The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

This was discussed over at the Twitter thread.

 

Should still be noted here though, as it directly relates Sonic

 

There's one thing that has been puzzling me for a long time.
If MJ controversy was so bad that SEGA cut their ties with him in the middle of S3 development then how come he appeared in Space Channel 5 as one the most prominent characters?
Was he a "parody" character? (much like South Park outright put celebrities in their cartoon)
Considering how much they wanted to distance themself from him this seems like a weird inclusion.

 

Because Jackson left the project voluntarily, and this is a long-standing misconception. Sega never officially cut ties with the artist, never requested him to leave, and these cameos are from different developers anyway. This whole rumor was basically started by a single guy who wasn't even on the dev team, and now it's canon.

Funny timing, we just overhauled this topic's article. It's got a ways to go but I'd recommend giving it a read

 

Did anyone here buy Sonic Unleashed on launch day for the Xbox 360 in America and have any achievements unlocked on that day?

I remember getting Unleashed on launch day from Blockbuster as they were the only outlet that actually had the game and my first achievement was unlocked on November 29th which means I got it on the 28th (as I got the game at night), as well as people from the Sega Forums asking me questions about the game on MSN at the time.

However, Wikipedia states Unleashed was released on the 18th of November that year and Sonic and Sega Retro say it was released on the 20th for 360 in America.

I doubt I got the game 10 days after it came out as nobody on the Sega Forums had the game yet as there was little talk, so where are the two (Wikipedia and Retro), as well as my memory of getting it day one diverging? Anyone know?

 

Wikipedia is wrong - contemporary reports suggest the PS2 and Wii versions came out first, then 360, then PS3.

Bit of a worry we don't have a definitive source on this.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20081206134822/http://www.sega.com/news/?n=2553
https://web.archive.org/web/20081201041401/http://www.sega.com/news/?n=2652

Somebody needs to get on top of this stuff - I just found an undocumented Wii game. How is this possible.

 

Oh wow, we didn't have a page for that? I vaguely remember that being advertised somewhere by SoA. Maybe the Sega website.

 

Hello people!
Um, who knows which synthesizer Masato Nakamura used to create demo versions of music for Sonic 2? Is this plugin online? I need it because I need some drum samples from there...

 

According to this post, the drums used in Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 are from the Roland TR-626.

 

Ok. Thanks for info

 

Interesting thread over on Yasushi Yamaguchi's Twitter talking about Sonic 2's Mecha Sonic - amongst the things mentioned are ideas for additional attacks planned at the concept stage, which had to remain unimplemented due to time constraints. The attacks mentioned include lasers, homing missiles (shot from the fingers, I think? It mentions 10 shots total) and some sort of attack where Mecha Sonic's chest would open up. It's also mentioned that the attack where Mecha Sonic fires spikes out while spinning was not originally planned, and was only implemented after the graphics for the boss had already been drawn - presumably this was added to try to add more variety in lieu of the more impressive array of originally-planned attacks! What I'd give to see some concept sketches of how this fight was originally conceived.

If anyone's able to provide a better translation than Twitter's auto-translate it'd be much appreciated, as it's struggling lots with the posts in question...!

EDIT: Looks like VGDensetsu has translated the thread. Interesting notes:

• Cut attacks include:
  • A long laser beam, shot from his single eye
  • Homing missiles shot from the fingers, 10 shots in total
    
  • "Super Gravity Smash", a gravity projectile which can absorb Sonic's rings if it gets too close, shot out when Mecha Sonic's chest armour opens up
• As mentioned above, the spike-shooting attack was only added later and wasn't part of the original concept, which is why there's no visible sign of them on Mecha Sonic's design. Yamaguchi's new unofficial artwork (at the top of the thread) attempts to address this by adding the shootable spikes to the sides of Mecha Sonic's head.
  
• The thread also confirms the long-standing theory that Mecha Sonic was originally conceived as a mid-boss when Death Egg was still planned as a full Zone
  

 

We may be about to gain a whole new level of insight on this, as well as several other aspects of Jackson's relationship with Sega - someone I know has finally acquired Memories of Michael Jackson (マイケル・ジャクソンの思い出), a 2010 book written by his main coordinator in Japan, Mayumi Nina Sakazaki.

