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Sonic Adventure AutoDemo/Comparisons/Ice Cap

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  • There is inexplicably some collision at the origin point in all three acts of Icecap. Spawning a character at the origin (such as playing as a character that doesn't have starting coordinates via hacking) causes them to stand on invisible but solid ground without them immediately falling to their deaths.
  • This level has no lighting, so everything appears to be ridiculously bright.
Sonic's Icecap (Act 1)
  • The level uses completely different textures throughout most of the level. In the final, the textures consist entirely of icy rock, while in this prototype certain parts of the level geometry have wood panel textures. The outdoor textures made up of photos Sonic Team took while doing research in South America are the same in this version however.
  • The ice crystals littered throughout the level have different models and textures.
  • There are no enemies or help orbs present in the room Sonic spawns in.
  • The tunnel leading outside has a bunch of the ice crystal objects placed within it (including seemingly clipping through the ceiling) and no booster pads until right at the exit. In the final, the tunnel just has the boost pads at the tunnel's entrance.
  • The boost pad at the end of the tunnel sends Sonic straight to a spring, which in turns bounces Sonic to a boost pad that sends him immediately to the spring leading to the next tunnel. In the final, Sonic is just sent flying out of the tunnel and has to navigate this outside area himself.
  • There are no numbered jump pads in the outdoor area.
  • The outdoor area has three enemies - an Ice Ball and two Boa Boas. The final has no enemies in this part of the stage.
  • The second indoor area doesn't have a help orb.
  • The spring leading up to the icicles was moved between this prototype and the final - in this version of the game it's position directly below the icicles and Sonic has to jump up to the platform that has it, while in the final the spring is positioned immediately at the end of the platform and is at an angle.
  • The icicles use different textures.
  • There are 10 icicles in this version - in the final, the two at the end were removed and a platform was added instead.
  • The middle icicle path to an item box has a much smaller platform here than in the final.
  • The surface on top of the icicle area has five rings here that are not present in the final.
  • The area after the icicles lacks the wooden railings seen in the final.
  • The path off to the right before the end of this area ends with a platform that has five rings, a wild card ring box, and a spring over a small hole, with some boxes next to the spring. In the final, this platform has four rings, fences at the edge of the platform, and the hole has been removed.
  • To the right of the spring mentioned above are three small platforms; in the final, boxes were added here and two of the platforms were removed.
  • The end of the second indoor area has the infamous bridge seen in pre-release screenshots. In the final, there is a rocket here instead, probably because the bridge object has a tendency to make Sonic fall through back to the bottom of the outdoor portion if he jumps while standing on it.
  • The tunnel leading to Act 2 has a checkpoint in front of it, and the platform that it's on is non-solid, making Sonic fall through after he passes the checkpoint. As a result, the level can't be completed through normal gameplay.
    • Like with Speed Highway above, the presence of a checkpoint before the beginning of the next act seems to imply that act transitions originally didn't act as checkpoints.
  • There are no wooden railing objects at the tunnel entrance leading to act 2.
Sonic's Icecap (Act 2)
  • This act cannot be accessed through normal means, but it can be loaded through hacking.
  • All of the texture changes mentioned above in the Act 1 section (the wood textures instead of rock, etc) are present here as well.
  • There is a spring floating out of bounds, where Big's portion of the level would be located.
  • The entrance from Act 2 is not blocked like it is in the final, and is just a hole in the geometry.
  • At the bottom of the stage, there are two Ice Balls. In the final, there is just a single Boa Boa here instead.
  • The spring at the bottom of the stage is missing the five rings in its launch path.
  • Under the ice at the bottom of the stage is leftovers for Big's Icecap, showing a different pool layout than what is in the final game. Instead of one giant pool with an underwater tunnel snaking off to access a hidden area, only the tunnel and a tiny unconnected pool to its left exist. The tunnel leads nowhere and abruptly ends.
  • Between the first and second springs is a misaligned line of five rings. In the final, this is instead a line of four rings and two spikes.
  • The first hanging icicles section is completely missing its spike clusters embedded nearby as well as the spring that would allow the player to skip the icicle section entirely.
  • The first hanging icicles section only has five icicles (the final has seven) and they are farther apart from each other. This section is also missing the spikes directly after them.
  • There no spikes near the line of rings after the first icicle section.
  • The section with a small gap the player has to jump over has a curved line of five rings, and has a hole that will make the player fall to the bottom of the cavern again if they miss it. In the final, a spring was added, the line of rings is now four instead of five, and a platform was added over the hole to prevent the player from falling.
  • The outcropping with the small icy pool has a switch here that does nothing (possibly for triggering an ice block object like the one used in the final), along with a line of three rings over the gap the player must jump. In the final, there is no switch here and the line of rings was changed to a large arrow of rings.
  • Under the aforementioned line of rings is a small area with a tiny platform that the player can use to get back to the icy pool outcropping. In the final, there are two springs here instead, one of them to get back to the outcropping and the other to progress.
  • The platform that the player jumps to in the section above lacks the 10 ring capsule that is seen in the final. There is also a small hole in the wall that is not present in the final.
  • The dash panel leading into the second icicle section is missing.
  • The area you can drop down to below the second icicle section is missing the circle of rings and the Ice Ball.
  • The second icicle section has six icicles (seven in the final) and is lacking the spike clusters embedded in the ceiling.
