Just hearing you talk about how the levels are designed gave me an idea. You could take away the acts and just have levels. That way you could transition from green hill zone to the woods, bridge zone whatever you like. Then you would actually feel like you are travelling around the map world more. But I know how much people like acts. Probably why I love DKC and Mario World for their maps and how you progress.
The September 14 prototype and Masato Nakamura's demo version of the unused song prove it was probably not supposed to be Hidden Palace Zone's theme or the BGM for any zone. Its actual theme, at least as a proper zone, was the one used for Mystic Cave Zone in 2P VS. It's unknown where the theme would have played. Here are some common theories: • There was a minute-long cutscene when collecting the Chaos Emeralds and it was meant to play there with the ending from the demo. • Sonic would be transported to Hidden Palace before each special stage like when collecting the Super Emeralds in Sonic & Knuckles and the looped version would have played there (linked to the previous theory). • The game's ending had different music depending on whether or not all Chaos Emeralds had been collected.
In fact, that image of the Sand Shower Zone would be one of the first photos of the first prototype of Sonic The Hedgehog 2, I believe it was an early prototype, where I would use an initial Tails sprite, where he would be brown, and Sonic's sprite would be from S1 but with different colors.
The Aug. 21st build is my favorite prototype honestly. It's so close to the spanish promotional video I used to watch being like "Where's more of those lost builds?" That to me is a gem. I lost it when that was found. It's a slightly more playable Wai prototype haha!
U deserve my sub, talking 1 hour about the sonic 2 prototype is tough. Having music on top and background graphics and on context images must be painful...
25:26 it could be that Dust Hill's level slot was used for mystic cave in the final game, there's also the possiblity of there being 2 desert levels initially in the game, i like to think that Dust Hill was that one level from the image and that Sand Shower became aquatic ruins (because the name makes it sound like it would mix a desert level with water)
When loading zone ID 03, presumed to belong to Sand Shower Zone because of the world map art, in the "Simon Wai" prototype, the theme for Oil Ocean Zone plays. Multiple prototypes use the Casino Night Zone (2P VS) music for Oil Ocean instead. I assume Brenda Ross didn't know the name of the desert zone, so she thought it was called Dust Hill Zone because, prior to 2017, that was seen as fact; Craig Stitt designed Hidden Palace as a cave not knowing it was supposed to be a palace. The others might have misremembered, presumably also prior to 2017 when the map art wasn't revealed. The Dust Hill name being used for Mystic Cave can't be because of it replacing the desert zone, because they have different IDs. One of Aquatic Ruin Zone's early names is Neo Green Hill Zone, showing it was probably intended for the future time period if it was concieved when the time travel plot was still planned. It replaced the second act of Cyber City Zone, which made it appear as if it were to come between Cyber City and Death Egg in prototypes. Aquatic Ruin's theme probably always belonged to Aquatic Ruin. The supposed "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly" riff might actually be the Tarzan scream. It definitely wasn't for Sand Shower Zone. Rock World Zone is definitely the winter zone. It's a direct counterpart to Sand Shower Zone, which appears in the same location as Rock World. The ID that is supposed to belong to Rock World Zone even plays the Sky Chase music. 'Medieval Time' is a mistranslation of the past/ancient time period.
@@The1SunshineFeelerIt's been pretty much confirmed that Winter Zone is a later concept of Rock World Zone, since in some documents, an ice level is stated to be the past version of a desert level, and Rock World is in the same spot as Sand Showers is in the past map, not to mention they both share graphics, much like Emerald Hill and Hilltop, plus, Rock World's level slot in the Simon Wai build plays the Sky Chase theme, which further confirms Rock World had been turned into a winter zone by that point
Sonic 1 released a week before my younger sister was born so I can confirm that is close to the actual release date. My older cousin nabbed a copy immediately and gave it to me later on. :)
Man, i know your channel is new and all but you feel like a channel whodeserves way more subs than you currently have. Your content is good. Hope more people recognise ur talent sooner than later
Great videos dude! I just stumbled across your content tonight. Really informative and fun narration! I'm now subbed to your channel. :) By the way-- did you hear that actual raw Sand Shower graphics were found on one of Tom Payne's development disks? It was discovered literally yesterday!
You have brilliant knowledge on the original narrative of the Mega Drive era with the islands and their respective lore. Also I wonder if Hill Top and Hidden Palace's dinosaur themed badniks are remnants of the time travel idea
Its amazing how the algorithm has pucked your channel up! The community needs more people who have their favts straight and deliver in debth content! Congratulations on 1k!
16:35 Again with the FAX. The Half Pipe Stages were such a hassle to deal with (even if future ports allowed you to see the rings better). Idk why many Classic Sonic games had to reuse this idea multiple times (although to Sonic 2’s credit they did give you many chances).
honestly I didn't expected a one hour video about sonic 2 the next day after I've subscribed to you it's like the content gods making sure I have enough content so i don't get bored
Nice vid, the topic needed someone to go thru all the early versions, like you did here. :) Although it still seems that the 2 most-important ones are: the Nick Arcade prototype, and the Simon Wai prototype. The later ones are just filling in the last details of the final version. Which is basically the impression I got, some years ago, when I was first looking at the topic, it's mainly those 2 that are worth playing. (There's also several great hacks that fill-out the lost stages, I was going to make a vid about that someday, haha.)
Oh my god…. A new creator, he does sonic things, he’s amazing, he deserves more subs, and he uses music from the ova? I think your gonna go real far in life. Keep it up!
Tails losing rings makes sense when you consider he loses rings when he's hit in the special stages AND he's controlled by player 2, who is able to collect his own rings in those special stages and loses them when hit. The ring count is still combined, but they each had their own. I wonder if the final version would have had it the same way in the regular zones too?
