User:Philip1992/Sonic 2 Beta



The Sonic 2 Beta is a prototype version of the video game Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

Description
This version of Sonic 2 was discovered by Simon Wai on a Chinese GeoCities site and widely distributed on the Internet as Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Beta. Only four levels can be played in "normal" gameplay; the rest (including several incomplete stages) have to be accessed through the level select code (which is accessed simply via A-Start; the final version requires entering a numeric code through the Sound Test). Many are not entirely playable, but can be explored using the debug code. Some of the acts are completely empty, causing Sonic and Tails to fall to their doom immediately after beginning the level. The prototype was examined by hackers for several years to determine how Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was developed. It was recently stated in an interview with Yuji Naka that this beta probably was from a demonstration cartridge that was stolen at a toy show in New York in 1992. Akinori Nishiyama has also stated that the leak was due to the lack of security at the time.

An earlier prototype has been dumped and released.

Zones
There are four Zones in this prototype that can be played to completion and eight that are not fully playable. The latter can only be accessed through level select. The only Zone that has a boss is Green Hill Zone. Parts of the Zones that have been placed were not modified very much afterwards, and are familiar to players of the final game.

Neo Green Hill Zone
What would later be moved up to Zone 3 in the final version (and renamed Aquatic Ruin Zone) is now the first Zone. Tails has no splash animation yet, and water doesn't affect him like it does Sonic.

Chemical Plant Zone
Not much is different about this Zone, except for a few sound effects, and smaller moving platforms. Loops have slanted corners rather than the full corners found in the final product.

Hill Top Zone
Autospin hasn't yet been implemented in the tubes Sonic rides through, and earthquakes don't yet have their sound effects. Act 2 is roughly half done, with an end-of-act signpost placed about the end of the second inside-the-hill section, close to where the stage boss is in the final version. the changed design is from sonic 2 nick arcade prototype.

Green Hill Zone
This level is almost the same as the final version's Emerald Hill Zone, major differences include walls which are in Sonic's path, lack of the "Aiai" (Coconuts) Badnik and an unnamed snail Badnik similar to Sonic 1's "Motora" (Motobug). This is the only Zone that contains a boss; it behaves slightly differently than it does in the final version. After completing this Zone, the game returns to the title screen.

Wood Zone
Wood Zone is a forest type level, it uses the beta Metropolis Zone's Music. only a little bit of the level can be explored before a slope (a little before halfway) cuts the level short, however. using Debug Mode a coveyor belt (animated. but not functional) can be seen, Act 2 has no data at all. and Sonic and Tails fall to their doom, the only part of wood zone that exists in the final game is its palette

Metropolis Zone
This Zone contains no objects, and the lava doesn't affect Sonic. There is one major change to the zone's third Act: a rhombus-shaped lift that didn't make it to the final game. The pistons that emit steam do not give Sonic enough height to continue forward as they do in the final, so the debug mode must be activated to overcome this.

Hidden Palace Zone
Hidden Palace Zone appears to be an underwater cavern with large crystals in it. It contains badniks never seen in the released version (although the object code remains intact, the art itself has been removed) such as a red dinosaur badnik. The large emerald found in this stage has at times been suggested to be the Master Emerald, however those who worked on the Zone have said it was just another block to break through (although analysis confirms it to be a minimally modified "pink rock" object from Sonic 1's Green Hill Zone, which some find contradictory given the existence of other breakable objects in the prototype).

At one point in the zone is a long shaft which appears as if it was intended to loop from the top to the bottom of the map and may have been intended as some sort of lift track. The end of this "lift" is the last area of the Zone that had been designed. The level layout ends on a section of an animated but nonfunctional water slide. Act 2 is identical to Act 1, except the player is stuck inside a wall at the start, and all objects and enemies are gone. While the art was removed from the final game, object and ring data remains, and the level itself can be accessed by entering the Game Genie code ACLA-ATD4 and using the Level Select to go to Death Egg Zone. The debug mode object list is identical to that of Oil Ocean Zone.

