ALL Sonic the Hedgehog 1 + 2 Unused Content | LOST BITS [TetraBitGaming]

Alright, to start off let's take a look at the Master System Port of Sonic the Hedgehog as it now has less

unused

content

overall for those of you who don't know that the Master System version of the game was basically a stripped down version. of The Genesis game with 8-bit graphics instead of 16 different stages and some other differences now if only there was a YouTube series comparing two versions of a game okay as usual let's listen to some music first and sounds not used in the game. files, an

unused

version of Marble Zone's music exists from The Genesis version, thank you and since Marble Zone is not on the Master System version, this song strongly suggests that at some point Marble Zone was planned to be on this version , but was removed due to time or hardware limitations.

Next up are several short sound clips that were removed from the game. No one seems to really know where they were meant to be or why they were cut off, but there are a few different theories. First of? It sounds like an unused version of the bumper sound, then there's a weird discarded echo sound and no one really knows what it could be used for, but maybe it sounds like a sound for entering a special stage or something, and the next one is a unused bubbly sound. This sounds like water being drained or water rising on a stage.

Blades have also been used in the Marble Zone, and lastly, there is a sound clip that sounds like some sort of alarm. It is believed to have been initially used in the scrap brain or sky. zones and finally for the master system port, let's take a look at some of the graphics that were not used or changed in the final version. Firstly, there are several minor graphics here that were omitted, these include unused random tile sprites, a spring, some kind of door. In addition to an unused terrain segment, there are also these unused Labyrinth pillars that don't even have equivalents in the Genesis version, as well as an unused animation for Neutron found in the game's Green Hill tileset, too There appears to be an enemy that was removed from the final game, this bat brain enemy appears in the Genesis version of the game and although it can be found in the 8-bit port files among other Green Hill Zone objects, it is never actually seen. a foreign version of Sonic the Hedgehog that most people know on Sega Genesis, keeping the same theme as before, now we will explore some Sprites not used in this version.

First, let's take a look at some discarded Sonic Sprites. First, a Sprite of Sonic swallowing air, as well as an animation of Sonic holding his breath, the latter was probably intended to be used when Sonic was about to drown. Below are some unused Sonic Sprites jumping around in early development screenshots, this was intended to be used as an animation for Sonic after completing a level now for me. It looks similar to how Mario jumps, so that might have had something to do with why it was initially removed, but interestingly, a slightly altered version of this jump made its way to Sonic Mania with the same purpose included, similarly. , there is this fragment. sliding animation that was removed from the original Sonic the Hedgehog, but has also made its way into Sonic Mania.

Next up are some spinning board looking cut out Sprites that appear elongated in a certain direction, apparently there is a callout for these Sprites in the game files but it is not used in the final game yet, lastly there are two Death Sprites unused for Sonic. The first unused Death Sprite is a burnt gray Sonic Sprite that would likely be used when Sonic died from touching lava in the Marvel Zone. The second is. a set of shrinking Sprites that look like Sonic falling. It's believed this was going to be used in some sort of bird's eye view segment, maybe if Sonic was destined to fall out of the sky or fall into a hole or something, next let's have a look at some unused monitors in the game .

I still don't know how opening a computer monitor can provide Sonic Rings or a shield, but I guess that's just video game logic anyway, the first unused monitor is one with robotniks or Eggman's face now. Some of you know that these appear in later Sonic games and hurt Sonic if opened, so their purpose in the first game would probably have been the same. Next is a monitor with a pair of glasses that this turned on unused would probably give to Sonic. either more or unlimited time underwater, which would have been awesome because if there's one thing I hate about Sonic games, it's the underwater levels.

Next is a monitor with static which is believed to have been some sort of exception handler for a monitor containing invalid objects, now these monitors can be placed in a level with debug mode, which we will get to later, but if they are placed and broken, nothing really happens and the last unused monitor is one that only has an s, although it was not used in the original game, this monitor appears in the 2013 remakes in which it turns Sonic into super

sonic

. Then there is an unused sign meant to be in the Springyard area that simply says let's go, there is also an unused enemy in the Genesis version called Splats the bunny and since even after the release.

A trading card and a Splats figure were made from the game, it was most likely cut very near the end of the game's development, there are several other minor unused graphics that aren't really worth mentioning, but I'll show them quickly. On display for you right here, they range from various unused tile sets to unused explosions and switches in the game files. An unused warp effect can also be found when trying to use it in the game, when Sonic runs into the warp area he will disappear and a warp noise will accompany this effect and then Sonic will reappear a few seconds later.

It is believed that it was an early version of warp for the special stage or just a way to test it out. Well, now it's time to move on to the fun stuff. There are actually three really short codes that you can enter on the title screen for the first one by pressing C six times, followed by up, down, left, right on the title screen and then after pressing Home while holding a b and c on On the demo screen instead of the Sonic team logo, you can see a secret list of the game's developers written in Japanese.

Next, it's a little more helpful if you enter up, down, left, right, then start with a plus sign and then you can access the stage selection menu which allows you to start in any area you want. I want even the special stage and the Final Zone and finally the most radical code of this game by entering up C down C left C right C and A and start, now you can enter debug mode in this debug mode you can move Sonic and the Pretty game camera with a lot of freedom even through walls and floors. Additionally, you can cycle through various objects that appear in the level and place them wherever you see fit, basically turning the game into Sonic Maker.

It was actually a lot of fun to play with, so if you have a copy. of this game, I highly recommend checking it out as it can even produce some pretty interesting results or you can beat an entire level in about 15 seconds and feel super proud of yourself anyway. I thought we would use debug mode on each level and first let's see if we can discover something interesting: the most iconic Sonic stage, Green Hill Zone. One interesting thing I could see was that if you try to move the camera below this section here, we can see that these spikes are not attached to the ground normally because the camera is so high, we assumed the spikes would be on something, so It's a little strange to see it this way alongside these mobile platforms.

This actually happens quite often when placing spikes or lava on nothing, for sure. I can call it lazy, but I guess we weren't actually meant to see this very far down, also near the first fight against Robotnik, far below the stage there is a floating rock left by the developers, you can even stand on it. a few seconds until the main camera tries to return to where it should be, which kills, you always wanted to create an army of motorcycle bugs, well now you can. Another strange thing about using debug mode is that when you are in certain areas usually towards the end of the level Sprites, like the end post or other enemies, will not load correctly and other Sprites will be called instead.

This leads to strange looking end posts, as well as strange enemy mutations that use robotic Sprites. Okay, not having problems with the special stages. You're no longer like the special stages aren't awesome enough, you can use debug mode to knock Sonic off the map and then some really weird things start happening. Sonic will fall and speed up very quickly and then randomly several Sprites from the Special Stages will now appear. The really cool thing about this is that it actually reveals several other Sprites that aren't normally seen. This includes a marker that labels which zone the special stage was in for a one icon, as well as a w marker with a sometimes unknown purpose.

I seriously wonder what kind of LSD Sonic team was there to create this special stage aesthetic. Next up is the Marble Zone, here we can spawn random fireballs and yes, even full fire geysers and lava flows. Logic on the same note in this section that Normally you have to run away from the lava behind what the camera can normally see. We can notice that the Chasing You lava flow also cuts off instead of filling that entire area. I also found these strange robotic tiles that are only visible. in debug mode, but I can't seem to figure out what they represent or why they are here in the Marvel Zone boss fight.

