Sonic Adventure 2 (Dreamcast)/Cutscenes
This is a sub-page of Sonic Adventure 2 (Dreamcast).
Contents
Unseen Tidbits
Several interesting things can be found hidden in events, whether offscreen or left in the file.
E0006
When Amy appears, Sonic continues playing animations. These motions repeat onscreen when the camera returns to him.
E0014
Knuckles shows up under the manhole as soon as Tails begins speaking and is fully motion capped under there waiting for his entrance.
E0027/E0130
During Sonic's "I die hard" line, Shadow is walking offscreen, notably in a different position to the previous shot. He disappears entirely for the shot with the Chaos Emerald.
E0028/E0116
A different version of the map is used that includes an early version of the room's control console, albeit offscreen. A variant of this console with a computer screen is present in the Maria flashback on Prison Island and is partially visible.
E0105
Until the camera reaches him, Eggman T-Poses.
E0106
There's a large unseen light effect in the Maria flashback. It was moved into the path of the camera in the GameCube version, creating a brief red flash.
E0116
There's a wall in the last shot that (judging by an identical wall earlier in the event) was intended to hide the black void behind Shadow. It failing to do this suggests the camera was originally at a different angle for the shot.
In-game.
E0129
During one of Rouge's shots, Shadow pokes himself in the eye in what's likely an early animation of him answering Eggman's call, left here in a similar way to Sonic's E0006 animation.
E0207
The super transformation was originally part of the event before it but was split. Knuckles, the Master Emerald and the shadow of Sonic's position at the end of E0206 are still around offscreen briefly at the beginning of E0207. Knuckles' early sunglasses and full hammer gloves are in the event's file, but only his right hand can display any upgrades.
Early Cutscenes
Most cutscenes that are seen in the game read their information from a compressed source (e.g. E0000.PRS for the Hero Intro's models and animations). There are two exceptions to this rule: E0203 and E0210, which are the cutscenes where everyone listens to Gerald's diary and the credits sequence in Last Story, respectively. The versions that are used by the game are uncompressed (E0203.BIN and E0210.BIN, respectively), while the compressed versions aren't used at all.
| E0203 | E0210 |
|---|---|
E0203. Knuckles sports the old sunglasses model and the full version of his Hammer Gloves.
E0203. Rouge's Treasure Scope is complete instead of missing the eyepiece.
E0210. Knuckles' glove upgrades are present in the data, but never render in this scene.
E0210. While Amy isn't present in the data at all, her drop shadow is still rendered throughout the scene.
Editing them to become readable by the game reveals that they're either incomplete or from an earlier point in development. E0203 has the least issues, though it should be noted that it uses the same upgrade models seen in SA2: Preview and Rouge's wings are her in-game variants instead of the higher-quality models used in the other cutscenes. E0210 is missing some models, specifically parts of Knuckles and all of Amy, but is otherwise identical to the final version.
Leftover effect data for the scene where Knuckles stops the Chaos Emeralds can also be found within the game's files in an uncompressed state (E0206_0.SCR, E0206_1.SCR, et al). Implementing them into the cutscene reveals an early draft of what was eventually used for the scene, with only the video overlay timings being consistent with the final effect data. Several flourishes are missing, such as the initial fade-in and the lighting changes for specific shots, along with rough subtitle/audio timings and the lack of music.
Unused Event
There is an unused in-level cutscene stored in ME0012.PRS that displays Sonic doing a short animation for his head and hands. It lasts for 20 seconds and has a texture mapping error where the texture for the Flame Ring is used for Sonic's sclera. The error was fixed in the example video and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, even though the cutscene is unused there, as well.
This file is what remains of an unimplemented in-level sequence for Mech Tails in Mission Street. Mini-Event array data found in SA2: The Trial suggests that an event file with ID 12 was supposed to activate in the level, even though the level's data and associated event file are absent from that version. This internal information was removed in later versions of the game, suggesting the sequence was scrapped and the event file that remains is a default file used as a placeholder before the relevant information is compiled.
