MEMORIES!!! Or maybe more like flashbacks!! I'm Craig Stitt, the third American artist mentinoed here. Seeing the grid layouts of Tom's brought back memories. I know I kept a lot of stuff as well, but somewhere a box of art must have gotten lost, or left behind, so I don't have much from my work on Sonic 2. Even more frustration is somewhere in a landfill in Redwood City is probably a couple boxes of 3.5" disks with all my SEGA art work on it. At least I was fortunate enought to have one of my two levels end up in the final game, Oil Ocean Zone. (although HPZ finally made it into the game, it only took a couple decades!!) Althought seeing all the long lost Sonic stuff was fun, the thing that got me excited was seeing Jester!!! I didn't work on the game, but it was a game that held a LOT of potential, was nearly completed, and yet almost nothing of it remains (at least that I can find).
The fact we're finally seeing the original Sand Shower mockup, and it was _animated_ *_PLUS_* the Winter Zone mockup as well? I'm genuinely in tears. I'm so, so, so happy
The craziest part of this story is that the Sonic 2 team in America and the Sonic CD team in Japan apparently both came up with the idea for time traveling in their game independently of each other.
I originally thought that the Sonic 2 team had conflicting idea’s and ended up splitting, but it’s so shocking that the idea of time travel was pure coincidence and nothing more
I don't see this as "the true sonic 2 that we were robbed of" but more like... "it's gotta suck making all of this great art and that nobody got to see for so long". glad it's finally getting some light and some love. and to answer your tangent: I'd love to see a video deep diving into the old sonic 2 research scene!
It's sad that a lot of creative processes are seen as disposible. That you just make something, sell it, and move on. No-one will care in 5 years time, never mind 30. I'm happy so many artists and such were able to keep their work somehow. Especially when a lot of companies considered it their property and would just dumpster it.
I'm sure the artists never expected their work ot be seen again at all once the game was shipped. I wonder if it's cathartic for them to get it out into the world, or if they find any joy in how much some people do care and want to see it.
The original plot of sonic makes so much sense now. I always had trouble wrapping my head around this island having Emerald Hill Zone lead right into a chemical plant
The fact that the 2013 Mobile reboot of Sonic 2 included Hidden Palace Zone (one of the cut stages) and added that as a secret stage in Mystic Cave Zone is actually insane
That's a shame that Brenda's work was cut. I remember playing a ripped version of Wood Zone online about 10 years ago and thought it looked great if definitely unfinished.
Never thought we would actually see what Genocide/Cyber City looked like, same with the Winter Zone, this gives me so much hope that one day we will finally see what Dubious Depths/R2/Ridicule Route from Sonic CD looked like.
IIRC Sonic 2 historians contacted her in the 2000s and since the only people who were doing these game development investigations were young and stupid they ended up making her mad or something. Glad she was willing to work with Sonic fans again, previously she had only answered a couple questions.
@@DukeBluedevil70 This smells pretty strongly of bad trolling or someone with a chip on their shoulder. In the slim chance that you're not arguing in bad faith being so vague and giving yourself likes is a not a good look.
Actually seeing that sand shower concept art MOVE was the most surreal experience I’ve ever had, amazing work preserving this stuff, crazy to think this long after release we’re still learning new things about this game
I was told and heard from Tom Payne himself that Cyber City Zone's graphics were recycled from a cancelled game he was working on named B-Bomb, and those assets had been documented already, and that Metropolis Zone Act 3's level layout was taken from Cyber City when it was scrapped. Also going by the Time Travel doc, the name of the "Winter" Zone was Rock World, and it would've been Sand Shower in the past.
While the graphics might have been from this b-bomb, it was confirmed that the ciber city sprites were from that sonic spinball stages. About the metropolis act 3 level design, it could have been a another act. Also, rock world has concept art that confirms it is a different level than the winter one
It's sad that Brenda's artwork never made it into the final game, it looks great! I remember playing the Wood Zone and Hidden Palace prototypes on my PC back in the early 2000's. It's amazing to see that the desert zone artwork not only exists in higher quality, but that we can actually see it animated too. Good work Brenda!
Wow. It is truly mind blowing to finally see Cyber City after all these years. After multiple ROM hacks had to basically make it up entirely from scratch, we finally know (roughly) how it was intended to look. Excellent work!
Frank is seriously the man. I loved getting to hear him speak at a con earlier this year. I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but we are still in the very early days of a medium that will never go away. Hundreds of years from now the VGHF’s work is going to be viewed with extreme reverence as this historic treasure trove of documented and preserved primary sources, and we should all be thankful we have someone like Frank putting in the legwork.
I have been searching for a lot of info of these lost zones. Thank you for this. Edit: YES WE FINALLY HAVE WHAT WINTER ZONE WOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. Sorry for speaking in caps but I am just so glad. This has made my day. Thank you.
This is absolutely incredible, this is such a well informed, researched and produced video, seriously well done! That VHS tape of Desert Hill is just amazing!
Domesday duplicator is an absolute game changer. So many cool discoveries in the last year in incredible quality. Thanks as always for the excellent work. See you at PRGE!
@@videotape2959 It's capture hardware (and associated software)! Originally intended for laser disc, it captures a raw analog feed that can be used to capture old media that will eventually degrade to nothing almost losslessly. Very cool stuff. Tech Tangents here on youtube has a good video summarizing it, and a quick internet search will turn up more info.
@@videotape2959 it uses some VCR (or LaserDisc, which was its original purpose) guts and some new hardware to raw capture the RF signal rather than the processed composite output of the machines. The signal is then processed by computer software (VHS-decode and ld-decode) to reconstruct the signal. It gives an astonishingly clearer picture than what Composite or even S-Video capture can grab from a VCR or LaserDisc
That was amazing stuff, much better than I'd imagined! I hope all the people that worked on this game, like Brenda, feel the amount of love we have for them and their work. And I like Frank, too, first time I had seen him lol. Best Regards.
i was not expecting Sonic 2 to have even more stuff to be found! this is really impressive! i was thinking we knew basically 90% of how the game was going to be and how some unused levels were.
There was a fan-made mod years ago called 'Sonic 2 Long Version' that "completed" Sonic 2. No idea if it's still around but it included all of the cut levels, even the snow level! Playing through, however, you realise that the game is simply too long. It's a good thing because of that that Sonic 3 was cut in half as it gives a solid break in the gameplay with S&K's half feeling fresh when you get to it.
After reading about that winter level art with the christmas trees so many times actually getting to see the real thing instead of a recreation is such a cool yet surreal experience, it's like a mystery suddenly getting demystified by randomly stumbling on a long lost artifact that explains it away in a pretty straight forward way. Also, I never knew than that much art of Cyber City had survived, I always assumed that all that existed of it was a name and a rough level layout. But now we actually have a level recreation and plenty of context about what it was meant to be. It's so cool to finally have more tangible information about Sonic 2's lost zones after three decades of wondering and speculation. I kinda wish that someone would take these discarded concepts and make a game inspired by them, I feel like it still has potential.
