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Interesting revelations from Sonic 3 prototype


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2 hours ago, TheOcelot said:

He knew.

I don't believe for a second Taxman didn't know about the drop-dash being a cancelled concept for Sonic 3. His twitter reply is pretty short and felt more like a cheeky response

I guess this is better than people just assuming he was under an NDA (for a game that released in 1994?) and must be lying about it.

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. Remember Mania/Mania Plus contains lots of cancelled concepts; the beta Sonic 2 running animation, the scrapped Sonic CD Metallic Madness Eggman boss beta design etc.

You mean the stuff from betas that the community had known about for 15 years when Sonic Mania went into production? The stuff from betas that Retro was originally founded to discuss?

 

 

The difference between those and this is that this beta was found two years after Mania released.

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Iizuka-san

2 hours ago, TheOcelot said:

Iizuka-san

Let me help you here a second:

 

Untitled-1.png.bccad913262851a2995fa84dbebf2159.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Jack

Untitled-1.png.693eab24889de2f87c1a0da0527f98d6.png

 

 

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Iizuka-san could have suggested it for Sonic 4 for example

If he was particularly worried about concepts for Sonic 4, he could have suggested it not being a complete pile of shit well before worrying about the Drop Dash.

 

On 11/17/2019 at 3:26 PM, Harkofthewaa said:

the possibility that when his songs were implemented into the game the sound driver was still broken, making them sound bad

Where is this coming from?

 

3 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

Which is the same reason why he claimed even the PC tracks had licensing issues in an interview a while back? 

This is the same company that by all accounts seem to have fucked up what should have been a simple contractor agreement making a soundtrack.

4 games in a row

Why would anyone assume Iizuka is lying about that?

 

 

The only game we can definitely know that they own the rights to all the music to is Spinball, and even that's because some of it had to be redone after the game already shipped to remove Sonic 1 tracks.

 

On 11/16/2019 at 10:11 PM, MainJP said:

Is it possible this is just the NDA talking? I don't know if I buy that.

10 hours ago, Tarnish said:

I would assume Christian didn't know this was a thing in Sonic 3 at the time he was working on Mania. What I'm more curious about is whether Iizuka said anything when they showed him/found out about the drop dash in Mania. Since he was a designer on Sonic 3 back in the day, maybe he knew about this cut feature.

When people in the Sonic community started bothering people from S.T.I. about Hidden Palace it had only been a decade, and those people had spent entire months of their lives designing levels that were cut from the game and couldn't remember stuff. Iizuka was primarily a level designer on Sonic 3, and Sonic 3 was 25 years ago, and this is a feature that we had never seen any evidence of existing prior to this latest developer build and was clearly part of the "dick around with stuff" phase considering the ring gun thing is also present.

 

 

I think we're assuming far past the point of nonsense at this point when we act like Taxman can't give an answer that's satisfying because he's not legally permitted to. "Giving Sonic more mobility in 2D games" is something that has been approached from multiple angles by multiple developers since the first Advance. Seems like a pretty believable coincidence to me.

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Also to anyone doubting that the PC music can have music rights tied up with it:

The 2011 version of Sonic CD almost did not get the US soundtrack. Turns out there were rights issues that nobody knew about or assumed before then, especially since unlike the Japanese soundtrack it doesn't make liberal use of samples or lyrics owned by a separate non-Sega entity.

This is fucking Sega we're talking about, guys. I can absolutely, 110% believe that there is a rights quagmire involving the PC/beta music that we don't know about that, frankly, isn't exactly our business.

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13 minutes ago, Tornado said:

Iizuka was only a level designer on Sonic 3, and Sonic 3 was 25 years ago

You're right, hell, apparently he didn't even remember how basic physics on Sonic 3 worked or what made that game good, so how would he remember cut features.

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I doubt Iizuka remembers, S3 was he first job at Sonic Team and he was credited as level designer IIRC, he probably didn't had anything to do with programing. 

Besides, I'm willing to believe Taxman and the team wouldn't miss the chance to advertise the drop dash as being based on a scrapped concept from Sonic 3, that would totally make Sonic nerds go nuts, like with many other stuff they pulled along the way.