As mentioned a few times before, this book has an entire chapter dedicated to Jackson's numerous projects with Sega, and some sort of detail on Sonic 3 - indeed, Sakazaki is notably given a special thanks in its credits (although I notice she is erroneously stated as SOA personnel on here).

The book is all in Japanese of course, but if anyone here wants to have a stab at translating the Sega chapter, I can send some quick scans over in DMs

 

Interestingly, those head side spikes are in the original Sonic 2 art as well, but slightly lower down: https://sonicretro.org/2020/09/05/u...og-2-art-by-yasushi-yamaguchi-comes-to-light/

They're not on the sprite or the earlier concept art: https://www.sonicthehedgeblog.com/post/167850481307/the-original-sketches-for-the-mecha-robo-sonic

It looks like Yamaguchi used that concept art as reference though, rather than the final Sonic 2 art. Did he forget that he already solved the shootable spikes problem, only to solve it again the same way 30 years later?

 

A UK version of the original Sonic Tiger LCD game advert surfaced earlier, for anyone interested:



(File this under "We couldn't be arsed filming our own version")

 

So, Coca-Cola Kid isn't a Sonic game per se but it is by Aspect (the guys who made most of the Sonic 8-bit games) and using their game engine, it's at least relevant to the conversation in the way Ristar is. And there's been a dump of its music put up on youtube this year, on SMSPower. It's composed by Kojiro Mikusa, who had a hand in most of the Aspect Sonic games, with definite credits on Sonic Blast, Sonic Gameworld (Pico), and Tails Adventures, and probably also a hand in the music of their other games. But what's weird about it is that some of the songs in the soundtrack are based on, of all things, Gunstar Heroes.

Here's the boss music (3:46 in the video if not autocued):


Which you might recognize as based on the Orange battle music, at least partly:


Insert fanta joke here

The music for the final area, the disco, might be even more blatant in its source from Gunstar Heroes (11:25 this time):


That is of course the theme of Seven Force:


Insert uncola joke here

But there's one other song in the set from Gunstar Heroes, and it might be the weirdest. It's specifically the title theme (1:05):


Because it's based on the intro to the credit's theme of the game, Reprise for Yellow, at least up until the title theme modulates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smpu5_fqOQA

Wait, reprise? Reprise refers to a song or musical sequence being used a repeated time in a larger work. The song that's used in the credits is unique, and while it arguably makes a little reference to some of the songs in the game, it's an otherwise entirely unique composition. But here's another song that opens up just like it, modulates that opening section, and loops. Is that what's being reprised here -- a song that might have been intended for the Gunstar opening sequence, but didn't make it into the prototype we have access to?

Like, it would be stylistically consistent with what they did in Alien Soldier, with arpeggios in an unusual scale that modulate a few times and loop over an intro. It's not conclusive evidence of some mythical missing song in Gunstar Heroes all on its own, but it fascinates me because it definitely is something that makes sense and is more in line with Hanzawa's style than what I'm used to out of Mikusa. Very weird!

 

I had this on in the background and realized… you missed an actual Sonic connection!

The last track at 18:35 "Power Up (Unused)" is a different arrangement of the Speed Shoes jingle from Sonic Chaos!
Back-to-back, the Chaos version sounds more like a straight-up remix now. lol

 

Just in time for the 30th anniversary of Sonic 2, Judy Totoya has been sharing some interesting tidbits about the game and his work on it on Twitter. Some things about Tails' design, Mecha Sonic, the hidden route he put in CPZ Act 2, and a mistake he made on Sonic's Special Stage sprites.

 

That's all really cool stuff. The Mecha Sonic art is excellent, and the back shot has some serious Akuma vibes. I wonder he'll post more, or if anyone else from the team will follow in his stead.

 

That's exactly what happened!

https://twitter.com/judy_totoya/status/1594987729666052097

https://twitter.com/judy_totoya/status/1594987734980255746

He says he probably drew the detailed line art picture after the project was over.