Prerelease talk:Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis)

French Advertisement

I'm almost 100% certain that footage was altered to match what's going on in the commercial. The wrecking ball was changed to an apple with a "bite" taken out of it, and the spring was extended reeeeally long (and rather poorly at that) to match the boxing glove. There's no evidence of these oddities in any released version of the game, and everything else about the footage is identical to the final game. --BMF54123 (talk) 03:31, 31 January 2014 (EST)

Very well. The two advertisements have been removed. Rightman (talk) 03:39, 31 January 2014 (EST)

STH 8-bit and genesis prototype connections

In the 8-bit version of Sonic 1 there are many connections to the prototype this might be because the game could possibly be based off of prototype screenshots which would explain the title screen and Labyrinth Zone having a similar background to the beta and the unused crystals.ToxicWater (talk)

Better Build Comprehension

I've found myself somewhat dissatisfied with this page as of late but I've not really had the time to work on the edits much myself. As such, I think maybe it'd be helpful to clarify some of my own research into pre-release builds, as I think some of the builds may have been missed out by the current subpage layout, and there's some ambiguity which is being overlooked, which might lead to misinformation.

Feb 90 and TTS are already covered in a satisfying enough way so I'll just briefly go over the rest:

Pre-CES Builds
Section name seems suitable enough. Only two builds that I'm aware of - the Computer Chronicles footage and Sega Visions issue 4. It looks like the article lists Zero UK Issue 22 amongst these too and that's fine as far as I can tell. That said, right now both are merged into a single "Pre-CES Build" subheading which I think is misleading. Separate subheadings for each magazine would be preferred in the eventuality they're found to be distinct.

Later Prerelease Builds
This is where I start taking a real issue with the fact that multiple builds have been merged into the same section, because it's conflating versions of the game which actually seem to be distinct. I'm okay with having these similar builds on the same page but we really need to separate the page by discernible builds. To illustrate, I've noticed about 3 different builds from this point in development - I've included Pre-CES and late development builds for the sake of comparison:

• Pre-CES - GHZ sky and water colours match, debug info is in bottom right, MZ uses an early lava texture, GHZ flowers are purple, HUD says "RING";
• Build 1 - GHZ sky and water colours differ, debug info is in upper left, MZ uses an early lava texture, GHZ flowers are purple, HUD says "RING";
• Build 2 - GHZ sky and water colours differ, debug info is in upper left, MZ uses final lava texture, GHZ flowers are purple, HUD says "RING";
• Build 3 - GHZ sky and water colours differ, debug info is in upper left, MZ uses final lava texture, GHZ flowers are green, HUD says "RING";
• Late builds - GHZ sky and water colours differ, debug info is in upper left, MZ uses final lava texture, GHZ flowers are green, HUD says "RINGS";

The GHZ water colour and the debug counter are enough info to infer whether or not most builds are Pre-CES or later, but unfortunately due to the absence of MZ's lava from many of the magazine previews it's actually not currently known how to discern a lot of the builds (perhaps there's some subtle differences that are present in Build 1 but not Build 2). My research has led me to conclude the following:

Build 1

• Video Games DE 1991-02 (issue 2?)

Build 2

• EGM 22
• Computer and Video Games 115
• An apparently unknown magazine
• VideoGame BR Ano 1 No 05 (1991-07)

Build 3

• GPSG US 0203

And here's where I stress the ambiguity:

Either Build 1 or 2

• CES Demo
• Nick Arcade
• Supergame Ano 1 No. 01
• Tilt 1991-02
• Console Mania IT 01
• MegaDrive Fan JP 04-1991
• MegaDrive Fan JP 05-1991
• Joystick FR 015
• Mean Machines 08 05-1991

This is why I think it's important to continue to be explicit about sources and where each of the screenshot are coming from, and to separate sections for which there may very well be ambiguity.

Also while I'm here I should probably note that we should probably rename the Sega Shinsaku Soft page too because I mean... Wayne's World and the Ad do not use the exact same footage. There's also two more sources of prerelease materials that seem to match this build:

• MegaDrive Fan JP 06-1991 (note the unfinished special stage)
• CES Summer 1991 Demo

I hope all this information is incorporated into the page in some way, but if not, I will make sure to add it when I've got more free time. --Hwd45 (talk) 13:42, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Page re-merge?

I've noticed that the subpages for most of the builds don't have enough information put into them, or are best suited for the main prerelease page, and I think the early concepts should have it's own subpage too. Or maybe the builds taken around the 1990 and 1991 dates should be merged into two subpages? Just a suggestion I had in mind.

SodaDog (talk) 15:24, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Green Hill's Brighter Background

I've seen a lot of doubt about this lately so I think I should clear things up. The palette itself does not appear to be different, rather, there appears to be more detail on the BG in general. If you compare the background seen in Video Games Issue 2 to the recently dumped prototype, it becomes obvious. The higher mountains appear to be more detailed, and if you check out the lower section, you can see how some of the darkest sections have a brighter shade, and some darker pixels separating some of the columns. There's more examples on the WCES-like Builds page, although they might not have the best scan quality. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by JayKuriN (talk • contribs)

Please sign your messages (add four "~" marks at the end and the wiki will generate a signature) so we know who wrote it. I have to stress that we cannot use old magazine screenshots as gospel evidence of minor palette differences. If you look at old game magazines from the early 90's you will not believe how crappy the screenshots can get. Even in the screenshot you are using as an example, notice how the blue background is completely inconsistent and gets brighter towards the middle of the frame. The fact that the prototype's GHZ color scheme matches the final game casts a dark shadow over this theory, quite frankly. Please be very careful about trusting the colors in old magazine scans. Zoinknoise (talk) 03:55, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Additional information

Here and here. I'd add them to todo but it just errors out. The game also apparently appeared at ECTS in April 1991.

In addition, an issue of Famicom Tsushin (Famitsu) from October 1990 has the game listed in the schedule, and it seems to have been planned to release in February. Beep! MegaDrive from a little later has it listed as an April release. Might be worth jotting down here. --Professor64 (talk) 11:02, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Added the Tokyo Toy Show 1991 footage to the Pre-WCES subpage, I can't seem to find any differences in the other piece of footage. --HalfHalf (talk) 23:54, 7 October 2022 (UTC)