Sonic 1 Prototype

[Tornado]

I'mma tell you all a story. I've been in this community since 2003, and while I've never been part of the Retro set I've followed Retro since way back when Wai still regularly posted on it and had his name on the site title. And this release today:

 

Is the biggest one since that Sonic 2 Beta. So hopeless was the chance of ever seeing this one that I remember a couple huge hoaxes that centered around someone digging it out of their attic or whatever and faking some screenshots for the lulz. So many blurry screenshots, vague descriptions of level layouts and off-screen camera recordings of level snippets dug up over the past two decades almost. Sparkling Zone, Clock ORK Zone, the Marble Zone UFOs, the crazy Labyrinth background art, the physics ball at Green Hill.

https://www.sonicstadium.org/2021/01/sonic-1-prototype-now-available-to-play-for-the-first-time/

It's all here, and all able to be checked out by the community for the first time. I was honestly nearly shaking when I saw Tracker start posting about it on Twitter.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Well someone’s glowing like a Super Saiyan today.

Still can’t wait to check this out tho. 

[Natie]

Oh man yeah, anyone who's been following the fandom for long enough knows how big of a deal this is. It's crazy how HP seems to find these so easily! The Sonic 3 proto was already a big surprise.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Things like this being discovered nearly 30 years later is what gives me hope for the most sought after of lost media. A legendary beta that many have wanted for years on end, and it was finally discovered. This and the Akira prototype has to be up there.

[Indigo Rush]

I can't believe we ended the year with such an amazing unveiling like this! Wow. I never, ever thought I'd get to see this 

[TheOcelot]

Yeah, this is an awesome discovery. 

I've done a playthrough of the prototype:

I really like the trippy background and night theme of Sparkling zone and the neat cave/crystal/hidden palace vibe with Labyrinth's background. So weird playing through it without any water, obviously it's very incomplete.

Some of Star Light zone's more chaotic level design (not in the final release) reminds me of some weird areas from Collision Chaos and Palmtree Panic in Sonic CD.

So surreal seeing the horizonal spike crusher implemented. The extra route at the end of Marble zone act 2 is interesting. Was probably a good idea to remove it to prevent the act going on too long.

No idea if this was shown-off when it was live streamed, but you can speed up the rotation off the special stage so it rotates super fast (0:35) and then slow it down again.

Clock "O"rk zone, lol.

[Harkofthewaa]

So you can spawn Splits with Debug Mode... in Marble Zone. He jumps forward until he hits a wall (at which point he turns back) or goes through something and falls. I say that because he only interacts with the levels geometry, he phases through all objects. Also he's pink, but that's probably a pallette issue.

[Eurisko]

This is a fantastic find and what a fitting one for Sonics 30th year. Truly amazing.

A very big well done to all involved.

[Warheadz]

Really enjoying the Sonic 3 barrel prototype in Marble Zone

[RadicalLaRuby]

Tried it last night. Very interesting run. Some observations, some obvious, some maybe not so much:

First Motobug actually almost got me (would have been NSMB all over again). I was messing with the ball in Green Hill trying to see how many I can spawn on screen at once, managed to get 2 so far, 3 s very difficult. Never new it was meant as an obstacle, let alone crushed you. depending on where you're standing, you can influence how much or how fast it rolls. Not sure what causes the occasional bounce (though it does that on the bridge automatically when rolling backwards). Spike bug is present and clouds don't move.

Marble's UFOs are so out of place lol. A few interesting secret walls. Not much to say except surprised catakiller is not present, the snail thing is more or less the same type, just smaller.

Sparkling Zone really punched me in the face at first. I never believed those rumors about Hyper Sonic causing seizures, but I can honestly see this one doing so. Roller thing isn't here.

Star Light was surprisingly difficult to make some jumps due to some intense slope placements. I was almost expecting Labyrinth next, wanted to see if that secret switch in act 1 was implemented. 

Also seems like there are alot of lives in this version (or maybe it's just been that long since I've played Sonic 1) and LOTS more enemies. And I just realized there are no checkpoints.

Anyway, it was fun. Wonder what crazy prototype we'll see next.

[Tornado]

One interesting thing is that the prototype released the other day is not the same one that had the extensive, 6+ minute long video of gameplay from it released earlier this year:

 

It has a lot of similarities, but the one we got on the 31st most likely predates the one in the video.