The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

Ain't that Sonic 2? That weird geometry reminds me of Underground Zone!

 

Whoops. Yeah it's Sonic 2.

 

Here's the Japanese version - no portrait change:


This is the only date the game cares about. The code checks for December 24 and then one other thing, which is presumably why it doesn't happen on a new save:

 

I was looking at some of the internal names for various things in leftover symbol data.

Sonic was "play00", "play01", or "play02", depending on the game mode in Sonic 1 and 2. It did get changed to "sonic" in Sonic 3, and was "super_sonic" or "ssonic" for when he's super. Tails was "fox" in Sonic 2, but was changed to "miles" in Sonic 3. Knuckles was either "knuckles" or "nuckle" (lol). Dr. Eggman was "egg", or "eggman". Amy was "emie" in Sonic CD. Metal Sonic was "msnc" or "mecasnc" in Sonic CD.

 

mecasnc? Does that mean he was originally called Mecha Sonic and was renamed at some point in development, likely to differentiate him from the Sonic 2 character?

It would make sense if, just like the "robot Sonic" concept, that name was something Sonic Team came up with during the Sonic 1 development and went on to use in its respective sequels (2 and CD) when the team split up.

 

I wonder if every robot Sonic was just "Mecha Sonic" until there was some differentiation made between the three robot Sonics.
I'd look into it but it's 2 am

 

I know two instances of Metal being called Mecha Sonic in the final product:

Sonic the Fighters. Rocket Metal has "Mecha Sonic No. 29" written on him, and it appears to be one of Metal Sonic's forms, going by the fact he can transform into him during combat.

Archie. Metal was named Mecha Sonic there at first, later switching to his proper name. However, I've always chalked it up to a mistake.


As an aside, S3K Mecha was initially called Metal Sonic by SoA. But I believe this was just another goof like the Archie thing.

 

I wouldn't look into it too much. Internal names can have all sorts of silly reasons behind them in programming.

 

Ahh nice! Now, something in the game must add to the second check to allow the cameo to happen, something like a progress-related check perhaps?

Also, it would be a good idea to have a screenshot at the rules explanation prompt like I have done with the other two versions for consistency's sake, that way I can get it up on the comparisons page:

 

For the wiki it does; it might be useful to have a chronology of details especially if it might involve development (Blue Gale)

 

It does seem that Metal Sonic was called Mecha Sonic through production.

In these notes for Studio Junio on how to draw Metal Sonic, the blurb on the left describes how to draw highlights and shadows on Metal, and his name is Mecha Sonic in the box highlighted.

 

https://info.sonicretro.org/images/6/67/SonicOrigins_museum_pic_l_art_159.png

The above document also calls him Mecha Sonic.

But keep in mind that the other Sonic CD enemy documents also use the "Mecha (Animal Species)" naming scheme:

https://info.sonicretro.org/images/7/7d/SonicOrigins_museum_pic_l_art_161_1.png
https://info.sonicretro.org/images/e/e4/SonicOrigins_museum_pic_l_art_161.png

The ones that appeared in the manual got proper names.

The PC Sonic CD help file uses the "Robot (Animal Species)" naming convention, in English, so it's possible that they only had the early placeholder names are reference and translated them directly. That same file also says that Metal Sonic is sometimes known as Mecha Sonic.

The Sonic CD robot names weren't kept particularly consistent in Japan either. The mosquito enemy is called Mosqui (モスキー) in the JP Sonic CD manual, but in the JP Sonic & Tails 2 and Chaotix manuals it's called Kameka / Ka Mecha (カメカ), which literally translates to "Mosquito Mecha".

The internal object names that Sonic Retro pulled from the Gems Collection version of Sonic CD just uses the species names for each enemy robot, without the "mecha".

So the firefly robot, for example, wasn't supposed to actually be NAMED "hotaru". Hotaru is just the Japanese word for firefly. It was a placeholder name, it would have been given a proper name if it was featured in the game's manual.

When does this happen? Is there a video anywhere?

Judy Totoya said it was a coincidence.

 

Don't have a video or link, but I seem to recall one of his attack animations in StF (possibly a scrapped one?) showing him turning into Rocket Metal?

Do you have a link? I'd like to read more on this.

 

https://x.com/judy_totoya/status/1595242576424349696

 

Thank you.

Going by Google Translate he says there that he thinks the shared concept of a robo-Sonic was a coincidence, as the 2 and CD dev teams didn't share ideas with each other. However, I recall someone (I want to say Ohshima) saying that the similar ideas between the two games were due to the devs coming up with them when they were working together making Sonic 1. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

 

Going by DeepL:

 

Was looking back at Sonic Team website stuff again - one thing that I remember deep in my memory was the announcement of the "Enjoy 4", where Sonic Team announced Sonic Adventure International, Chu Chu Rocket, PSO and Samba at the one thing.

I remember specifically a bit of art showing each game, or hinting at it. I specifically remember people speculating what the 3 ball ring was (which was PSO). Still - I can't seem to actually find a saved copy of this graphic. It was mentioned back here on The Green Hill Zone, but the graphics are broken.

https://doorsclosing.com/lursk/GHZ/ggibbon/sega/news/tgs_f99.htm

Anyone remember what I'm talking about?

 

Yes I do - there is coverage in magazines... somewhere. Maybe.

I didn't know they gave these announcements a collective name - I just knew they turned up at some point and said "Sonic Team are making x y and z" without going into too much detail. I think they showed off the special Sonic Team logos (which all appear in the games themselves IIRC)

 

Ding

https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=File:DCM_JP_19990917_1999-28.pdf

I was right. The Wayback Machine hasn't captured these pages, but basically Sonic Team posted four logos and throughout September 1999, gradually revealed what they were. The last one, PSO, was shown at TGS Autumn 99.

I have a feeling they might have settled on "Enjoy 4 Sonic Team" (エンジョイ・フォー・ソニック・チーム) a few days after this was originally posted. If the wikis were more usable, I'd verify that for you.