Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-bit)/Development

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 went through many ideas and changes during the development process. What follows is a collection of items related to the game's development.

Development Process

Behind the scenes of the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Japanese commercial.

After the tremendous success of Sonic the Hedgehog, it was only natural to expect a sequel to the game. Though many would have assumed the original team would be already scheduled to spearhead the second entry in the series, right off the bat problems arose that would turn the production of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 into the words legends are made of. Yuji Naka, the man responsible for the engine of the first game, had run into issues with the management of Sega of Japan. Though the game had been a success, the powers that be at the company were not happy with how everything turned out, among the disagreements the amount of time that had been spent programming the project. Growing weary of politics, Naka quit Sega, intending to look for work elsewhere. Back in the United States, Mark Cerny, the man who had come up with the gaming classic Marble Madness, had been hired by Sega to create a new gaming studio for the company, the Sega Technical Institute (STI). The general idea behind the studio was to hire talented individuals who were only getting their start in the industry and teach them the ways of the gaming development world, not only with the talent already established in the U.S. but by talent originating from Japan who had proven themselves in a far different commercial environment. Placing advertisements in local newspapers, the resumes began pouring in, with such people as Tom Payne, Brenda Ross, and future-creator of Spyro the Dragon Craig Stitt becoming employees of this new experiment in game development.

During the production of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, Mark Cerny had already secured Hirokazu Yasuhara, the director of that project, to come out to the United States and work for STI once his job back at Sega of Japan was done. However, when Cerny learned of Yuji Naka's departure from the company, he immediately called up his long-time friend, attempting to persuade him to come out to America as well and become a part of his venture. With the promise of a better salary and more executive power, Naka took Mark up on the offer, hiring back into the Sega fold.[1]

Though the American staff of STI cut their teeth on the game Kid Chameleon, with the arrival of Naka, Yasuhara, and a handful of other Japanese staff members, Cerny was sure Sega would give the team their biggest and most obvious assignment - the sequel to Sonic the Hedgehog. With two of the three main people behind the success of the first game (the third, Naoto Ohshima, stayed behind and eventually directed Sonic CD) it only made sense to devote the entire studio to Sega's biggest franchise. Even though the Japanese staff arrived in September, it would be two months until work on the sequel began.

“	I'd managed to reunite two of the three key Sonic Team members...at my Sega Technical Institute. They were ready to start work on their next project, and so I asked marketing the obvious question, "would you like another Sonic?" Bizarrely, the response was, and again I kid you not, "no, it's much too soon." So we found another game to make, and in November, as we were getting started, marketing came back and said "oops, we do need that game, and we need it now." So the team lost two months out of an eleven month schedule!	„
— Mark Cerny, programmer for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [2]

Filled to brim with ideas, one of the first elements the team decided on was that they wanted a new main character to be introduced in the game. Before Yuji Naka agreed to become a part of the Sonic 2 team, one of his requests was that there would be a two-player mode, a feature he wanted to include in the original title but did not have the time to implement. An internal competition was held within Sonic Team and STI to find the best character that could be used for this new addition to the franchise, and though many entries were submitted (including one from artist Craig Stitt for a flying turtle named "Boomer") it was Yasushi Yamaguchi who won with his two-tailed fox character. Originally wanting him to be named "Miles Prower," the rest of the team felt his name should simply be "Tails," to match the simplistic nature of Sonic's name. Unhappy with this idea, Yamaguchi (who became the lead zone artist in the game) decided to sneak the name "Miles Prower" into various concept art and in the game, making both names legitimate in the end.

