Sonic the Hedgehog 3C (prototype 0517)

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Sonic the Hedgehog 3C (prototype 0517)
System(s): Sega Mega Drive/Genesis
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sonic Team
Genre: 2D Platform

Sonic the Hedgehog 3C Prototype 0517 for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis was released by drx during the February 23rd, 2008 proto release. A earlier in development beta with a compilation number of 0408 was also found. This likely is a beta for the cancelled Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles compilation called Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Limited Edition.

Download Sonic the Hedgehog 3C (prototype 0517) File: Sonic 3C (Prototype 0517 - May 17, 1994, 17.08) (hidden-palace.org).zip (2.35 MB) (info)

Various Differences

General

• Debug mode works in this build (Hold down A when selecting level) but it causes the ring counter to screw up. With Debug activated, the Rings counter show you the sprite/frame number of your character.
• Level Select is enabled by default. Just scroll down on the start menu.
• To enable Debug go to Sound Test and enter: 1, 3, 5 & 7. The ring counter is replaced with a player sprite frame.
• To enable All Emeralds go to Sound Test and enter: 2, 4, 6, 8.
• Knuckles is a selectable character in the one player mode.
• All the explosions are black when debug mode is enabled.
• In the sound test anything from D9 through FE has no sound. The final sound F is the "Sega" sound.
• The music locations are ALMOST the same in S3K and this beta.
• The victory music usually played after beating the Launch Base boss before going to the credits in Sonic 3 is more developed, but can only be heard by listening to the credits music.
• The final credits medley is longer, different, and uses a few additional segments from additional zones.
• If the game is beat all the way through on a save file, only Sonic 3 levels can be selected.
• The save data screen does not show the number of lives and continues. Sonic 3 did not show this, either. Sonic 3 & Knuckles does show this. Also, there are only 6 save slots, while in S3&K there are 8. (S3 Final actually had 14 save slots; 6 for S3 only, 8 for S3&K.
• The emeralds seem to activate an incomplete version of Hyper mode. For Sonic, it uses the rainbow pallete and gives him the dash attack, but doesn't give him the star effect or the flash and sparks when the dash attack is performed. For Tails, it neglects to give him his flickies or the trailing sparks. For Knuckles, it adds the shockwave to latching onto walls, but doesn't replace the trailing sparks with afterimages.
• The S monitor makes the characters take their Hyper form. Hyper Sonic has a different star arrangement.
• Super Knuckles is implemented.
• Hyper Sonic's stars around his body are completely different than in the final. Also, it appears that Super Sonic, not Hyper Sonic appears in the Doomsday Zone.
• Unlike in final versions, Hyper Knuckles causes the earthquake when gliding for a distance into a wall.
• Interesting thing about this build is that there is a Tails transformation with only Chaos Emeralds. It's basically Super Tails without the birds. However using an S monitor and Super Tails will have the birds (perhaps there was a super and hyper version of Tails planned at one point).

Level

Bonus Stages

• On the Glowing Spheres stage, aside from having a different layout and the items falling downward, there's a chance you'll get a green ball with an F on it. It only makes the bumper sound the black ones make.
• Entering the Glowing Spheres level makes you lose all your rings.
• The slots stage has a completely different layout and the background freezes when you spin the reels.
• Entering the gumball bonus stage makes you lose your shield. Not sure about the other ones.
• While all three bonus stages are implemented, you can access one randomly once you hit 50 rings.
• The first time entering Special Stage 2 on the Sound Test leads to a unused Super Emerald Stage. Essentially it's just a giant maze, which has no rings, although for some reason you don't get a Perfect. It gives you a Super Emerald like normal. A different Special stage is chosen each time you enter it.

Angel Island

• In Angel Island zone (and maybe every other zone), when the miniboss is finished and the signpost twirls down to the ground, if a power-up monitor shows up, sometimes it lands behind the sign post. In the final, if the monitor land around the same spot as the sign post, it's in front.

Hydrocity

• When at the end of the first hydrocity act... you die by drowning while it's tallying your score.
• When playing as Sonic in Hydrocity 1 the boss plays the Sonic 3 Act 1 mini-boss theme instead of the Act 2 boss theme. (S3 final plays the Act 2 boss theme, but switches to the S&K miniboss music if the drowning timer starts and you get out of the water); S3&K final plays the S&K Act 1 mini-boss theme.)
• When playing as Sonic in Hydrocity 2 The spring at the beginning has been replaced with a 1UP, which is the same as S3&K final but not like S3 final.

Marble Garden

• The Knuckles MGZ2 boss still plays the miniboss music and doesn't play the "wall breaking" sound when the spikes penetrate the floor or ceiling.

Carnival Night

• When playing as Sonic in Carnival Night 1 Tails randomly appeared after the boss, even though it was Sonic only.

Mushroom Hill

• In Mushroom Hill zone act 1: You fall in from the sky just like in the previous beta.
• One of the giant ring's in Mushroom Hill Zone isn't put in yet, instead it is filled with a diamond pattern of rings.
• The super ring before the transition to the boss (before the pully, guarded by that chicken enemy in MHZ2 is gone.
• The exit from the highest super ring in MHZ2 is different.
• The MHZ2 boss does not have fire effects when killed, and you must hit him 6 times AFTER he has zoomed off.
• When playing as Sonic in Mushroom Hill 1 The Super Ring at the beginning of the level doesn't seem to flash if you enter here via Level Select with no emeralds. If you go to MH1 with emeralds, the Super Ring flashes, but entering it merely gives you 50 rings. Strangely, the rest of the Super Rings aren't flashing.

