It's Christmas, 1991. You’ve just finished playing your copy of Sonic the Hedgehog on the Mega Drive. But then—Santa brings you another present: a brand-new Sega Game Gear with Sonic the Hedgehog bundled in. "Holy smokes! Now I can have portable blast processing?" — you shout to yourself. You pop in the cartridge, the title screen appears, you press Start, and then… Wait… what’s this island? Unlike the Mega Drive version, Sonic 1 on Game Gear (and Master System) featured a world map showing Sonic’s journey. I always wondered why the more advanced, technically superior version didn’t include something like that. Lack of time? We also never got to see a proper map or sketch of South Island, aside from some vague hints in instruction manuals — until 2016, when Yuzo Koshiro posted a tweet revealing a concept sketch of South Island. But one question still lingers: Was that sketch created by Sonic Team, or by Ancient? And if it was made by Ancient, why was that island later incorporated into Sonic Origins? When I started studying the map and comparing it to the 8-bit version, I realized something: it’s an absolute mess. Somehow, Sonic MD and Sonic GG seem to coexist on the same island—along with their beta versions. As if these were two alternate realities playing out side by side. Two sides of the same coin. Take a look: This is the map Yuzo Koshiro posted. We can clearly see a path laid out, and most of the stages can be matched to it without much trouble. Thanks to Sonic Origins, we also know where Marble Zone would have been placed. Granted, it doesn’t appear on this map — but that makes sense: Marble Zone was never actually in the Game Gear version. Only remnants of it were found in the ROM, suggesting that it was planned at some point, but for reasons unknown… it was never implemented. So, pretty self-explanatory — it fits with Sonic GG, so the map was surely made by Ancient, right? Wrong. Well… kinda. Let’s take a look at the actual 8-bit map. What happened to the bridge we saw in the concept sketch? It’s nowhere to be found on this map… And yet, in the game, Bridge Zone is very much there. Also - see that little cave entrance above Green Hill? I think that’s Labyrinth Zone — back when it was still planned as an early stage. But… it could also be the entrance to Marble Zone, right? We do know that Marble was planned but ultimately scrapped. So that explains everything. Right? No. Not quite. Remember that cave entrance? On the official, canonical South Island map above — you can clearly see something that, in my opinion, looks like the original entrance to Labyrinth Zone. Yes? No? I don’t know. I think it's a nod to that cave entrance. But let’s pour a little more fuel on the fire. The placement of Spring Yard Zone makes no sense. Sonic would have to run all over the island just to reach Scrap Brain. But hey — in the Game Gear version of uh... Sonic, he did run through Spring Yard and Starlight... right? Well... no. Not really. But it was possible! Kinda. We’ve got a close-up of the island’s summit — no longer canon, sure but we can clearly see that Labyrinth is located beneath Scrap Brain, so it’s safe to assume that Act 3 from the Mega Drive version could easily fit right here. There’s also a peculiar building that resembles the beta background from Spring Yard Zone. Technically, the structures we see here could easily serve as Starlight Zone — a route you’d need to travel through before reaching Scrap Brain... and to top it all off — Sky Base fits here too. So yeah... South Island is a mess. I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight.
To play Devil's Advocate, Scrap Brain and Sky Base could have been dismantled/removed from the Island after the events of Sonic 1 itself, which is one reason why they're missing on the Origins map. Since they're both essentially Eggman bases, there's no reason to keep them active. Or their new location is simply on the backside of the peak, which is an alteration but not necessarily as major of one. Obviously, Starlight survived, but that may be something more resembling an actual city for local residents (human or furry? We don't really know how that works in game canon on these islands...) That all said, I've always been fascinated by the s1gg map and wanted similar maps for Westside to be made.
Ah, I've been thinking about this in a project I'm trying to get working, if I can get some Blender shaders right. I assume that little pale blue line that connects to the ait, then the other side of the river is supposed to be the bridge of Bridge Zone. They revealed the beta maps, perhaps that could be used as a basis and expanded upon with the extra Westside Island levels (both the other Era levels moved to the present map, and Sonic Mania's additional two since they directly connect to Chemical Plant and Oil Ocean, unless you want to keep it purely Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive))?
Cute little nod. Fans love these. Doesn't mean in any way that the 16-bit game is connected to the 8-bit one.
Also, I wouldn't take the zones' placement in Origins for granted. For all we know, the Origins devs were making just as many guesses as we are.
To devil’s advocate your devil’s advocate, the Origins maps update to reflect major location changes in the games as they are completed, like Little Planet and the Death Egg’s placement; there’s no such update to Scrap Brain.
That's assuming that's supposed to be Westside Island, and not South Island. Considering that a) the first Sonic 2 zone was called Green Hill originally, b) none of the Sonic 2 concept documents mention the island's name, so we don't know at what point in development they came up with Westside Island, c) the 8-bit version of Sonic 2 does take place on South Island, and we know that version has remnants of early Sonic 2 MD (like the title screen), and d) the S2 beta map sketch has various similarities to the S1 8-bit South Island map, like having Green Hill Zone and a jungle zone in the same spots (and you could even make a case for Ocean Wind Zone = Bridge Zone, which also share map placement and have similar concepts).
Good points. Makes you wonder if Metropolis Zone was supposed to be the city you see in the background of Spring Yard/Starlight Zone early on as well.