I'll be honest. . . This is somewhat what my headcanon was as a kid, except without time travel. Having read the Sonic comics and watched the cartoons I knew that there was that dichotomy between environmentalism and production (it was the 90s) The only thing that didn't really click was hilltop. It just seemed like that was somewhere that had been left alone by robotnik that never really developed.
I think Sonic CD does a great job with this idea but actually subverts the idea that technology can't coexist with nature. Sonic CD had "Good Future" levels with high tech and natural landscapes at the same time. Sonic CD is also just a great game with great map design for a platformer.
Oh my god this makes me SO happy. As a kid when i first learned about the lost levels of Sonic 2, it became an obsession. The fact that to this day we are still finding more details on what this game could've been is astounding.
Treasure's "Alien Soldier" was apparently meant to be even larger and more epic than the final product. With tons of bosses and plot elements being scrapped. This might be wishful thinking, but I would love it if you people could get in touch with Treasure and do a piece on this.
Late, but absolutely this. The original scope is huge and there’s still some data in the game that hints at it like the cut Mantis and Hare bosses. Would be fascinating to see someone dig in with the same love as Sonic prototypes.
This was amazing. To see the original Dust Hill Zone as we have all seen it, realizing it was never a moving image but a still, concept art. It explains so much of Sonic's placement, and why it was easy for them to take that picture as it was a still image, it wouldn't be blurry to print for magazines. Every year we learn more and more, like the Sonic 3 music, Luigi in Mario 64, and now stuff like this. It's wonderful.
@@jadonherr6469It’s not entirely clear what DH even was, the name also kind of fits Mystic Cave. Sonic Retro is the most comprehensive source on the creation of various games, this is what it has to say about this zone. It states this was referred to as Desert Zone sometimes just "Desert" in concept art and was likely just a placeholder name. Concept art of the world map doesn’t have anything called called Desert Zone but it does have a Sand Shower Zone, they might be one and the same. To confound matters further we know tracks from the final were modified and used in different spots than intended because so much was cut and changed. The original Oil Ocean Zone demo music sounds Egyptian, and you can still kind of hear it in the beginning of the track. I wonder if they had a hard time deciding what kind of desert to make.
@@jadonherr6469Dust Hill sounds better and is more suitable. We can just change history like Christian Whitehead did for the Hidden Palace Zone’s music.
@@protocetid Dust Hill Zone was confirmed to be Green Hill becoming a desert, which is why I said it was in Forces. Mystic Cave was mislabeled as Dust Hill probably because of the fact some developers didn't know there were 2 different desert levels. You can even see it in the concept maps.
@@jadonherr6469 Oh you’re right, should’ve taken a look at the world map. Sonic Retro is disorganized in its layout and what it updates. I still don’t think Desert Zone was Dust Hill, doesn’t strike me as a dystopian GHZ. The mesas in the background aren’t in GHZ. There’s something strange going on with Sonic 2 desert levels, it’s like the team was told they had to make one and each member made content for it without consulting anyone. Or plans just changed over time, shrug.
Seeing the graph paper method of how the levels were layed out is so cool and really demystifies how they were able to achieve such amazing level design.
Sonic 2's development history is super interesting to me, and it's always nice to see new discoveries on things that didn't make it into the final game. Major props to everyone involved here!
Thanks for this. Knowing the over arching plan for sonic 2, the levels make so much more sense now. It's amazing how good Sonic 2 is given how cut back it was. I'm sad they couldn't get everything out to their complete vision. Great work!
The problem is that every piece of that idea was already reused elsewhere. The new software crisis has been brewing since the 90's and it means that even ideas on the cutting room floor were reused to their fullest extent. You could remake that idea, but you'd just be strapping levels from the first three Sonic games together in way that will be jarring to players who are used to their current order from 30 years of experience.
@@Vmac1394let’s also consider that in certain source ports of sonic 3 they have the option to reorganize the levels in their original order. i think sonic fans will be used to change 🤣lest we forget the blue blur was originally based on being radically different from the norm (mario)
Bruh, you have no idea how wide my smile was through some of these sections. I was a small kid when the internet started getting popular, and my favorite past time was reading articles about Sonic 2 cut content, playing the betas in emulators, etc. We had so little info at the time, some stuff was just hear-say spread around by magazines and old sites. So seeing "Winter Zone" and Cyber City realized after all these years like this is so cathartic. Thank you so much for all your work on the VGHF.
Simply stunning getting to see history unfold like this before our eyes, bringing life to what was once thought as merely a dream. While I will always cherish the Sonic 2 we did ultimately get, thank you for giving us another peek behind the curtain and a chance to see the "what could have been" of Sonic's 2nd adventure
seeing Sand Shower Zone (or like people called Dust Hill Zone) animated and the winter level too made me so happy and nostalgic, i played so many rom hacks over 10 years ago that recreated these levels, i remember one called Sonic 2 Delta that had "dust hill" and then "winter hill" which was just dust hill with snow like colors, and then there was the fan game Sonic Before the Sequel reimagining the cut levels in a new way and putting "dust hill" and "winter hill" as one level transitioning from desert to winter
Even after 31 years Sonic 2 has still new unreleased content and a lot of questions too. I always wondered why the Levels were so chaotic listed at the end product, it just didn't make any sense after Emerald Zone going to Chemical Plant Zone then back to nature at Aquatic Ruin Zone and back again to the bright lights of Casino Night Zone back again to the nature with Hill Top Zone. Now it makes sense with the time traveling and switching from Nature into Big Cities as a dystopia. Very interesting the animations of the Dust Hill Zone with the cactus, also never before seen Background layers and art works for Genocide City Zone.
Fantastic content! When you think there's nothing else to learn about the classic games a dedicated team comes along and uncovers stuff like this! Incredible effort by everyone involved and I'm sure all are grateful for preserving the content in the highest possible quality 😁
Such incredible history being unearthed here! Cyber City really was gonna be more of an evolution to Scrap Brain, huh... and I kinda remember there being mention of a winter level somewhere eons ago for Sonic 2, but never thought it was gonna be paralleling to Dust Hill's design - speaking which, I'm blown away of getting to see it in motion. Bless Brenda, Tom and you guys for bringing all of this for us, it's great to see these names gain more publicity for their memorable work long shrouded in elusion. Also I dearly hope we'll see more simulations on the rest of lost levels in the future. Honestly with seeing all these lost level arts and recreations next to the time travel progression of levels, has me want to see fan recreation that explores this original vision for Sonic 2 fully realized.
We’ve never known so much about what the game was going to be like, it’s an excellent time to bring it to life. Easier said than done I know, whoever does it will go down as a hero. I really hope someone does, ideally it would be playable on real hardware.
I loved every second of this video! It was also awesome to finally see more concepts that never made it into the final game. My favorite part was seeing Cook's portfolio which showed off how the cut zones would've visually looked like, but also functioned. I always wanted to see more of these cut zones and I'm truly happy to see some questions I've had over the years finally be resolved!
