first game, the manga, SegaSonic arcade and Chaotix. I'd prefer not to have to re-write half the wiki on my own.

 

No but in this case it'd require typing out the phrase which might not be the easiest thing to do if not familiar with Japanese characters.

Also funny how all these initial characters had varying heights, but in the end everyone ended up being pretty much the same size :v: I didn't realize that Mighty was supposed to be taller than Sonic.

 

Non-EN chars are also disabled in Windows (7 at least) by default, and Linux requires installing additional packages sooooo

 

I literally just pointed my phone at the screen and took a photo in the Translate app. I can't read kanji either.