Proto:Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)

This page details one or more prototype versions of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).

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Xbox Live Arcade Demo

A demo was released on Xbox Live September 27, 2006, a few months before the game's release. In it, players could go through a portion of Kingdom Valley as Sonic. Upon completion of the level, the E3 trailer for the game would play, which features various stages and shows off all three hedgehogs. The demo has since been removed from the Marketplace.

• The 00_pressstart sound effect on the title screen has a slightly higher pitch in the demo. Neither of these pitches match the way the sound is internally stored, oddly enough.
• The title screen plays a loop of the E3 Trailer music.
• Sonic plays just like he did in the E3 Demo, but without the spammable homing attack.
• Sonic's Power Meter starts off empty in this demo; in the final game, the Power Meter starts off full. His Power Meter also fills properly, though because you cannot access the Gem upgrades, this does nothing.
• Some voice clips are played during the stage which are not heard in the final, but used in different segments. Most of Sonic's grunts are missing, by contrast.
• The result screen is missing many sounds, most notably the voice clip that plays upon receiving an end-of-level rank.
• The subtitles that appear from the trailer use a different font, Chiaro, which the version shown at E3 2006 used for many display elements rather than the final's New Rodin.
• Near the end of the trailer, there's a completely different pre-rendered cutscene featuring Silver (and, briefly, Sonic):
  • Silver is standing on a ledge overlooking the ruins of Soleanna in the future, declaring that he's found the Iblis Trigger. In the final game, Silver delivers the line while in present-day Soleanna.
  • Silver clenches his left hand into a fist; in the final game, he does this with his right hand.
  • The Iblis Trigger is referred to as "it"; in the final game, the Iblis Trigger is referred to as "him".

(Source: Sonic Retro)

Unused 1-UP Placement (Kingdom Valley)

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  Xbox Live Arcade Demo

• 

  Retail

In the Xbox Live Arcade Demo version of Kingdom Valley, there is a 1-UP item box hidden in this bush. This is replaced with a Silver Medal in the retail game. When Sonic obtains the item, he exclaims "Yes! I knew it."

Unused Music

Of the five tracks present in the demo, only two of them are actually used (besides the title screen theme, which is embedded into the .wmv used for the background loop), these being Kingdom Valley's music and the Round Clear theme. Thus, more than half are actually unused!

main_theme.xma

A demo version of "His World", Sonic's theme for this game. It has a clap track, probably to guide Ali in singing it. This was eventually used as the backing track for Crush 40's cover of the song.

speed_up.xma

An early version of the invincibility music, which curiously still uses this filename in the final game despite speed shoes being present only in a hard mode for an Amigo stage and having no effect.

result.xma

A loop of one of the instruments in the beginning portion of His World. Even though you can reach the (much sooner) end of the level in this demo and thus see the results screen, this music doesn't play after the Round Clear track, leaving it in silence.

Unused Sounds

Many of the final game's sound effects are also present in this demo, but they are unused simply because their objects aren't placed in the area of Kingdom Valley that's present here. Sonic's grunts are also present, but they're probably not assigned to him because they never play.

Unused Graphics

Aside from a few repeats from the final game, the demo contains a few unused graphics of its own.

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  mission_bg_parts.dds

This was used in the E3 build for the loading screen, which is quite different from the one seen in the final game.

• 

  stagetitle1.dds

• 

  stagetitle2.dds

Each of the stage titles rendered in the same style as the E3 build, albeit in a different font.

Oddities

Unused Multiplayer Renderer

In the archive kdv_a4.arc, there is a folder containing the render scripts, similar to that of cache.arc in the retail game. In render_main.lub (the file that stores most, if not, all parameters for the game's renderer), there is a function called 'RenderMainForMulti', the same function used in the retail game which uses different parameters to optimise performance for the game's multiplayer modes. But, there are no multiplayer modes in the Xbox Live Arcade Demo...