Sonic Mega Collection

Sonic Mega Collection
Developers: Sonic Team, VR-1 Publisher: Sega Platform: GameCube Released in JP: December 19, 2002 Released in US: November 10, 2002 Released in EU: March 7, 2003 Released in AU: March 14, 2003 This game has unused modes / minigames. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused models. This game has unused cinematics. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. 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.

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Gekkan Nintendo Tentou Demo It's Sonic, but with a time limit!

Unused Graphics Sonic CD was done dirty.

Early Menu Files

Two folders titled sonic/test and sonic/test002 are present in the game's files. Both folders were used for testing basic functions and file formats of the game. In particular:

• test seems to have been used for experimenting with a variety of file formats and color options for scanned boxarts and manuals.
• test002 was used for developing assets for the game's (common) window menus.

test

Included in test are various scanned boxarts and manuals, primarily taken from Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. The two primary formats that were experimented with were .tga and .tm2 (a file format used commonly by PlayStation 2 games), converted to the GameCube's .tpl format, using a mix of colors and compression methods. The only odd one out in this folder is cmnwin.tpl, which is an early variation of the game's menu windows.

• 

  cmnwin.tpl - Early menu window, used for large message popups (such as Memory Card messages).

• 

  cmnwin.tpl - Early menu window, used for smaller message popups (such as the pause menu).

• 

  a_tga.tpl - The first 2 pages of Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine's manual in .tga format.

• 

  a_tm2.tpl - The first 2 pages of Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine's manual in .tm2 format.

• 

  t_tga.tpl - The first 2 pages of Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine's manual in .tga format without transparency.

• 

  t_tm2.tpl - The first 2 pages of Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine's manual in .tm2 format without transparency.

• 

  z_color_tga.tpl - The front cover for Sonic 3 with Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine's back cover in .tga format.

• 

  z_color_tm2.tpl - The front cover for Sonic 3 with Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine's back cover in .tm2 format.

• 

  z_mono_tga.tpl - The front cover for Sonic 3 with Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine's back cover in .tga format and black and white.

• 

  z_mono_tm2.tpl - The front cover for Sonic 3 with Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine's back cover in .tm2 format and black and white.

test002

Included in test002 are source assets for these early menus and a batch script. This batch script (mk.bat) coverts these files to a format that the Gamecube can use, using tools with the titles of es2es, esconvGC (converts the file to a GameCube readable format) and exp_es (generates a text file out of a .tga graphic). This batch script also points to a network drive to pull the files from.

@echo off
@copy /B /Y /Z %EXJ2_NETWORK_DRIVE%\eSTD.es
es2es -i %1 -o ____tmp.es -noa
esconvGC ____tmp.es %2 %3
@del ____tmp.es
@del eSTD.es

Aside from a log file (test002.txt), the rest of the folder contains all the raw assets for these menus, including graphics in various formats (.tpl, .tga and .pvr), and a 3D Studio Max (.max) file for creating a mockup out of these graphics. An output of this file can be found in test002tex/002.bmp.

Pictured here is a mockup of what would become the game selection screen, mostly written in Japanese. A translation is as follows:

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 (the Mega Drive port of the third Wonder Boy arcade game) was not put in any collection.

Unused Videos

Three short videos can be found in the game's files. 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. The movies and songs 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 - like, say, Sonic CD.

File	Video	Notes
sonic/cri/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, one of the unused songs (music48a.adx) will play as well.
sonic/cri/loopbgv.sfd		A 12-second soundless CG water rippling effect somewhat similar to the Sonic Team logo animation of Sonic Adventure. The purpose of this clip, aside from showing off Sofdec's capabilities, is currently unknown.
sonic/cri/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.

Unused Music

File	Song	Notes
sonic/cri/music48a.adx		A three-and-a-half minute song used for a video intended to demonstrate the capabilities of the Sofdec codec (see above). It appears this song was sourced from a stock music library, as the first 10 seconds are also used in the unrelated 1999 anime Colorful. Two idential lower quality versions of this song with a sample rate of 24000hz is present in the same folder, titled music24a.adx and testadx.bin (with a FJF header).
sonic/cri/tutorial.adx		A short fifteen second song with a similar vibe as the song above. An identical version of this track without the FJF header is present in the same folder too, titled tutorial.adx__.
sonic/sound/demosound.bin		A track from Sonic Adventure 2: Battle's multiplayer menu, probably meant to test the ADX music format.

Unused Sounds

Three unused sounds are located in sonic/sound/demosound.bin, alongside the aforementioned multiplayer menu theme from Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. This implies that at one point, there may have been an early menu thrown together with assets that the developers had easy access to.

Sound	Notes
	The confirm sound from Virtua Fighter.
	The cancel sound from Virtua Fighter.
	The buzzer sound from Virtua Fighter.

Regional Differences

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.