This is a sub-page of Proto:Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis).
Green Hill Zone, having been present since the very beginning of Sonic the Hedgehog's development, is the most polished Zone in the entire prototype, and the only one that ends with a boss battle.
However... it's still a ways off here from what eventually shipped, in no small part because it is teeming with giant boulders of destruction. (They're in all three Acts!)
General
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- The sunflowers in this build have a magenta disc floret instead of a green one. This color scheme still appears in the ending, suggesting it was altered late in development.
- As a consequence, the green Newtrons are also instead magenta, due to the flowers and Newtrons sharing the same palette line.
- This build contains the infamous rolling boulder seen in various prerelease sources. The listing for this still remains in the final game, but attempting to place it (19) does nothing due to the boulder’s code being deleted. Part of the boulder’s sprite is used for Eggman's Egg Mobile Hammer Ball in the final game.
- The boulder is quite buggy: it has a strange habit of pushing Sonic through the ground and for some reason defies gravity if the player stands on it. Both of these could explain its removal.
- The background has a different chunk order to the final, meaning the large waterfall appears earlier than it does in the final.
- Act 2 and Act 3 have slightly more walkable ground present beyond the goal in the final game, possibly to accommodate Sonic running past the goalpost to end the level.
- The boss is missing some polish compared to what's in the final:
- Eggman doesn't laugh when the player gets hit.
- The two lights at the base of the wrecking ball don't flicker between blue and red yet, instead only displaying the sprite with the red light on.
- The game doesn't award 1000 points upon defeating Eggman.
- The boss music does not stop upon defeating Eggman; in other words, the regular level music never returns.
- When Eggman is defeated, after the explosion effects finish, Eggman immediately begins flying up and to the right until he moves off-screen. In the final game, a small additional motion is added where Eggman's ship sinks and rises before he flies off.
- Eggman alternates between his regular expression and his "taking damage" expression while he flies off, continuing the animation he performed when his ship was exploding. In the final game, he instead displays cartoonish sweat drops as he flees. The prototype is also missing the small touch of Eggman's ship exhaust flaring up and briefly creating a slightly larger flame as he starts flying off.
Backgrounds
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The background of Green Hill Zone had 3 unique layouts in the prototype, unlike the final which only uses 1 layout. The final game's background appears to be based on the prototype's Act 3 background.
Act 1
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- A single Motobug is close to the beginning of the stage, meaning the player can potentially die before they even start moving.
- The invincibility monitor in the tree after the bridge is not present in this build.
It is possible to duplicate the boulder objects without Debug Mode; it is likely that the boulder is intended to despawn at a specific distance away from its spawnpoint, which may be the intention of the jumping action. The boulder can be duplicated by riding it (as the boulder code does not perform collision detection checks when Sonic is standing on it) past the ramp and then immediately taking it back to the area before the ramp. Another boulder will immediately spawn.
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- This palm tree near the bridge didn't have a spring on top yet.
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- The Buzz Bomber before the first bridge was moved slightly more to the left.
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- The design of these chunks were changed to emphasize the impression that the foreground cliff is jutting out.
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- This line of 3 rings above the first purple rock in the act became a line of 2 rings and was moved further down, making them easier to collect.
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- The second purple rock in the act had its rings moved up, farther away from the rock.
- The nearby Motobug object found in the final is present in the same location in the proto, still despawning instantly.
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- There are spikes on the wall just below the spring. These were removed in the final game.
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- The spikes here were moved slightly closer to the spring, seemingly just for aesthetic reasons.
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- The Motobug on this hill was removed.
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- This area underneath the spiked wall had a spring surrounded with two spikes on each side. The final build removes the extra spike and leaves only one spike on each side.
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- A line of 3 rings was added above this spring.
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- This rock was moved slightly to the left.
- Previously, Sonic could still land to the right of the rock despite what looked like a lack of space, but it forced Sonic into the teetering position at all times due to how thin it was.
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- The 1-up Monitor was replaced with an Invincibility Monitor, and the Motobug was moved to the ledge to the right.
- The positions of the rings and spikes right before this area was slightly tweaked; they were shifted slightly to the right, and the centering of the rings over spikes was fixed.
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- The Invincibility Monitor above the loop was changed to a Shield Monitor.
- The moving platforms to the up and right of this area originally moved in sync; in the final game, they move in opposite directions to each other.
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- A checkpoint was placed in-between the two S tunnels, replacing this large cluster of rings.
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- The platforms on the hill above the two S tunnels are missing in the prototype.
- The Invincibility monitor here was removed, and a line of rings was added to the left of where it used to be.
- The nearby flower is also shorter than in the final game and the shading on said hill also doesn't go as far up.
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- A platform and a Buzz Bomber were added at the end of the higher S tunnel.
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- The cluster of rings and the Buzz Bomber were moved up slightly, and the sloppy placement of the rings on the left side was cleaned up.
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- This area under the waterfall had some rings taken away.
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- A Buzz Bomber and Newtron was removed from this area.
