The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

I had a request from a Wiki Sysop in my Tumblr inbox asking if my translations for Sonic 2 Game Gear's and Sonic Chaos' JP manuals could be added to the Wiki. Of course, I approve of that no question. But I'd like to provide an even more accurate translation than the one currently on my Tumblr blog. I'll start with the Sonic 2 manual and I'll just provide the translations of the descriptions, not clog this post with images of the pages.

UNDERGROUND ZONE

“Lava and needles falling from the ceiling await Sonic’s rush underground. Make good use of “hole-digging Sonic” and “High-speed Minecart” and go for it. You’ll see, it’s easy.”

SKY HIGH ZONE

“The reckless Sonic challenges an alpine region within a sea of clouds. Use jumps and the “Hanglider” to overcome the wind and lightning that impedes Sonic’s way.”

AQUA LAKE ZONE

“A labyrinthine zone in the bottom of a lake. Sonic has learned to move across the water’s surface but if he falls into the water, he's still a non-swimmer. Because there is a countdown when you are incapable of breathing, don’t forget to grab a breath from a big bubble.”

GREEN HILLS ZONE

“A lush grassy meadow zone with tropical winds. The course, which includes jumps and loops, is ideal for taking advantage of Sonic’s specialty speed. Make the most of it, let’s run powerfully!!”

GIMMICK MOUNTAIN

“Gimmick mountain is a suspicious mountain. The hollow of the mountain is teeming with modern machines. Use gears and conveyer belts wisely. But be careful not to speed too much”

SCRAMBLED EGG ZONE

“Pipes and traps have been built inside this secret base. Watch Sonic at the top of the zone, defeat Dr Eggman’s super-secret weapon and aim for the mysterious final zone CRYSTAL EGG (”Crystal Egg”)*!!

*Note that the term Crystal Egg as written in these brackets was orignally written in Katakana with CRYSTAL EGG before it written in plain English in the manual. I simply translated it, hence the two mentions of that zone's name.


SONIC CHAOS JP MANUAL ZONE DESCRIPTION TRANSLATIONS

TURQUOISE HILL ZONE

Turquoise Hill is where the blue skies and green meadows go on endlessly. Firstly, this locality of South Island is for warming-up! Collect lots of rings quickly and pound the enemies!”

GIGALOPOLIS ZONE

“A futuristic city with ultra-modern buildings “Gigalopolis” …
With the beautiful star-filled sky in the back, Sonic & Tails go on a big rampage! Dash across the diagonally-inclined bridges to cross them.”

SLEEPING EGG ZONE

“A strange island floating in the sky. Actually, it is a fantasy world created by Eggman! There are suspicious Eggman images in some areas of the island. Be careful not to fall…!”

MECHA GREEN HILL ZONE

“Eggman has remodeled South Island’s Green Hill into a world of machines!?… All of the flowers, trees and the soil is mechanized! That’s unforgivable, Eggman!!”

AQUA PLANET ZONE

“A strange water planet. There are bizarre humming creatures. Whilst in the water, don’t forget to breathe.”

ELECTRIC EGG ZONE

“At last, we’ve reached Eggman’s electronic base! But computers dominate everything here, so it isn’t easy. Go for it! And don’t give up until the end! The decisive battle with Eggman is imminent!”

 

The Japanese G Sonic and Sonic & Tails 2 manuals also have level descriptions, if anyone wants to take a crack at them. Looks like we could do with better scans of the latter.

 

I didn't expect people to like my translations of the zones in the JP manuals that much So I thought I'd translate all of the zone descriptions in the JP Sonic 1 Mega Drive/Genesis manual. What I find mildly interesting is that in Labyrinth's description (And by extension Aqua Lake's in the JP Sonic 2 Game Gear manual), Sonic is described with the term "カナジチ", which is a kana reading of the term used for "Iron Hammer" - In other words, Sonic sinks like an iron hammer in water, analogous to the term "Sinks like a stone" in English. I use the term "can't swim" for simplicity's sake.

GREEN HILL ZONE

"A field blessed with greenery and water. Features include looped slopes, crumbling cliffs and S-shaped tunnels. Lets run through with good speed and timing."