Fantastic lifechanging work! So amazing to see Brenda's work after all these decades! I wish I could send this and everything else we know now back to the 90s/00s to help kids like me understand how game development worked, but at the same time, the mystery and imagination is what helped me become a game developer now lol Anyway, I hope you all continue to make more videos! This was a lovely treat and a great way to spread awareness about the foundation for people who don't like to read lol
Aweaome vid. Sonic always had that mystery when it came to unused contents. The brendas desert stage was in sonic mania same with the winter stage so i think they paid homage to her by looks of it
I'm salivating over the prospect of someone really putting in the work and faithfully recreating these levels in a complete Sonic 2 rom with the original time travel element still in tact. The game makes so much more sense given that it was supposed to be time travel. I always thought it was weird to have Hilltop Zone in the middle of the game (since it seemed like an alternate Emerald Hill Zone).
Collision Chaos Radio's video on the Sonic 2 timeline and its musical remnants was one of the best pieces of independent research I'd seen for Sonic 2 in ages, and it's so cool that it's how you all ended up talking to Brenda Cook! Fantastic work by all.
Wow they still kept those files! I mean that's always been the practice for portfolios but that's like, many many years ago and I'm really glad they still have those precious files with them. And same here, I know I'm the kind of person that sucks alot in history, but I never expected myself to be so attracted to these Lost and Unused Stuff to games I love. Maybe it also has something to do with appreciating fellow Game Dev Assets, but not as a Game Dev but also a Gamer, it's just amazing to see these information that's otherwise forgotten or just not given attention.
I've always been fascinated by Cyber City, because just the original name is so evocative of what it could be. I used to played the Simon Wai prototype, and wondered what could be there... I got so excited when you revealed you had the full map, and could recreate the tile set. It was like...seeing a childhood wonder come to life. I hope you do more of these, because this is fantastic. Hopefully you'll be able to identify where Track 10 goes? And as a pixel artist myself... I'm going to try to recreate Brenda's Christmas trees.
We've been told for years that Cyber City was changed into Metropolis Act 3 - I wonder if anyone has compared the two maps yet? From what we see in this video I couldn't really see any similarity.
The consensus is that Track 10 was meant to be used for a cutscene back when Super Sonic was going to be obtained by teleporting to Hidden Palace after getting the 7 emeralds. Mostly because of the demo version of the track which has an end instead of looping like a stage theme.
Christmas came early, I want to spend it in Winter Zone! Even ignoring the new content there are details I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else! Super grateful for everyone who made this possible, from the developers to the VGHF staff.
I never realized how wintery SCZ sounded until someone pointed it out in the comments of the demo track. So much valuable analysis was lost when the original uploads were taken down.
It's alright to dream about the Sonic game that we were denied, but in truth if they would have included everything, it would have felt bloated, went on for too long and with such the short development time, have far more bugs in it than the final game had. Quality over Quantity.
Yeah,I think sure the mockup was distributed by Sega (alongside another one that featured Hidden Palace) so we knew that it was official,we just didn’t know what level it was meant to be since people didn’t know if the desert level was Sand Shower or Dust Hill.
This is actually incredible. I've waited almost 20 years for all of this. I can't believe you were able to pull those three infamous zones. This is absolutely incredible. Thank you so, so, so much!
The original ROMs still have the map data, with various changes in the betas over time. Its just that its impossible to understand the collision data alone without any art, except through trial and error.
I'm 15 yo right now, which really doesn't sound that old, but i remember seeing videos about lost sonic media and seeing a lot of sonic 2 stuff, and i could just wonder what that stuff looked like, i was 10. 5 years later, i'm finally seeing almost everything i imagined in 5th grade. I'm so glad i'm alive to see history unfold in front of my very eyes.
Love the more edited and commentated videos. A suggestion I have though due to how youtube works these days, is it may be greatly beneficial to upload videos such as these and other videos about the organization itself here on this channel, and have all of the archival footage of behind the scenes, portfolios, commercials etc. on a second channel called the “Video Game History Foundation Video Archive” or some such. I love what you guys do and have been a supporter for years!
This is incredible. As a lifelong fan of Sonic, and one that has always been fascinated by His World (HAH), seeing snippets of what could've been is so cool.
I'd love to see a recreation of that original Sonic 2 idea. The game we got was fantastic and I'm super glad they chose to focus on polishing what they had rather than giving us an over-ambitious under-delivered mess, but still.
When I was a kid, I heard the music track in the options that was never used in any actual level. I always knew these levels existed but never thought I would get to see them. Thank you so, so much for this. It was like stumbling into a magical secret stage that my inner child never stopped believing existed.
Hidden Palace Zone was added back in the mobile release of Sonic 2, it replaces the death pit in Mystic Cave Zone. That’s so neat. Imagine if the same thing happened with these levels.
Given the alarm-sounding from creators like Stephanie Sterling and HBomberguy about the risk of losing the historical context of video games and their creators, I'm really happy to find a foundation like this exists.
My young teenage self is just beaming right now learning of the history that could have been, and to finally pull back the curtain on the magic that created the old masterpiece. It answered a lot of questions, but also generated a lot of new ones. What a tremendous find! Thank you. ❤
I really appreciate the "soapbox" part at the end. As a huge fan of Half-Life I'm all too used to getting so caught up in what could have been that you forget that the finished product was still really good. Would I love to see a game take advantage of all the cool stuff from the HL2 beta? Of course, but most of the stuff was cut for good reason, and HL2 was still a great game.
This is awesome stuff Frank! You and I met in Portland a couple months back (went to your panel, then we talked at your table in the con museum) and while I knew of you prior, it's really great to see your work after getting a face-to-face.
I really enjoyed the soapbox at the end. As a game developer who recently lost 4+ years of archived work for a game that also had its online service shutdown, I was devastated by the loss purely from a preservation standpoint. Seeing how the game was the made, seeing the early ideas or future ideas that were to come, the prototypes that led to other ideas that were totally unexpected but made it into the game. All things that may never see the light of day. It's a hard pill to swallow sometimes. Despite that, those ideas still live on in me and inevitably will come back even better than before. It's what keeps me going. The human aspect of how games are made and what it takes to make them is extremely fascinating. Sonic 2 is such an interesting game. So much of my appreciation for game development comes from what we learned about this game. We've seen so much cut content and yet here we are seeing even more for the first time yet again. Really feels like I've been following the development of this game for as long as I've been on the internet. It truly is the game that keeps on giving. What a legacy!
OK, wow. Seeing the original map concept helps explain a lot of the theming of the levels we got in the final game and makes them seem a lot less random!
Yeah,videos like these pretty much show why Sonic 2’s levels felt like a bunch of random levels put together compared to other Sonic games like CD and 3&K.
I just realised; the original plans for "Sonic 2" for the Genesis *LITERALLY BECAME* the "Sonic Prime" series on Netflix, only it's caused by dimensional shattering rather than time travel...
You know, I wonder now how crazy it would’ve been if they actually were able to deliver on this concept as far back as 1992? To have the levels change as a result of what happens/happened in the game’s different timelines as you progress, would be absolutely mental.
If there was enough behind the scenes info actually available about Sonic CD i would TOTALLY watch. It was another super ambitious title with tons of scrapped ideas and content.
