Sonic Mega Collection

Sonic Mega Collection
Developers: VR-1, Sonic Team Publisher: Sega Platform: GameCube Released in JP: December 19, 2002 Released in US: November 10, 2002 Released in EU: March 7, 2003 This game has unused modes / minigames. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused cinematics. This game has unused music. This game has regional differences. This game has a prototype article

Sonic Mega Collection wasn't the first compilation of Sonic games, but it sold well enough for Sega to produce oh-so-many-more ports of classic games.

An updated version was released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox titled Sonic Mega Collection Plus, adding Game Gear titles, the games mentioned below, a new UI, and the addition of having savestates.

Japan-Exclusive Games

Comix Zone and The Ooze are only available in the Japanese version, and even then can only be unlocked with button codes:

• Comix Zone - Press Up, L, Down, R, Up, Z, Down, L, Up, R, Down, Z in the Options menu.
• The Ooze - Press Z, Z, Z, Up, Up, Up, Down, Down, Down, L, R, Z in the Manual menu.

Both games were included in all releases of Sonic Mega Collection Plus.

Unused Music

A three-and-a-half minute track used for a video intended to demonstrate the capabilities of the Sofdec codec (see below).

A track from the Sonic Adventure 2 multiplayer menu, probably meant to test the ADX music format.

Old Menu

An early version of the Games menu is in the disc, albeit mostly in Japanese. It is clearly from an earlier stage than the leaked prototype, which uses the final menu style. This menu translates to:

GAMES
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Ristar the Shooting Star
Flicky
Monster Lair
Vectorman

The other listings are a series of A's in hiragana. Vectorman was eventually included with Sonic Gems Collection, while Monster Lair (part of the Wonder Boy series) was not put in any collection. A 3DS Max model file of the menu is in the ISO, as well as a breakdown of all the menu's textures in PNG.

Sonic CD Remnants

Sonic CD was going to be in the collection, but was cut due to emulation issues and a supposed lack of space (but see below). A scan of the European manual is still in the collection's files, however, while gameselect.tpl contains an image with crude Japanese writing of "ソニック CD" ("Sonic CD").

Both the manual and image can be accessed normally in the prototype, as Sonic CD is in the Games menu.

Unused Movies

Three short movies were found inside the data. Sega is not credited on any of them, and none are even remotely related to Sonic. It is likely that Sega was testing the Sofdec player and simply didn't take these files out, but the movies and song take up roughly 20% of the data and even then there's empty space on the disc. This space (and the space taken by the other unused stuff) could have easily been used for more games...including Sonic CD, which allegedly couldn't be included partly because of "space limitations".

sample.sfd

A test video for CRI's Sofdec video compression technique for developers. If opened by FFPlay or a similar player that can play Sofdec/ADX files, the unused song is played as well.

loopbgv.sfd

A 12-second soundless CG water rippling effect somewhat like the Sonic Team logo animation of Sonic Adventure. The purpose of this clip, aside from showing off Sofdec's capabilities, is currently unknown.

smpinter.sfd

A 30-second clip of San Francisco which might be from CRI, since they do have offices there. It is suspected to be a test clip from the Dreamcast development kit.

Demo Graphics

Present in the demo folder are .tpl files which have graphics for a demo, all in Japanese. Notably, the first picture uses the layout of the prototype title screen.

The title screens of the games, though some are blacked out:

The bottom Japanese message saying 'Sorry, but you can't play this yet.'

And finally, there's a screen for when the demo ends:

Thank you for playing.
Look forward to lots more to play in Sonic Mega Collection,
planned for release this winter!