MARBLE ZONE

"Traverse the underground path to the underground temple with swirling lava. The temple is teeming with traps. Watch out for chained ceilings with sharp needles, up-and-down hammers and the piles of needles that pop out."

SPRING YARD ZONE

"A city at sunset lined with exotic buildings. Jumping from the platforms onto bobbins, Sonic can fly like a pinball. If you accelerate, you can run even in very steep areas."

LABYRINTH ZONE

"If you don't pass through the water, you won't be able to get through this maze. However, Sonic can't swim. Lets proceed and take a breath from a big bubble. A countdown will begin when you are almost out of breath."

STARLIGHT ZONE

"Sonic runs against the backdrop and a view of a glittering starry night sky. Moving elevators, being pushed-back by the wind generated by electric fans, using seesaws well to execute jumps... he'll be kept pretty busy."

SCRAP BRAIN ZONE

"We have passed through the polluted city and finally arrived at Dr Eggman's secret base. Gears, saws and automatic hammers are on the attack. There are also submerged caverns beneath the base."

 

I hope nobody minds me double posting to post more translations, this time from the JP Sonic 2 Mega Drive/Genesis manual. It's just that there's been no more posts in this topic since last Wednesday...

Anyway, I found the description of Metropolis cool in that it labels the zone as a "Steampunk Citadel" (スチームパンクの城塞). God that would make an awesome name for a Sonic game zone... And it was obvious I guess but the description of Oil Ocean outright confirms that Dr Eggman was responsible for turning the place into a huge oil spill. I think the dude likes polluting on purpose. Last but not least, Death Egg Zone is not mentioned in the JP manual. I guess ST wanted to keep it secret or something.

EMERALD HILL ZONE

A beautiful zone with green meadows and rich waterfalls.
Run at high speed through the loops and the corkscrews!
Beware of the Monkeys and Bees that aim for you from the tops of the trees.

CHEMICAL PLANT ZONE

Dr Eggman's chemical factory.
Run around inside the pipes that are stretched around all over the place!
Aim for the goal by dodging turntables and blowing chemicals.

AQUATIC RUIN ZONE

The ruins of a diminished civilization within a forest.
Lets explore stone pillars hanging on the ground and hidden underwater!
Watch out for tricky arrows and falling pillars.

CASINO NIGHT ZONE

The city of neon and pinball.
Bet your luck on slot machines and earn rings by hitting the jackpot.
Use the flippers well!

HILL TOP ZONE

Cable cars and see-saws on a high mountain.
A suspicious rumbling sound can be heard underground.
Utilize the rising lava and ground to advance!

MYSTIC CAVE ZONE

A mysterious cave that spread-out underground.
Open the gates by hanging onto the ivy!
Be careful and watch out for the crumbling platforms and use springboards to jump over spikes that pop-out.

OIL OCEAN ZONE

Dr Eggman has spilled oil into the sea.
You can't use your favoured dash on slippery oil!
Advance by making full use of slides, fans and gas cylinders!

METROPOLIS ZONE

Steampunk citadel dominated by gears and steam.
Turn the nut and jump with the steam valve!
Dr Eggman must be beyond the rotating drum!

SKY CHASE ZONE

Sonic and Miles follow Dr Eggman in the Tornado.
Spin jump on the wings!
The fierce aerial battle has begun!

WING FORTRESS ZONE

A massive aerial battleship that has appeared before you.
If you take one wrong step, you'll be tumbling head-over-heels into the sky!
Watch out for rotating propellers and catapults.

 

Just a quick update on this - I've updated these files with output directly from Photoshop CC, as there were some differences between the previous PNGs and the PSD when loaded in Photoshop. The versions up now should be 100% accurate to how they were intended to display. The most obvious difference is that the blending of the trees is slightly different - the particular blend mode used means the messy white flecks seen between the leaves in the previous PNGs are no longer visible, which is probably why the logo's original designer didn't bother to clean them up properly.

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day y'all!

 

Sonic the Hedgehog, as a series, would be so much better if all the cast had thick accents.

 

Quite a huge interview with Steve Lycett about the original all stars racing and a few bits on transformed.

Its a really good read, a few new bits of info here and there.

https://www.megavisionsmag.com/inte...6euG5zBXgshb2ySksoB6v_7z2RL2awiskzpP3hSQcFREQ

 

There's some weirdness in the Techno Source plug and play Sonic Blast and Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos & Sonic Spinball manuals.