Being nothing less than ambitious, the original plan was to make a sprawling, 18-zone epic, revisiting the unique level tropes Sonic Team had created for the first game, putting their own spin on traditional platformer levels like desert and snow worlds, and even come up with some ideas that would be totally new. Emerald Hill, Hill Top, Oil Ocean, Hidden Palace, Dust Hill and the never-titled Winter Zone were some of the first levels to be worked on, the concept of time travel also being talked about in early production meetings. However, it became obvious early on that if they were to have the game ready for the Christmas season of 1992, they could not finish every world that was on the drawing board. The time travel concept was dropped almost immediately, and Dust Hill and its winter counterpart were some of the first zones to be put on the chopping block, much to the chagrin of Brenda Ross, the artist responsible for their look.[3]

Though the two sides of STI tried to work together, the language barrier proved to be too much at times. Most of the meetings for the direction of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 were done in Japanese (Mark Cerny being fluent in the language), leaving the American side in the dust. Trying to mesh the two cultures and work ethics became a challenge in itself, with some members unable to get along with Yuji Naka's intense personality. Tom Payne, who himself never had any issues with the Japanese half of the team, recalled in an interview later the stark differences between the American mindset of a nine-to-five job and the Japanese mindset of working almost all hours of the night, with members like Yamaguchi and Yasuhara being extremely passionate with the quality of the whole:

“	Well for me-- this was my first job so I only had Sonic 1 to go by & tried to make it match that style. I'd say [that] it was Yamaguchi who laid out the look. He would stay all night & fix everything that we did wrong. Quite an amazing fellow.	„
— Tom Payne, Zone Artist for Sonic the Hedgehog 2[4]

With the American and Japanese teams having very different approaches to using color in the zone art and in creating the level layouts themselves, it was up to the senior members of the Japanese staff to help unify the look of the final product, cutting through the cultural differences to provide the best product they could muster in the time allowed.

The much-discussed Hidden Palace Zone.

Even if tensions could rise as the leaders of the project demanded perfection, work on Sonic the Hedgehog 2 continued unfettered. With each passing day, the hype behind the project grew more and more, immense pressure being put on the collective team. Not content with just the random screenshot from time to time, Sega wanted to advertise the game in as many ways possible. Getting in contact with the children's network Nickelodeon, a special cartridge was put together to be played on the gameshow Nick Arcade, featuring an early version of Emerald Hill. This prototype, later referred to as the "Nick Arcade prototype," was eventually leaked onto the Internet in 2006. Sometime after the airing of the show, another early build was put together to help drum up interest, being a playable demo to the public at a New York toy show. However, security was not up to snuff, and at the end the cartridge was stolen. Later to be known as the "Simon Wai" prototype (named after the man who discovered the ROM image on the Internet back in 1999) it was this build that was the source of many prerelease information related to the game.

Even knowing early on they would not have enough time to work on everything they had set out to in the beginning, as the release date drew nearer it became more than obvious that the team would have barely enough time to finish the eleven zones that ended up in the final game. Cyber City Zone, a one-act level that was meant to follow Metropolis Zone (and was briefly called "Genocide City" but changed once the Japanese staff fully realized what the word meant) was scrapped, most of it being converted into the third act of Metropolis. The very last level to be removed was one of the first that had been worked on, the Hidden Palace Zone. Conceived as an area Sonic would warp to after collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds, both game flow and deadlines forced the team to drop it, instead awarding the power of Super Sonic immediately after the seventh special stage was completed.

“	My only complaint was that if art had to get cut out it always seemed to be the American's on the team who's art got cut. Sometimes this was because the art wasn't working, but on other occasions, I don't believe this was the case. (such as with Hidden Palace, although I never was happy with the far background).	„
— Craig Stitt, Zone Artist for Sonic the Hedgehog 2[5]

Sega of America's CEO Tom Kalinske along with a plethora of early 90's TV stars, gathered to promote the release of Sonic 2.

To make the deadline, Sega of Japan, only a few weeks before the Christmas selling season, had thirteen additional Japanese staff members fly out to San Francisco to iron out any issues or problems the game had. Such details as the title screen were changed days before it was to be certified, and even the game credits were thrown together at the last minute, causing some people to be miscredited in terms of what they contributed to Sonic 2.

The game was released simultaneously in the United States and Europe on "Sonic 2sday." A marketing campaign promoting the concept of "blast processing" was pursued, while back in Japan the campaign focused on the introduction of "Tails." The entire team, both American and Japanese, celebrated together on November 23rd, 1992, proud of the game that, against the odds, would not only be the biggest selling Sonic game on the Mega Drive, but the best selling game of the 16-bit era.