I'm pretty sure I broke the game for a while and spawned so many enemies that Dr. Obonic himself was called and probably my favorite zone in Sonic 1, the Spring Yard zone debug mode allows you to spawn bumpers wherever you want, which , as you can imagine, can cause some problems in this area. We can also move the camera far below the stage to see more. the background image and even underneath when cut, which I thought was pretty cool, seriously what I said before. I don't really like

sonic

water levels and luckily the debug mode helps me a lot with this in Labyrinth Zone we can start. to spawn a lot more items and enemies like these projectile-shooting heads, a bunch of random floating spears, or even the bubbles that fill your air, I was also able to skip one of the most annoying boss fights ever, so that's pretty cool too.

Well. Starlight Zone did not. I don't really have anything worth mentioning that I can find, so let's move on to the Waste Brain Zone. In this Zone, you can place those robotic tiles I mentioned before and they look like they are invisible blocks to stand on. To me this still doesn't make much sense since they can be found inside walls and such, but I guess they were just a last minute measure by the developers to add collision detection to objects quickly and, just like in Labyrinth Zone, luckily we can also skip basically all of the Scrap Rain Zone's water segments in stage 3, which takes us straight to the Final Zone during this fight with Robotnik again.

Debug mode gives the player an unfair advantage, although you can't play Sonic on top of the area. You can move the camera and see where Robonic will appear next sooner than normal. It's also interesting to see that Robotnik will stay in the same place until just before teleporting to another area, plus just after being hit when he moves off-screen. Dr. Robotnik is still trapped in his damaged phase and is surrounded by a white rectangle that doesn't change until he teleports away and with that Dr. Obonik is defeated or at least until the next game. 2020 was a pretty bad year for most, thankfully, though it's over.

On a high note for many Sonic fans, for those who didn't hear The Cutting Room Floor and Hidden Palace featured a recently shared prototype of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, why was it such a big deal? Although some prototypes of the game. Known to exist to this day, none have been properly dissected let alone made public, so naturally when it was broadcast live, many fans, myself included, were losing their minds anyway, in this video we'll dive into this prototype and talk about what I think are the most notable changes from the final, as well as all the interesting findings.

Anyway, we've already talked a lot, we have a lot to analyze here, so let's go back to a time before the game that started it all and find some

lost

offers, likeI mentioned. Previously, several pre-release builds of Sonic 1 were known, and while it appears this build lacks specific information, such as a build date, based solely on things seen in this prototype, it is believed to be a later build located somewhere. place between the demo scene. at CES 1991 and the build scene in the Sega Genesis Strategy Guide Magazine for Game Players and if you're wondering, apparently this build we're discussing here originates from some unnamed UK magazine of all modes, let's get to the changes before we get to the Gameplay right after starting the game, you can already see some changes here compared to the final release.

Here a much smaller, brighter and quieter Sega logo starts the game, so unfortunately it is not heard here, guys, there are no Sonic Team gifts before the iconic title screen and this prototype contains a message to press the button start, one that does not appear in the final version and a fun fact about this, apparently this text is supposed to appear in the final version, but due to a bug that arises from the Sonic Team presentations and press the button text boot using the same memory space, the latter just doesn't show up as expected, but it's enough on the title screen.

Now let's get to the game and the stages first, some general changes seen here throughout this prototype to start with, you can notice some differences with the front screen here. The rings simply look like a singular ring and will also not flash red when the ring count is zero and the timer here resets to nine minutes every minute after reaching it, which also means that this build does not have a time limit of 10 minutes before losing a life, so you're free to wander around and explore the stages to your heart's

content

. content without time restrictions, also, another strange difference here is that the timer will continue counting after finishing a game in the final version, it stops instead, below there are many other gameplay differences in this version.

Sonic has no collision on top of him when damaged, there is no combo point bonus for getting a multiple kill, this game lacks any type of checkpoint in all cases, one-ups are obtained with 50 and 100 rings in instead of 100 and 200 respectively, making it much easier to stock up on lives to add. that you can also take damage and reach 50 and 100 rings as much as you can to keep gaining lives within a stage, while in the final version the game limits you to only two rings per life per level, this change was very likely made because The developers saw that accumulating a pool of lives was too easy, potentially eliminating the fear of losing a life.

The collision is a little worn at times, some platforms seem to make Sonic lose speed for no good reason, the spikes hurt even Sonic. with the invincibility power-up, vertical camera movement is quite slow, often too slow to keep up with Blue Blur Sonic. Sonic's jump here is no less than 6 pixels and there are a few more changes that I will mention as we go through the stages seen in this prototype and speaking of stages, let's get to them first, of course, it is the most iconic Sonic area and reused Green Hill Zone, which despite being the most polished zone seen in this build, still has several differences compared to the final release material. like the sunflower still having magenta centers instead of green, some enemies were removed, like this Moto bug at the start here, which was probably removed so players wouldn't lose a life just seconds after starting.

Several palms here lack things like element monitors or springs. which were added later and yes, overall there are some design changes to the individual acts, like there's a spike wall along the wall here near the beginning of the first act for seemingly no good reason, like it really There was nothing behind them or anything. So what are they really protecting? Now come spikes, fortunately these were removed. Another notable change is seen here at the top of act one, where no platforms have been added yet. Ax2 had almost the same, some rings and springs added or removed. on the monitors were changed and some platforms added here and there, again it's similar in act 3 where once again some monitors were changed and a few more spikes were removed, the boss fight here remains unchanged but I thought it was notable to mention that at this point.

In development, this was the only zone that featured a functional boss battle, now all of those things are fined and probably the most notable thing seen here in Green Hill Zone are these balls. When I look back at my old Sonic Lost Bits video, I'm surprised that I didn't actually cover this ball, but before it was seen in this prototype, although it was found to be left unused in the final version, it cannot be placed to leave it useless, so the intended location and use of this ball was only seen in some old, grainy screenshots. From other pre-release builds, that changes here as the ball appears in each act of Green Hill Zone, it works as you'd expect, just with a bit more bugs.

Sonic can push them and be pushed by them, it seems too. Simply leaving the area upon reaching certain points like this bridge here, it's not entirely clear what their purpose was. I mean, besides being a hindrance as a man, some of them are in really inconvenient places, no wonder they've been removed since Sonic. they can actually roll these balls through the S tunnels, they may have served some larger purpose but sadly it is still unknown and another thing before we continue are some differences that are seen when completing an act first. Sonic cannot run off the screen after completing it. an okay act, I guess, but I think one of the most interesting changes in this version, at least, is that here Sonic can perform a unique victory jump on this screen.

I mentioned these Sprites in my original Sonic Lost Fits video since they continued. won't be used in the final version, so it's really cool to see them in action here, and honestly, Sonic the nervous guy is really cool. I wish they had kept this also for the end of the ACT area, the hidden point markers are not present in this yet. The building and rings of the special stage are not fully implemented here, if Sonic passes through one of these rings he will turn glowing and then disappear from the screen in a way reminiscent of that scene later in Sonic CD.

Now I've seen some fans speculate that this could have been a remnant of a CD-like time travel mechanic that might have been thought of at some point, but I think it's much more likely that this was simply a scrapped transition. between the Act and the special stage, especially considering how close it is. releasing this prototype was a great mechanic as time travel doesn't seem like a trivial thing to throw out so far in development, now in Marble Zone, oh my gosh it's UFOs, you might be wondering about UFOs, well no one knows sure what they are resulting in. unidentified part of the acronym, but again, until this prototype was released, they were only seen in some of the first screenshots of the game and became a fairly well-known change as their removal is so obvious that many fans were really happy see them. a working build, they don't do anything more than act cool in the background, but hey, the truth was really there outside of that, although we did get more than you'd expect in terms of changes, like different designs and locations of enemies and rings a time.