I found Sonic CD more conceptually interesting in some ways, though nothing we've seen has indicated it has the sheer volume of cut content, it focuses mostly on R2.
@@SisterRose exactly! Sorry i am bad with my words, but you get it! I LOVED the robotization and world map ideas, as well as the extra cutscenes and voice acting(would have LOVED the english sonic ova VA he is my fav) that it never got. Sonic CD is such a thematic and presence inspiring sonic game. Imo it makes me feel the most like sonic, and the extra cinematics and all would've been sooo cool.
As a member of Area 51 and SWS2B back in the day I was not expecting new Sonic 2 Beta discoveries in 2023. I used to have dreams of discovering a cart with playable Dust Hill.
I'm just a sucker for the time travel concept. Classic sonic games always did such a good job with story telling and keeping it "sonic feeling", with beautiful environments, and such a magical world. Nothing will ever ever ever be like sonic.
This stuff is awesome! I’m a huge Sonic fan, and seeing all of unused stuff as someone who has known about Sonic 2’s cut content is incredible. I realize now that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Pokémon Gold and Silver are pretty similar development wise; they are sequels to massive games that had a lot of stuff changed or removed. That stuff is so interesting to me.
As one of my favorite games of all time, this is incredible to see! Thank you guys so much for your hard work and for sharing this with the rest of the world!
I thought Desert Dazzle was based on R2, the scrapped Sonic CD level that Taxman and crew thought was a Desert stage (but newer evidence points to a more underground-styled stage)?
@@papersonic9941 R2 wasn’t a desert level, it was officially confirmed to be a ruins area named Dubious Depths/Ridicule Root, and it was supposed to be CD’s counterpart to Marble Zone. Taxman and crew based Desert Dazzle heavily off Dust Hill and they made it desert themed because of the patch of desert you can see on Little Planet.
@@gengargamer5657 yes, I'm aware of Ridicule Root and all the information gathered by Sonic Retro, I was just under the impression that Taxman thought R2 would be desert back when developing the CD remake
actually surprised that the winter zone was a real thing, I always thought it was just some fanmade stuff. also seeing the original sand shower zone image animated is cool
Probably a bit of both. We had the knowledge that the desert level was meant to have a winter recolor because of an interview that Brenda Ross gave around 2001 so people that made romhacks made recreations of the winter level based on Brenda’s interview.
Wow, great research and the fact that you got in touch with these original level designers to unearth lost level information is truly incredible. Thanks for creating a Game History Foundation!
This is beyond cool, I can’t thank Tom Payne and everyone at the Foundation enough for this I can’t believe we got all of this and in such high quality!
Man this is such a fascinating watch. Avid Sonic fan here, the profile pic should give it away; I’ve ALWAYS had a knack for the unused stuff in video games. Weird creepy pastas and fairytale stories of things like Sonic in Melee always fascinate me, not just because they aren’t real, but it’s the fact that they could have been. Brenda’s portfolio is probably the coolest thing I’ve stumbled upon this year, thanks to you guys. I’m really glad I get the opportunity to appreciate this stuff when I know some people won’t. Seriously incredible work you all!
It's pretty weird as for the Sonic 2/Sonic CD overlap. That desert level almost made it into Sonic CD (you can kinda see it in the background of Wacky Workbench Past, and you can see a Desert level on the world map in the DA Garden, and it actually changes in all the time zones). Then there's Sonic Boom (japanese version of the opening song for Sonic CD), reappearing as the BGM for Green Hills Zone in the 8-bit version of Sonic 2.
Wow! After all these years, this answers so many questions for me, especially having the time travel concept explained. Seeing art for the winter zone for the first time feels like a fever dream. I'd love to see a rom hack inspired by these discoveries.
This was awesome! Sonic 3 is my favorite Sonic game and 2D platformer, it's cool that the cut concepts from Sonic 2 eventually did make it's way into the next game. It's really awesome to see Hez's work being showcased as well, and it's always a plus when I learn something new about Sonic that I didn't know before. Everyone involved in making this happen are truly awesome people!
Absolutely amazing effort! Thank you for bringing all this lost work to light. It's awesome finally being able to see some of these legendary lost stage designs and artwork.
Seeing this pixel art of the actual mock ups is insane. The development of Sonic 2 is fascinating, even more so that Sonic 3 and Knuckles I'd say. Great video and thank you for preserving this piece of gaming history.
MEMORIES!!! Or maybe more like flashbacks!! I'm Craig Stitt, the third American artist mentinoed here. Seeing the grid layouts of Tom's brought back memories. I know I kept a lot of stuff as well, but somewhere a box of art must have gotten lost, or left behind, so I don't have much from my work on Sonic 2. Even more frustration is somewhere in a landfill in Redwood City is probably a couple boxes of 3.5" disks with all my SEGA art work on it.
At least I was fortunate enought to have one of my two levels end up in the final game, Oil Ocean Zone. (although HPZ finally made it into the game, it only took a couple decades!!)
Althought seeing all the long lost Sonic stuff was fun, the thing that got me excited was seeing Jester!!! I didn't work on the game, but it was a game that held a LOT of potential, was nearly completed, and yet almost nothing of it remains (at least that I can find).
oh shiiiiii lesssgooo
You're awesome man, thank you for making these stages.
@@VirtuousAezon You're very much welcome, although I don't recall being born at the time this game was being developed but I'll take the compliment.
What did you think about the adaptation of oil ocean in sonic mania?
Hey, nice to see you here Craig!
The fact we're finally seeing the original Sand Shower mockup, and it was _animated_ *_PLUS_* the Winter Zone mockup as well? I'm genuinely in tears. I'm so, so, so happy
It's seriously like seeing a childhood dream come true
fr I'm shocked Dx
It feels like travelling back in time to witness a historical picture being taken lmao
Me too, who would tought Soonic 2 was destined to become the most explored game on the Beta development issue!
Touch grass
The craziest part of this story is that the Sonic 2 team in America and the Sonic CD team in Japan apparently both came up with the idea for time traveling in their game independently of each other.
I originally thought that the Sonic 2 team had conflicting idea’s and ended up splitting, but it’s so shocking that the idea of time travel was pure coincidence and nothing more
No way lol. That's sounds like a retroactive recton of history to deny one or the other credit. I don't buy it.
Bud sonic cd was gonna be a sonic 1 port on the mega cd
@guyincognito6582 Yes, yes there is.
Great minds think alike
I briefly worked with Brenda at Neversoft way back in 1997! Glad to see she's still alive and well.
I don't see this as "the true sonic 2 that we were robbed of" but more like... "it's gotta suck making all of this great art and that nobody got to see for so long". glad it's finally getting some light and some love.
and to answer your tangent: I'd love to see a video deep diving into the old sonic 2 research scene!
It's sad that a lot of creative processes are seen as disposible. That you just make something, sell it, and move on. No-one will care in 5 years time, never mind 30.
I'm happy so many artists and such were able to keep their work somehow. Especially when a lot of companies considered it their property and would just dumpster it.
I'm sure the artists never expected their work ot be seen again at all once the game was shipped. I wonder if it's cathartic for them to get it out into the world, or if they find any joy in how much some people do care and want to see it.
