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Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Nick Arcade prototype)

From Sonic Retro

Revision as of 10:13, 6 January 2008 by Oerg866 (talk | contribs)
Title screen, same as in Sonic 2 Beta

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.svg 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)

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

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)

  • Front of cartridge with holographic "Sonic 2" label

  • Front of cartridge without cover

  • Back of cartridge without cover

See Also

External Links

Sonic Retro
Sonic Retro release thread
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