- There are a total of 5 Newtrons scattered throughout the area right before the end of the level, which were all removed in the final game.
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- This moving platform was moved farther away from the edge of the cliff, so that players don't accidentally end up clipping into the cliff when riding the platform.
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- A Buzz Bomber was removed right before the goal.
- The very last ring in the line leading up to the goalpost was also removed and ring placement was adjusted very slightly.
Act 2
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- One of the rocks near the start was removed, and a yellow spring is placed on top of the other rock in the final. The rings were also moved up.
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- A 1-Up Monitor hidden behind the Speed Shoes Monitor was replaced with a Shield Monitor.
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- The prototype has an extra row of rings here.
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- The ring placement in the spike platforming section used to be quite different. Groups of 3 and 4 rings over the platforms were changed to uniform lines of 2 rings over the spike pits.
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- A Motobug and a Crabmeat in this crowded area were replaced by a single Newtron.
- Another Newtron was also added down and to the right of this area, right before the bridge.
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- This area with both a spring and a slightly obscured checker ball to push you right back towards the spike pits was made a lot less mean, with both of these traps removed.
- A single ring was also removed.
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- An extra Ring Monitor right before the goal was removed.
Act 3
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- The Shield Monitor was replaced with an Invincibility Monitor, the rock was replaced with a yellow spring and moved to the edge of the starting platform, and a Buzzbomber was removed outright.
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- A checkered boulder was removed, and a missing spike was added. A crumbling platform was also added to the ledge above.
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- Two additional crumbling platforms were added, and the Ring Monitor was changed to a Shield Monitor.
- The yellow spring below is placed slightly more to the right in the prototype, probably to make it easier to get up there before the ledges were added.
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- A set of three spikes were removed, and a green Newtron was added on the wall to the right.
- To the left of this area, a set of 5 rings were removed.
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- A Speed Shoes Monitor, a Ring Monitor right before the bridge to the left of this area, and a Buzz Bomber were removed.
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- Rings were added to this red spring trap.
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- The spikes here were moved slightly to the left, to be more flush with the wall.
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- Right past the section above, a red spring trap was added.
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- Platforms were added to bridge over to the crumbling ledge a bit further down.
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- The aforementioned crumbling ledge area had a Shield Monitor removed.
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- A ring was added to the very top part of this loop to fix the gap.
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- A Shield Monitor was removed from on top of a rock, and the rock on the platform above was shifted slightly to the right.
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- 3 rings in total were removed from this line of rings.
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- This Shield Monitor was swapped out with an Invincibility Monitor.
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- This rock and swinging platform was replaced with a single yellow spring.
- This swinging platform is unintentionally deadly; it tends to crush Sonic against the walls/floor on the right side of the gap as the platform collides with them.
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- With that swinging platform gone, a vertically moving platform was added to help you get to higher ground.
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- This crumbling ledge was shortened so it isn't so close up to the moving platform.
- The wall to the left isn't quite solid near the top in the prototype. This allows Sonic to jump into the wall and end up standing on top of the breakable tunnel walls below. The final game fixes this oversight by replacing the chunk (Chunk 14) with an almost identical copy (Chunk 2C) that fixes the collision problem for this setpiece.
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- This Buzz Bomber was moved higher up.
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- A yellow spring and a line of rings to collect from it was added to this tree.
Act 4
Act 4 is a carbon copy of Act 3.
- Dying will send you to Act 3.
- Breaking the capsule will send you to Act 1 of Marble Zone.
- You start at coordinates 0080, 00A8, 0000, 0048
Unused and Changed Chunks
Unused Chunks
There are many unused chunks for Green Hill in this prototype, unlike the final game's total of zero.
Chunk 2A is notable for using border tiles reminiscent of those seen in the 8-bit versions' rendition of Green Hill Act 2. These tiles still exist in the final game, where they're likewise still unused.
While unused in this prototype, chunk 3A appears to be an earlier version of what would become chunk 02 in the final game. After flipping chunk 02 horizontally and removing its three palm trees, the two align perfectly, shadows and all:
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Chunk 3A (mirrored)
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Chunk 02
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In the final game, none of the unused chunk designs remain.
Chunks 28, 29, 2A, 2E, and 2F are used for the ending sequence chunks instead.
Chunk 2C ends up becoming an almost identical duplicate of Chunk 14, albeit with slightly different collision. It's used a single time in the final Act 3, to fix a small collision bug present in the prototype.
Lastly, chunks 30, 39, 3A, and 3B were replaced in the final game with background chunks. The prototype originally used slots 40 to 43 for those background chunks, and in the final those slots are empty.
Changed Chunks
Chunk 04
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- Shadows were added to these ledges to give them more depth.
Chunk 05
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- A square-shaped indent was replaced by a ledge shadow.
Chunk 3F
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- One of the tiles used in this background chunk was changed, revealing a cave.
Chunk 43
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- The design of chunk 43 in the prototype is found in slot 3B in the final game. However, the design of the trees in this background chunk also underwent some changes.
- Chunk 3B in the prototype is an unused chunk, mentioned above.
