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Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Nick Arcade prototype)

From Sonic Retro

Revision as of 04:42, 14 April 2008 by LocalH (talk | contribs) (TWO C'S PEOPLE, TWO C'S)

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Sonic the Hedgehog 2
System(s): Sega Mega Drive/Genesis
Publisher: Sega
Developer:

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).zip (519 kB) (info)

Various Differences

General

  • The title screen is the same as the Simon Wai Beta.
  • 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

  • This is Chemical Plant Zone, and it is heavily under development, with major differences in the level's design from either final or the later prototypes, and is very unfinished.
  • The transportation tubes were apparently used in a different way, but they aren't functional in this build.

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.
  • Tails is disabled in this zone, suggesting this particular version was tailored for the Nick Arcade show in order for the contestants not to have their rings lost by Tails.

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, Up, Down, Down, Down, Down, Up, A+Start.
  • Level Select with Debug Mode: Activate the level select code, but don't press Start. Instead, let the demo play, then when it retursn to the title screen, press C,C,U,D,D,D,D,U, then A+Start. Select a level and hold A until it loads.
  • Debug Patchcode: FFFFFA:0001. This patchcode removes the need to enter a Debug code - you can just use the level select code to debug in any level.
  • Two-player Mode: Highlight an Act in the level select screen and press B+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)

See Also

External Links

Sonic Retro
Sonic Retro release thread

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