The Sonic Chaos items section mistakenly has a picture of a "?" item box instead the end of level "turnstile". But Sonic Chaos doesn't have a "?" item box, so what is going on? The item box itself is Sonic Chaos style, but the "?" symbol looks suspiciously similar to the one in Sonic Blast. Lost content, or simply Photoshopped together under the assumption that Sonic Chaos had such an item?

Also, the Sonic Chaos and Sonic Spinball "Story" sections simply lift the text from the US Game Gears manuals, but Sonic Blast has an alternate version of the story in the US manual. It seems as though Sega provided Techno Source with an older draft of the text. This version makes it clearer that Robotnik's new weapon is the Silver Castle, mentions Mobius, and, most interestingly, links up to the continuity of Sonic 3D.

"After his Flicky Island snafu, Dr. Robotnik is at it again with his newest invention, The Silver Castle!!!"

In the US, Sonic Blast was marketed as a pseudo tie-in to Sonic 3D Blast (thus the similar titles) and the two would be advertised together in comics and magazines, so it tracks that Sega of America would consider tying the two stories together, however loosely. It certainly doesn't seem like the kind of thing Techno Source would add of their own volition, in 2005.

 

This video is absolutely incredible, if you've got the time to watch it.

 

Watched it yesterday. Pretty good.

 

https://astamuse.com/ja/published/JP/No/1995178250

Is this a known thing?

The basic idea is an arcade cabinet with a doll character on top of (or around) the monitor, that reacts to the player's accomplishments. Did anything ever come of this idea?

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Also, more Fang concept art.

 

Category:Sonic the Hedgehog (Finland) scans

While pretending to work from home, I found a set of Finnish translations of the Archie Comics Sonic series. They don't line up perfectly with their American counterparts though.


Needs someone to research and make pages.

 

US, Finland, Sweden, Norway.

It's looking like the same eight(?) issues were made available across Scandinavia in 1994/1995. Then they got bored.

Unfortunately "that babe" Sally Acorn isn't killed by a falling safe in any of them. Which is unfortunate.

 

The Grand Comics Database has a few of those, but just covers, no contents listings unfortunately. Apparently the publisher was Semic.

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Shmuplations has translated some Sonic CD interviews. Some interesting stuff in them.

 

Fascinating stuff. That seems to clear up two mysteries about the Sonic 1-style bonus stage: that (A) it was the initial concept for the special stages and (B) it was actually running in the game and wasn't a mockup. All we need to do now is find that prototype :P. Also, is this the only official confirmation that Sonic CD takes place in between 1 and 2?

 

Nishimura brought this up on Twitter last month, after the release of Sega Ages Sonic the Hedgehog 2: https://xcancel.com/Mazin__/status/1227808240127205377

https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?posts/957361/

He talks about how the Sonic CD team were surprised to see Mecha Sonic in Sonic 2, since they'd come up with the same idea in Metal Sonic. He says Yamaguchi assumed CD took place between 1 and 2, then points out the contradiction of Metal Sonic being more advanced than Mecha Sonic.

 

Looks that way

Sonic the Hedgehog (Semic Press comic)

Interestingly it appears Semic Press were bought up by Egmont Fleetway (makers of Sonic the Comic) in 1997. It's all connected~

 

I'm not sure if anyone is aware, but Sonic Drift is the only 8-bit Sonic game to use SRAM to save your Free Run times. Sonic Drift 2 lacks any SRAM features. The SRAM read/write code can be found at offset $8F5 in ROM.

 

So uh, I remembered that I have numerous translations of some of Sonic's profiles. That's beside the point I want to make. You see, I was always inclined to think that the detail very often mentioned in the character's western manual profiles, that he has a short temper, was a western invention given that it's a very rarely seen aspect of Sonic's character.

But some JP manual descriptions prove that this isn't the case. Because in Sonic Adventure's JP manual, there's this line;

"短気なところもあるけれど、困っ た人がいたら放っておけない優し さも持っている。"

Basically, it states that whilst he does have a short temper, he has a compassionate side that makes him refuse to look away when someone is in need. A line to this effect is also in the JP Sonic Advance 2 manual.

I dunno, it's just something I thought to mention.