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7 minutes ago, Tornado said:

When people in the Sonic community started bothering people from S.T.I. about Hidden Palace it had only been a decade, and those people had spent entire months of their lives designing levels that were cut from the game. Iizuka was only a level designer on Sonic 3, and Sonic 3 was 25 years ago. I think we're assuming far past the point of nonsense at this point.

It's not exactly a leap in logic to assume Taxman and his team got shown concepts from the MD/Genesis titles. As two members pointed out on Retro, Taxman had access to design documents regarding the scrapped R2 stage from Sonic CD and even managed to get old Digitizer files from Sonic CD, with the enemies intended for R2:

https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/sonic-cd-now-out-for-everything-except-nintendo-consoles.26302/page-158#post-733117

http://info.sonicretro.org/R2

 Taxman also intended to create a brand new level for the Sonic CD remake called Desert Dazzle that was based off of the scrapped level Sand Shower Zone from Sonic 2. This level would go onto be the basis of Mirage Saloon Zone in Mania, even reusing some of the graphics.

http://info.sonicretro.org/Desert_Dazzle

If he had access to unreleased CD and 2 assets why would it be far fetched for him to have been shown scrapped concepts from Sonic 3?

 

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@Tornado Just a hypothesis. One of the supposed reasons that MJ decided to go uncredited was because he didn't like the way the Genesis sounded. And if you have a listen to some of these songs in the beta, they definitely have some of that Genesis twang going on ( like Angel Island and especially Sky Sanctuary). Again, just a hypothesis.

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12 minutes ago, MainJP said:

 Taxman also intended to create a brand new level for the Sonic CD remake called Desert Dazzle that was based off of the scrapped level Sand Shower Zone from Sonic 2. This level would go onto be the basis of Mirage Saloon Zone in Mania, even reusing some of the graphics.

To be fair, he didn't know that - it was based on 'Dust Hill' to him, because he evidently didn't know that Dust Hill was just Mystic Cave's early name, like we didn't until a week or so ago.  

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7 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

To be fair, he didn't know that - it was based on 'Dust Hill' to him, because he evidently didn't know that Dust Hill was just Mystic Cave's early name, like we didn't until a week or so ago.  

Mystic Cave's concept name was Dust Hill?

I wonder how different that stage was going to look then, because it doesn't sound very fitting.

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1 hour ago, MainJP said:

It's not exactly a leap in logic to assume Taxman and his team got shown concepts from the MD/Genesis titles.

It's also not exactly a leap in logic to assume Taxman and his team could have also independently came up with something similar.

 

 

What was the first Sonic game with a dedicated, instant-charge spindash button and a homing attack?

1 hour ago, MainJP said:

It's not exactly a leap in logic to assume Taxman and his team got shown concepts from the MD/Genesis titles. As two members pointed out on Retro, Taxman had access to design documents regarding the scrapped R2 stage from Sonic CD and even managed to get old Digitizer files from Sonic CD, with the enemies intended for R2:

https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/sonic-cd-now-out-for-everything-except-nintendo-consoles.26302/page-158#post-733117

http://info.sonicretro.org/R2

You're talking to someone who joined this forum after finding SWS2B through The GHZ first.

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 Taxman also intended to create a brand new level for the Sonic CD remake called Desert Dazzle that was based off of the scrapped level Sand Shower Zone from Sonic 2. This level would go onto be the basis of Mirage Saloon Zone in Mania, even reusing some of the graphics.

http://info.sonicretro.org

/Desert_Dazzle

Again, I've been here long enough and have enough background knowledge (of Sonic 2 in particular) that I'm aware of the 15 so years where " the scrapped Sonic the Hedgehog 2 level Sand Shower Zone" was assumed to be called "Dust Hill" by the community anyway, even though that selection loaded Mystic Cave even in the Wai beta.

 

The absolute first thing I wondered about, when the newly found Sonic CD prototype was being talked about in August, was if it was maybe old enough to have R2 still in it.

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If he had access to unreleased CD and 2 assets why would it be far fetched for him to have been shown scrapped concepts from Sonic 3?

 

It wouldn't be. Why would it be far fetched that he never was? Or that even if he was, this only sort-of working feature from an unknown point in Sonic 3's development had never been fully documented to begin with?