Just like the first game, Masato Nakamura, leader of the band DREAMS COME TRUE, was in charge of creating the soundtrack to Sonic 2. Wanting to stay faithful to what he had done in the first game but give the audience even more, Nakamura felt the pressure of writing music that would satisfy fans of the first. With the game released and receiving all sorts of praise, Nakamura decided to give something back to the team that had given him the chance to create the music in the first place.

“	[A]fter finishing all of the tracks for the sequel, Nakamura sent me a fax saying, "I've got a present for you. It's a surprise!" The other members of Sonic Team and I tried to figure out what it might be, but we could never have guessed that Nakamura reworked the ending theme that he provided for us for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 into a song entitled "SWEET SWEET SWEET" for inclusion on the DREAMS COME TRUE album that he worked on in London. I remember how ecstatic and moved all of us on Sonic Team were upon learning of our "present." That particular song remains a huge favorite of mine, and continues to hold very strong memories for me. For that, I am truly grateful.	„
— Yuji Naka, Chief Programmer for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [6]

Also of note is the fact the game contained references to some of the biggest pop culture phenomenons on both sides of the Pacific. The Death Egg, Eggman's ultimate weapon in the game, was modeled after the Death Star, the superweapon featured in the Star Wars trilogy. Meanwhile, the seven Chaos Emeralds and the introduction of Super Sonic were homages to the well-known Chinese fable The Golden Warrior and its then-current interpretation being published in Japan, Dragon Ball.

It is also possible that a Mega CD port of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was planned early on in the development cycle, but it was decided that the team should remain focused on the Mega Drive cart.

Concept Art

Character Art

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  Initial line art of Sonic and Tails used on the Japanese boxart. Scan from Sonic Generations.

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  Line art for illustrations within the Japanese manual. Scan from Sonic Generations.

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  Dr. Eggman and his many facial expressions. Scan from Sonic Jam.

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  Concept art of Eggman's Mobile. Scan from Sonic Jam.

Enemy Concept Art

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  A collection of various enemy doodles, used in the Japanese manual. Scan from Sonic Generations.

• Sket banper.png

  Concept art of Banper.

• S2enemyconcepts18.JPG

  Sketches of fleshed out, unused badniks, seemingly using springs in their design.

• Sket fishfrog.png

  Concept art of the Frog.

• S2badnikconcepts.jpg

  Features the Frog.

• S2badnikconcepts7.jpg

  The Frog yet again, along with a sketch of Sonic.

• S2enemyconcepts12.JPG

  More of the Frog badnik.

• S2frogconcept.JPG

  Working out the Frog in motion.

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  Concept art of Bubbler and Bubbler's Mother.

• Bubblerconcept.JPG

  Further art of Bubbler.

• S2badnikconcepts3.jpg

  Concept art of Bubbler's Mother.

• S2mbubblerconcept.JPG

  More of Bubbler's Mother.

• Sket bee.png

  Concept art of Bee.

• Waspconcept.JPG

  Concept art of Bee.

• Sket snail.png

  Concept art of Snail.

• S2badnikconcepts4.jpg

  More concept art of the snail-like enemy.

• S2enemyconcepts14.JPG

  Working out the sprite look for a Snail enemy.

• S2enemyconcepts15.JPG

  More of the snail-like enemy.

• Snailconcept.JPG

  Concept art for Snail.

• Snailconcept2.JPG

  Descriptions of the Snail enemy.

• S2crawlconcept.JPG

  Concept art of Crawl.

• S2crawlconcept2.JPG

  More Crawl concept art.

• S2fishconcept.JPG

  Early concept art for Masher.

• S2fishconcept2.JPG

  Paper devoted to the Masher badnik.

• S2badnikconcepts2.jpg

  Features Penguin.

• Tricerabotconcept.JPG

  Concept art of Stego.

• Tricerabotconcept2.JPG

  Further art of Stego.

• S2sonicenemies.jpg

  Working out Stego in sprite form.

• S2badnikconcepts5.jpg

  Sketches of the various Hidden Palace dinosaur enemies.