Again, act 1 in Marble Zone has a bad Nick right at the beginning who can Bop Sonic if you don't move in time anyway, in the interest of time for the rest of this video I'll leave out all the location changes of the ring and of the enemy. As I'll only be highlighting more major changes to the full level designs, a more notable change in the first act is the different scene in this hallway instead of the vertical tip falling, in this prototype a horizontal one is seen, making this be quite interesting is that this horizontal tip is actually not used at all in the final exterior and is accessible through debug mode, so, like the ball, it's really cool to see another object that has never been seen in a used state and move on to act 2 as seen here.

The layout was quite different in the second half of the ACT, plus another pretty big change here has to do with these glass platforms instead of just hitting a switch to move them. Sonic has to jump on them several times to lower them very slowly. something similar to that mechanic with the barrels seen in Carnival Night Zone and Sonic 3. I'm really glad the change was made here in Act 2. You can also increase damage through lava here to exit the stage for no reason. at all, so it's fun, so act 3 has more of the same in terms of changes and once again you can see more major design changes here towards the end of ACT and as I mentioned, Green Hill Zone was the only one here with a functioning boss. fight, so at the end of this Zone we are greeted with a sign and with that ends this last Zone completely complete in this prototype, the next one is Spring yard Zone, yes, here we can not only see the initial name of Spring Yard Zone, but Also gone is a completely different background graphic, the distance of the mountains, the city skyline and the trees and instead this area seems to have been designed to be right in the middle of a city as we can easily see billboards or signs in the background, these include many.

I wish you good luck, I say go and the ones I'm sure I can't read, starting with the first act, the overall layout is pretty similar with a few changes here and there, maintaining that the Prototype is the most difficult issue we've been looking at until now. This build has this bumper surrounded by four lines of spiked balls, it's definitely an obstacle that sure is okay now to act two or not, I guess we'll skip Maze Zone 2 and go straight to the Starlight Zone. Well, I guess from the beginning here it becomes. Clearly this stage isn't exactly something you'd call finished, as it turns out that this is actually the last normally playable act in the game, as after touching Ensign's pole that's out of place, might I add? the game will take you back to the title screen fear not, although there is a way to access the rest of the stages which we will return to later anyway.

Starlight Zone here has a slightly different style as the platforms are not just rigid blocks but a lot more beams. Present, like the Prototype itself, the stage used to have a more under-construction aesthetic. The latter also has several changes that can be seen throughout the ACT. Honestly, aside from a few key areas like loops, this scenario is quite different and there are several as well. areas that don't really have an obvious way to be reached at this point, so as I normally said, I guess for whoever this build was created for, this would have been the end of their demo experience, but luckily this prototype has a not so hidden level. select that can be opened by simply pressing a and start on the title screen and here we can access the rest of the stages in this prototype which are skipped for good reason as they are not as finished as the rest so let's first finish quickly With the areas we already started in for the rest of the Bright Zone, it's pretty much the same as what we saw in Act 1.

Leo changes like starting on a slope instead of a flat platform at the start of Act 2 as well as some half-pipe stuff removed when we get to act 3, although the level design is more or less complete at this point in development, there are no stage objects like bumpers or floating platforms that are necessary to complete the stage, yes, without them, this act is normally impossible to complete, but it's not like there's a sign at the end anyway, so it's not a big deal before continuing. I think it's also worth noting that there's something weird about this prototype here where Sonic will like to stay on top of some roofs here when he jumps to them.

Anyway, I don't think this will be a thing in the final game. Now we move on to the rest of Starlight Zone and just like with act 3 of Spark Zone, these two are almost completely done. free of objects several changes were also made, of course, here in Act 2, this wavy segment did not exist, there was one less loop here and yes, I am starting to see many more changes than similarities and the same goes for act 3, where some ideas like the steep introductory slope were kept, but basically the restof the stage received a complete overhaul, not much stayed the same and this overhaul was certainly for the better as at this stage of development this act is really hard to beat as it was The area I skipped before is probably the one I enjoyed the least in this game.

Labyrinth Zone I just never really enjoyed most water levels in video games, you know, so I was really happy to see that at this point in development water wasn't implemented yet, yeah, and so on. the other scenarios that normally can't be played, this whole area is pretty barren again. Also, you may have already noticed that the background in this area is also different, since instead of bricks and things like that, here we see a pile of rocks, as well as some cracks where sunlight can enter. You can see peeping really hammering home the fact that this area is in some sort of cave.

The strange thing is that although the background looks fine in act 1, in act two it is only half the presence and finally in act three it has become completely strange. Other changes include different designs for the crystals seen in the area which here seem more simplistic, as well as these brick tiles which were removed in the final version for some reason, the designs of course also saw some changes but not as many as in some of the other areas. For the most part, the overall designs seem pretty similar, that is, without water being implemented, but these stages are practically impossible to complete normally, thankfully, although the debug mode seen in almost every game in the series Genesis Sonic's main character is also present here, so with him.

I can go through and around the walls at will to explore some areas that would otherwise be inaccessible here, just like with debug mode and other Sonic games, in this prototype we can also place various objects, including items and enemies, such as here we can place. on rings that appear black due to a failed color palette or bad crab meat Nick, what do you mean you can't tell it's crab meat and yeah, before going into debug mode here it really didn't reveal anything else notable Which we haven't seen yet in this prototype or the final game, just the ability to move with Zep, have invincibility, and place an item.

We've seen it countless times here on the show. Now let's go back to the level. Select the last remaining main zone. Clock Zone or Orc Clock Zone I guess it looks like someone forgot to add the W here. It turns out that there isn't actually a W here because there is no W Sprite present on the title card. Graphics due to storage limitations. Anyway, clock zone is an early name for what became a Junk Brain Zone and this is probably the least finished Zone in this prototype, which isn't entirely surprising considering it's the last regular Zone in The final game, like the other zones right away, it's obvious that the background graphic is different rather than the smoggy industrial background here.

It looks like the backdrop just uses tiles from the stage itself which often creates a perception of depth and extra challenge and in Act 2 the backdrop is just a nice blue. Stunning blue death screen like I said this area is very incomplete there are no items or enemies the fast travel tube things don't work in fact the roads are often very worn out there are several dead ends the gears and conveyor belts don't work at all intended and yes, in general, the stage looks as polished as sandpaper, it's no surprise that both acts were almost completely revamped in the final game with very few design ideas remaining.

Both acts well, what about act three of Scrap Brain Zone? You might be wondering, well, it just doesn't exist in this Prototype, at least not in any playable form, I can't even access it while I'm on the level select screen. Act 3 here is simply not accessible, and if you haven't noticed, there is no ending on the level select screen either. The zone is still present in this setup, so that's it for the zones, but of course there is also a special stage to check. Only one special stage is found in this configuration and it is quite simple in terms of design, with very few rings and bumpers.

There are still no chaos emeralds to collect and instead there is just this green block surrounded by rings which I assume is supposed to be a placeholder for the emerald; unfortunately it can't be obtained or anything like that, although there's no real end to the special stage either, even if you manage to reach the objective tiles the stage will spin but then stop for a while and then the stage will restart. There's not much else you can do here at this stage of development, but I guess they were just showing this as a sort of proof of concept, and while that's it for the levels, we're not done yet, as this prototype also contains several things that are not normally used here.