  • The section directly after the aforementioned icicle section is missing the two ring circles, and the spring is in a slightly different spot. However, the spring's ring path was never changed and is thus misaligned in the final.
  • The area where you cross the chasm with the ice blocks is missing everything except the switch used to toggle them, which is in a slightly different spot. Pressing the switch does nothing. In the final, the switch was moved to the left, a hint ball was added, and fences were added to the edge of the platform.
  • The checkpoint after the ice blocks section is missing.
  • The dash panels in the small loop are also missing.
  • The hint orb at the first jump panel used to open the entrance to Act 3 is also missing.
  • The boxes around the first jump panel are slightly different.
  • The jump panel sequence only has three panels; the final has four. The sequence here also has the ending spring-textured panel, seen in other stages.
  • Like the entrance to Act 2 in the previous act, the entrance to Act 3 here has no collision and will make the player fall through it. Because of this, Sonic's Act 3 cannot be accessed via normal gameplay.
Tails' Icecap (Act 3)
  • This is one of the levels demonstrated in the autodemo loop.
  • The camera angle when Tails escapes the avalanche is different - it is more of a slow pan like the camera shots for doing a trick off one of the ramps, whereas in the final it is much faster.
  • At the beginning of the level, the trees placed in the level are the dead-looking "beta trees" seen in pre-release screenshots of this stage, and then the snowy conifers show up halfway through (when the fighter jets appear). In the final, the conifers are used in all parts of the stage instead of these trees.
  • Directly after escaping the avalanche, there are three dash panels. In the final, there are two.
  • The area directly after escaping the avalanche has different object placement - there are no ice spikes directly after the trees, and instead there are a handful of the ice crystal models unique to this point in development. The placement is very bare and there are few objects.
  • After leaving the tunnel, the animated obstacle of massive chunks of ice is heard but not seen very well due to the object placement. The arrangement of the ice chunks in question is different compared to the final, leaning left instead of right, and looks like it was completely remodeled and reanimated for the final version.
  • There is only one icy structure you go through in that segment after the animated one, while in the final there are two of them.
  • The double trick ramp before the fighter jet section is actually two separate ramps in this prototype.
  • Doing a trick off the ramp gives you less height and distance than in the final.
  • The camera changes between doing a trick off a ramp and going back to the standard behind-the-back shot is much rougher than in the final.
  • There are no hot air balloons in the second part of this stage.
  • The demo ends before Tails reaches the final segment of the stage, so changes recorded in that are in Sonic's section below.
Sonic's Icecap (Act 3)
  • This act cannot be accessed through normal means, but it can be loaded through hacking, like with Sonic's other Icecap acts.
  • The gate the player has to break through in the beginning is facing the wrong way.
  • The level music starts immediately as the level is loaded. In the final, it starts when Sonic spots the avalanche behind him.
  • Sonic lacks a voice clip for spotting the avalanche.
  • When Sonic runs towards the snowboard, the camera follows him. In the final, the camera is locked on the snowboard.
  • The snowboard instantly appears under Sonic.
  • The underside of the snowboard has a different texture than in the final - it is predominantly blue and has a different design.
  • Sonic's snowboard sometimes incorrectly plays the icicle breaking sound.
  • The starting point of the snowboarding section lacks the giant boulders framing it, making it look more bare. It also makes it obvious that in the final, these objects are just placed on top of the existing wall, clipping through it, with no changes to shape the wall boundaries of the level around them.
  • The changes detailed in Tails' section above are also present here.
  • Sonic has a different audio clip when performing a trick.
  • The final cavern section has no rings.
  • The trick ramp to get onto the high path is a double ramp in this version. In the final, it is a single.
  • The high path has a dash panel and a line of rings that do not exist in the final.
  • The end of the stage is completely different:
    • The end capsule is not centered like it is in the final.
    • There are more trees lining the back of the area, and a log is to Sonic's upper left instead of to his extreme right.
    • The background geometry and scenery is all snowy mountains in this version. In the final, there are buildings and windmills, and large tree models.
Big's Icecap
  • This build has an extra camera file for this version of the stage, internally listed as Act 4. The filename (CAM0803S.BIN) has the S suffix that indicates that it is specifically for Sonic, and has a later date stamp than the camera file actually used for Big in this build; this is particularly interesting given that Big's Icecap is an altered version of Sonic's Act 2.
  • Sonic has his own object layout for this stage that is from a version later than this build - the objects are incorrect (for instance, numerous windmills placed on the ice) which indicates that this object layout is meant for an earlier object list, like in Knuckles' Speed Highway.
  • There are more Ice Balls.
  • Big cannot break the ice in any fashion (with boulders nor via jumping on it).
  • Big also cannot pick up the boulders.
  • As stated in Sonic's Act 2, there is an extra small pool here under one of the ice sections that is not present in the final.
  • The water is not animated and most of the underwater sections are not underwater (no drowning countdown and no water physics acting upon Big).
  • There are no spike cluster objects anywhere.
  • The small pool outcropping is missing the spring and speed shoes box.
  • The small pool in that outcropping is exactly the same as Sonic's in this version. In the final, it is an actual pool of water.
  • The small platform to the side of the area has a rock on it, instead of the two wild card ring boxes.
  • The higher areas of the level are completely empty, and are missing the springs, platforms, rings, and item boxes that are present the final.

References


Sonic Adventure AutoDemo, prototype version of Sonic Adventure
SA 98 AutoDemo Title.png

Main page | Comparisons | Hidden content

Part of Sonic Adventure development