• S2badnikconcepts9.jpg

  More of the dinos.

• S2enemyconcepts17.JPG

  Various sketches, from Hidden Palace to Dust Hill. Also a friendly reminder to buy a new pad of paper.

• S2badnikconcepts10.jpg

  Possible enemy ideas for Dust Hill.

• S2gatorconcept.JPG

  Concept art of Gator.

• S2pillbugconcept.jpg

  Idle drawings of Gator and an unused Pillbug, along with a sketch of Sonic.

• S2badnikconcepts6.jpg

  Numerous unused enemy concepts.

• S2badnikconcepts8.jpg

  A Spring-Orb badnik.

• S2badnikconcepts11.jpg

  Artwork for a squid badnik, most likely for underwater sections.

• S2enemyconcepts13.JPG

  Various sketches.

• S2enemyconcepts16.JPG

  Various sketches.

• S2enemyconcepts20.jpg

  Various sketches.

Level Concept Art

Metropolis Zone

• Metropolis concept.jpg

  An early piece of concept art for Metropolis Zone.

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  An alternate coloration of the same image, the description being erroneously changed to "Interior of a blimp."

• S2metropolisconcepts.jpg

  Early concept art.

• S2metropolisconcepts2.jpg

  Early concept art. Text humorously refer to the level as "Sonic sweat shop."

• S2metrpolisconcepts3.jpg

  Early concept art. Windows can be seen.

• S2metropolisfgconcept.jpg

  Early concept art of the foreground.

• S2metropolisbgconcept.jpg

  Early concept art of the background. Furnaces can be seen.

• Rhombusds.JPG

  The unused diagonal elevators.

• S2obstacles3.jpg

  Art of the diagonal elevators.

• S2mtzchunks.jpg

  Art of various elements to the Metropolis design.

• S2obstacles.jpg

  Concept art for various obstacles. Drawn on STI letterhead.

• S2obstacles2.jpg

  Concept art for various obstacles. Drawn on STI letterhead.

• S2obstacles4.jpg

  Concept art for various obstacles.

• S2obstacles5.jpg

  Concept art for various obstacles.

• S2obstacles6.jpg

  Concept art for various obstacles.

• S2gearconcept.jpg

  Concept art of the iconic gears.

• S2gearconcept2.jpg

  More of the gears.

• S2obstaclelist.jpg

  A list of obstacles slated for use, including those unused.

• Metropolis1a.jpg

  Early Act 1 map. Has diagonally slanted rotating steel drums. Very different from final. Only two things seem very similar to final; the general positioning of the starting area, and the short downward ramp leading to a flat area with the end sign.

• Metropolis2a.jpg

  Early Act 2 map. Has giant crusher. Very different from final. Aside from the immediate starting area and an area with a half-loop leading to a ramp in the top-left, almost nothing recognizable remains.

• Metropolismapx.jpg

  Another Act 2 map.

• Metropolis3a.jpg

  Early Act 3 map. Has a diagonal elevator.

• Metropolis3b.jpg

  Early Act 3 map. Features a horizontal spike obstacle, similar to the ones removed from Marble Zone of the first game.

• Metropolis3c.jpg

  Early Act 3 map.

Assorted Levels

• AquaticRuinsConcept.png

  Concept art for the Aquatic Ruins Zone.

• Cybercity concept.jpg

  Concept art for the scrapped Cyber City Zone.

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  Sonic and Tails near a large ramp. Most likely the Emerald Hill Zone.

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  The familiar "moving blocks" area from Chemical Plant Zone.

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  Various ideas for Sky Chase Zone and possibly Hill Top Zone.

Objects

• Sket ball.png

  A bouncing ball which was scrapped before release. Its sprites were located in a prototype version in Oil Ocean Zone.

• RollingBallConceptArt.jpg

  More bouncing ball concept art. Taken from this file.

• S2ballframes.jpg

  Page dealing with the frames of the bouncing ball.

• S2ballthingy.jpg

  Artwork of the bouncing ball in full color.

• S2gczconcepts.jpg

  Concepts of various items belonging to Cyber City.