First, let's start with some unused audio that can be heard in the sound check on the level select screen now to clarify, they may not necessarily be used in the final version, but first they are not used in this prototype. Sound effects range from buzzers to vibrating sounds and footsteps. In the interest of time, I'll just quickly skip through them. The sound effects here are okay, so as far as the music goes, there are no single unused tracks in the Prototype, but it does sound a little different compared to the finale and is also not used here, the Final Zone and the Tracks on the continuation screen do not disappear.

It is used here since both are not implemented yet and the ending theme is a bit slower compared to the ending. Here's a quick comparison below, although it's currently only speculated that there is also an unused level color palette believed to have been intended for the Green Hill Zone and this is what the stage looks like, some believe this could have been for some kind of version of the night mode scenario that was once planned, but again, it's currently just being speculated. Now, lastly for this video, let's go over some graphics and objects not used until now.

Sprites, we have some sparkles, some fireballs, things this Sprite speculated were destined for the glowing zone, the boss fight, these splashes of water, destined for the Labyrinth Zone, some puffs of smoke, these magnets and skulls, graphics destined to the special stage that is believed to have been given to Sonic. the ability to attract rings and die in the mode respectively and lastly, there is a sixth unused Sprite for the animation of the UFOs seen in Marble Zone, making the rotation of the outer ring look more complete now that it can be restored in the game with the use of a cheat code, but it is not clear why this box is not used here, so for unused objects first, there is this, whatever it is, this is that.

Cycling between two confusing Sprites, this unknown object can actually be seen briefly in footage of the game's early development on a developer's screen, we also have this object that acts as a door that can be opened by pressing a switch. This thing is believed to have been a switch intended for the Marble Zone. Another unknown unused item destined for the Labyrinth Zone. This seesaw object that can be placed in Starlight Zone via Debug Mode is now used in the final version, but here in this prototype, even when placed, they lack the spiked balls used to launch Sonic towards above and even more mysterious is that here these rockers also have an unused function that allows them to disappear.

This prototype also contains several bad Nicks that were not implemented in any of the stages seen. We have the burrowing robots in a different color palette. The bad Knicks from Jaws. Splats. The famous discarded Bad Nick who also happened to be an unused enemy in the final version can be placed back in the Marble Zone in a different palette oh yeah and they don't seem to have collisions with moving platforms either and yeah that's a little strange and, finally, and probably most interesting is The Badnik Ball Hog which is seen here working differently now in Final Cut, the Ball Hogs face sideways and will launch a bomb that bounces back towards the player in this prototype; however, the function of the Ball Hogs is to move from side to side and fire bombs directly downwards.

For the higher platform player, this feature has been a topic of speculation for a while, as this version of Ball Hog could be seen in some pre-release gameplay footage, so once again, it's really cool to see this in action here, it's really awesome to finally have basically Sonic's Holy Grail prototypes publicly available. Sure it would have been cooler to see a build from an even earlier point in development, but I'm certainly not complaining. This is truly an amazing find and it is amazing to have this for preservation. As I've been saying throughout the video, while we've seen a lot of these early changes in old screenshots, it's really cool to finally see them in action ahead of the release of the Game Gear version of Sonic 2, magazines, and other media.

A special prototype of the game for review purposes, this prototype is simply known as Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Auto Demo and as the name implies, this prototype was not actually playable and was more of a video demonstration of the game's features. game, interestingly enough, the queues are nowhere. can be found in this demo, suggesting that during the December 1991 build date of this prototype, Tails may not even have been planned to play a major role in the game, but outside of the usual small differences that seen between the prototype and the final releases, this automated demo also has some unused content found in its files first is a music track that can be heard in each of the areas presented in this prototype.

Interestingly, there is no music track similar to this in the final version. The auto demo prototype also contains several Sprites that were not used in this build, the strangest ones are just these creepy unused Sonic Sprites, laughing at them, something seems so unnatural. Here are most of the other unused graphics that are in the prototype files but usually never look right and now is the time. To get to the version of Sonic 2 that most of us probably remember better than the version for the Sega Genesis or Mega Drive, this version of Sonic 2 had some pre-release prototypes containing several things that were altered or unfortunately left out of the finale. build To better understand all the changes, we first need to establish the timeline of all these prototypes.

The oldest compilation we know of so far is known as the Nick arcade prototype due to its similarities to a compilation shown on Nickelodeon's Nick arcade game show. in 1992. This is such an early prototype that it still used several elements from the first Sonic the Hedgehog game. The next prototype was discovered at a Chinese geographical site and is known as the Simon prototype and named after the person who discovered it. This is another. Initial build, although more complete compared to Nick's arcade version, was apparently Simon's prototype and was from a demo cart that had been stolen from a toy show in New York in 1992.

And finally, there are the prototypes simply numbered as betas 4 through 8, which All internal test builds of the game were very advanced in development, the last two weeks before release, to be specific, so let's start with the earliest version of Nick's arcade prototype . This is the only iteration of Sonic 2 that has a mechanic where Sonic would recover. of a wall if you run into one with enough speed these are the Sprites that were used for this mechanic for Sonic falling after the bounce he has to go slower Sonic has to go slower but let me tell you that this mechanic is super annoying in a game which is meant to be played quickly, it's not often that I'm happy to see some things removed from a game, but this is definitely one of those times where the Nick arcade prototype also contains several graphics that are not used in this version , as well as in any other.

The first one is an animation of Sonic turning left and right. It seems like the developers wanted Sonic to have a spinning animation instead of just instantly changing which direction he's facing. This build also has unused Sprites to make Sonic run at a faster speed. what appears to be him running at some sort of top speed, Sonic seems to lean more forward the faster he runs, also there are unused Sprites that would be used for an animation for Sonic pulling something, probably a handle or box, next It is an unused animation ofSonic balance on a ledge and here are some more diverse objects with different purposes.

This last rotating metal ball seems the most interesting and was intended to act as an obstacle that would continually bounce off the floor. It was eventually accessible in the debug menu in the 2013 Remake of the game, now let's look at some of the unused Bad Nicks in this prototype that never made it to the final release. The first is the mother of the evil nicknamed Bubbler, as her name indicates, these were meant to fly and throw Bubbler enemies below. is Bee Bats, a bad Nick who was also removed from the final release of Sonic 2. Similarly, there are also the Stagos or Stegways Gators and Bee Fish Madness, all of these bad Nicks, except the bee fish, were later reintroduced in the new version of the game from 2013 and moving on to the graphics not used in the Simon and prototype, most of them are the same as those in the Nick arcade version, with a few exceptions.

These exceptions are some animated exercises from Metropolis Zone, some Vines from Mystic Cave. Zone and most interestingly some leftover graphics from another Sega game, cheeky guys, apparently it was common practice to reuse the chips for testing prototypes and they were often not completely erased, as a result any data that wasn't was overwritten it would preserve the data of what had been done previously. Loaded as such, these graphics for this fire and splatter of cheeky, cheeky guys made their way into this wild Sonic 2 prototype. There are also some unused monitors that appear in the arcade nick and Simon's prototypes and the most interesting ones are the Mysterious monitor and spring. monitor in the nick arcade prototype, the mystery monitor does absolutely nothing, but in the simon y prototype it will change sonic's color palette to supersonic, however, although the colors may have changed, no supersonic abilities are granted additionally, the spring monitor has no effect on any of the prototypes. but there are two common theories about what they could have done: the first theory is that it would give Sonic or Tails a spring that would make them bounce up and down until they suffered damage similar to that scene in Sonic Triple Trouble and the other theory. is that it would simply increase the height of Sonic or Tails' jump to reach higher areas.

