The Definitive Development History of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2024) 

Lot of stuff in here I haven’t seen before, even after watching a lot about this games development.

1:12:21 *During Sonic 3’s development Sonic 3: “I wonder what happened with this zone concept?😉” Sonic & Knuckles: “Yeah I wonder.” *Steals Flying Battery Zone from 3 /j

This has to be one of the best documentaries about sonic 2's development and legacy I've ever seen.You jump into so many details about each level and the build up to the actual development. Fantastic job, lots of information. I don't know what else you could've talked about really. I hope lots of people will actually see this video!

One simple thing would make this video immaculate: background music! The level music for the zone you’re currently talking about perhaps…

The music of this game is so distinct and iconic. As you went through zone to zone the music for each immediately popped into/played in my head. When I was a kid Sonic 3 was definitely my favorite soundtrack of the genesis games but Sonic 2s has grown on me immensely.

I've never learned this much new information about a sonic game ever. Nice job on the research 👍

I've been wanting this exact documentary for a while now. You've clearly put a great deal of effort into it, it's well put together and well researched. Great job.

Would love a documentary like this on Sonic Adventure!

Metropolis and Tropical Plant being in the same slot makes sense given the starfish and crab badniks. Maybe the nuts and bolts you run up would’ve been large palm trees instead?

I'd contest the idea that you can't fall in Sky Chase. Spindashing is a bad idea. Also can kill you in Mania.

"There are no clowns, unless your counting eggman at the end" BRO ROASTED EGGMAN IN 10 DIFFERENT WAYS

This is the documentary I've been looking for

Absolutely quality video, I’ve been reading about this game for over twenty years and this still taught me something. Fantastic effort! Great job!

Fantastic video! I'm always down to watch some history on Sonic and Sonic team's early adventures. Learned some cool stuff about the Blue Dude too. I wonder what things would be like if we ended up in the Boomer sidekick timeline? Sonic 2 is still my favorite game outside of Adventure 2.

I feel so sorry for Brenda Ross. She made artwork for the whole levels but none of them made it into the game. At least we have art for Wood Zone, but Sand Shower and the winter zone are seemingly lost to time.

This is absolutely brilliant work/research - loved watching this!

This is a great documentary on the history of sonic 2’s development which is just as iconic Asda game and this video deserves way more views.

This deserves so many more views than it has. Phenomenal work!

1:17:27 Ngl, I had the urge to correct you and say its name is Silver Sonic. Until I instantly remembered that’s not the robot’s name outside of Archie. And it’s just called Mecha Sonic & Robo Sonic (in Lego Dimensions for the latter).

A very insightful watch, with dang good presentation too! Gotta say though, I'm *very* glad we got Tails instead of Boomer. This dude doesn't really feel like a Sonic character imo

Two things I want to add... 1.The Japanese text says "DESERT", next to the top image of Banper, which means ROCK WORLD was a variant on the Desert Zone, also known as Sand Shower Zone, which we know to be a winter level. Therefore, Rock World's identity is the same of this "Winter Zone. 2. Cyber City existed alongside Metropolis Act 3, as the Simon Wai Prototype proves. Naka's exact quote was "Act 3 (of Metropolis Zone) was going to be a Zone in the first half that would only appear once (one act), but it was cut and placed after act 2. We had already finished the map, and it would have been a shame to waste it, so this is what we went with." This obviously cannot be Cyber City, as that level is inside the finale, "THE FUTURE". Also, Cyber City's layout sketches don't resemble Metropolis 3's at all.

Love how much detail is in this video! It's clear that you put a lot of work into research into this game, with plenty of stuff I didn't know about (like Boomer the Turtle, or how Naka got his start at STI). I will give a few suggestions on how to improve things, though. First the narration seems like it's using the same delivery throughout. Next, some more background music could've made things more engaging. Lastly, the script can be repetitive at times, especially the zone by zone breakdown that didn't give a lot of new info. There are also some inaccuracies (such as saying Metropolis 3 is Genocide City, which seems to be disproven nowadays) but I get that it's hard to catch everything, and most other statements have a source backing them up. Other than those points, enjoyed the information brought up! (Hope this comment wasn't too rambly or mean-spirited.)

"Hirokazu Yasuhara also drew his own version of these characters." **child level stick figures** ...this man's a professional.

LETS GO!! I was been binge watching videos on Sonic 2 beta content lately!

That yasuhara concept art may be simple but I love it

Okay, now Sonic 2 is my favorite game. Learning more about it makes me feel joy, unlike other classic Sonic games, just like I feel learning about the scrapped rabbit character (I call him Reto Maximus, it's a combination of Reto and Max, the names Naoto Ohshima planned to name him). But anyway, this isn't about him lmao. I like learning interesting parts of the game like concept art, planned mechanics, the time travel plot, and especially the zones. So, thanks for making this video because I really like learning about Sonic 2.

