New Sonic Heroes Development info.

[MainJP]

Yesterday Maekawa-san revealed new information on Sonic Heroes' development. Plans to include old characters besides Chaotix were on the table as well as include Metal Sonic, Chaos and Gamma.

Looks like Metal Sonic wasn't the villain in this early stage. No mention of Shadow being apart of a team, however, but he does go on to talk about whether he's "dead" or not. 

This would've been crowded but could've been interesting due to Team Hooligan and potential interesting interactions and mechanics.

[Red]

I wonder if design drafts were made for the characters that never made it. Would have loved to see Modern Fang.

[MetalSkulkBane]

I bet it was reeeeally early stage of development.

I mean, to this day Sonic Heroes is a platformer with most playable characters (I think, 80% sure). Even more characters... amazing yet scary vision.

So, Bean was going to fly? Fascinating

[Your Vest Friend]

We could always ask Iizuka about this if the opportunity arises. If anyone would know Heroes' development history, it's him. 

[Blue Blood]

As interesting as this might be, it does very much sound like something from the very earliest days of development. I'd guess that they're just gotten to the point where they decided they wanted to have the gameplay revolve around teams of three, and were just throwing around ideas for what those teams could possibly be. These ideas probably got no further than being jotted down on a scrap of paper.

[Blue Wisp]

Chaos as a playable character AND in a team with Gamma and... Big? 

Why Big?

Wut.

Well we wouldn't have gotten the BEST Villain Transformation Monster of the Week bar none if Metal Sonic were playable so I am happy this didn't come to pass. 

Metal Overlord was awesome. I need me a HD remaster.

[Ratcicle King]

Reminder that the first draft is usually just the developers meeting up and just writing down ideas on a paper, then literally shooting down half of them later on, these teams probably didn't even make it to the scripting or designing phase of development, or else we'd probably have seen a concept art or found something in the game's files by now.

Also, Maekawa-san soon after tweets that they settled on having all dead characters not appearing, shooting down some of the teams.

...Then they began discussing if Shadow WAS really dead.

[Danj86]

9 minutes ago, Blue Wisp said:

Chaos as a playable character AND in a team with Gamma and... Big? 

Why Big?

Wut.

Team Adventure 1.

Also, Gamma can fly. Does that mean Chaos would've been Speed? He's always been pretty slow though...

But it's already been said. The power, flight and speed mechanic might not have been set when they considered these options. Although most of them do stay close to that pattern, maybe coincidentally? Rouge could work as a power type considering her rivalry with Knuckles and her deadly kicks. *shrug*

[MainJP]

18 minutes ago, Ratcicle King said:

Reminder that the first draft is usually just the developers meeting up and just writing down ideas on a paper, then literally shooting down half of them later on, these teams probably didn't even make it to the scripting or designing phase of development, or else we'd probably have seen a concept art or found something in the game's files by now.

Also, Maekawa-san soon after tweets that they settled on having all dead characters not appearing, shooting down some of the teams.

...Then they began discussing if Shadow WAS really dead.

I'm aware, of course at the bottom I'm simply speaking hypothetically. If this were the roster it would be pretty wild.

Went ahead and added that.

[Tornado]

I like that one of their ideas of a team would have essentially been "Sonic who is yellow, Sonic who is red, Sonic who is still blue but is made of metal"

[Ratcicle King]

One does wonder how this first draft could've affected all games after Heroes, considering the recurring cast is mostly formed by the Heroes characters.

[Asin Korber]

What I'm interested in is what would Mighty/Ray/Metal's team's story be like?

[Pawn]

Quote

At first they were going for 6 teams and 18 characters, but went with 4/12 due to there simply being "too many characters." He feels it was the right choice.

Oh really? You think that might have been just a bit much? =P And wow, some of those initial ideas...

Team Sonic

Team Girl

Team Adventure 1

Team Chaotix

Team Those Fighters Characters

Team Sonic Clone

 

And I thought Team Rose's reason for cooperation was flimsy. I know it was early on, but, even then....

[MainJP]

E-102 is considered a "dead" character yet that didn't stop Chaos Gamma (basically an upgraded E-102) from appearing in Sonic Battle which released a 3 weeks before Heroes. Omega is mentioned in the game yet we play as a Gamma clone instead. Now I wonder when Battle began its planning stages.

5 minutes ago, Ratcicle King said:

One does wonder how this first draft could've affected all games after Heroes, considering the recurring cast is mostly formed by the Heroes characters.

I was thinking the same. We probably wouldn't get Shadow The Hedgehog and future games would be radically different.

31 minutes ago, DanJ86 said:

But it's already been said. The power, flight and speed mechanic might not have been set when they considered these options. Although most of them do stay close to that pattern, maybe coincidentally? Rouge could work as a power type considering her rivalry with Knuckles and her deadly kicks. *shrug*

1

Maekawa-san does mention that Cream would be the flight of her team which would've left Rouge as the power character. Makes sense since Rouge's Hip Drop can apparently create massive Earth tremors that can be felt from more than 100 feet in the air in SA2...