Moving into betas 4 through 8, we can see a lot of things that were changed closer to the game's release, for example the main title screen undermining several iterations. Until it became the one we saw in the final version, this title screen was used until beta 5, when it was changed. What's strange is that the art for this original title screen actually appears in the instruction manual for the non-Japanese versions of the game. As well as the Master System and Game Gear versions, several other minor changes were made in these beta versions, such as screen positioning, the level select screen, some text graphics, and the color palettes used in special stages. .

Here is a comparison of the special versions. match the color palettes used in beta 4 with those used in beta 6 and onwards, you may also notice that in previous beta versions the name miles is still used, this was changed in later beta versions to the nickname colas , other notable graphics that were changed between beta versions 4 and later. Beta versions include the invincibility power-up flares and also the stegos, which received a small design update with better looking headplates, flames, and tires. Now that we've discussed all the prototype versions, let's take a look at how some of the animations and graphics have changed between the builds, the flashing Sprites for Sonic in the arcade nick and the Simon builds and make it look like Sonic doesn't.

He has eyelids when he closes his eyes. I mean, it looks cool, but it's a little weird when you start doing it. Think about it in beta 4 and onwards, Sonic was given proper eyelids that matched the color of the rest of his skin. Interestingly, Sonic's walking animation was actually better in early prototypes compared to later versions and the final release versions of Simon and Nick that had the animation. 12 frames compared to later ones that only had eight frames. My best guess is that this was reduced to save on memory usage and improve overall game performance. A fairly well-known change between earlier and later versions is Sonic's running animation.

In the previous versions, Sonic's legs and shoes become blurred, as seen in a cartoon, this spinning turn was removed in the later prototypes to resemble what we saw in the final version, another animation that changed quite a bit is that of Sonic skidding to a stop originally, Sonic would skid and start leaning in the opposite direction, but in later versions he simply skids and instantly turns around and, as a fun fact, the beginning of the previously used animation was eventually reused in Sonic Mania, finally for Sonic, there's his balancing animation, which was also changed in previous prototypes, it was much more similar to The Balancing animation from Sonic 1.

In beta 4 and onwards it was almost completely redone, another pretty big change. was made for the Knicks, their Sprite was essentially redone and they were given a walking animation as well as the ability to position their shield in more than one direction, lastly the end goal signs also underwent some changes between builds, you can see here. The changes between the first arcade version of Nick and the Simon and Beyond version move towards some of the best-known parts of these prototypes. Now let's talk about all the areas in these versions that are normally not playable and have to be.

Accessed through the level select cheats in the Prototype stage in the developments of this game, as seen on the stage select screen, some of the prototypes still used the zone names and music from Sonic 1 You can actually play Green Hill Zone from Sonic 1. in the game and I use the term play loosely as this stage has some pretty messy crash and crash graphics, honestly without using debug mode this level. It's basically unplayable. I mean, although this act never made it into the final release of Sonic 2 there. There were still some modifications between Simon Y and later prototypes, supporting the idea that Green Hill Zone could have been slated to return in Sonic 2.

And the following are the chemical plant zone prototypes still listed in the I play like Marvel. The area in this stage saw some pretty major changes even between prototypes, most notably between arcade Nick and Simon and the most obvious visual change is the color of the background palette, which changed from purple to a more yellowish green color and the level The actual thing itself was almost completely redone, there are too many small changes to show individually, but I'll overlay the designs from each iteration here and you can see all the differences for yourself. Another notable change after Simon's compilation is that the loop segments were altered and their diagonal corners were removed.

Now let's move on to one of the most famous unused areas in Sonic history, the hidden area of ​​the Palace, which in the previous version is still named Spring Air, although the stage is not used, it is still almost complete, which suggests that it was removed late in the game's development even though it was believed to be one of the first levels worked on. It was revealed that the hidden Palace Zone was intended to be a level where the player would be taken by collecting the seven Chaos. Emeralds, the Hidden Palace Zone features several of the unused enemies I mentioned above and appears to be some sort of Cavern containing remains of an ancient civilization.

There's a little more history in the Junkyard, but I think I'll go over it in more detail. in a future video, other oddities here are that water doesn't affect the tails at all as it doesn't slow movement and you can't drown, also if you connect a second controller you can control the water level in Act One . By pressing up or down, probably as a debug function, the hidden Palace area can be accessed in the final version, but as with the Green Hill Zone in the nick arcade prototype, the collision of the area is completely wrong, this waste area was later re-created. added to the game in its 2013 mobile re-release as an optional Zone accessible for Mystic Cave Zone Act 2.

But the hidden Palace Zone name was also eventually reused for a Zone in Sonic and Knuckles and, although the Zone looks quite different, it is believe this version was based on the scrapped zone from Sonic 2. What do you get if you cross mazes of chemical plant mosaics, ring designs of wavy zones and marble? You get this mess that can't be reproduced. It's obvious to see that this area of ​​the maze is broken and essentially unplayable in Starlight Zone. we can access an older version of Emerald Hill Zone, also known as Green Hill Zone 2. This is the only zone that can be played in the prototypes without the use of level selection cheats, just like with the plant zone chemistry.

Emerald Hill Zone also saw some pretty significant improvements. changes between prototypes again. I'll show some of the differences between the versions here. Next up is the Hilltop Zone, as this zone uses the old waste brain zone slot. There are still several oddities here. This is fine again. Various changes were made between prototypes and often changes made after the Nick Arcade version would fix some pretty big bugs when trying to load Scrap Brain Zone. Act 3, the graphics are a bit silly and Nick Arcade's latest prototype is the Final Zone which simply loads Hilltop Zone. Act 1 again, going left will result in falling into a dead end and if you go right, you better like The Color Purple because that's all you'll see after the game crashes.

There are now methods to get past the area that always fails. game, but there is nothing else to see in this act that is worth mentioning, moving on to more areas of Simon's prototypes and since this build was further along in the development of the game. Here we can also see previous versions of the areas that made it to the final game. like some more unused zones, but first let's talk about Zone id1, which is an empty stage slot that can be accessed in Simon and build via a cheat device. Charming, isn't it? This scenario is believed to be the same disaster as the Labyrinth.

Nick's arcade construction zone, but this time with Emerald Hills pallets. Similar cases can be seen again in Zone ID3, Zone ID 6, Zone ID 9, Genocide, City, Zone, and Death Egg, though each with a different color palette or lack thereof, wait, said Genocide. City Zone, yes, apparently according to one of the game's developers, this Waste Zone was intended to be a mechanically themed Act 3 of the Metropolis Zone that would in turn appear as a standalone Zone with a single act, The term genocide was apparently chosen because of the language barrier it faces. On the part of the development team, the genocide part of the Zone was obviously altered due to the nature of the word and was changed to Cyber ​​City after Simon and built an interesting note of both zones of the Genocide City is that The theme from La Zona was used. to create the graphics for another unreleased game called b-bomb, the unused graphics were then reused again in the third level in Sonic spinball, the machine, as I mentioned above, several of the areas that would make it to the final game have older versions in Simon . and build which also had some changes in future prototype builds, some of these changes were quite significant, such as those in the Casino Night Zone, where originally the stages seemed quite unfinished.

Here I will quickly show some more examples of the changes in the Casino Night Zone. and other levels, including the Oil Ocean Zone, the Aquatic Ruins Zone which was originally called Neo Green Hill Zone, and the Mystic Cave Zone which was mistakenly listed as Dust Hill Zone. Dust Hill Zone is another fairly famous zone that was taken from Sonic 2 and, as the name suggests, it was going to be a desert-themed stage shortly after Sonic 2 was first announced. Sega distributed three concept screenshots of the game that mixed assets from Sonic 1 and 2. These screenshots were of Emerald Hill Zone's hidden Palace Zone and a desert setting that was eventually identified as a Dust Hill Zone mockup made by developer Hirokazu Yasuhara to this day.