Whoa! This documentary is amazing! How has no one heard of this?

Sonic 2 was the first video game I ever played and I remember the day the Nick Arcade proto dropped feeling like the the most important moment of my life up to that point. As someone who's spent their whole life deeply entrenched in Sonic 2 lore, I give this video my sign off. It's great.

35:50 Blue Lake Zone isn't level slot $06. Tropical Plant Zone actually uses $06. Some people do accidentally get Blue Lake's level slot wrong. Blue Lake Zone is actually $08, which is Hidden Palace Zone's level slot in the Simon Wai Prototype of Sonic The Hedgehog 2. 40:52 The Unused Snow Themed level is actually called "Rock World Zone" and can be seen on the map of the ancient past. It's level slot is $09, which is unused in most of the earlier prototypes, and is Sky Chase's level slot in the final game. When level slot $09 is loaded in the Simon Wai Prototype, it plays the music of Sky Chase Zone. If you listen to one of the FM Channels of Sky Chase's theme, you can hear that the bell plays the first 4 notes of Jingle Bells, I like to call these 4 notes "Christmas Jingle" due to the fact that it is heard in many christmas songs.

Fun fact, the early name “sky fortress zone” was reused for Sonic 4 Episode 2

To what I think Sonic 2 looks like, in my opinion Green Hill Zone,EHZ Ocean Wind Zone,2p Resulte Woods Zone,Custom Sand Shower Zone,OOZ Metropolis Zone,MTZ Tropical Plant Zone,EHZ 2P Hill Top Zone,HTZ Blue Lake Zone,Custom Olimpus/Secret Palace Zone,MCZ 2P Rock World Zone,SCZ Oil Ocean Zone,CNZ 2P Dust Hill Zone,MCZ Death Egg Zone,Custom? Hill Top Zone Again,HTZ? Blue Lake Zone Again,Custom Tropical Plant/Summer Zone Again,EHZ 2P? Casino Night Zone,CNZ Chemical Plant Zone,CPZ Cyber City Zone,DEZ? Space/Death Egg Zone,WFZ? Fire Mountain Zone,Custom Neo Death Egg Zone,Custom

Nice video!

I grew up playing this game, and never once figured out that Tail's name was a play on words for miles per hour

i love the thumbnail art!

Akchually, Sonic 2 came out in 1992, not 2024

46:48 how do you manage to write down september 21st lol

What if soon-after Sonic 1, Sonic 2 began development sooner in July 1991(instead of September 1991)? While still released on November 1992? What would've changed about the sequel if it had 16 months of development?

Scratch & Grounder in AoStH, are based on Clucker and Grounder from Sonic 2. Since the show started development during Sonic 2’s development, which is why Tails is brown in the show. There could be a chance that Clucker was originally called Scratch at some point in Sonic 2’s development. Since Grounder in the show retains his original name. Tho, judging how drastic of a redesign Scratch is from Clucker, and how Satam has a more in scale design for their Clucker. On top of that show starting development first. There could be a chance that, unless Clucker was able to stand up and looked more like Scratch while doing so, the possibility of Scratch being an unused name is more unlikely. Unless confirmed itself.

I thought the flying turtle jet badniks was more a reference to the kaiju Gamera than another conceptual Sonic sidekick

I still have one of those holographic stickers off of the rolling printer. I put it on my cartridge

This video deserves 50K views and likes! 😊

ain't gonna cap here, the scrapped stuff are actually good ideas.

if this doesn't mention the music situation , I'll reSPECT it but I still want it to.....

I have a CRIPPLING obsession with Sonic 1 and 2's development and this DOES NOT help it!!!!! (awesome video)

Cool

52:24 this concept may have made it into sonic superstars in the form of pinball carnival, as multiple clown heads can be seen and it has roller coaster like platforms.

This is my level order for Sonic 3 with time travel (Present) Angel Island Zone Hydrocity Zone Marble Garden Zone Sandopolis Zone Launch Base Zone (Past) Mushroom Hill Zone Ancient Temple Zone (Custom) Ice Cap Zone Rocky Valley Zone (Custom) (Ruined Present) Desert Ruin Zone (Custom) Oil Factory Zone (Custom) Underground Hell Zone (Custom) (Future) Cyber Island Zone (Custom) Flying Battery Zone Carnival Night Zone (Past) Again Lava Reef Zone Hidden Palace Zone (Present) Again Sky Sanctuary Zone Death Egg Zone Doomsday Zone

It's not molten metal in the Metropolis Zone, it's lava

Winter zone was called Rock World zone

you should cover sonic frontiers development

52:32 Big clown heads and rollercoasters sounds a lot like Pinball Carnival from Sonic Superstars.

cool documentary. but I think sonic 2 turned out perfect. yes many suggestions were made, but quality control is important.

