Underground Caves

Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball

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Underground Caves

First level, Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball
Location: Mt. Mobius

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Underground Caves is a scrapped level of Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball for the Sega Mega Drive. It was set to be the first level of the game, but was combined with (what was) the second level, "Toxic Pools" to create Toxic Caves^[1].

As the name might suggest, Underground Caves was set to be the starting point of Sonic's journey through the Veg-O-Fortress, located at the base of Mt. Mobius. The reason for it being merged with Toxic Pools is unknown, though was likely due to development time restraints.

Artwork for the level was created by Brenda Ross^[1], and came to light in December 2023 after a video portfolio of her work was uploaded to the internet. Some of the graphics were seemingly recycled from the infamous "desert zone" and "winter zone", two of Ross' levels scrapped from Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

While the 8-bit version of Sonic Spinball has a level called Toxic Pools, there is no evidence to suggest a version of Underground Caves was ever planned for that release of the game.