The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

Both NiGHTS and Sonic X-treme had playable demos made for E3 1996. Because of that, I would find it very difficult to believe the NiGHTS team didn't show any interest in that event, and with the Sonic X-treme kiosks probably right next door, you'd have to be blind not to notice the game existed.

 

Was the 32X still a thing by that time?
If yes, then ST might've mistaken X-Treme for a 32X title, I guess?

From Wikipedia, Nights came out mid-96. 32X died out by that year.
Given Sonic X-Treme's presentation, they might've thought it wasn't a Saturn title or so.


EDIT: I wonder how many Sonic Tubers and so are members here... ^^"

 

I think this is one of those cases where it's wise to not interpret comments too literally and instead look at what the intention is.

Naka could have seen footage of X-treme, and the statement "Sonic X-treme was developed without my knowledge" might still be true.

Based on the tweet he is replying to, Naka's intention behind his comment seems to be: He had nothing to do with the development of Sonic X-treme or causing it to be cancelled. Before he knew much about it, it had been cancelled. He's rejecting the idea that he sabotaged it or otherwise caused it to fail.

 

Well, the man has a case of unhealthy ego, so I'm not surprised people do not believe him.

Anyway, I just found out that Bernie Stolar passed away.

Lord, shine on his soul.

 

So, here's something I found out about the development of Chemical Plant Zone's boss.

It's probably known by some that this boss was the first boss that they programmed. It appears first in the subtype list for the master boss object that they were using early on, was spawned in act 3 of CPZ in the Nick Arcade proto, and was called "bossvac"/"vacumeguy", according to the symbol data in that proto as well. However, that code was scrapped and dummied out in the Nick Arcade and Simon Wai prototypes.

Here's where it gets interesting. In the August prototype, they appeared to have RESTORED that code! It still uses that old master boss object for the EHZ boss, but this time, the dummied out subtype actually point to code, and surprise surprise, using the leftover spawn code from the Nick Arcade prototype gets you...



Tada! The object code's position checks match up closely with the Nick Arcade spawn location in "CPZ3", which doesn't fit in anywhere in the August proto.

I personally believe they restored it so they could use it as a reference for the rewrite of the code that was put into object 5D. You can actually see a WIP version in the August prototype. However, as is, it causes a crash due to buggy code, so some changes do need to be made to make it function. When it does function, it's obvious that it's in a very incomplete state.



EDIT: Did a quick copy and paste job of the object 56 code over to the Nick Arcade prototype, and with a couple object ID, pointer, and PLC fixes, it works just about out of the box!

 

>tfw the Origins mission of this boss says he is using a blue laser

 

SEGAbits has published a new Rumors Roundup scoop. The whole thing is interesting reading, but there's something of particular relevance to Sonic:

o lawd

 

The 90s was a crazy era for movies. There's Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Super Mario Bros., to name a few.
A Sonic movie, on that era, might've been insanity unbound. Heck, I believe it could've endangered the franchise.

 

First MK movie was not bad, but Sonic the movie it would be a typical shitty movie, which would be remembered now with goosebumps on the back

 

Fixed release dates still weren't common in 1994, but Sonic 2 had set a precedent for Sonic 3 to follow. So when was it released in Europe??



In the UK, 24th February.

In Germany (and maybe Spain?), 3rd March.

So not even deep research or educated guesses this time around - Sega stuck the dates in advertising, and they're different.


But could it have been delayed at the last minute? Well yeah maybe, but the point would still stand - the internet is claiming Sonic 3 was released on the 24th, and at least for some countries in Europe... it wasn't.

 

Here's something new:



Fan art.

Published in the March 1995 edition of Todo Sega, it's got Knuckles the Echidna vs. Nat the Armadillo and there's green things and there's yellow things and the Mega Drive 32X and... wait Nat?

Yeah it's Knuckles' Ringstar fan art. As in, pre-Chaotix. As in, lad drew a picture of an unfinished game, when details were thin on the ground about what it actually was*. It is prototype fan art from early 1995.



*if you've not been paying attention to my posts over the years, Chaotix turned up at Winter CES 1995 in January (under that name). I think I said it was probably the 1229 prototype on display - it was playable (and seen as part of a video package), but was keeping a relatively low profile compared to the 32X games with proper 3D (some of which were, you know, finished).

However Spanish magazines seemed to get ahold of a Knuckles' Ringstar prototype at around the same time (which pre-dates anything we have), so their January/February 1995 editions report on that build instead, maybe assuming it was newer than what was shown at WCES. They wouldn't see the game in its Chaotix guise until a month or two later.

Given our oldest Chaotix build is from 7th December, any Knuckles Ringstar prototypes would have been hideously out of date, to the point where I'm not sure why Sega's Spanish arm even had one. And god knows what state it would be in - 1207 isn't quite what I'd call "presentable".

 

If I had to guess, the fan that submitted that would have been hyped by random screenshots and tidbits of info, and put everything together in that picture. I don't think they had an outdated build, just the early info and a screenshot of that menu with "Nat" in it.

 

The artist was definitely basing their drawing on the coverage from SuperJuegos #33. Even the temporary title screen (assuming it's not a magazine mockup) is there!

Honestly, that article is still a strange outlier. The issue is dated "January 1995" so it was definitely being written in late 1994, pointing to potentially a mid/late November prototype. But it still makes no sense how a random Spanish magazine got an earlier build (or at least screenshots) of Chaotix than literally anyone else.

 

Apparently, someone found an early drawing of Amy's redesign on a Japanese blog site. Link

 

Huh. She looks like she still had Classic Amy's height by that point.

Edit - Confirmed:
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~ZYUMON/amyworld/2-3.jpg
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~ZYUMON/amyworld/2-4.jpg

Supposedly that's from a doujin tho? Where did the author get that?

 

Sounds like it's a fan re-created look from memory at what said fan saw at a character popularity poll in a Joyopolis some time before Sonic Adventure was announced.

https://xcancel.com/MainJPW/status/1544211124198973442

"This is Emmy, who was drawn on the tombola for the Sonic Team Character Popularity Poll held at Tokyo Joypolis." "Emmy's paintings are often used, but this is a completely new type, with a hair style and clothes that have never been seen before."

"I don't think that she was redesigned only for the popularity contest. I have a hunch that it might be a new design for a new game..."

 

So they actually showed the Adventure redesigns at Tokyo Joypolis for a popularity poll prior to the game's unveiling? This needs to be looked into.

 

https://mobile.xcancel.com/nakayuji/status/1543624375999467520?s=21
I don't know, does it will be interesting for all, but anyway.

 

It'd been theorized to be "NEVER SEEN" for a while if I'm not mistaken, but it's nice to have it confirmed.

 

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2...d-sonic-creator-naoto-ohshima-from-team-photo

It seems that Sonic's parents are arguing.