 

Our understanding of these things are certainly changing all the time. Even speaking purely about the music in this specific game; in the span of 6 months we've learned not only that the PC version tracks were the original versions for Sonic 3, but also that the Special Stage music was put together two years prior for some shitty looking unreleased Puyo Puyo clone. I don't think that means that we need to jump to "IIZUKA LIES ALL THE TIME" or "WHITEHEAD MUST BE UNDER AN NDA."

54 minutes ago, Harkofthewaa said:

@Tornado Just a hypothesis. One of the supposed reasons that MJ decided to go uncredited was because he didn't like the way the Genesis sounded. And if you have a listen to some of these songs in the beta, they definitely have some of that Genesis twang going on ( like Angel Island and especially Sky Sanctuary). Again, just a hypothesis.

I'm asking specifically about the sound driver being broken, because I hadn't heard that before.

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@Tornado The sound driver in the beta is... a work in progress. Some of the songs aren't finished and have the Genesis twang that everyone seems to hate, and in the game itself PSG notes tend to hang or break a lot, resulting in some good ol fashioned ear rape ( the airship at the end of Angel Island will make your ears bleed, followed by Eggmans craft sounding like a dying lawn mower). Just listen to Angel Island one for a minute here:

Notice the twang? I can't help but wonder if MJ's songs sounded like that when they were first being implemented during development.

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13 hours ago, JezMM said:

I wouldn't read anything too much into this, we KNOW Lava Reef isn't tied up in copyright but that one got a new compositon. They probably just consistently wanted to give all "retro zones" a new song to be consistent, rather than having 90% new songs and 10% that are remixes/originals for some reason.

But, even if the PC/prototype tracks are unusable, the Lego Dimensions ones, along with perhaps new tracks, could still be used for the Taxman release. 
 

Also, about the production timeline, I wonder when the game started pre-production, and when the “sky dragon god” was cut? 
 

And given the idea of lobbing rings was used in Heroes, it’s interesting to see that ideas from the olden days were recycled up until at least Unleashed (Adabat seems to take inspiration from some of the Sonic 2 concept art) at Sonic Team. 

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Here's a thought: What if they had scraped another miniboss theme? Unless they just used the sonic and knuckles one as in the playthrough.

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I'd also like to add that if Whitehead wasn't allowed to say if he took the drop dash from Sonic 3 protos, he would just not say anything.

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1 minute ago, Badnik Mechanic said:

"They must have known it was from Sonic 3!"

*Raises hand*

Does it matter?

It doesn't.

And usually people get some type of satisfaction out of knowing this, but since it's just theorizing even after getting an answer...no.

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The main thing I don't like with people assuming Whitehead isn't telling the truth and is under NDA is that people are likely going to run with this theory and it'll become "common knowledge" despite his official statement (whether or not you choose to believe it) being that it was a complete coincidence. Assuming that nobody involved in Sonic ever says anything further about the subject, I don't want to see wikis five years from now suggesting that the drop dash in Mania was lifted or inspired from Sonic 3.

I can get the skepticism to an extent, there have been times in the past when I've been extremely doubtful of official statements made by Sega or related parties... but is it really that farfetched for it to be a coincidence either? It's a different scenario from Sonic 2 beta elements appearing in Mania or the mobile ports since the larger community didn't even know about this until the other day. I think some people need to dial back their imagination and assumptions a little.

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I don't believe in extreme coincidences like those.

Honestly, the move is too much identical that in my opinion it can't be a coincidence, I think the Mania team had access to some Sega's archives and knew about that move, or Iizuka himself told them about it, something.

Sonic Forces was in development along with Mania, and as far as I know, we don't know if the Drop Dash was introduced in Mania or in Forces first; it's even possible that the drop dash was planned in Forces, and it was added to Mania later, with Christian Whitehead not knowing its origins (unless there is some interview or something I know nothing about which contradicts this).

But I don't care whoever lied or said the thruth; it's not a problem really. There are things that companies won't tell to their customers, and it's totally normal. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some NDA or something. It's not a shame or anything, it's not imagination or what, it's a totally logical possibility, and nothing to be concerned about, because there is no negative implication or anything, it's just something that happens regularly.

The real thruth is that we don't know for real. the "uncanny coincidence *smiley*" post does not confirm nor disconfirm anything, it's a post written in a funny way that can also be sarcastic. Unless Christian Whitehead, Iizuka, Sega or someone else involved in the project will release an official interview saying that the Drop Dash was either from Sonic 3 or it's just a coincidence, we won't know for real what happend.