Flying Battery

• Defeating the Flying Battery Act 2 miniboss and dying causes the clouds to mess up.
• When playing as Sonic in Flying Battery 2 After defeating the WFZ-style miniboss, the floor begins to move up. In addition, there's a horizontal wall that moves right. Dying here not only garbles the clouds (as mentioned by someone else), it garbles the horizontal wall. Also, Sonic doesn't roll out of the Flying Battery in the level transition - he simply runs out. He appears to be rolling in the Sandopolis intro, though.

Sandopolis

• You can move the moment you enter Sandopolis act 1 and no longer are forced to wait until you land in the sand and have to pop out.
• When playing as Sonic in Sandopolis 1 Sonic doesn't get stuck in the sand after he falls into the level. Also, as MK said, you can move left and right during the intro.
• When playing as Sonic in Sandopolis 2 the boss seems ridiculously easy to beat. I was just standing where Eggman was in the Pyramid boss and Eggman was taking damage.

Lava Reef

• Tails seems to have quite a few collision problems in lava reef.
• When you break the capsule, the platform on the screen floats towards the other platforms. You have to jump from platform to platform to get to Hidden Palace unlike in the final. Pretty much it is the same as the earlier one except the transition to Hidden Palace does work
• The Lava Reef boss area plays the Act 2 music until you reach Robotnik.

When you beat Robotnik, the lava is still there.

• The giant hand midboss of Lava Reef has a few messed up textures.
• Lava Reef 3 Boss has a fire shield instead of a lightning shield. Also, the ring pattern is different.
• The platforms in which it is nessesary to spindash to go down (in LRZ) are MUCH faster.
• When playing as Sonic in Lava Reef 2 the debug mode movement is affected by the lava slope at the boss.

Hidden Palace

• When Hidden Palace is entered through a Special Stage Ring, Death Egg music will play. When trying to leave through using the teleporter the game will loop and you will return to Hidden palace.
• Hidden Palace (Mushroom Hill) has Death Egg music.
• In Hidden Palace Zone, even though the controls are locked during the cutscene, Tails' controls aren't locked, and he will continue to use his AI if the second controller isn't used.
• When playing as Sonic in Hidden Palace not only can Knuckles hurt you as Super/Hyper Sonic, Knuckles can hurt you if you're in Debug mode placing an object, at which point Sonic's graphics might be corrupted. (The corruption only seems to happen if you were Super/Hyper Sonic at the time).
• Knuckles can punch out Hyper Sonic and Super Tails during the fight in Hidden Palace.

In Launch Base 2, as Knuckles, you don't fight the second boss like in S3&K final.

• In this version Hidden Palace works exactly like the final, with a couple differences. The HUD is still present (It's green while playing as Knuckles). Death Egg Music is playing (This is due to it coming right after the Death Egg Final Boss level slot in the game). The intro plays every time you enter the chamber. The gray emerald locations don't save after you leave (They reappear after the intro). The laser zaps all the emerald alters even if you already have that emerald (Although it still shows that you have that emerald). There is no Super Emerald screen after you beat a special stage. Also, there are color differences in the beta, probably changed so they could correspond with the colors of the Chaos Emeralds.

Sky Sanctuary

• Sky sanctuary zone act 2:The teleporter that usually teleports Knuckles is not present and there seems to be a few missing rings.
• When entering Sky Sanctuary 2 with Sonic and Tails, Mecha Sonic has a glitch where there's an invisible wall in between the fighting area. When Mecha Sonic is defeated with Sonic and Tails, the game acts like Sky Sanctuary 1 was completed and doesn't continue to the next level.
• The Knuckles-only Metal Sonic boss in Sky Sanctuary freaks out when Tails is used. Once defeated, there is no ending at all.
• Pressing down in SSZ close to Knuckles doesn't make him wave yet.

Doomsday

• In Doomsday Zone act 2 there is no Doomsday music and Deathegg act 2's music continues playing.
• Lots of rings are given at the start of Doomsday Zone because there are none around when chasing Robotnik.
• That palette for Doomsday is the same as DEZ2
• Also in the Doomsday Zone, when you hit chase Eggman and you hit him, you don't get knocked back like in the final.
• When the Doomsday boss is killed with tails, the game goes to Level select-was that mentioned?
• In Doomsday Zone, during the first boss, if you move all the way to left, two missiles can actually be triggered from the end of the asteroid field segment.

Death Egg

• The midboss of Death Egg Zone still hit you and you will be knocked out of the Super Sonic form.
• Death Egg's Doomsday act 2 boss doesn't play boss music, it just plays DEZ music.
• When Robotnik flies away, everything is much slower than the final, and no buttons are pressed it is possible to get stuck in the bottom left unless Debug mode is activated.
• If Death Egg's 3rd boss is defeated while it's firing the laser, the laser stays on screen while he dies.
• When playing as Sonic in Death Egg 1 the objects that count down from 3 and then send you across some paths have a slightly different countdown tick. It's four low tones, instead of three low tones and one high tone. (I'm pretty sure the final was three low, one high. Someone correct me if I'm wrong please).
• When playing as Sonic in Death Egg 2 after the beat the boss was defeated the HUD turned green. This means that the game loaded Knuckles' 1P palette into the Knuckles CP palette slot.
• When playing as Sonic at the credits. The Sonic 3 final credits roll, but the extended S3C medley is played. Also, the medley is longer than the credits, but the credits automatically restarts to the Sega screen a few seconds after "Try Again" appears.