The original plot of sonic makes so much sense now. I always had trouble wrapping my head around this island having Emerald Hill Zone lead right into a chemical plant
Brenda's pixel art looks really good, it's a shame they didn't use any of her work. Great video. Thanks Frank and everyone over at the VGHF!
Especially the Sonic Spinball stage
Me too. Absolutely love her work and I want to see more.
Right?? That Spinball stage looks even prettier than the four we got.
It's a shame to hide behind an Online Mask
The fact that the 2013 Mobile reboot of Sonic 2 included Hidden Palace Zone (one of the cut stages) and added that as a secret stage in Mystic Cave Zone is actually insane
Port***
in the original game, it was a dead trap right before the finnish of the act 1
@@crroos1196That was the beta,the final version does not include Hidden Palace.
@@_TRB_No, they're telling readers that what was a death trap in MCZ in the original S2 is now the entrance to HPZ in modern versions of the game.
That's a shame that Brenda's work was cut. I remember playing a ripped version of Wood Zone online about 10 years ago and thought it looked great if definitely unfinished.
Never thought we would actually see what Genocide/Cyber City looked like, same with the Winter Zone, this gives me so much hope that one day we will finally see what Dubious Depths/R2/Ridicule Route from Sonic CD looked like.
That spinball stage is INCREDIBLE, I'm so happy this was preserved. I can't wait to hear what Brenda has to say when you speak with her.
IIRC Sonic 2 historians contacted her in the 2000s and since the only people who were doing these game development investigations were young and stupid they ended up making her mad or something. Glad she was willing to work with Sonic fans again, previously she had only answered a couple questions.
@@protocetid>Young and stupid. Well they’re not young anymore, can’t say the same for the stupid part.
@@DukeBluedevil70 The proto games scene is way more sophisticated than it was back then, having said that I know this is probably bait.
@@protocetid Not bait. Just truth.
@@DukeBluedevil70 This smells pretty strongly of bad trolling or someone with a chip on their shoulder. In the slim chance that you're not arguing in bad faith being so vague and giving yourself likes is a not a good look.
I can't believe I finally saw Brenda's work after só many years. Thank you guys.
Vc é brasileiro(a) né
@@lucymcangel255 puts kkkkk
Você percebeu porque meu corretor colocou um acento no so né? Kkk
Sim. Um brasileiro muito feliz com esse vídeo kkkk
Actually seeing that sand shower concept art MOVE was the most surreal experience I’ve ever had, amazing work preserving this stuff, crazy to think this long after release we’re still learning new things about this game
I was told and heard from Tom Payne himself that Cyber City Zone's graphics were recycled from a cancelled game he was working on named B-Bomb, and those assets had been documented already, and that Metropolis Zone Act 3's level layout was taken from Cyber City when it was scrapped.
Also going by the Time Travel doc, the name of the "Winter" Zone was Rock World, and it would've been Sand Shower in the past.
While the graphics might have been from this b-bomb, it was confirmed that the ciber city sprites were from that sonic spinball stages.
About the metropolis act 3 level design, it could have been a another act.
Also, rock world has concept art that confirms it is a different level than the winter one
@@GabrielPiardiYou're getting confused, that art is from Sky Santuary because it's tails
I never expected anyone would find actual footage of the Sand Shower or Winter Zone mock-ups! This is incredible!!!
It's sad that Brenda's artwork never made it into the final game, it looks great! I remember playing the Wood Zone and Hidden Palace prototypes on my PC back in the early 2000's. It's amazing to see that the desert zone artwork not only exists in higher quality, but that we can actually see it animated too. Good work Brenda!
Wow. It is truly mind blowing to finally see Cyber City after all these years. After multiple ROM hacks had to basically make it up entirely from scratch, we finally know (roughly) how it was intended to look. Excellent work!
Frank is seriously the man. I loved getting to hear him speak at a con earlier this year. I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but we are still in the very early days of a medium that will never go away. Hundreds of years from now the VGHF’s work is going to be viewed with extreme reverence as this historic treasure trove of documented and preserved primary sources, and we should all be thankful we have someone like Frank putting in the legwork.
I have been searching for a lot of info of these lost zones. Thank you for this.
Edit: YES WE FINALLY HAVE WHAT WINTER ZONE WOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. Sorry for speaking in caps but I am just so glad. This has made my day. Thank you.
This is absolutely incredible, this is such a well informed, researched and produced video, seriously well done! That VHS tape of Desert Hill is just amazing!
Domesday duplicator is an absolute game changer. So many cool discoveries in the last year in incredible quality. Thanks as always for the excellent work. See you at PRGE!
Domesday duplicator is a VCR?
@@videotape2959 It's capture hardware (and associated software)! Originally intended for laser disc, it captures a raw analog feed that can be used to capture old media that will eventually degrade to nothing almost losslessly. Very cool stuff. Tech Tangents here on youtube has a good video summarizing it, and a quick internet search will turn up more info.
@@videotape2959 It connects to a VCR.
@@videotape2959In basic terms, it's a kind of mod you can install to a VCR or Laserdisc player
@@videotape2959 it uses some VCR (or LaserDisc, which was its original purpose) guts and some new hardware to raw capture the RF signal rather than the processed composite output of the machines. The signal is then processed by computer software (VHS-decode and ld-decode) to reconstruct the signal. It gives an astonishingly clearer picture than what Composite or even S-Video capture can grab from a VCR or LaserDisc
The new concept art and the Cyber City recreation is absolutely mind blowing.
Thank you so much for this.
That was amazing stuff, much better than I'd imagined! I hope all the people that worked on this game, like Brenda, feel the amount of love we have for them and their work. And I like Frank, too, first time I had seen him lol. Best Regards.
This is incredible!
Hi Sam Procrastinates 👋🏿
i was not expecting Sonic 2 to have even more stuff to be found! this is really impressive! i was thinking we knew basically 90% of how the game was going to be and how some unused levels were.
I CANNOT wait for sonic 2: the complete adventure
There was a fan-made mod years ago called 'Sonic 2 Long Version' that "completed" Sonic 2. No idea if it's still around but it included all of the cut levels, even the snow level!
Playing through, however, you realise that the game is simply too long. It's a good thing because of that that Sonic 3 was cut in half as it gives a solid break in the gameplay with S&K's half feeling fresh when you get to it.
30+ years later and we're still getting new discoveries. This is wonderful.
After reading about that winter level art with the christmas trees so many times actually getting to see the real thing instead of a recreation is such a cool yet surreal experience, it's like a mystery suddenly getting demystified by randomly stumbling on a long lost artifact that explains it away in a pretty straight forward way.
Also, I never knew than that much art of Cyber City had survived, I always assumed that all that existed of it was a name and a rough level layout. But now we actually have a level recreation and plenty of context about what it was meant to be.
It's so cool to finally have more tangible information about Sonic 2's lost zones after three decades of wondering and speculation. I kinda wish that someone would take these discarded concepts and make a game inspired by them, I feel like it still has potential.