It shouldn't become "common knownledge" that it was from Sonic 3, but as well it shouldn't become "common knownledge" that it was a coincidence either because we have no proof of that either. It should become "common knownledge" that we just don't know and it's possible either way until an official confirmation comes.

If I remember, even the Michael Jackson involvement in Sonic 3 is "common knownledge" without confirmation; people are 100% convinced that it's true but as far as I know it was never officially confirmed and it's totally possible that it wasn't even true. (right? or I'm missing something?)

On 11/18/2019 at 7:11 AM, MainJP said:

Ring Toss COLLECTS RINGS.

oIoZCE1.gif

It also makes the Orbinauts child's play. 

OMG Cheese was in Sonic 3.

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2 hours ago, Iko said:

it's totally possible that it wasn't even true.

No, it's not. If anything the newest release makes it even more clear.

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2 hours ago, Iko said:

I don't believe in extreme coincidences like those.

Honestly, the move is too much identical that in my opinion it can't be a coincidence, I think the Mania team had access to some Sega's archives and knew about that move, or Iizuka himself told them about it, something.

Sonic Forces was in development along with Mania, and as far as I know, we don't know if the Drop Dash was introduced in Mania or in Forces first; it's even possible that the drop dash was planned in Forces, and it was added to Mania later, with Christian Whitehead not knowing its origins (unless there is some interview or something I know nothing about which contradicts this).

But I don't care whoever lied or said the thruth; it's not a problem really. There are things that companies won't tell to their customers, and it's totally normal. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some NDA or something. It's not a shame or anything, it's not imagination or what, it's a totally logical possibility, and nothing to be concerned about, because there is no negative implication or anything, it's just something that happens regularly.

The real thruth is that we don't know for real. the "uncanny coincidence *smiley*" post does not confirm nor disconfirm anything, it's a post written in a funny way that can also be sarcastic. Unless Christian Whitehead, Iizuka, Sega or someone else involved in the project will release an official interview saying that the Drop Dash was either from Sonic 3 or it's just a coincidence, we won't know for real what happend.

It shouldn't become "common knownledge" that it was from Sonic 3, but as well it shouldn't become "common knownledge" that it was a coincidence either because we have no proof of that either. It should become "common knownledge" that we just don't know and it's possible either way until an official confirmation comes.

If I remember, even the Michael Jackson involvement in Sonic 3 is "common knownledge" without confirmation; people are 100% convinced that it's true but as far as I know it was never officially confirmed and it's totally possible that it wasn't even true. (right? or I'm missing something?)

OMG Cheese was in Sonic 3.

Funnily enough, the way I interpreted Whitehead's cheeky little alien emoji when I read it, was him acknowledging that people will be thinking conspiracy theories exactly like this, hence the alien.

Just remember that human brains are hard-wired to find patterns in everything, which is why we are SO observant of coincidences and SO quick to apply meaning to them. We really like all our shit organised in boxes, but sometimes we have to remember that fate and the world around us does not have any desire to conform to how our incredible yet stupid-ass brains like to process and store information.

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2 hours ago, Tornado said:

No, it's not. If anything the newest release makes it even more clear.

Would you like to bring me some hard proofs that show how MJ was involved in the soundtrack Sonic 3? Not rumors or speculation, hard undeniable proof.

This new prototype shows that the musics that were put into the PC version as a "replacement" for the "MJ" musics existed before the scandals involving MJ, leaving absolutely no reasons for him to not be credited in the game (so much that people had to invent excuses in order to justify it, like the sound quality being bad and other stuff that was said earlier in this thread). If anything, this prototype weakens the theory.

I'm not saying it's true or false, I'm just saying that it's still not sure if MJ worked for Sonic 3, it's just speculation (no matter how hard it is to accept this).

2 hours ago, JezMM said:

Funnily enough, the way I interpreted Whitehead's cheeky little alien emoji when I read it, was him acknowledging that people will be thinking conspiracy theories exactly like this, hence the alien.

Just remember that human brains are hard-wired to find patterns in everything, which is why we are SO observant of coincidences and SO quick to apply meaning to them. We really like all our shit organised in boxes, but sometimes we have to remember that fate and the world around us does not have any desire to conform to how our incredible yet stupid-ass brains like to process and store information.