The files E0050-E0054 and E0150-E0154 are used to display timestamps before in-game events or stages (Eg: Most of Knuckles' stages), actually being small events that last only a few frames. These events seem to be built from a partially blanked version of the sequence seen in ME0012, as Sonic hands float behind the camera and perform the same animation. Other than the timestamp events, they can be found behind the Shadow image after Last Story. The lighting is too dark to see the hands in the Dreamcast version, but they're visible in the ports.
Lighting Data
Some events in Sonic Adventure 2 include unused lighting data from earlier versions of the cutscenes. For some reason, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle enables them all at once causing issues.
Texture Oddities
E0106 Deleted Shadow Capsule Scene
E0106 (Shadow's first flashback at Radical Highway) contains the textures for the in-game external model of the ARK. There was originally a shot of Shadow being ejected from the ARK in a capsule in the same way as Sonic, but it was removed - the final version only shows Shadow's capsule leaving the room Maria was in.
Though it was removed from the event itself, it wasn't removed entirely: It was used in the trailer for Last Story. It's easily overlooked and mistaken for Sonic's version, as Shadow can only be seen inside the capsule for a single frame as it passes the camera. More visibly, the ARK's "mustache" is closing in this version, reaching the same way it looked during its introduction in the "Day X" FMV.
miu128_ig004
In E0100 (Dark Story Intro), the texture miu128_ig004 actually has the name of it at the top.
Early Super Shadow
The two scenes in the ARK's core before the super transformation (E0205/E0206) contain an early version of Super Shadow's body texture making him silver rather than gold.
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
  |
  |
E0017 Cyclone
The Cyclone's model and textures are in the event after Pyramid Cave, but Tails is on foot the entire time.
Chaos Emerald colors
According to texture names, the Chaos Emerald colors were shifted around during development, mainly the ones from Security Hall and the fake emerald. In Security Hall's case, this also applies to the radar textures.
| Event | Early | Final |
|---|---|---|
| 0011/0025/0128 | Cyan | Yellow |
| 0021 | White | Yellow |
| 0116 | Blue | Cyan |
| 0118 | Yellow | Purple |
| 0118 | Green | Cyan |
DANGER console
The ARK's control room display uses an earlier texture when Shadow introduces it to Eggman (E0111). Notably the main font is different and the "DANGER" box for the Dark ending says "ALART" in the earlier version. The redesigned "power ok" icon in the later version is never used.
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Subtitle and Voice Slots
There are numerous subtitles and voices that are loaded for events but never used due to their placement data being dummied out. It's possible to restore this data and place the unused lines. Most of the unused subtitles are used to describe sound effects that play at a particular point in the event.
Unused voice clips can be found here.
There is a mod to enable all of these lines in their roughly intended positions here.
Other key findings:
- There are event slots designated for FMVs that load subtitles and voices for them but it all goes entirely unused since FMVs don't use these slots, having their own audio and player instead. Notably, the events after the Day X FMV don't leave a gap and have Eggman's entire speech loaded before the regular dialogue.
- The Sonic/Tails dialogue from the end of Eternal Engine is loaded in E0022 (Sonic in the ARK control room), suggesting the event would originally show the same conversation from Sonic's view.
- Gunshots were planned at the end of Gerald's execution video.
- The sound effects associated with the super transformation (E0207) are found in the previous event (E0206), due to the previously mentioned split.
- Every line in the ending has an associated subtitle that goes unused to make way for the credits.
- Timestamps are created by setting a line's load frame to -1. Then, instead of time displayed, the following address is used for the timestamp's position offset.