I'll be honest. . . This is somewhat what my headcanon was as a kid, except without time travel. Having read the Sonic comics and watched the cartoons I knew that there was that dichotomy between environmentalism and production (it was the 90s)
The only thing that didn't really click was hilltop. It just seemed like that was somewhere that had been left alone by robotnik that never really developed.
I think Sonic CD does a great job with this idea but actually subverts the idea that technology can't coexist with nature. Sonic CD had "Good Future" levels with high tech and natural landscapes at the same time. Sonic CD is also just a great game with great map design for a platformer.
Oh my god this makes me SO happy. As a kid when i first learned about the lost levels of Sonic 2, it became an obsession. The fact that to this day we are still finding more details on what this game could've been is astounding.
Treasure's "Alien Soldier" was apparently meant to be even larger and more epic than the final product. With tons of bosses and plot elements being scrapped. This might be wishful thinking, but I would love it if you people could get in touch with Treasure and do a piece on this.
Late, but absolutely this. The original scope is huge and there’s still some data in the game that hints at it like the cut Mantis and Hare bosses. Would be fascinating to see someone dig in with the same love as Sonic prototypes.
This was amazing. To see the original Dust Hill Zone as we have all seen it, realizing it was never a moving image but a still, concept art. It explains so much of Sonic's placement, and why it was easy for them to take that picture as it was a still image, it wouldn't be blurry to print for magazines. Every year we learn more and more, like the Sonic 3 music, Luigi in Mario 64, and now stuff like this. It's wonderful.
As a correction, that was Sand Shower.
Dust Hill is a different zone. It was actually seen in Forces, even though it wasn't called Dust Hill.
@@jadonherr6469It’s not entirely clear what DH even was, the name also kind of fits Mystic Cave. Sonic Retro is the most comprehensive source on the creation of various games, this is what it has to say about this zone. It states this was referred to as Desert Zone sometimes just "Desert" in concept art and was likely just a placeholder name. Concept art of the world map doesn’t have anything called called Desert Zone but it does have a Sand Shower Zone, they might be one and the same. To confound matters further we know tracks from the final were modified and used in different spots than intended because so much was cut and changed. The original Oil Ocean Zone demo music sounds Egyptian, and you can still kind of hear it in the beginning of the track. I wonder if they had a hard time deciding what kind of desert to make.
@@jadonherr6469Dust Hill sounds better and is more suitable. We can just change history like Christian Whitehead did for the Hidden Palace Zone’s music.
@@protocetid Dust Hill Zone was confirmed to be Green Hill becoming a desert, which is why I said it was in Forces.
Mystic Cave was mislabeled as Dust Hill probably because of the fact some developers didn't know there were 2 different desert levels.
You can even see it in the concept maps.
@@jadonherr6469 Oh you’re right, should’ve taken a look at the world map. Sonic Retro is disorganized in its layout and what it updates. I still don’t think Desert Zone was Dust Hill, doesn’t strike me as a dystopian GHZ. The mesas in the background aren’t in GHZ. There’s something strange going on with Sonic 2 desert levels, it’s like the team was told they had to make one and each member made content for it without consulting anyone. Or plans just changed over time, shrug.
Seeing the graph paper method of how the levels were layed out is so cool and really demystifies how they were able to achieve such amazing level design.
Sonic 2's development history is super interesting to me, and it's always nice to see new discoveries on things that didn't make it into the final game. Major props to everyone involved here!
Thanks for this. Knowing the over arching plan for sonic 2, the levels make so much more sense now. It's amazing how good Sonic 2 is given how cut back it was. I'm sad they couldn't get everything out to their complete vision. Great work!
I genuinely love the original idea you discussed for sonic 2 would love to see someone attempt a recreation of that story
The problem is that every piece of that idea was already reused elsewhere. The new software crisis has been brewing since the 90's and it means that even ideas on the cutting room floor were reused to their fullest extent.
You could remake that idea, but you'd just be strapping levels from the first three Sonic games together in way that will be jarring to players who are used to their current order from 30 years of experience.
@@Vmac1394let’s also consider that in certain source ports of sonic 3 they have the option to reorganize the levels in their original order. i think sonic fans will be used to change 🤣lest we forget the blue blur was originally based on being radically different from the norm (mario)
Bruh, you have no idea how wide my smile was through some of these sections. I was a small kid when the internet started getting popular, and my favorite past time was reading articles about Sonic 2 cut content, playing the betas in emulators, etc. We had so little info at the time, some stuff was just hear-say spread around by magazines and old sites. So seeing "Winter Zone" and Cyber City realized after all these years like this is so cathartic. Thank you so much for all your work on the VGHF.
This is actually crazy, this work will be talked about for a long time
Holy shit, seeing the Dust Hill screenshot animated after all this time is crazy! I never expected that the mockup had animation
Simply stunning getting to see history unfold like this before our eyes, bringing life to what was once thought as merely a dream. While I will always cherish the Sonic 2 we did ultimately get, thank you for giving us another peek behind the curtain and a chance to see the "what could have been" of Sonic's 2nd adventure
seeing Sand Shower Zone (or like people called Dust Hill Zone) animated and the winter level too made me so happy and nostalgic, i played so many rom hacks over 10 years ago that recreated these levels, i remember one called Sonic 2 Delta that had "dust hill" and then "winter hill" which was just dust hill with snow like colors, and then there was the fan game Sonic Before the Sequel reimagining the cut levels in a new way and putting "dust hill" and "winter hill" as one level transitioning from desert to winter
Even after 31 years Sonic 2 has still new unreleased content and a lot of questions too. I always wondered why the Levels were so chaotic listed at the end product, it just didn't make any sense after Emerald Zone going to Chemical Plant Zone then back to nature at Aquatic Ruin Zone and back again to the bright lights of Casino Night Zone back again to the nature with Hill Top Zone. Now it makes sense with the time traveling and switching from Nature into Big Cities as a dystopia. Very interesting the animations of the Dust Hill Zone with the cactus, also never before seen Background layers and art works for Genocide City Zone.
Fantastic content! When you think there's nothing else to learn about the classic games a dedicated team comes along and uncovers stuff like this!
Incredible effort by everyone involved and I'm sure all are grateful for preserving the content in the highest possible quality 😁
Such incredible history being unearthed here! Cyber City really was gonna be more of an evolution to Scrap Brain, huh... and I kinda remember there being mention of a winter level somewhere eons ago for Sonic 2, but never thought it was gonna be paralleling to Dust Hill's design - speaking which, I'm blown away of getting to see it in motion.
Bless Brenda, Tom and you guys for bringing all of this for us, it's great to see these names gain more publicity for their memorable work long shrouded in elusion. Also I dearly hope we'll see more simulations on the rest of lost levels in the future.
Honestly with seeing all these lost level arts and recreations next to the time travel progression of levels, has me want to see fan recreation that explores this original vision for Sonic 2 fully realized.
We’ve never known so much about what the game was going to be like, it’s an excellent time to bring it to life. Easier said than done I know, whoever does it will go down as a hero. I really hope someone does, ideally it would be playable on real hardware.
