Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Nick Arcade prototype)
From Sonic Retro
The Sonic The Hedgehog 2 Nick Arcade Prototype, released to the public on Nov. 7, 2006, is a prototype of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, which features extremely unfinished zones. This cart, determined to have been seen in two 1992 episodes of Nick Arcade, predates the more famous Sonic 2 Beta. It was found and sold to drx in cartridge form for $1500 via a community effort.
In this version, only one zone can be normally played: Emerald Hill Zone. The rest of the Zones can be played only through a Level Select code. The level select screen is completely identical to Sonic 1's, and even contains the original Green Hill Zone.
Download Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Nick Arcade prototype)
File: Sonic_The_Hedgehog_2_(Early_prototype)_(dumped_by_hidden-palace.org).bin ("Sonic_The_Hedgehog_2_(Early_prototype)_(dumped_by_hidden-palace.org).bin" does not exist) (info)
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Contents
Various Differences
General
- If Sonic runs into a wall with a high velocity, he will bounce back off of the wall. This feature was ultimately canned, but it uses unused sprites that remained in the later beta.
- Each Zone uses music from Sonic 1, further proving that Sonic 2 was built from Sonic 1.
- There is a large amount of raw code contained within the ROM.
- Tails can lose rings for the player if he is hit by a badnik.
- Similar to the other prototype if Sonic & Tails are hit at the same time lots of rings will sprawl out regardless as to how many rings they actually have (Provided the player has at least 1 Ring)
Green Hill Zone
- The zone from Sonic 1 is included, with its level art converted to Sonic 2's format (128x128 blocks rather than Sonic 1's 256x256s) and the necessary changes have been made to make loops work.
- Green Hill has collision detection, albeit it's very glitchy, detecting hills that don't exist, among other things.
- A Tails Life Monitor is present just as it is in Hidden Palace Zone.
- You can see here that the Sonic 1 springs still are here in the game and fully functional; the springs in the Sonic 2 levels are different and match the final game.
Marble Zone
- Actually Chemical Plant Zone, the zone is heavily under development, with major differences in level design from the final or from the later prototype, is buggy and unfinished generally.
- The tubes were supposed to be used in a strange different way, they aren't functional though.
Spring Yard Zone
- Actually Hidden Palace Zone, the zone pretty much as it is in the later prototype and in the final since no work was ever done to it throughout its lifetime.
- Hidden Palace Act 2 has some leftover object placement from Green Hill Zone Act 2.
- There is a third act, as well, which has water that constantly rises and falls. This zone loads GHZ Act 1's ring locations.
- If you stay in the water in Acts 2 and 3 until the countdown starts and come back up, the Labyrinth Zone music will play.
- The level of water in Acts 2 and 3 can be controlled using up and down on the 2P controller.
Labyrinth Zone
- An empty zone, it loads Marble Zone's ring layout and Chemical Plant Zone's artwork, has Labyrinth Zone's rippling effect. Third act is as SBZ3.
- Labyrinth also lacks much of its collision detection and is therefore unplayable, a la Genocide City Zone. Using debug mode several people have found various strips of "land" but that data is often still just garbage.
Star Light Zone
- Actually Emerald Hill Zone (which the later prototype confirms kept the name Green Hill Zone for a time) which is as it was in the Nick Arcade video, with minor differences to the final level layout.
Scrap Brain Zone
- Actually Hill Top Zone, this zone is also under heavy revision, as it finishes with a pipe leading to instant death because the screen-limit hadn't changed yet.
- Second act crashes after a section which ought to have an earthquake effect because at this point, Robotnik would send you to act 3 in Sonic 1. As Sonic 2 is built off Sonic 1, it wants to load data that simply isn't there anymore.
- The lava doesn't hurt you in this prototype.
- The lifts are not fully functional yet and partly broken
Final Zone
- Hill Top Zone (matching behavior in Sonic 1, where FZ is tucked into a corner of SBZ2), crashes to pink if you continue onwards because the game is trying to access the FZ boss data wich is not there, death pit backwards.
Art Differences
- Sonic and Tails are in different symmetrical designs on the end signpost
- Chemical Plant Zone uses a purple-pink accent in the background instead of olive green; buildings are also much lower
- Seesaws similar to that in the final Hill Top Zone can be seen in Emerald Hill's object debug - An interesting connection because HTZ's uses Emerald Hill's art.
Levels
- Green Hill Zone (playable)
- Chemical Plant Zone (playable)
- Labyrinth Zone (cut) (empty)
- Hidden Palace Zone (cut) (playable)
- Green Hill Zone (playable) (renamed to Emerald Hill Zone)
- Hill Top Zone (playable)
Cheat Codes
- Level Select: At the title screen, hit Up, Down, Down, Down, Down, Up, Start.
- Debug Mode: At the title screen, hit C,C,C,C, Up, Down, Down, Down, Down, Up, A+Start.
- Level Select with Debug Mode: At the title screen, hit C,C,C,C, Up, Down, Down, Down, Down, Up, A+Start, wait for demo to start, then Up, Down, Down, Down, Down, Up, A+Start.
- Restore Green Hill Zone Collision: With a Game Genie, enter the following codes:
- AA1A-CEAL
- AA1A-CEFT
- AA2A-CEB0
- AA2A-CEB6
- AA0T-CAG6
- AA1A-CAEC
- AA1T-CAA2
- AA1T-CAF8
- AA2A-CADJ
- AA2A-CADR
- AA1T-DECG
- AA1T-DEHN
- AA2A-DECN
Physical Cartridge
(from drx's Hidden Palace)