I still wouldn't know what page it was on! Unless there's some magic "Sonic cheats search bar" which brought me to the right pages
What happened was the last two weeks of development took place in late June, but Sonic 3 was released in February
He's saying Sonic 3 wasn't finished until 4 months AFTER release, literally the point of Sonic & Knuckles' existence. On an unrelated note, Arby's is doing some kind of promotion with Sonic Dash for their kid's meals (I actually didn't know Arby's had kid's meals, but I digress):
Ok, fair enough, but like they probably figured out S3 was going to be, well, S3 around this beta we have... So still would it'd have taken a ton to brush up level select menus?
In a manner of speaking it may have. Not literally, but IIRC Sega actually wanted the game out for Holiday 93 (again IIRC the whole reason Sonic Spinball exists is because Sonic 3 wasn't ready in time and they needed something Sonic-related on store shelves). They were probably in such a mad scramble to get something presentable to cartridge manufacturing that they just said "fuck it". That, or Mushroom Valley and Sandopolis were a deliberate tease to S&K's existence all along, along with all the unused tracks, and when they decided to cut Flying Battery they just didn't bother to remove it.
Interesting, they printed the S&K level select but as an action reply code only. I wonder what was up?
The fact that the game had to be split is an indication that along the line, something in development went terribly wrong. That's when you transition from "development and polish" to "triage" - hence, level select screen and bugs. It had to be remotely playable and the stages they decided to keep had to work. Very likely they were more focused on big problems they were running into and setting aside the smaller stuff, which is pretty normal in a dev->QA->fix cycle - and since they were rushed, it wouldn't surprise me if the level of items they had to change/fix was disproportionally "large things", like "when you roll into this object the entire Genesis crashes" or "Carnival Night Zone takes you to a level slot that no longer exists".
It's not that simple. If they released Sonic 3 'Complete' they would have to use a 24mbit cart, the release would be further delayed and the would have to increase the perceived price of the game for the custumer (the buyer did pay double the price for Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but they also got an extra cart, Knuckles in Sonic 2 and Blue Spheres!). Splitting was good for them and for us.
I thought it was because of a McDonald's promotional to do with Knuckles which was what split the game into 2?
Yes, they had just 6 months to develop Sonic 3 on order to make the deadline for the McDonald's promotion (they lost a lot of time working with the SVP). They developed Sonic 3 but had to leave out a lot of the stuff that they had planned due to the time crunch. At the last minute, they discovered the possibility of using a lock-on cartridge. They decided to make a second game using the ideas they had cut in order to make a proper swan song for Sonic on the Genesis. Sonic & Knuckles represents the effort they wish they could have put into Sonic 3. Interviews worth reading: https://mdshock.com/2018/07/19/yuji-naka-sonic-interview-february-1995/ http://shmuplations.com/sonicteam/
Trivia: Angel Island's final design is a lot different from the original art on the Sonic 3 Title Screen.
The "What A Cartoon!" podcast recently released an episode covering the finale of OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, with creator Ian Jones-Quartey and executive producer Toby Jones. https://whatacartoonfeed.libsyn.com...he-show-with-ian-jones-quartey-and-toby-jones From 21:50 the conversation shifts to the Let's Meet Sonic episode. The idea was pitched during production of season one, before the show had aired, so at the time there was discussion of whether they'd be using the "Sonic Boom" version of Sonic. But because it took so long, by the time the episode was being made the Sonic Boom cartoon was already wrapping up. One of Sega's rules was that if they used the Classic Sonic design he wouldn't be able to talk. They say Sega and Roger Craig Smith were great to work with. They played clips of Long John Baldry's Robotnik for Jim Cummings - "Do it like Robotnik", "That's not me!".
So I guess it's confirmed then, Classic Sonic is the silent protagonist type. Yea I'm fine with that. That's funny about Jim Cummings though, like did they not remember he played a Robotnik lol
This was posted on the Sonic 20th twitter account. I see they made a little Sonic 2020 logo in the bottom corner there. I wonder what that could mean? Also is this render based on a new model? It looks similar to what they've been using but something seems a bit different.
I might just be the angle they've got him at that makes it look different. The little logo in the bottom-right is reminiscent of Sonic X's T.O.P. end credits silhouette. My guess is they just like having the rings replacing the zeroes in 2020 and sticking Sonic on top
The Sonic Twitter posted a video with some hidden messages. It appears to suggest Aaron is leaving Sega again. EDIT: Nevermind.