I loved every second of this video! It was also awesome to finally see more concepts that never made it into the final game. My favorite part was seeing Cook's portfolio which showed off how the cut zones would've visually looked like, but also functioned. I always wanted to see more of these cut zones and I'm truly happy to see some questions I've had over the years finally be resolved!
Fantastic lifechanging work! So amazing to see Brenda's work after all these decades! I wish I could send this and everything else we know now back to the 90s/00s to help kids like me understand how game development worked, but at the same time, the mystery and imagination is what helped me become a game developer now lol
Anyway, I hope you all continue to make more videos! This was a lovely treat and a great way to spread awareness about the foundation for people who don't like to read lol
Aweaome vid. Sonic always had that mystery when it came to unused contents. The brendas desert stage was in sonic mania same with the winter stage so i think they paid homage to her by looks of it
Please create raw images of the diskettes! There could still be development-related data on them, that could be recovered.
I'm salivating over the prospect of someone really putting in the work and faithfully recreating these levels in a complete Sonic 2 rom with the original time travel element still in tact. The game makes so much more sense given that it was supposed to be time travel. I always thought it was weird to have Hilltop Zone in the middle of the game (since it seemed like an alternate Emerald Hill Zone).
Esrael Neto's Sonic 2 Delta. I recommend: It's a almost perfect recreation of all these zones (except the spinball level).
Collision Chaos Radio's video on the Sonic 2 timeline and its musical remnants was one of the best pieces of independent research I'd seen for Sonic 2 in ages, and it's so cool that it's how you all ended up talking to Brenda Cook! Fantastic work by all.
Wow they still kept those files! I mean that's always been the practice for portfolios but that's like, many many years ago and I'm really glad they still have those precious files with them.
And same here, I know I'm the kind of person that sucks alot in history, but I never expected myself to be so attracted to these Lost and Unused Stuff to games I love. Maybe it also has something to do with appreciating fellow Game Dev Assets, but not as a Game Dev but also a Gamer, it's just amazing to see these information that's otherwise forgotten or just not given attention.
I've always been fascinated by Cyber City, because just the original name is so evocative of what it could be. I used to played the Simon Wai prototype, and wondered what could be there... I got so excited when you revealed you had the full map, and could recreate the tile set. It was like...seeing a childhood wonder come to life.
I hope you do more of these, because this is fantastic. Hopefully you'll be able to identify where Track 10 goes?
And as a pixel artist myself... I'm going to try to recreate Brenda's Christmas trees.
We've been told for years that Cyber City was changed into Metropolis Act 3 - I wonder if anyone has compared the two maps yet? From what we see in this video I couldn't really see any similarity.
The consensus is that Track 10 was meant to be used for a cutscene back when Super Sonic was going to be obtained by teleporting to Hidden Palace after getting the 7 emeralds.
Mostly because of the demo version of the track which has an end instead of looping like a stage theme.
Christmas came early, I want to spend it in Winter Zone! Even ignoring the new content there are details I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else! Super grateful for everyone who made this possible, from the developers to the VGHF staff.
Imagine Sky Chase Zone's theme song playing over that Winter Zone. It had these Christmas-like sounds. Even in Masa's Demo version.
I never realized how wintery SCZ sounded until someone pointed it out in the comments of the demo track. So much valuable analysis was lost when the original uploads were taken down.
It's alright to dream about the Sonic game that we were denied, but in truth if they would have included everything, it would have felt bloated, went on for too long and with such the short development time, have far more bugs in it than the final game had. Quality over Quantity.
I've never been super into the sonic 2 beta scene so its mind blowing to see that desert mock up was legit this whole time.
Yeah,I think sure the mockup was distributed by Sega (alongside another one that featured Hidden Palace) so we knew that it was official,we just didn’t know what level it was meant to be since people didn’t know if the desert level was Sand Shower or Dust Hill.
This is actually incredible. I've waited almost 20 years for all of this. I can't believe you were able to pull those three infamous zones. This is absolutely incredible. Thank you so, so, so much!
Seeing genocide city being recreated to playability is incredible
The original ROMs still have the map data, with various changes in the betas over time. Its just that its impossible to understand the collision data alone without any art, except through trial and error.
I'm 15 yo right now, which really doesn't sound that old, but i remember seeing videos about lost sonic media and seeing a lot of sonic 2 stuff, and i could just wonder what that stuff looked like, i was 10. 5 years later, i'm finally seeing almost everything i imagined in 5th grade. I'm so glad i'm alive to see history unfold in front of my very eyes.
Love the more edited and commentated videos. A suggestion I have though due to how youtube works these days, is it may be greatly beneficial to upload videos such as these and other videos about the organization itself here on this channel, and have all of the archival footage of behind the scenes, portfolios, commercials etc. on a second channel called the “Video Game History Foundation Video Archive” or some such. I love what you guys do and have been a supporter for years!
I knew of the cut stages, but this is the first time I've heard about different timelines. Truly fascinating! Stellar work!
This is incredible. As a lifelong fan of Sonic, and one that has always been fascinated by His World (HAH), seeing snippets of what could've been is so cool.
I'd love to see a recreation of that original Sonic 2 idea. The game we got was fantastic and I'm super glad they chose to focus on polishing what they had rather than giving us an over-ambitious under-delivered mess, but still.
Nice video. Very interesting. Sonic 2's development is fascinating.
When I was a kid, I heard the music track in the options that was never used in any actual level. I always knew these levels existed but never thought I would get to see them.
Thank you so, so much for this. It was like stumbling into a magical secret stage that my inner child never stopped believing existed.
Hidden Palace Zone was added back in the mobile release of Sonic 2, it replaces the death pit in Mystic Cave Zone. That’s so neat. Imagine if the same thing happened with these levels.
Discovering the behind-the-scenes of lost stages of the game that marked my childhood is exciting
Given the alarm-sounding from creators like Stephanie Sterling and HBomberguy about the risk of losing the historical context of video games and their creators, I'm really happy to find a foundation like this exists.
My young teenage self is just beaming right now learning of the history that could have been, and to finally pull back the curtain on the magic that created the old masterpiece. It answered a lot of questions, but also generated a lot of new ones.
What a tremendous find! Thank you. ❤
It's been so long since we were curiously guessing details of these levels in the 90s and 2000s. Wow, so amazing seeing the real winter zone!
Hands down this is the best recent sonic beta uncovering in a while ! my jaw dropped watching this.. you have some EXCLUSIVE videos and content there
I really appreciate the "soapbox" part at the end. As a huge fan of Half-Life I'm all too used to getting so caught up in what could have been that you forget that the finished product was still really good. Would I love to see a game take advantage of all the cool stuff from the HL2 beta? Of course, but most of the stuff was cut for good reason, and HL2 was still a great game.
Praying hard Valve will cooperate with them, or they might show us something themselves if they create a documentary for HL2 next year.
I hope to see someone finish these “lost levels” properly and release them for Sonic fans to enjoy on original hardware or even a modern port.
This is awesome stuff Frank! You and I met in Portland a couple months back (went to your panel, then we talked at your table in the con museum) and while I knew of you prior, it's really great to see your work after getting a face-to-face.