No actual playable form of this zone has been found and only some remains of it are believed to be found in other prototypes and it is speculated that in the final release Dust Hill Zone would serve as inspiration for Desert Dazzle, an area intended for the remake. from Sonic CD from 2011, which in turntime was also removed from the game. Dust Hill Zone and Desert Dazzle are believed to be big inspirations for Mirage Saloon Zone, which eventually broke through. In Sonic Mania, next is Wood Zone, another area that did not make it to the final version. This stage is quite small and as you can see, it's definitely nowhere near finished.

The area has many bugs and, if you are. When using debug mode, much of it is inaccessible, only the Wood Zone palette and music data made it into the final release of Sonic 2 and can still be loaded into the game's Emerald Hill Zone from the playable prototype version in Simon and build. I still used the music from Metropolis Zone. It was originally speculated that Wood Zone was some sort of past version of Metropolis Zone. It was later revealed that it was actually supposed to be a current version of Casino Night Zone. Instead, yes, that's right, Sonic 2 was originally planned.

It has a time travel aspect to it. I guess it's something similar to what was used in Sonic CD. I hope you're not sick of the levels that were removed from this game yet because there are a few more to talk about, the rest are missing. in prototypes or final release and were only revealed in developer notes and interviews, as far as anyone knows, none of these made it past the development design stage. Several of these unused zones can be seen in these early development sketches that Hirokazuya Suhara showed off at a games industry event in Poland in 2017.

It is speculated that Rock World Zone was also part of the time travel mechanic. planned for the game and would have been a past version of Dust Hill Zone. Winterzone was apparently just going to be a winter version of Dust Hill. The area where the Zone would be covered in snow and Christmas trees would once again replace cacti may be a future form of dust. Hill area or something like that and next to it we can see Olympus due to the Greek origin of the word. It is believed to be the original name of the Aquatic Ruins Zone which also features Greek-style ruins throughout the level.

In these development sketches we can also see a rain of sand. Oceanic wind zone. Blue lake area and tropical plant area. Not much information is really known about these zones and whether they are just development names for zones that were changed or completely new zones that were never really worked on is still a mystery, so as you probably know, just like with the game original of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic 2 was also released in two or I guess two and a half different versions as such to start, let's first look at the Master System and Game Gear versions, just like the prequel, these versions of the game They are similar to The Genesis version but with a lower resolution, some different areas, as well as some More differences here and there first, I just want to address a mistake I made in my previous video where I played the wrong unused song.

The song I played, I claimed it wasn't used in the prototypes, but it actually wasn't in the prototypes and it's in the final version where it's not used, so if you didn't hear it in the last video, here's just a small fragment of that song, as is typical, no one knows for sure where the song was supposed to be used, but Due to its similarity, it is believed that it may have been used as one of the first Crystal Egg Zone themes and, for To top it off, here's the song Prototype that I was supposed to play for you in the last video.

Foreign is used in the prototypes. You don't hear anything like that in Final Cut. Below we have several unused Sprites and level tiles, although most of the assets in the Game Gear version of the game were taken directly from the Master System One. Some Sonic Sprites were altered. An example of this is Sonic's board animation seen when he remains idle for a while and was changed in the Game Gear version leaving these Sprites ultimately unused. Similarly, there is also an unused Sonic Death Sprite that was used in the first Sonic the Hedgehog game. There is also a cut. animation of Tails crying then happy, this was most likely supposed to be used at the end of the game when Tails is rescued but for some reason this was cut then we have two unused full body Sprites of some bosses normally only.

You can see the boss of these bosses in the Underground Zone and the Elevated Zone. But the complete Sprites of both are found in the game files. I honestly think it would have been at least a little more fun to see the Upper Zone. The boss walks like this, instead of being similar to most classic Sonic games. This game also has some monitors that are not used first. There is an unused Arrow monitor. This would probably have been used to give the player a checkpoint just like it did in the prequel to this one. The next set is unused monitors with a question mark and a gray sneaker.

A question mark monitor is believed to work similarly to the two-player mode in the Genesis version of the game, which basically just gives the player a random monitor that effects graying. On the other hand, the sneakers are believed to have slowed down the player in a similar way to the sneakers slowing down the speed in Sonic 3's two-player mode and you guys know how much I love going slow in a Sonic game like that one time they wanted to add a mechanic from Sonic 2 on the Genesis where Sonic would crash into a wall if he ran too fast towards it.

Ah yes, good times. The last unused monitor appears to have a picture of Sonic doing what he does best: a quick Blue Boy, although normally this unobtainable monitor can be found hidden in a wall in the Crystal Egg Zone, but Like other Sonic monitors, this one by default only gives the player one extra life, and as I mentioned above, there are also several unused level tiles left in the game. Admittedly, these files aren't that interesting, so I'll quickly show you some of them here. Thank you. Now it's time to move on to the Genesis or Mega Drive version of Sonic 2, which at least for me is the one I always think about. when someone mentions Sonic 2.

So again, first let's take a look at some of the unused music that was left out of this game. The first one is track number 10 in the game's sound check, so yes, it is accessible in the game, but it is not used in normal playback, let's listen thanks. In fact, this track was supposed to be the one used for the Hidden Palace Zone, a fairly complete zone that was found in previous Sonic 2 prototypes but was ultimately removed from the final release. This song, however, was not found in earlier prototypes where playable versions of Hidden Palace Zone used the track which was later repurposed for use in the Mystic Cave Zone in two-player mode, but the fact that The hidden area of ​​the Palace still being playable in the sound test simply reinforces the idea that the level was probably removed quite late in the game's development and the others were left unused.

The track is not in the game files but on the official soundtrack album for Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2 composed by Masato Nakamura. Track number 37 on the second disc of the set has a song called sth2, unused song, mass demo version. This is another version of the Hidden Palace Zone song, but instead of being a looped track, this one segues into a more fitting ending. Thank you. Some fans believe this could mean that the unused Hidden Palace Zone song was also planned to have this transition to a more finite ending perhaps in a cutscene or something would make sense as the song was intended to be accessible.

Hidden Palace area towards the end of the game after collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds throughout the game's Adventure, so perhaps it would have served as an alternate ending of sorts. Also, interestingly, when the Hidden Palace Zone was added back in the 2013 remake of the game, none of these tracks were used and instead the original two-player track Mystic Cave Zone was chosen and in the Sonic 2 sound test we can also access various sounds. that can't be heard in the normal game and many of them are also unused leftovers from Sonic 1. Let me quickly go over them now, moving on to some more unused graphics.

First, there is a grayscale death box for Sonic, likely intended to have been used if Sonic died as a result of coming into contact with considerably hot lava. If you've seen my video of missing

bits

in Sonic 1, you may also recognize this directly from that game where it's not used either, apparently it was. It's also not used in Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles, so you can expect me to talk about this Sprite at least twice more in those videos. The following is an unused animation of Sonic holding on to something that travels fairly fast as well as being vertical instead of horizontal.

This is very similar to the animation used in the Fortress Zone wing when Sonic clings to the panels on the side of the ship, although it is updated and reversed a similar animation can be seen in Sonic Mania and the following is an animation that normally not used. from a laughing sign by Dr. Robotnik, the game is coded to use this animation when Sonic loses rings during Silver Sonic's fight in the Death Egg Zone. The only problem is that Death Egg Zone has no rings, so in turn, Sonic never loses rings in his fight and as such this animation is not used.