If you read my post, you can totally see that my conclusion is that we don't know, there isn't any proof of either cases; I believe they knew about it, but that's just my personal opinion, the fact is that we don't know.

I read that last part as "Don't think, believe in what you have been told without searching for proof, because your brain is stupid, and logical is wrong" and in my opinion that's the worst mentality possible.

If Christian Whitehead can talk and he's not under NDA, then someone with a twitter account should ask him the truth about the Drop Dash, instead of making assumption based on a sarcastic post. If he can talk, he will reply with proper informations instead of a cryptic sarcastic post.

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24 minutes ago, Iko said:

...he will reply with proper informations instead of a cryptic sarcastic post.

It's not even cryptic, it's the most blunt thing he could've said...

But he added an emote and look what happened, this.

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3 hours ago, Iko said:

If anything, this prototype weakens the theory.

They had an entire soundtrack more or less completed, then replaced several mostly completed tracks with songs which would have gotten them sued by the biggest musical artist in the world if it wasn't authorized. They did this just a couple years removed from several high profile lawsuits in the music industry which established the legal precedent over this very thing. They did this immediately after they had to panic and redo the soundtrack for another Sonic game so they wouldn't get sued over this very thing. It absolutely strengthens the tie between Jackson and the game.

 

3 hours ago, Iko said:

Would you like to bring me some hard proof that show how MJ was involved in the soundtrack Sonic 3? Not rumors or speculation, hard undeniable proof.

I'm not talking about people speculating why Sonic 3 has such a dearth of rereleases or why the PC version used the original tracks instead of the Jackson ones or your opinion on the validity of the theories behind those decisions. That's not the point, and frankly it's all irrelevant. You don't need confirmation to show something as demonstrably true; which this thread should make obvious enough since Taxman doing exactly that just led to people believing that Iizuka must have told him something and Taxman can't tell us the truth because of an NDA and etc.

Hard undeniable proof is that multiple songs in the final game contain entire melodic samples from Michael Jackson songs; one of which was recorded immediately after Sonic 3 released, one done several years before. Regardless of anyone coming out of Sega or the Jackson estate and making a hard confirmation, that doesn't just happen coincidentally. Music sampling is something that has hard legal precedent of not happening coincidentally. To say that it's "possible" that a song predating the game and a song following the game both contain excerpts containing the same melody as tracks in the game purely by coincidence approaches junkyard tornado status; and I'm sure Vanilla Ice wishes you could have been on retainer for him.

 

 

 


It's not even in the timezone as the discussion of the drop dash in this prototype vs the drop dash in Mania; because offhand I can think of several things where a causal relationship seems more obvious than the drop dash situation but actually were complete coincidences. Even in industries with far higher production costs and lead times than videogames, things have happened where it absolutely seems definitive that copying took place and it was in fact completely independent arrivals to the same conclusion. It's not all that uncommon in the automotive industry, for example.

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2 hours ago, Iko said:

Would you like to bring me some hard proofs that show how MJ was involved in the soundtrack Sonic 3? Not rumors or speculation, hard undeniable proof.

This new prototype shows that the musics that were put into the PC version as a "replacement" for the "MJ" musics existed before the scandals involving MJ, leaving absolutely no reasons for him to not be credited in the game (so much that people had to invent excuses in order to justify it, like the sound quality being bad and other stuff that was said earlier in this thread). If anything, this prototype weakens the theory.

I'm not saying it's true or false, I'm just saying that it's still not sure if MJ worked for Sonic 3, it's just speculation (no matter how hard it is to accept this).

If you read my post, you can totally see that my conclusion is that we don't know, there isn't any proof of either cases; I believe they knew about it, but that's just my personal opinion, the fact is that we don't know.

I read that last part as "Don't think, believe in what you have been told without searching for proof, because your brain is stupid, and logical is wrong" and in my opinion that's the worst mentality possible.

If Christian Whitehead can talk and he's not under NDA, then someone with a twitter account should ask him the truth about the Drop Dash, instead of making assumption based on a sarcastic post. If he can talk, he will reply with proper informations instead of a cryptic sarcastic post.

All I was saying is that sometimes coincidences are just coincidences, and that saying as such is just as valid an argument as reading into the alien emoji in this case.

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