Unused Timestamps
Several events have timestamps that are never used due to being dummied out, as explained above.
| Text | Event |
|---|---|
| 12:00
Prison Island: Cell block |
E0006 (Before Metal Harbor) |
| 14:09
In the pyramid |
E0017 (Before Death Chamber) |
| 20:31
In the pyramid |
E0105 (After Sand Ocean) |
| 21:09
Near the capital city |
E0106 (Before Radical Highway) |
| 22:27
Inside Eggman's base |
E0109 (After Egg Quarters) |
| 23:00
ARK: Central control room |
E0111 (After Lost Colony) |
| 12:06
Inside military base |
E0116 (Before White Jungle) |
| 18:00
ARK: Central control room |
E0120 (After Day X FMV) |
| 12:15
In a mountainous region |
None, but intended to play before Sky Rail. |
Japanese Exclusive
There is one timestamp that exists only in the Japanese script (EVMESD0):
- １２：００ 軍事基地内部：保管庫 (12:00 Inside the military base: Storage)
Given its context and placement, it was intended to be used before Security Hall. It has no associated event in-game, likely due to all timestamps preceding gameplay events having their own event file.
Translation Error
There is an error in the timestamp for Dark Story's version of the event where Eggman shoots Sonic into space (E0128). In the Japanese version, it lists the countdown timer as 45 minutes but in other languages it says 33 - the same as Hero story's version.
It was likely caused by Hero Story's version being translated first and copied to Dark Story's, as the timestamp is the last line in an event's script.
Early Japanese Files
Early versions of the files used to time dialogue, audio and effects in cutscenes are found in EXXXX_0.PRS. The data this file contains was originally used for Japanese cutscenes, but this was later moved to EXXXX_J files. The state the file was in at the time of the switch was preserved in the original file, so early versions of each cutscene can be found. Most scenes are simply missing music, sound effects or timestamps, but some have more considerable differences. As these files are intended for Japanese text and voices, they tend to load incorrect subtitles and voice clips in other languages.
All scenes with differences are listed below.
| Scene ID | Notes |
|---|---|
| E0000 (Hero Intro) | No timestamp. |
| E0002 (Sonic meets Shadow) | Sonic's unused line ("Those robots are a total pain in the...") is used at the beginning. The second one ("What!") is said later, during the initial shot of Shadow on top of the defeated robot. |
| E0003 (Knuckles) | NOTE: Dark's version (E0103) is identical to the final game.
|
| E0004 (Tails at Prison Island 1) | No music. |
| E0005 (Tails at Prison Island 2) | Doesn't sync up correctly with the animation, implying the scene was changed after the switch. |
| E0011 (After Prison Island) | No music. |
| E0014 (Tails and Amy meet Knuckles) | Amy and Tails both react to Knuckles coming out of the sewer. In the final version, only Amy does - the line for Tails goes unused and has no English equivalent. |
| E0016 (Eggman's Base 1) | No music. |
| E0017 (Eggman's Base 2) | No music or sound effects. |
| E0021 (Sonic, Tails, Amy on the ARK) |
|
| E0022 (Sonic in the ARK's Control room) |
|
| E0024 (Knuckles vs. Rouge) | No sound effects. |
| E0026 (Knuckles finds Sonic) |
|
| E0028 (Hero Ending) | No music. |
| E0107 (Shadow meets Sonic) | Same differences as the Hero version (E0002). |
| E0109 (Rouge in Eggman's base) | No music. |
| E0112 (Prison Island) | No music. |
| E0116 (Shadow in the jungle) | No grunt from Shadow after Rouge's dialogue. |
| E0118 (Shadow saves Rouge) |
|
| E0119 (Shadow flashback) |
|
| E0120 (Rouge tells Eggman about Tails) | No music or sound effects. |
| E0124 (Rouge accesses the ARK's computer) | No music. |
| E0126 (Rouge vs. Knuckles) | Same differences as the Hero version (E0024). |
| E0127 (Eggman in his base) |
|
| E0129 (Shadow confronts Rouge) | No music. |
| E0131 (Dark Ending) | No music. |
| E0203 (After Gerald's video) | No sound effects. |
| E0205 (Shadow vs. Biolizard) | Shadow's first line is much later - after he approaches the Biolizard rather than before passing Sonic. Sonic's reaction is also later. |
| E0208 (Ending 1) | Completely silent other than misplaced voice clips, implying the scene was in an early state.
|
| E0210 (Ending 1) |
|