I doubt it would’ve made it into the final game, because given how much more complex Tails’ AI is in the regular zones, it would’ve created so many problems that the game would be nearly unplayable in single player, and the developers would have to account for so many situations and redesign levels in order to prevent them, which they didn’t have the time to deal with . In the special stages all he does is follow Sonic left to right and jump, and the only things you can do are dodge bombs and collect rings, so there’s not really as many situations to account for.
@@The1SunshineFeeler Maybe the reason there were so many zones was to compete with how many levels were in Super Mario World? I know you said it was most likely 18 zones and one act per zone, but if you were to multiply each zone by 2 or 3, you would get a high number of acts in the same ballpark as a Mario game at the time.
You mentioning Archives made me do a double take. I actually know the guys working on that hack, and helped with some code for the (currently WIP) special stage. Great people, especially great artists, don’t know when you should expect new public builds but I know you guys will like what they’re cooking Don’t have much to say about the video itself, without just basically repeating it anyway
Amazing video, my only suggestion is maybe lowering the music a bit more. It's very close to the volume of your voice which makes it a bit harder to focus.
I still hope that someone talented creates an entire fan game about it, like Sonic 2 was planned. Still with the Sonic 2 Levels inside. This would be such a big and nice 2D Sonic game.
Damn. I only found out that Shelly had passed away during editing hence why I didn’t mention it in the recording (I had already knew Greg Martin passed away), but I went all this time and somehow never heard about Kodama’s passing. R.I.P.
Dust Hill Zone might be a mine cave from the old west and take place after the Sand Shower Zone. The transition works from level to level that way. Eh just a theory. It'd make for a cool hack.
Genocide city zone actually still existed after that whole time travel idea was scrapped and was supposed to Act as the original Act 3 to Metropolis zone but also being it’s own single Act. It was possibly scrapped when the beta builds were starting to get made and could still exist as a zone in a beta build which we don’t have access to yet
Oh crap! I forgot to point that out! It’s the same thing with Knuckles in the special stages if you plug Sonic 2 into Sonic & Knuckles. The reason is that their torsos are based on Sonic’s sprite, thus their arms share the different pale palette.
48:52 Also, track 10 isn’t Hidden Palace’s theme, if I remember correctly one of the developers stated that track 10 was supposed to be cutscreen music
Pardon the double post but one theory about the music i have; The music used for Aquatic ruins could have originally been used for Sand Showers zone. very subtle we can hear a 5-note leitmotif popularly used and parodied in Western (as in cowboys) media. Aquatic ruins theme; ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AzoB6XXnea0.html The Good, the Bad and The Ugly leitmotif; ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hBD6s0bE45U.html However, as someone in the comments under the AR deconstruction video mentioned it could have been the Tarzan Scream mentioined. Considering AR is based in a jungle-y type of place and Tarzan did take place in a jungle too this could have also been the case. However i personally thingk its more a reference to the The Good, The Bad and the Ugly considering how popular that song became, topping no.4 on the billboards at some point in time aswell as how heavily referenced that leitmotif in western (cowboys etc) media before the release of sonic 2. The tarzan scream is ONLY known as the Tarzan scream. TGtBatU leitmotife is known known as THE western/cowboy leitmotif, or hell even referenced in areas that look like it could be the backdrop of a western cowboy film. Sand Showers looks like that with the Cacti, the rock formations in the background that resemble that of MONUMENT VALLEY Monument Valley- a location seen often in western cowboy films/media.
The music for Simon Wai prototype of Sonic 2 slow music is better sometimes and also Some different music from the prototype is better then the final Sonic 2. No pressure.
I think when I was writing the script I was originally gonna put a “Why does it look like Vegas?!” when I got to the finalized Casino Night, but I forgot to put it in 😂
I think what you went with was MUCH better. Everyone was quoting the vegas line I'm glad you put in the inflatable hand women. Or the blowing into your hand and making a pumpkin appear@@The1SunshineFeeler
57:59 this is the 1st time they met so maybe Tails didn’t get the oversized shoes and gloves until later. I also like the origins version a bit more because we actually get to see Tails’s bullies and Sonic helping Tails by stopping them.
I’ve heard from a RU-vidr once that possibly Wood Zone, Dust Hill Zone, Hidden Palace, and Genocide City Zone could have more complete versions in a undiscovered beta build between Nick Arcade and Simon Wai. Just have to wait and see if a build like that ever does get leaked ✌️
Maybe some time in the future if more gets discovered about that game, but I feel like for now everything that could be said about that game has been said before and I have nothing to add :)
I’ve heard that the 2 player Mystic cave music was actually supposed to be the music used for Dust Hill/Sand Shower zone once :v Don’t have any evidence to support this idea but just a single RU-vid video called “Dust Hill Act 1 music” which is literally just the 2 player Mythic Cave music. Though honestly the soundtrack does kinda have that outlandish Desert vibe to it
24:30: That’s not a Nazi symbol. It’s the original Buddhist symbol, the Nazi symbol is the backwards version. Which makes sense actually. The Buddhist symbol shows a Z like Zen. :)
@@The1SunshineFeeler Well ok lol, I'm glad to provide the footnote that the Buddhist symbol of peace, remains a living symbol, for forever. Completely regardless that the Nazi's made their own... backwards, hate-symbol, it doesn't affect the original Buddhist teachings of peace, from 2,600 years ago, and into the future. For example, Buddha statues have always been carved with the original symbol, on their chest. :)
Tails sharing the same bank account with Sonic wasn't a good idea and which doesn't make sense for them to take a long time to remove it. Actually Tails sharing the bank account despite just meeting Sonic was already a weird thing
Are there timestamps for the music names in the video I just watched this whole thing and did not realize I needed to look out for those, did not look at the desc till it was over