This video was so cathartic to me. Seeing that mockup alive and breathing made me feel something I didn't think I could.
I really enjoyed the soapbox at the end. As a game developer who recently lost 4+ years of archived work for a game that also had its online service shutdown, I was devastated by the loss purely from a preservation standpoint. Seeing how the game was the made, seeing the early ideas or future ideas that were to come, the prototypes that led to other ideas that were totally unexpected but made it into the game. All things that may never see the light of day. It's a hard pill to swallow sometimes. Despite that, those ideas still live on in me and inevitably will come back even better than before. It's what keeps me going. The human aspect of how games are made and what it takes to make them is extremely fascinating.
Sonic 2 is such an interesting game. So much of my appreciation for game development comes from what we learned about this game. We've seen so much cut content and yet here we are seeing even more for the first time yet again. Really feels like I've been following the development of this game for as long as I've been on the internet. It truly is the game that keeps on giving. What a legacy!
11:15 I really liked when "how sonic 2 was made" synced up with the chemical plant zone music
11:18
Is it just me, or does the submarine at 15:10 look strikingly like The Beatles Yellow Submarine? Either way, amazing video!
OK, wow. Seeing the original map concept helps explain a lot of the theming of the levels we got in the final game and makes them seem a lot less random!
Yeah,videos like these pretty much show why Sonic 2’s levels felt like a bunch of random levels put together compared to other Sonic games like CD and 3&K.
I just realised; the original plans for "Sonic 2" for the Genesis *LITERALLY BECAME* the "Sonic Prime" series on Netflix, only it's caused by dimensional shattering rather than time travel...
So happy to finally see winter zones mock up
You know, I wonder now how crazy it would’ve been if they actually were able to deliver on this concept as far back as 1992? To have the levels change as a result of what happens/happened in the game’s different timelines as you progress, would be absolutely mental.
If there was enough behind the scenes info actually available about Sonic CD i would TOTALLY watch. It was another super ambitious title with tons of scrapped ideas and content.
I found Sonic CD more conceptually interesting in some ways, though nothing we've seen has indicated it has the sheer volume of cut content, it focuses mostly on R2.
@@SisterRose exactly! Sorry i am bad with my words, but you get it! I LOVED the robotization and world map ideas, as well as the extra cutscenes and voice acting(would have LOVED the english sonic ova VA he is my fav) that it never got. Sonic CD is such a thematic and presence inspiring sonic game. Imo it makes me feel the most like sonic, and the extra cinematics and all would've been sooo cool.
As a member of Area 51 and SWS2B back in the day I was not expecting new Sonic 2 Beta discoveries in 2023. I used to have dreams of discovering a cart with playable Dust Hill.
I remember those days all too well.
I'm just a sucker for the time travel concept. Classic sonic games always did such a good job with story telling and keeping it "sonic feeling", with beautiful environments, and such a magical world. Nothing will ever ever ever be like sonic.
This stuff is awesome! I’m a huge Sonic fan, and seeing all of unused stuff as someone who has known about Sonic 2’s cut content is incredible.
I realize now that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Pokémon Gold and Silver are pretty similar development wise; they are sequels to massive games that had a lot of stuff changed or removed. That stuff is so interesting to me.
As one of my favorite games of all time, this is incredible to see! Thank you guys so much for your hard work and for sharing this with the rest of the world!
This is so awesome! Also, it’s really nice that Dust Hill would later become Desert Dazzle, which after also being unused would become Mirage Saloon.
I thought Desert Dazzle was based on R2, the scrapped Sonic CD level that Taxman and crew thought was a Desert stage (but newer evidence points to a more underground-styled stage)?
@@papersonic9941 R2 wasn’t a desert level, it was officially confirmed to be a ruins area named Dubious Depths/Ridicule Root, and it was supposed to be CD’s counterpart to Marble Zone. Taxman and crew based Desert Dazzle heavily off Dust Hill and they made it desert themed because of the patch of desert you can see on Little Planet.
@@gengargamer5657 genuinely so fascinating
@@spimbles Mhm
@@gengargamer5657 yes, I'm aware of Ridicule Root and all the information gathered by Sonic Retro, I was just under the impression that Taxman thought R2 would be desert back when developing the CD remake
This video was absolutely wonderful and completely unexpected! It’s incredible how we are STILL making these Sonic 2 discoveries decades later.
actually surprised that the winter zone was a real thing, I always thought it was just some fanmade stuff. also seeing the original sand shower zone image animated is cool
Probably a bit of both.
We had the knowledge that the desert level was meant to have a winter recolor because of an interview that Brenda Ross gave around 2001 so people that made romhacks made recreations of the winter level based on Brenda’s interview.
Wow, great research and the fact that you got in touch with these original level designers to unearth lost level information is truly incredible. Thanks for creating a Game History Foundation!
This is beyond cool, I can’t thank Tom Payne and everyone at the Foundation enough for this I can’t believe we got all of this and in such high quality!
Man this is such a fascinating watch. Avid Sonic fan here, the profile pic should give it away; I’ve ALWAYS had a knack for the unused stuff in video games. Weird creepy pastas and fairytale stories of things like Sonic in Melee always fascinate me, not just because they aren’t real, but it’s the fact that they could have been. Brenda’s portfolio is probably the coolest thing I’ve stumbled upon this year, thanks to you guys. I’m really glad I get the opportunity to appreciate this stuff when I know some people won’t. Seriously incredible work you all!
Someone at Sega actually wanted Sonic in Melee.
always had a fixation with cyber city and i'm so glad it has been rescontructrd, even if partially
It's pretty weird as for the Sonic 2/Sonic CD overlap.
That desert level almost made it into Sonic CD (you can kinda see it in the background of Wacky Workbench Past, and you can see a Desert level on the world map in the DA Garden, and it actually changes in all the time zones).
Then there's Sonic Boom (japanese version of the opening song for Sonic CD), reappearing as the BGM for Green Hills Zone in the 8-bit version of Sonic 2.
It you can do anything
Not sOnIC bOoM
Just an absolutely amazing video. Holy crap.
hows Jonathan Ewald going bro
@OoohAmbatuBecomeUncanny ⠀
Wow! After all these years, this answers so many questions for me, especially having the time travel concept explained. Seeing art for the winter zone for the first time feels like a fever dream. I'd love to see a rom hack inspired by these discoveries.
This was awesome! Sonic 3 is my favorite Sonic game and 2D platformer, it's cool that the cut concepts from Sonic 2 eventually did make it's way into the next game. It's really awesome to see Hez's work being showcased as well, and it's always a plus when I learn something new about Sonic that I didn't know before. Everyone involved in making this happen are truly awesome people!
Absolutely amazing effort! Thank you for bringing all this lost work to light. It's awesome finally being able to see some of these legendary lost stage designs and artwork.
I absolutely loved this video hope to see more of these type of videos pop up from you and I love Sonic 2
Seeing this pixel art of the actual mock ups is insane. The development of Sonic 2 is fascinating, even more so that Sonic 3 and Knuckles I'd say. Great video and thank you for preserving this piece of gaming history.