6 min of new Sonic 1 Beta footage

[Badnik Mechanic]

 

Some highlights.

* Sonic's jumping victory animation is intact and triggered by the player.

* 50 rings doesn't trigger special stage ring, but special stages are there and totally different.

* No enemies in the Star Light Zone.

* Weird sped up music in GHZ 3. 

* Demolition orb is in GHZ.

* Spike Trap of Death in Spring Yard Zone. Looks like a horror to try and avoid.

 

Video also includes beta content from Streets of Rage and a few other games too.

[StaticMania]

When I saw "victory animation intact" I would've assumed it was like...the animation + that Sonic 2 glitch that keeps you frozen in the air if you try to transform after beating a level.

So just jumping then a freeze frame.

I guess the speed up music in act 3 is like...frantic because it's the boss level, but they couldn't create an original track for it.

[Your Vest Friend]

On the one hand, it's so weird having GHZ1's iconic level design with a sphere just plonked at the start of it.

On the other hand, the sped-up boss theme sounds so much more natural.

[FReaK]

Very interesting find!

some things that I have also noticed:

- the blinking lights of the first boss do not work yet

- the UFO's in Marble Zone are visible and animated!

- Spring Yard Zone seems to bay waaaaay harder.

- Special Stages seem unfinished. also, what is that at 6:43? blue goal orbs?

- the Title Screen has a visible 'press start button'. seems like they didn't implement the bug yet that stopped it from showing.

[StaticMania]

Being at 0 rings makes you drown faster.

A good challenge.

[Solister]

Actually, taking 50 rings gives you 1 up instead the 100 usual. Also, it seems the underwater time is way faster which I doubt the game actually could be finished at that speed, unless as @StaticMania mentioned, is related with the ring amount.

But honestly, there's nothing "wow". I was expecting more though I don't believe the game changed much more than what we already know. The Starlight music is still lovely. Also, those spikes on Spring Yard (5:40) sounds very challenging.

Some interesting background changes on SOR.

[StaticMania]

Nah, nevermind there's bubbles everywhere.

I didn't notice how fast it was when he first entered the water.

[E-122-Psi]

It's weird they took out things like the Press Start Button and the victory jump, especially the latter. Sure maybe they though Sonic zipping offscreen was a cooler transition but it sure would have been fairer if you missed that jump for the giant Special Stage ring first time round.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

I kinda wonder what the motivation was to remove the orb from Green Hill Zone. Maybe it just didn't serve much of a purpose. But I feel like they could've found a place in some classic Sonic game for that kind of feature and I wonder why they didn't. The only even similar feature I can think of off the top of my head is the logs in Sonic 1 8-bit's Jungle Zone, which weren't even that similar, just also had the mechanic of walking on them to make them move. (Though to be fair, there are a couple classic Sonic games I haven't gotten very far in, so I can't be 100% positive.)

[Tornado]

Seeing a bunch of this stuff in motion rather than mockups and still images is really cool.

[TheOcelot]

Yeah, it's nice to see some minor differences compared to the final build. Sonic Team definitely made the right decision in removing some of the gimmicks such as the rotating spikes at the start of Spring Yard act1, and changing the amount required to earn an extra life to 100 rings instead of 50 rings, as 50 feels like too easy a target. The only objects I wish they hadn't removed is the UFO's in Marble Garden which looks really cool and the "wrecking ball" from GH act1 which is relatively harmless (doesn't look like it damages Sonic).

Hopefully one day we'll get to see beta footage from an even earlier build.

Oh and I couldn't resist doing a very quick video

 

[Sean]

One of the coolest Sonic discoveries ever short of obtaining the proto itself. Hopefully that happens someday.

[Plasme]

11 hours ago, Badnik Mechanic said:

 

 

How did this get discovered?

[Iko]

The wrecking ball thing used as a regular gimmick in Green Hill looks very interesting... now that moving/crumbling platforms and loops became generic standard elements of Sonic's level design, having a zone-specific gimmick for Green Hill makes it feel more complete somehow...

Though they removed it because apparently didn't work well? Or maybe it was not intuitive enough as an hazard for being in the first level?

Anyway it explains why some parts of the level are shaped the way they are, because there was supposed to be a ball there.

[CleverSonicUsername]

18 hours ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

I kinda wonder what the motivation was to remove the orb from Green Hill Zone. Maybe it just didn't serve much of a purpose. But I feel like they could've found a place in some classic Sonic game for that kind of feature and I wonder why they didn't. The only even similar feature I can think of off the top of my head is the logs in Sonic 1 8-bit's Jungle Zone, which weren't even that similar, just also had the mechanic of walking on them to make them move. (Though to be fair, there are a couple classic Sonic games I haven't gotten very far in, so I can't be 100% positive.)

I think they probably just never found a good use for them, and having them plonked down as they were did little other than break the player's flow through the level. Green Hill being the first, maybe that's something they didn't want to do too much.

Also possible they wanted to avoid anything too gimmicky in the first level so the player could focus solely on learning the basic mechanics of controlling Sonic and navigating levels.