Miscellaneous Documents

• S2spritesystem.jpg

  Explanation of the sprite system.

• S2spritelist.jpg

  List of sprites.

• S2TASKLIST.jpg

  Task list from which Tom Payne worked with.

• S2tasklist2.jpg

  A more informal list of tasks Tom Payne had to do.

• S2paldata.jpg

  File dealing with the palette data of the game.

• S2lavabubds.JPG

  Information about a lava bubbling animation.

• Collisionarray.jpg

  Information on the collision array of Sonic 2.

• Collisionarray2.jpg

  More on the collision array.

• Collisionarray3.jpg

  More on the collision array.

• Collisionarray4.jpg

  More on the collision array.

• Collisionarray5.jpg

  More on the collision array.

• Col4 29.jpg

  More on the collision array.

• S2enemylevels.jpg

  A list determining which enemies go with which stage.

• S2sludgehog.jpg

  A joke image of Sonic brandishing a gun, unknowingly foreshadowing the game Shadow the Hedgehog.

Promotional Screenshots

Title Screen

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  The original title screen to Sonic 2, as pictured in the U.S. manual.

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  Same Title screen in color. This one is a bit older as it lacks the menu options.

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  An early level select, similar to Sonic 1's. Features names of zones ultimately cut from the final product.

Emerald Hill Zone

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  An early mockup of the zone with an off-center Sonic. Note the Green Hill Zone clouds in the background and the Sonic 1 HUD.

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  Better quality version of the mockup, albeit with the top and bottom missing.

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  "Tails" life counter says "Sonic".

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• Mag compare25a.png

  A score counter is visible, removed from the final 2-player mode.

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  Eggman appears to be flying straight down as opposed to diagonally. This seems to have been from a later prototype as we see Tails flying in from the top, which was not implemented in the Simon Wai prototype.

Aquatic Ruin Zone

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  Featuring the early walking animation.

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  A broken title card, loading bubble graphics in place of letters. Uses the early level name "Neo Green Hill Zone".

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  Here Sonic's animations seem to be final.

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  Log floating on water.

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  Sonic's corner animation.

Casino Night Zone

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  A Casino Night with a vastly different color and art style, similar to the one featured in the "Simon Wai prototype."

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  This design also seems to be more complete than in the prototype.

Hill Top Zone

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  Generic green balls instead of enemies. This is consistent with the "Nick Arcade" prototype.

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Mystic Cave Zone

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  Mystic Cave Zone mistakenly referred to as "Dust Hill Zone," due to early level select titles.

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Oil Ocean Zone

• OOZ sun.png

  An earlier sun in the background to Oil Ocean Zone. Featured in the "Simon Wai prototype."

• OOZ walk.png

  More of the prototype walking animation, plus a switch that causes a ridable ball to appear.

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  The ridable ball. Only appear in the debug mode in the final game..

Metropolis Zone

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  Early Metropolis screenshots show a more complicated background that relied more on rotating palettes.

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Hidden Palace Zone

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  An early mockup screenshot of Hidden Palace Zone. Sonic is off center and there is a background not seen in any later screenshots.

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  A different scan of the previous image.

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  Bat Badniks which were removed along with the zone.

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  Featuring Redz.

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  The shield glows through tube - something that would be fixed in later versions.

• Mag compare7a.png

  A green watermark above the lives icon has been added in by the magazine this shot is from, and is thus not part of the zone.

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  The infamous "Tails" 1-up monitor.

Wood Zone

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  Sonic impatiently waiting in the scrapped Wood Zone. Appears to be from a later build than the Simon Wai prototype, as Sonic's new idle animations have been implemented.

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Dust Hill Zone

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  The only shot of Dust Hill Zone, a conceptual mockup. "Gator" exists within early prototypes of the game.

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  A color-corrected version of the same image.

See Also

• Sonic Panic! - A ten minute look into the creation and development of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, featuring Yuji Naka. Was given away in Japan to those who had preordered the game.
• The Sonic 2 Beta Wiki - A detailed look at the "Simon Wai protoype," pieced together by Simon Wai and LocalH.