However, this animation can be used in the 2013 remake of the game when Sonic dies, as well as in the Sonic Jam and 3DS ports, if played in easy and ringkeeper mode respectively, it can also be seen in the original game. by simply giving Sonic some rings via debug mode and while I'm on the topic of Dr. Eggman ER, I mean Dr. Robotnik, the game also contains an unused animation for the fight with him at the end of the zone. the chemical plant, this animation would be of the dock. accidentally dropping some of that wet Blue Goop on himself, of course, this makes his beady little eyes grow ten times larger for some reason.

This animation has actually been hidden in the game files since Nick Arcade's prototype. The following are some unused animals. walking turtle and the fussy pig seen in Sonic 1. On the bad neck side are some unused frames of Aqua spitting out some oil and a Valkyrie with her landing gear. Several unused variants of Bubble Snake are also seen. In the chemical plant area, variants range from one bubble in length to 16. However, in the final game, each encounter with these guys only uses six bubbles, leaving the other 15 variants completely unused, other remains of the Hidden Palace zone are an unused Zone icon intended to be seen on the game's level select screen with the use of a cheat code, this graphic can still be loaded into the game, further proof that this level was probably ready for release, but was removed fairly late in development. for the stages, other unused graphics include some light objects for the chemical plant zone, an also unused spring ball launcher mount for the oil ocean zone, and a turbine laser intended for the Wing Fortress Zone.

There is also this strange unused platform that can be accessed. with the debug mode of the game in Mystic Cave Zone, as you can see this platform is made of rings that cannot be collected and Sonic can walk on this platform like any other, the following is quite strange: there is a rotating extraction stage without using Hazard for Wing Fortress Zone It is still coded to damage Sonic, but can also be destroyed. The static monitor that we can often see in Sonic's debug modes also returns this time unused. However, if the monitor is opened, the player will actually take damage.

The game was also unused. Graphics of a door and a water ruins area that would have closed behind the player after passing it and a side pressure plug from the oil ocean area in the final version, only the vertical pressure plug is found; There is also an unused score counting variant that would have been seen at the end of a zone that only has an ax instead of saying that Sonic went through act 1, 2, or 3, it would have said that Sonic went through the Zone, which makes sense, however in the final game all zones with a single act are completely foregone. an end-of-stage escortality that, having said that, can still be seen in these stages if an animal capsule is placed in a stage with the game's debug mode.

Sonic 2 also has a ton of unused level fragments from previous prototype builds left in the game. The game likes too many to show them all, so I'll quickly show a few of them here as an example and now it's finally time to talk about the mode. of Sonic 2 as in the other 2D Sonic games that I have We have already talked about that this game also contains a debug mode that allows us to play with various objects and, more importantly, allows usmove practically wherever we want, even where we normally shouldn't and as expected from the other Sonics. games I've covered, this can lead to some things you don't normally see before we get to that, although there are actually two more debugging features in Sonic 2 that I haven't seen in the other Sonic games I've covered so far, the first of This is another thing I forgot to mention in the Prototype video and it's called night mode.

It can be accessed with Debug Mode enabled and by holding C and pressing Home on the level select screen in the Simon and Sonic 2 prototype. Pretty much all this Night Mode does is place a dark overlay on certain Sprite layers. . This was probably only used by the developers to check if the Sprites were being placed on the correct layer. The other new debugging feature is in the final version and this one allows us. Control to move some things by pressing up or down with a second controller connected, for example the background cloud layer can be moved up or down on the wing portrait.

Fun in the area, what's more interesting, both the rising terrain and the lava can be controlled towards the end. of the Zone Acts at the top of the hill, they are now much less of a threat than they normally are. Another interesting thing I found here is that the ground and lava actually return to the bottom of the level after reaching the top. Why is it like this? I'm not too sure, but I don't think this would have been visible under normal circumstances. Anyway, let's move on again to look at some things you don't normally see, as many of you will know that the development of Sonic 2 was quite rushed and this can definitely be seen. or rather, invisible just outside of what we can normally see when playing the game, normally inaccessible rings can often be found in various stages, these are mostly the result simply of leftovers from the previous prototypes where the stage designs were different because these rings are Normally unobtainable, this makes getting a perfect score, which requires getting all the rings in a level, impossible and it's not just unobtainable rings left in areas from previous builds, but that there are also leftover enemies like Seesaw and Hilltop Zone and this misplaced air. bubble in the Aquatic Ruins Zone, we can also see these debug question marks here in the Metropolis Zone, they are normally seen in areas with lava, so maybe at one time there was lava here too, with debug mode, As usual, we can also deviate from the normal path and see some areas that seem unfinished.

I mean, it makes sense because the developers knew that 99 of the players would never find their way to these places and some things you can place with debug mode tend to fail if you try to place them in an area. where your normal Sprites are usually not loaded yet, like this animal pod, a thing of nightmares, another cool thing that debug mode allows us to use in Sonic 2, is easier access to the teleport monitor, this monitor is used normally in the game's two-player competition. mode and will have Sonic and Tails swap places, this makes sense in two player mode, but in the normal game I didn't encounter a crazy thing like this in Death Egg Zone, since you only play as Sonic or Tails.

In the scenario, the game doesn't really know what to do when the monitor breaks and tries to throw you as far to the right as possible. Fortunately, with debug mode we can stop along the way and this allows us to go through the entire level with ease. As you can see, the graphics didn't load properly in the background here and seriously, what the hell am I looking at? I assume they are similar to the capsule charts I mentioned above if we get to this area earlier than normal. The normal Death Egg Robot Sprites are still not loaded properly and as such we are greeted with glitches here, the debug mode in Sonic proves once again that it is just a gift that keeps on giving and for the last stop of this video only I want to go over some of the remnants of zones that were removed from the game that are still accessible first, not using Zone id1, which is an empty level slot that was believed to originally contain Labyrinth Zone in an earlier prototype , this stage is essentially just an empty, item-less version of Act 1 of Emerald Hill Zone.

The strange thing is that for some reason, even though we are playing as Sonic, the name miles and his image are used in the life counter, instead, similarly, next are the remains of the Wood Zone, a famous area which was removed from the game again, this is an act 1 with no Emerald Hill Zone object, but now with the Wood Zone paddle, a messy collision and the Metropolis Zones music again, for some reason the life counter has changed, but this time the nickname of the story. instead, the next unused ID3 zone is used, which is almost identical to the first, but here oil ocean music is used and the Badness Sprites from Metropolis and Emerald Hill Zone are loaded.

It is believed that this unused zone slot was originally used by the unused zone. known as the Dust Hill Zone and lastly we have remnants of the Hidden Palace Zone, unfortunately as you can see this hot garbage looks nothing like the cool unused version of The Zone that can be accessed in the previous prototypes from Sonic 2. This version still uses proper collision of the prototypes to make it playable, but I don't understand why anyone would want to watch this for more than two seconds, so let's first look at a quick timeline of all the currently known prototypes of Sonic 2.

Sonic 2. So before 2019 there were the Nick arcade and Simon y prototypes, as well as several internal beta builds with build dates ranging from September 18 to September 24, 1992. Then three more builds with build dates were recently discovered between Simon Y and those internal beta prototypes, so let's go in chronological order. order and start with a prototype right after Simon and this prototype has a build date of August 21, 1992, which puts it about three months before the commercial release of the game, although many things remain the same from the Simon prototype and, like the similarities on the title screen. the lava doesn't work properly and Tails' behavior makes you lose rings if he gets hit like what the hell did he say there are also several other notable changes here first and probably the biggest one is Sonic himself, his Sprites have been updated from the previous version a cutscene in the final release as well, for some reason when a spinning board is loaded it not only makes some strange sounds but also after this the rings will also start making different sounds below.