In a GameSpy interview, Yuji Naka said that Hidden Palace Zone would have been a secret level that could be entered by collecting all 7 Chaos Emeralds, implying that Hidden Palace is the place where the Chaos Emeralds originated. After this level was cleared, a cutscene would play showing Sonic gaining 50 rings and turning into Super Sonic.

The Tails life monitor was the source of some theories regarding the level's plot &mdash; some people maintained that Tails was to be the "guardian" of the Master Emerald. A second prototype reveals that this monitor was placed very early in development, since it was still using the extra life attribute code from Sonic 1. This shows that Hidden Palace Zone may have been one of the first levels created. It also shows that the level was hardly worked on at all after the alpha build, and development may have stalled even before then.

Oil Ocean Zone
This level remains superficially the same as its final counterpart, except for the background, which is not complete. It doesn't wrap properly, and one of the pipes sucks oil up rather than dumping it out.

Checkered balls on springs can be found throughout the level. They are paired with switches that cause the balls to pop out and roll to the right. It is sufficient to jump within a vertical corridor centered on the switch, meaning that they can be activated on accident before the player has encountered them. Both the switch and the ball are placeable in debug mode in the final game. The ball looks like a smaller version of the "wrecking ball" that Robotnik used as the boss of Green Hill Zone in Sonic 1. The green flames and spikes on the green lifts that boost sonic into the air haven't yet been implemented

This Zone plays the 2 player Casino Night Zone music. The music used in the final release is present in the sound test.

Dust Hill Zone (Mystic Cave)
This level pointer actually brings players to what is known as Mystic Cave Zone in the final game, and not to the "legendary" desert zone. At the beginning of the zone, there are some odd object arrangements, such as a set of three swinging platforms. Gates are opened by ground-based switches rather than ceiling-based pull switches as seen in the final game.

Nobody is quite sure where the name "Dust Hill Zone" came from. It is possible that the pointers were switched out sometime in development, and that this level select slot did indeed point to data for a desert level before it was cut. It's also possible that the slot was allocated for a desert Zone that was cut before any data could be produced, or that Dust Hill Zone was the original name for Mystic Cave Zone. There is no items in this zone.

Casino Night Zone
This level's color palette is completely different, composed of more bright colors than the final version's. Act 2 has the pinball/slot machine parts in its background instead of the city. There are no objects in this level, meaning that none of the flippers, charge springs, or slots have been implemented yet. The level's music has a different intro and features slightly different instrumentation. A new design just a few cuts.

Genocide City Zone
Genocide City Zone has no data at all, and as soon as the player enters it, he falls to his death. No data that could possibly have been used for this Zone has been recovered from the ROM image.

Tom Payne has provided concept sketches showing that at some point in development, this level was called "Cyber City Zone". It would have been a metallic-themed Zone similar to Sonic 1 ' s Scrap Brain Zone or Sonic Spinball ' s The Machine. Payne reports that Genocide City was scrapped due to time constraints, and the designers added a third Act to Metropolis Zone instead.

Death Egg Zone
According to the level select, this zone originally had two acts (unlike in the final version). However, like Genocide City, neither act has any data and the player merely falls and dies immediately. The Zone's music pointer is invalid, causing the Z80 program to slowly crash as it plays data that wasn't intended to be played.

Miscellaneous
A mock-up picture exists which suggests that at one stage in development, a desert-like zone was planned for Sonic 2, but there is nothing to suggest that the level has ever existed in a playable format. Until recently the stage was believed to be named Dust Hill Zone, Its "past" incarnation was Rock Zone.

The zone's artist has stated that the Dust Hill Zone artwork was intended to be reused in a different level a winter-themed Zone, featuring Christmas trees instead of cacti.

If one collects 100 rings in any zone, the music changes into a prototype of the Death Egg track due to an incorrect pointer &mdash; the original Sonic 1 1-Up music was at the address now occupied by this music; the same phenomenon occurs in Chemical Plant Zone and Aquatic Ruin Zone where the music which plays during the drowning countdown is actually a prototype of the level select music.

Piracy
In Asia and Brazil, the prototype version was put on cartridges and passed off as the final version by pirates who have altered it slightly to stop the Sega logo from showing when the game boots up, as was common practice. Nothing else seems to have been changed.