Sonic the Hedgehog CD (2011)

Sonic the Hedgehog CD
Developers: Sonic Team, Christian Whitehead Publisher: Sega Platforms: Android, Xbox 360, iOS, PlayStation 3, Windows, Windows Phone Released in JP: December 16, 2011 (Android), November 14, 2012 (Windows) Released in US: December 14, 2011 (Android/360), December 15, 2011 (iOS), December 20, 2011 (PS3), January 19, 2012 (Steam/Windows) Released in EU: December 14, 2011 (Android/360), December 15, 2011 (iOS), January 19, 2012 (Steam/Windows) Released in KR: December 21, 2011 (PS3) This game has unused areas. This game has unused graphics. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences. This game has revisional differences. This game has a bugs page

This page covers the 2011 multiplatform remake of the game, not the 1993 original. You can find that version's page here.

The 2011 Sonic CD is not just a modern-day recode of just your average Sonic the Hedgehog game on a CD...and that's not what you're told (probably).

This is the first-ever published Sonic the Hedgehog title running on Christian Whitehead's Retro Engine, faithfully porting pretty much everything the original Sonic CD had to offer in a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, plus some extras and improvements such as an unlockable Tails to play as.

This, along with the iOS remakes of Sonic 1, Sonic 2, and a brand new version of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, is part of the compilation Sonic Origins.

Sub-Pages

Bugs

Unused Menu Graphics

Swipe & Tap and D-Pad

This appears to have been a cut feature from the Mobile versions, most likely being a manual toggle between the use of touch controls or a quite gimmicky one where you swipe to run and tap to jump.

Final Fever

While "Final Fever" is the title of the Japanese final boss theme, Christian Whitehead stated that during development this Final Fever was to be the name of a new boss stage. However, the level was cut due to Sega wishing to remain faithful to the original game.

This text can be seen in-game if the stageID is incremented past Metallic Madness Act 3 Bad Future on a save file.

"Sega CD BIOS" Sonic

A sprite of Sonic, most notably used during the Sega CD BIOS boot. As it is present next to Sonic's sprite for the character select screen, it is safe to assume this once occupied that slot before the newer sprite took its place.

Unused Sprites

Unused Tails Sprites

Interestingly, while most of the Sonic sprites that went unused in the original game aren't present in the files, new Tails sprites based on originally unused Sonic sprites made their way into Sprites/Players/Tails3.gif. The 3rd frame has no transparency whatsoever.

SCRIPT

The default icon for level objects in the Retro Engine's Scene Editor. Obviously doesn't go used anywhere in-game.

Time Attack

"?" placeholder sprite.

To do: Test this on other versions of the game. The logo appears to be similar to the one used in the "Saved Games" menu, but is it exactly the same?

The image that occupied the Exit selection of the Time Attack screen in the Sega CD, 1996 PC, and GameCube versions, but with the "Exit" text replaced to slightly bare more resemblance to the main title screen. Oddly, this can be seen in the Xbox 360 version by pressing B to exit Time Attack, then pressing A to select any Special Zone just before the transition to the main menu. The level the player goes to is the hidden eighth Special Stage, with the giant Eggman head in the background.

Animations

Sonic and Tails' animation files (as well as their Mini versions) have unused animations that are mostly empty, except for Sonic's Corkscrew H, which actually has 12 frames that use values from one of Whitehead's Sonic fan games, Retro Sonic. Because the animation values were made for Retro Sonic's sprite sheets and weren't updated for the CD sprite sheets, they appear as just random parts of Sonic's sprite sheet.

   Sliding
   Gliding Drop
   Gliding Stop
   Climbing
   Ledge Pull Up
   Corkscrew H
   Corkscrew V
   Finish Pose

Unused Animation Rotation Flags

All the animation files have an unused value, dubbed "Full Engine Rotation". It lets the object using the animation file rotate to any angle, not the 45-degree angles of the normal game.

There is also a value that does the same as the default flag. The only difference is that it doesn't use rotated sprites and instead lets the engine rotate them to multiples of 45 degrees.

Unused Manual Sprites

The final game uses PNGs in .arc files, but .gif sprite sheet versions of the pictures the manual uses exist for some reason. These are, however, used in the mobile versions as they don't use .arc files.

Unused	Used

Unused Pictures

Located in the .arc files.

Onan Games Logo

Confusingly, there doesn't appear to be any official connection between Onan Games outside of this image in the .arc files.

Wallpaper

A simple wallpaper that was used as a loading screen on older versions, but later was removed and has been unused since then. However, if you use the "Download Latest Compatible Version of the App" feature in iOS 6-7, you will get an older version of the game that has this wallpaper when you open the game. For Android, you need to find an older APK (Android package file) of the game.

Leftover Demo Screen

A leftover for when you completed the Xbox 360 demo. There are multiple versions for multiple languages.

Desert Dazzle

According to Christian Whitehead, Desert Dazzle was a new level he was working on that ended up being cut for time and authenticity reasons. The level's graphical design was heavily influenced by the well-known desert mockup image that was sent to magazines to promote Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in the early 1990s. The image on the left can be accessed by entering the Sound Test code PCM: 32, DA: 8. After viewing the image, you'll be taken to the Stage Select with Tails as your character.

In the January 2014 update, stage assets for both Desert Dazzle and Final Fever were discovered, complete with full-level maps. The video on the right is a mod of the PC version, which replaces Palmtree Panic's tiles and level layout with Desert Dazzle's. Because the stage was never finalized, no Badniks or gimmicks were ever implemented. The default background music for both soundtracks is the Time Attack theme (track 33).

Desert Dazzle would finally see the light of day in Sonic Mania, with its tiles reused/revised for Mirage Saloon Zone.

Retro Engine Dev Menu

As with future releases of the Retro Engine, There is a secret developer menu allowing you to skip to other stages and scenes throughout the entire game. Set byte 0xCCB (offset CAB in HxD) in the GameConfig.bin file to 1 to access this menu from the pause screen.

There is a mode in Sonic CD (RSDKv3) that allows the game to read the object scripts as .txt files instead of the bytecode files. This is activated when the game can't find the file "Data/Scripts/Bytecode/GlobalCode.bin" (or "Data/Scripts/Bytecode/GS000.bin" on PC).

Regional Differences

In all western releases, the non-highlighted palette of the menu text is a grayish hue. The Japanese version has a white hue for this text, as well as the expected translated text.

Platform Differences

There are multiple differences between the various versions of the game:

• The mobile releases include some additional logo animations that other releases lack.
• On the main menu, the introduction movie is selectable in the mobile releases.
• All FMVs are cropped in the console and PC releases, while the mobile release is instead letterboxed.
• Arrows on the menus have the text "FLICK" in the mobile release.
• The mobile release lacks any control options, the settings screen just reuses the main menu background, and no screen filters are available.
• The in-game pause menu is more simplistic in the mobile release.
• The underwater palettes at Tidal Tempest differ between the mobile and console/PC versions.