9:06 did tails try to smoke protoculture or something why does he look like that

Underatted

1:15:00 Boomer jumpscare. Wait, that’s not early Archie Rotor. /j

1:02:21 Sonic Mania, where are you?!

1:01:16 Sally Acorn at the right side of the screen jump scare.

55:22 What’s up with the image here? Is that the Snail?

Just because Sonic 3 had a robot frog does not make it similar to the scrapped frog robot in Sonic 2. It doesn't look or move the same at all.

A-zure, not aZURE. It means "blue."

1:10:03 Egg WHAT?!!!!

Someone from sonicretro asked if the script was made with AI They're kinda rude

Boomer looks like a stretched out red from angry birds

16:48 HE’S DEAD!! 😂

7:26

Script repeats itself too often. Why do you need to say Nick Arcade was a hack of Sonic 1 more than once, for example. Also, much of the backstory seems like it could have been cut, this video doesn't seem like it needed to be so long. As for incorrect things: -"Medieval" is a misnomer, Madness Mountain never appears on timeline documents to my knowledge and the idea of there being a specific Medieval time period is a misunderstanding due to a weird translation, it's just referring to one of the other past time periods. Also what's with the Marble Zone comparison? -Sand Shower would not transform into Winter Zone mid-act, they were fully different levels... as was stated earlier in the script. Proofreading. -One of the Rock Worlds was probably Winter Zone, given it is directly called "Rock/Winter Zone" on at least one dev sheet. Y'all have Tom Payne's documents in the video, it's among those. As for the 2nd Rock World, that one is a mystery. -The "Genocide City became Metropolis Act 3" has become incredibly dubious every since the maps leaked and more information has come out about the level's dev timeline. They, infact, seem to have coexisted. -Her name is Brenda Cook now. Stop calling her Brenda Ross. -Last Battle in Space is a separate thing from Death Egg, it's probably that weird dragon art seen in that MTV thing and eventually became Doomsday. -Hidden Palace was not originally intended to be a special place where Sonic became Super Sonic, that became it's purpose later on once it's fate started to look shaky. Originally it was just a normal level (it was probably either the warp point or Olympus present on the time travel maps) -Maybe I missed it but did you not mention the layout for what is likely Blue Ocean Zone among Tom Payne's stuff? That's a hell of an oversight.

22:44 Don’t fade the music so quickly! Imagine it continuing to play as you start talking just at a low volume and maybe some dampening fx?

1:04:54

25:12 it's soooo bad

sonic 2

After reading the interviews from the Sonic Mania team it sounded like Yuji Naka would repeatedly scrap good ideas and shoehorn bad ideas into the game. For example Sonic Mania was originally supposed to be nothing, but new levels and Yugi Naka wanted nothing but remade levels. They ended up compromising, which Yuji barely ever budged on. Yuji Naka was a big reason why Chris Whitehead didn't want to come back to make a second one.

24:00 If the Sonic 2 soundtrack was as bad as Sonic CD USA, I see why they changed it.

What I'd like to know is wth happened to Sonic Team after SA, The downfall of the series started with SA2 and most of the games have been mediocre, even SuperStars and Dreamteam are meh.

The poorly defined relationship between Sega Japan and USA was probably responsible for tanking both the 32X and the Saturn, and possibly therefore their console making business in general.

Rendering errors, randomly zoomed in artwork (1:15:03), for a creator that i belive is usually pretty high effort, this is pretty poor at times. i don't know if you just didin't check for these issues after rendering or not but it just comes off as slapdash, the lac kof any music and just your voiceover also makes it feel less professional than your usual output.

I refuse to believe Chemical Plant is a "fan favorite". Chemical Plant sucks ass, especially as a second zone. I can rarely force myself past it because it's just that unappealing to play. A zone that slows your pace down to a crawl this hard should be in the last set of levels, not immediately after the first damn area of the game. Aquatic Ruin should of been in it's place and Chemical Plant should of been in between Oil Ocean and Metropolis. Yes a level half underwater would still be better pacing than the crap known as Chemical Plant. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've beaten Sonic 2, while I need a pen and paper to tally up for 1 and 3&K. Chemical Plant is *that* egregious of a pace killer. The only reason people actually remember it is because it's so striking in contrast to the level before it, not because it's actually a good level or they enjoy it.