Prerelease:Sonic Jam (Game.com)
This page details pre-release information and/or media for Sonic Jam (Game.com).
Sonic Jam for the Game.com is already pretty lousy, but early screenshots and video footage indicate the released game was a severe downgrade in both graphics and content.
Contents
Game Selections
Early promotional booklets for the Game.com promoted Sonic Jam using an image of what is evidently a Game.com version of Sonic 3D Blast. It's not entirely clear what happened here.
The flavour text also states "Play classic levels from Sonic 1, 2 and Sonic & Knuckles". The outlier here, of course, is Sonic 1, which would evidently be replaced in the final game with Sonic 3. This replacement would explain why Sonic 3 is the default selection for the game selection screen.
Title Screen
| Prerelease | Final |
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-title.png) |
- The background is black.
- There are two options instead of one, though the font used is a blander style than in the final.
- The logo is slightly different: "JAM" is darker and more detailed, and the words are positioned a bit lower than in the final.
Game and Character Select
| Prerelease | Final |
|---|---|
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The Game Select menu is called "Act Select" and looks rather different overall. Most notably, the game highlighted is Sonic 3 & Knuckles, whereas in the final Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles are separate games.
The background uses the final title screen background, albeit without any shading.
| Prerelease | Final |
|---|---|
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The Character Select menu is called "Player Select", and uses in-game sprites for the characters rather than compressed pictures of renders.
HUD and Backgrounds
The HUD is much larger and closer to the original games, as well as having a light gray rectangular background, and the levels have more detail in general. The camera also seems to be less dynamic.
Notably, both screenshots on the game's box feature the older HUD.
| Prerelease | Final |
|---|---|
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Mushroom Hill Zone actually has a background!
| Prerelease | Final |
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- Same for Emerald Hill Zone. The final generally uses very basic cloud backgrounds.
- Knuckles looks completely different.
- The HUD shows "T.E.", rather than "K.T.E." as in the original games.
| Prerelease | Final |
|---|---|
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Angel Island Zone's foreground and background completely different.
Special Stage
| Prerelease | Final |
|---|---|
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-Black_Spheres.png) |
- "GET BLUE SPHERES" was changed to "GET BLACK SPHERES" for very obvious reasons.
- Both Sonic and Tails are present (you can only play as one character in the final), and their sprites are smaller.
- The starry background from the Genesis version is present.
- The field of view is larger.
- The starting point is different.
Commercials
Two commercials for the Game.com also included early footage of Sonic Jam.
This video briefly shows footage of the early Angel Island Zone, as well as a small fraction of the Sonic 3 title screen.
The second video is much more interesting: while a good amount of the footage is obscured by the presenter, what can be seen is that Angel Island once had an intro similar to its Genesis counterpart, albeit without Knuckles. Instead, after Sonic jumps off the Tornado and flies in his Super form for a couple of seconds, he goes out of the Super form and jumps to the starting point of Act 1, at which point the level title card appears. The first ~8 seconds of an early Angel Island layout is seen here, including the earlier mountainous background as well as trees in the foreground. There's also a small portion where the Tornado flies by the Sonic 3 & Knuckles title screen, which could be the start of the intro.
While it appears the game is running much faster, the footage is just sped-up.
Other Screenshots
Clean pictures of the Sonic 3 title screen and part of the AIZ intro.
