All the S@nics - the end

[Arctangent]

i wonder if those mesh cylinders are just animated through bitmap tiles like normal background elements or if they actually programmed a vaguely 3d effect in assembly

[Blivsey]

That death at 4 minutes in was really strange, it didn't fade out right away,
and since the stage wraps around vertically, we got to see turbo speed sonic's corpse.

I'm guessing it's something to do with dying right when you got sprung by the pillar.

*Edit* Happened again at 4:54, is this stage always weird like that?

Yeah, what you're seeing is the effect of something that no other zone in Sonic 2 has: vertical wrap! The stage doesn't actually have any bottomless pits (except near the end of Act 3). Instead, the level redraws from the top when you reach the bottom of the map. The game uses this to extend its paths much further up and down. There are also a few endless falls in certain places, where the puzzle is to find a place to land, then make the jump to safety.

Buuuut it also has the effect of causing some weird graphical oddities, like Sonic's death animation occasionally making the loop, or the weird dead platform that didn't despawn. I think this particular nut is real close to the top of the map, so Sonic didn't hit the "bottom" until right before coming on screen a second time? And the game uses that to decide when to fade out.

[Whimsical Calamari]

i wonder if those mesh cylinders are just animated through bitmap tiles like normal background elements or if they actually programmed a vaguely 3d effect in assembly

it looks like there's no "background" cylinder to speak of. the cylinder's foreground element is just animated well enough that the complexity of the mesh makes one's imagination fill in the backside.

[Kleetus]

The name Metropolis Zone implies a city. This giant smelting pool with nuts big enough to stand on has to be one of the strangest residential areas I've ever seen.

[BurntTenda]

Seems pretty average to me.

[Awoo]

The name Metropolis Zone implies a city. This giant smelting pool with nuts big enough to stand on has to be one of the strangest residential areas I've ever seen.

Still probably more comfortable to live in than Kowloon Walled City

[Arctangent]

i wonder if those mesh cylinders are just animated through bitmap tiles like normal background elements or if they actually programmed a vaguely 3d effect in assembly

it looks like there's no "background" cylinder to speak of. the cylinder's foreground element is just animated well enough that the complexity of the mesh makes one's imagination fill in the backside.

i think you might'ved mispositioned the word "background" when reading that

[Heavy Sigh]

and now for tonights installment of the Sonic 2 Novella...

Fun BETA Sonic Facts!

Genocide City Zone, later known as Cyber City Zone, was a level designed primarily by Tom Payne, and it was to be a single act zone with a scarily industrial theme, but was dropped for time.

Like most levels in Sonic 2, Genocide City's basic theme was envisioned by Hirokazu Yasuhara and Yasushi Yamaguchi drew up concept art for it. Once Yamaguchi drew the initial concept art, in-game graphic design was handed off to Tom Payne. Tom worked industriously, producing both Graphics for the level and a full map, but before they could be combined in the game proper, the level was axed.

According to Tom Payne himself, the name "Genocide City" was cooked up by the Japanese staff and their, in his words, "not quite complete grasp of the English language.", though he does concede that the reason was likely that they were "looking for a name that sounded dangerous," though upon being informed of the meaning of the word, it took less than a day for the replacement name of Cyber City to be decided on.

However, Tom Payne's graphics were not wasted - some of his creations were recycled for the unreleased Mega Drive game B-Bomb, while others were reused for Sonic Spinball.

[BobisOnlyBob]

However, Tom Payne's graphics were not wasted - some of his creations were recycled for the unreleased Mega Drive game B-Bomb, while others were reused for Sonic Spinball.

Would you happen to know which zones of Spinball? I always assumed it was either Toxic Caves or The Machine.

[Bean]

You technically still have a chance to get to the Special Stage three more times in the one level coming up later on, but yeah, I didn't think you'd get all seven in this one. Besides, your familiarity with the series isn't like Mario or Mega Man here, so it's kind of expected that you'll miss out on them in a lot of these games.

Metropolis Zone exists. Honestly wouldn't have minded this being the final level since as it is, the game kind of feels like it just drags on and on after Oil Ocean.

[Awoo]

However, Tom Payne's graphics were not wasted - some of his creations were recycled for the unreleased Mega Drive game B-Bomb, while others were reused for Sonic Spinball.

Would you happen to know which zones of Spinball? I always assumed it was either Toxic Caves or The Machine.

The Machine has what would have essentially been Cyber City's graphics

[Crow]

However, Tom Payne's graphics were not wasted - some of his creations were recycled for the unreleased Mega Drive game B-Bomb, while others were reused for Sonic Spinball.

Would you happen to know which zones of Spinball? I always assumed it was either Toxic Caves or The Machine.

The Machine has what would have essentially been Cyber City's graphics

i guess that explains why it's so flat visually compared to how detailed the other three are, then

[Piesonscreations]

I find it strange how things that can smash you in this game have no sound tell, and there's no graphics that could give you a clue that it could smash you or anything like that. I'm mostly refering to those smashing doors raocow encountered.

