The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

Nishimura's saying something a bit different (tweet here):

The background art was too big to store even at Sega's offices, so most of it was disposed of. Looking back on it, he wishes he could have saved these. He thinks that if he had left the animation cels to Sega to take care of, the possibility that they would not have been saved is high.

He doesn't say anything about the cels from the photo deteriorating. He's just speaking in general: if you don't take proper care with how they're stored, they will deteriorate.

In other tweets, someone asked him if he would scan them. He replied by saying they have value because they are physical objects (or their value lies in them being physical objects). Basically, I don't think he'll scan them.

 

I guess Taku Makino was also in charge of making the 3D model for Knuckles?




The status doesn't say it, but it does look similar in style to the Sonic one he made.

 

I think he's going to release something about it tomorrow, so we'll hopefully find out then.

 

Hey you know what's weird - that "Ashura" glitch in Sonic 2. How did it gain traction and a fanbase? Enable debug mode, place some waterfalls, do some things - it's not something you'd accidentally trigger, and its discovery pre-dates sites like Sonic Retro.

But if it were, say, printed in a magazine....



https://retrocdn.net/index.php?title=File:ConsolesPlus_FR_022.pdf&page=98

Consoles + #22 - ground zero?


This is the July/August 1993 edition, so about seven or eight months after Sonic 2 launched.

 

Where can I see the Sonic statue?
Is the one in Sonic1 pose or another?

EDIT: Forget it, found it in no time xD

 

What's interesting is that it's entirely on-model to the model sheets of the time, with the right-most (our left) cheek going straight "behind" the dreadlock rather than bunching and curving like the opposite cheek.

It's interesting that this asymmetrical quality continued through many revisions of the Knuckles model sheet, until they simplified it into an entirely symmetrical design.

I've never seen this statue before though, where's it from?

 

Took a photo of a totally not-unofficial Sonic 2 movie product I found on a shop.

Spoiler: Secret big picture

For anyone wondering: no, I won't buy these to document them on the wiki.

 

Hirokazu Yasuhara stated that the concept art for Metropolis is supposed to depict the inside of a blimp.

 

Interesting, I think, i read, it was mistake... So, it's not Metropolis, or Metroplis originally was a blimp, where are you coming after Sand Shower?
Also, at this image, from the right- it's a level objects? Or, it's a pieces of background?
Does it mean, that MPZ had a outside sections?

 

I think this may actually be a case of slightly faulty memory - the assumption has always been that the 'interior of a blimp' concept art was reusing the linear from the Metropolis concept art with new colour as a concept for Flying Battery. The biggest indicator that this is still likely the case is that around the edges of the 'interior of a blimp' label you can still see the edges of the original hand-drawn 'Metropolis' label from the Sonic 2 version. The colouring style also doesn't match the other full colour versions of Sonic 2 concept art we've seen. So sadly I think Yasuhara may be mixing up exactly when the blimp version originates from here - I still believe this is a Sonic 3 piece, particularly as the new concepts unveiled in Origins show Flying Battery was indeed conceived as a traditional blimp at one point.

The text showing through from the next page includes the word "Avalanche", which would also totally fit with it being a Sonic 3 concept as Icecap was planned to be the next stage after Flying Battery.

Interestingly, if this is the case, it seems this might confirm the long-held theory that Flying Battery was supposed to be set at night, as the listings to the right of the art include "STARS" and "NIGHT FLIGHT".

 

The final zone of the 8-bit version of Sonic 1 actually was in a blimp, so yeah, I wouldn't rule out the "mixed memory" theory, either.

 

Regarding Sonic N, here's a full playthrought of Sonic campaign, captured on real hardware by Polish YouTuber Dark Archon (Arhn.eu channel).



I believe he's currently the only person in the world, who owns an official Nokia N-Gage capture card. At least that was the case around two years ago.

Anyway, his goal is to capture materials from all of N-Gage games for archival purposes, and to beat all of the games for Guiness Records. He's streaming all of it of course.

 

I came across similar stuff on this year's vacation. Couldn't resist buying one.






It's really bad.

 

Sad. Idea about blimp Metropolis with outside sections, and night/early morning sky looks so cool.
At least, now we know, that FBZ's background had a stars

 

S1SMS's Sky Base Zone was also set in a blimp during nighttime. Makes me wonder if there is a correlation. Was FBZ inspired by SBZ? Were they both inspired by scrapped S1MD concepts?

 

Agreed. It also says "GLOW IN THE MORNINGS" at the end of Act 2. I think this definitely confirms it.

For anyone unaware, the other big piece of evidence for the "Flying Battery Zone was supposed to be set at night" theory is the Special Stage. The color schemes of the 7 Special Stages in Sonic 3 correspond to the game's Zones.

https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-hidden-homage.html

Special Stage 5 corresponds to Flying Battery Zone, which was originally intended to be Zone 5, after Carnival Night Zone and before IceCap Zone. The only two Special Stages with a dark sky are 4 and 5, the ones that correspond to Carnival Night Zone and Flying Battery Zone.

https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(16-bit)/Development#Animated_Sequences

The Master System version's end boss was based upon early concepts for the Mega Drive version's end boss. This early concept is a bit of a combination of what we'd see in the Master System and Mega Drive versions.

The concept of a boss where Eggman is behind a barrier while Sonic contends with a trap room would be revisited in Wing Fortress Zone and Flying Battery Zone. Both of which are aircraft levels. A coincidence? Who can say for sure.

It's unclear what the setting of this Zone in the final boss/ending concept art is, but there's an interior and an exterior. The exterior has a satellite dish and shows that it's high in the sky, among the clouds. Eggman escapes in a plane (judging from the other boss concept, it seems the Egg Mobile hadn't been designed yet), Sonic falls from a great height, then is saved by Sharps, similar to what we'd later see in Sonic 2's ending.

 

I think I randomly found a bug in Sonic Mania while doing a stream of it, look at 10:30 of this video, the rotating blue cylinder pushes me inside the wall without killing me, and I have no way out, so I have to restart the level. Is this documented anywhere?

 

Guys, regarding that blimp Metropolis art, I'm pretty certain that if you look into this further you'll find evidence that the original art didn't say blimp; the art was repurposed for S3&K. I read this in one of the hundred other threads on the development of the game. Metropolis was never a blimp.

Edit: in fact, the very posts above show both concepts art versions; one without the blimp note, one with. The one with is from S3&K. You can even see where they just stuck a new label over the old one.

Various other concept art pieces from Sonic 2 were also repurposed for Sonic 3.

 

I also asked him if the blimp concept evolved into Wing Fortress and he said

Though I could've been more precise and less leading on my question.

 

So, as it turns out, the special stages in Sonic CD have unused background chunks! They were possibly intended to be used in a full 1024px wide background, but VRAM limitations could have prevented that, so they cut the backgrounds in half. If that was the intention, then possibly, for stages 1 and 7, the chunks would have alternated (1st chunk from used background, then 1st unused chunk, then 2nd used chunk, then 2nd unused chunk), while the rest would have placed them after the used chunks.

I've went and documented them on TCRF, if you wanna take a look. Some of them even use unused tiles.

Also as a side note: the oil slick stamps in the special stages are actually tagged as oil in 712 and later. They just never implemented the collision code for it, so touching them does nothing.