The order of the area was also changed from the compilation of Simon and the order in Simon and was the aquatic ruin first, followed by the Hilltop and Emerald Hill chemical plants last, but in this prototype, the aquatic ruins exchange places and Emerald Hill and the Mystic Cave and Metropolis zones were added after Hilltop. I suppose this change could have been made since then. Emerald Hill is very similar in style to Green Hill Zone and perhaps the developers wanted the player to start with a zone that felt more familiar. It was even referred to as Green Hill Zone at this point.

Now let's talk about bosses, another important addition to this version. is that a robotic battle has been added to the Hilltop, as well as the Dust Hill Zone, which would later become the Mystic Cave Zone. In both cases, the fights aren't finished yet in Hilltop Zone, the screen lock for the boss fight hasn't even been implemented, so you're free to come and go as you like and the fight area is a little different too. , while the screen locks onto a dusty Hill Zone battle, the fight also lacks the falling stalagmites that the player typically has to avoid in both cases.

The robot has no sound effects present and neither does the fight have proper boss fight music implemented. Instead, the background music of the normal stage simply continues and the capsules have not yet been implemented in this prototype, so the stage will simply end after you defeat the good doctor. As far as the stages go, there are several other changes and improvements here and there, such as fixes for broken or soft-lockable areas and adding more detailed backgrounds like here in the Casino Night Zone, other than that, although unfortunately Much of the other Mysteries from the early game, such as the hidden genocide of the Palace Zone, the City Zone, and the Wood Zone, appear unchanged since Simon.

And the prototype, since this build was three months before release, I don't really think any work would have been done at these stages after this build and since it hasn't changed from Simon, I guess the only other possible way is that we can find these missing levels in a playable version. The shape is from a currently undiscovered prototype dated sometime between Nick Arcade and Simon and I suppose only time will tell if one was ever unearthed, but I certainly hope so because I'd really like to see if there are more to these levels than what we currently have.

Anyway, I know the last stage you should check out here is the special stage and yes, this just seems to be Sonic 1's special stage, but it's obviously not very nice to look at and the last really notable thing that was implemented by first time in this version is none. In addition to Supersonic, although not accessible in the normal game, you can become Supersonic by generating a question mark monitor with the game's debug function and then breaking it. Some things you should know here are that it's mostly just a paddle swap with a faster speed, as supersonic features are not implemented here yet, meaning invincibility at this stage, doesn't deplete your rings yet and, finally sonic's color changing palette doesn't really work underwater and will just turn back to blue oh yeah and for some reason when i play as supersonic.

I couldn't get past this area here. I went back and checked and yes it's fine with normal Sonic but for some reason it was just crashing on me as weird supersonic, now I move on to the next and second prototype that was recently released. a build date of September 14, 1992, which puts it less than a month away from the previous one and just nine weeks away from the final release, as it was to be expected that several improvements and fixes were made in this iteration, as they have only It's been a few weeks since the previous one. one, they just aren't that numerous, hey, you'll see that yes, it's a menu on the title screen and this build is currently the first known to finally feature it while still keeping the old style background that was changed in the version final, level selection.

The screen in this prototype still looks the same as the previous version, however this time, unfortunately all the levels that are not normally used have been removed from the game and are no longer accessible and although the hidden Palace Zone still appears in the level, select it, it's gone. playable unless you call this playable, but I don't anyway. I assume this means that the decision to finally cancel these zones was made sometime between August 21 and September 14, 1992. So again, if there is anything else to these disposal stages. It would have to be in a prototype prior to this one.

There are several other smaller changes here, such as different item locations in some areas, such as in the Wing Fortress, many more rings in the casino's night zone, different behavior in Robotnik's fights, and, oh yeah, the title cards of introduction were finally implemented in this version and although all stages can be played here, the last three Sky Chase swing Fortress and Death Egg cannot normally be completed, the supersonic functionality is also much further advanced in this version as it now has invincibility. however, being supersonic still does not deplete your ring count. The last major addition that was added in this prototype is the special stage right away.

There are several changes that we can notice, such as this traffic light at the exit, like something we would see in an early Mario Kart games, other notable minor changes are the Sonic text here is still orange, the ring counter is always three digits, There are absolutely no sound effects here, there is only one special stage present in this game and it uses an unseen color palette. in the final game and the Sprites for the Rings, as well as the sonic jumps, are different here as well. Oh, and if for some reason you were planning on trying to beat this special stage, clear your calendar because well, you can't make the stage repeat infinitely.

Nothing actually happens when time runs out. The only way out of this digital

hedgehog

purgatory is to take your time and collect 1000 rings which will cause the game to crash or lastly you can close the game here,for two players. Versus mode was finally implemented in this version for some levels, while Emerald Hill Hilltop Casino Knights and Mystic Cave look good, the other stages I just don't want to say even the ones that look good had some graphical glitches and Dr. Robotnik was reduced to four blue lines. It's good, as you know boss fights don't exist in versus mode in the final game, but I guess they were still in this version anyway, which levels work and don't work makes sense since the ones that do are the ones that are playable in versus mode in the final game, so I guess it was at that point that they chose which stages to work on for versus mode and that explains why the other stages just don't look right, since said Hilltop Zone is not one of the playable versus stages in the final game so it seems like it was planned to be one of those versus zones at some points and I bet it was replaced by the special stage and the last video in this video is the prototype that was publicly discarded. in early 2019 that was originally leaked due to the sensor that gives its name to the prototype.

This prototype is believed to have a build date between September 15-17, 1992 and was apparently originally leaked two weeks before the game's release, but apparently people didn't. We worried about unreleased prototypes back then, this build was supposedly first leaked with the intention of bypassing the game's copy protection measures with this intro screen, I guess, so people could copy the game and spread it around just a few days between the previous build we covered. and the upcoming beta 4 which has a build date of September 18. I'll be honest with you, there isn't much difference in this build that I haven't discussed either here or in my original Sonic 2 Prototyping video, but To start, I'll quickly mention some of the highlights, the special stage now has some improvements, like Sonic's name is blue and as you know he's actually beatable, basically all the other changes are seen in the Sky Chase Wing Fortress and Death Egg zones since I guess the obvious focus was on those levels in the development of the game, since they could not be completed before.

That said, there are still several changes to the sensor prototype from the final version. Changes include things like removing a few rings here and there and adding checkpoints. removing propellers, adding some Cluckers and fixing the Death Egg title card, like I said this build was very close to the next one so it doesn't really have many changes that we haven't seen before and I think the newly scrapped one on 14 September. The prototype basically dwarfs this one, however the more prototypes we have the better as we will be able to better understand the timeline of the game during its development and that's where we are with Sonic 2 as I'm making this video, it's a shame.

There weren't any crazy new discoveries made with zones like Wood Zone and Genocide City Zone and stuff like that, so I'm hoping even more prototypes are unearthed soon and I guess I'll be back with a fourth Sonic 2 Lost Bits video when that happens. That's until then, although the fine folks at Hidden Palace and the Cutting Room also released a new Sonic 3 prototype, so expect a video on that soon, and as always, a big thank you to both The Cutting Room and Hidden Palace for sharing these. awesome prototypes with all of us anyway guys thanks for tuning in and we'll see you in a bit