[Marcello]

Now I want to see Big and Chaos teaming up.

[Badnik Mechanic]

And then when you remember that at one point this was under the working title of SA3. It goes to show you just how crazy the development of heroes actually was. 

[Emerald Chaos]

It's a bit of a shame some of these teams didn't happen on the grounds that now the characters are apparently locked behind some pointless mandates which force them to be usable in limited context.

Some of them sound pretty crack-y tho. Specifically the SA1 team and the Metal Sonic + Mighty and Ray team.
I heard the story for Sonic Heroes was written up at the last minute and the writer had to work around the game that had pretty much already been made.
 

It sure would've been fun to see scenarios they came up with for these teams

[Tornado]

46 minutes ago, MainJP said:

E-102 is considered a "dead" character yet that didn't stop Chaos Gamma (basically an upgraded E-102) from appearing in Sonic Battle which released a 3 weeks before Heroes. Omega is mentioned in the game yet we play as a Gamma clone instead. Now I wonder when Battle began its planning stages.

 

Sonic Heroes wasn't developed by Sonic Team like Battle was. Any restrictions that Heroes' team were initially thinking for Heroes' design don't necessarily have anything to do with the ideas that Battle would have had, even though they were companion pieces and shared some ideas.

[Your Vest Friend]

Technically they were both Sonic Team, but the Heroes team were Sonic Team USA. They were effective more Sonic Team than the team just called Sonic Team. 

[SBR2]

I almost wish this had happened just so I could see Amy and Rouge Play off each other.

[Tornado]

10 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

Technically they were both Sonic Team, but the Heroes team were Sonic Team USA. They were effective more Sonic Team than the team just called Sonic Team. 

Did you know Michael Jackson may have made music for Sonic 3?

[Meta77]

1 hour ago, Tornado said:

Did you know Michael Jackson may have made music for Sonic 3?

There is no may. He did.....unless your joking and if so forgive me lina

[Almar]

It's obvious that Rouge would Team Girl's Power character. Back in Adventure 2 she was presented as being to legs what Knuckles was to arms. Her later appearences have been playing this down but still.

Also, I speculate that if Shadow wasn't in Heroes they would have brought him back for his game. It's only loosesly connected narratively with Heroes and already has the Shadow Android subplot. Little of its core would change if you saved Shadow's return for it.

[DabigRG]

The Hooligans are one thing, but Chaos, Gamma, and Big is a weird combination. Might, Ray, and Metal even moreso.

3 hours ago, DanJ86 said:

Team Adventure 1.

Also, Gamma can fly. Does that mean Chaos would've been Speed? He's always been pretty slow though...

But it's already been said. The power, flight and speed mechanic might not have been set when they considered these options. Although most of them do stay close to that pattern, maybe coincidentally? Rouge could work as a power type considering her rivalry with Knuckles and her deadly kicks. *shrug*

Oh. I suppose there is another tie as well--Froggy!

Chaos being Speed is another odd choice, so I can only assume it was in comparison.

I've tought about that as well, but I can see it.

3 hours ago, Asin Korber said:

What I'm interested in is what would Mighty/Ray/Metal's team's story be like?

Yeah, seriously. That would almost never work under normal conditions.

...Oh. ::

3 hours ago, Pawn said:

Oh really? You think that might have been just a bit much? =P And wow, some of those initial ideas...

Team Sonic

Team Girl

Team Adventure 1

Team Chaotix

Team Those Fighters Characters

Team Sonic Clone

 

And I thought Team Rose's reason for cooperation was flimsy. I know it was early on, but, even then....

Suddenly, the fact that Cream was [most commonly cited as being] created for Heroes makes even more sense.

2 hours ago, Emerald Chaos said:

I heard the story for Sonic Heroes was written up at the last minute and the writer had to work around the game that had pretty much already been made.
 

It sure would've been fun to see scenarios they came up with for these teams

 

37 minutes ago, Almar said:

It's obvious that Rouge would Team Girl's Power character. Back in Adventure 2 she was presented as being to legs what Knuckles was to arms. Her later appearences have been playing this down but still.

Also, I speculate that if Shadow wasn't in Heroes they would have brought him back for his game. It's only loosesly connected narratively with Heroes and already has the Shadow Android subplot. Little of its core would change if you saved Shadow's return for it.

That makes too much sense!

Team Dark having the second most story of the cast does reflect that.

[Shadowlax]

This shit is wild

Yeah, what we got is uh much better to say the least. Guess this confirms omega is strait up a 3rd wheel

1 hour ago, Almar said:

It's obvious that Rouge would Team Girl's Power character. Back in Adventure 2 she was presented as being to legs what Knuckles was to arms. Her later appearences have been playing this down but still.

Also, I speculate that if Shadow wasn't in Heroes they would have brought him back for his game. It's only loosesly connected narratively with Heroes and already has the Shadow Android subplot. Little of its core would change if you saved Shadow's return for it.

i don't think this is true actually. 

There are a couple teams that are like " We like them together " rather than " how would they work in game". Then again, shadow's a speed character and he has super strength so who knows?