[DinnerSonic]

Metropolis Zone, more like Rude... polis zone...



I wasn't sure if it'd be appropriate to post the video song thing without much content in the post, but I can't think of much to say that hasn't been covered. Genocide City -> Cyber City -> Metropolis Zone Act 3, the kind of meaner level design and long-windingness of it, etc. Though said demo of the song makes it sound pretty different with the slowness of it, and I still find myself kind of impressed by the size of some of the moving level objects, assuming they're sprites.

[Leet]

As a kid I too thought that "Genocide City Zone" was an epic scary name

[Heavy Sigh]

Fun Sonic Facts!

Even as Sonic 2 was finally completed, tensions behind the scenes were hitting the boiling point. Many artists inside STI felt they had learned absolutely nothing from their japanese colleagues, and while Yasuhara and Yasushi were amicable, easygoing fellows, Yuji Naka had proven himself a whole different story.

Disgusted by what he saw as a pack of lazy workers that held up production more than they ever helped it, as the american staff had flatly refused to do things like work through the night or sleep in their cubicles, Naka flatly ordered that the american and japanese staff of STI be split apart, with the japanese staff given all of the sonic titles while the american staff made original works. Unwilling to antagonize the man that laid their golden egg, Sega's upper management complied.

With Naka's arrogant snobbery destroying what Cerny had set out to create at STI, Cerny quit, and was replaced by Roger Hector, a man who became very aware very quickly of just how much pull Naka had. While the teams would work together at points, the dream that had originally created STI was dead, never to be revived.

Level Facts!

Sky Chase was made mere weeks before Sonic 2 was set to be released, and thus Sonic Team took the easy way out and made it an autoscroller, splitting it off from Wing Fortress zone to inflate the zone count on the back of the box.

[Grounder]

[Piesonscreations]

Yuji Naka was not a Yuji Nakama after all.

[Leet]

I think weird endgame zones are pretty cool

[Crow]

i didn't even bother actually watching this video i just listened to the audio and got the full sky chase experience regardless

[Reecer7]

hey, this video fits both of raocow's video length rules!

who would've thunk that the level where you are running on the wings of a biplane several miles in the air as it chases after a flying fortress was actually the most chill and laid back level of like, the entire sonic genesis library

[10204307]

Honestly the music for both Sky Chase and Wing Fortress sounds like the composer either didn't know or forgot that this was the endgame. It's just way too slow-paced for what's supposed to be happening in the story. Which is a shame because the rest of the game's music is quite good.

[KobaBeach]

Disgusted by what he saw as a pack of lazy workers that held up production more than they ever helped it, as the american staff had flatly refused to do things like work through the night or sleep in their cubicles, Naka flatly ordered that the american and japanese staff of STI be split apart, with the japanese staff given all of the sonic titles while the american staff made original works. Unwilling to antagonize the man that laid their golden egg, Sega's upper management complied.

wow yuji naka is a cop

[DinnerSonic]

Strange that Sonic 2 managed to get away with copying a song from today's VIP5 level. I blame Yuji Naka, since that's what we're doing in this thread.



Sky Chase Zone is pretty relaxing, the calm before the storm, where it's kinda hard to die... unless you make too many sudden movements/spin dashes, fall off the plane, die instantly, and become afraid to do anything at all on any plane ride level in any game ever from that point forward.

[Heavy Sigh]

Fun Sonic Facts!

The Sonic 2 development team was supposed to continue working on a Sega CD port of the game, with big dreams of it being an 'extended version' with cutscenes and a new soundtrack. However, SoJ had different plans, and decided to create a new Sonic game themselves in-house, without involving STI. A game which 'coincidentally' featured a time travel element...

No gameplay of Sonic 2 CD was ever demonstrated, however during mid-1992 select members of the gaming press were given access to a very strange prototype, or more likely a rolling demo. The footage bears very little resemblence to anything in Sonic 2 - in all honesty it was most likely a simple test for Sega-CD hardware trying to piggyback off the marketing madness surrounding Sonic 2.

LEVEL FACTS

Wing Fortress Zone was known as Sky Fortress Zone in publications and internally for much of its development, which is rather strange as the Title Cards of all known betas in which the Zone exists name it Wing Fortress Zone. It was one of the last zones in the game to be added and the last to be finished, alongside Sky Chase Zone.

In fact, it was added so late, that there have been doubts the stage was truly finished. Beyond the fact that the piece of Wing Fortress appearing in Sky Chase is actually a chunk of Wing Fortress's beta layout, in the second half of the stage, Sonic encounters a suspended cable with no purpose, passes a diagonal conveyor belt which despite being animated, has no collision at all, and hits an area filled with hooks and dead ends that do absolutely nothing except take up the players time. The heavy use of boosters around these areas is also suspicious, as other stages make sparing use of them and the stage itself doesn't really make them much fun. In addition, the boss also lacks a sound effect for its laser, a problem no other boss in the game has.