User:Turbulation/New Sonic 3 Prerelease Builds Section

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Later Builds

Bill Nye Build

This build is most well-known for appearing in a 1994 commercial for the EPCOT Innoventions held in Walt Disney World featuring Bill Nye, and from all the material we have of the build, it's possible to deduce that everything comes from a private developmental VHS tape due to the video and screenshots of it matching up. It also appears that this build is just after the 1103 prototype as it still shares a lot of similarities with the build.

Angel Island Zone

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Sonic now has his Sonic 3 design but still has the extra shaded HUD from the 1103 prototype and the final plane intro has now been implemented. It also appears the color palette for the HUD is still broken even after the Knuckles encounter. You can also see in the second screenshot that the old Tails assist event from the 1103 prototype is also still there due to the flight path position and Tails not looking up yet when carrying Sonic.

IceCap Zone

At this point in development, the HUD is still shaded like the 1103 prototype, and no snow is falling during the boss.

Videos

Bill Nye EPCOT Innoventions Commercial

At about 0:46 in this 1994 commercial for the Innoventions held at Walt Disney World, is some footage of a late prototype build of Sonic 3 likely dated a couple weeks before the final build and is after the 1103 prototype. It shows a bit of the 2P stages like Azure Lake and Desert Palace, a Special Stage, and a tiny amount of Launch Base Zone Act 1 all still retaining aspects from 1103 or being closer to the final game.

• The HUD appears to be unchanged from the 1103 prototype, though it's hard to tell from the video quality.
• Desert Palace's background has fixed the erroneous black coloring in its palette; however, it can be seen that the lap numbers have their identical blue color to the 1103 prototype while old player position markers can also still be seen in the bottom right.
• From the Azure Island gameplay, you can also see that the starting race message says "Go!" much like the final game.
• The background for Launch Base Act 1 appears to match the final, and although though the water appears a bit more purple in the video, this is likely just the fault of the VHS quality.
• The Special Stage appears to be finalized at this point with Tails actually having his tails during his running animation.

Pre-Final VHS Footage

To do: Document any more differences you find.

VHS footage of a very late prototype of Sonic 3, possibly dated only a few days before the final build.

General Notes

• The HUD matches that of the final game by this point.
• The prototype compositions have been replaced with their final versions.

Special Stage

• (3:40 - 4:48) With the introduction of the playable Special Stages since the November 3rd, 1993 prototype, the tape reveals a bug with the speed system that doesn't seem to have been fixed by the final build: by getting snagged in-between two bumpers and jumping out of them, Sonic is unable to go faster with the music. You can make Sonic get back to the proper speed by pressing Up on the D-Pad in the final game, but it's not known if the player didn't press Up or the bug simply had a workaround by pressing Up.

Angel Island Zone

• Act 1
  • (1:40) In the opening cutscene, the blue and purple Chaos Emeralds are in opposite positions compared to the final game, matching a screenshot used for the US box art. In the final game, the positions of the two emeralds were likely swapped to prevent the blue emerald from blending in with the waterfall.
    • In the same cutscene, the screen boundary is set further to the left at $1300, whereas the final game has it further to the right at $1308.
  • (2:17) When the Fire Breath descends into view before setting Angel Island on fire, its flame jets appear to be rendered using bubble sprites for a few frames. This does not happen in the November 3rd prototype or the final game.

Hydrocity Zone

• Act 1
  • (12:45) As Sonic goes around the final loop before the Act 1 miniboss, the lower part of the background becomes corrupted due to boss graphics being loaded over the background tiles. The final game fixes this by loading the boss graphics over a different part of the background that is off-screen.
  • (12:51) Big Shaker has been updated to use its final bright red and purple palette. However, its damage flash palette has not been updated, causing it to revert to the dark red and turquoise palette used in the November 3rd prototype after taking damage (12:57).
• Act 2
  • (13:46 and 15:25) The trailing water splash graphics become corrupted when loading in from Act 1. This is fixed after the player exits a Bonus Stage.
  • (14:02 - 14:05) There are only four breakable walls after the wall chase sequence, along with doors that immediately drop into their places. In the final game, there are two sets of two breakable walls, followed by a set of six breakable walls, and finally a third set of two breakable walls for a total of twelve breakable walls, with doors only dropping down in place of only the first four breakable walls.
  • (18:15 - 19:28) Right before the boss, the water turns a solid color for the remainder of the stage due to a bug related to the Thunder Barrier, the water, and the palette fade in from black. This also affects the "SONIC" text on the life counter, which utilizes the enemy palette line.
  • When the bombs dropped by the boss explode, the explosion graphic is absent, displaying only a corrupted tile where it should be.

Marble Garden Zone

• Act 2
  • (29:26) The two column platforms are already in their final positions despite Sonic or Tails never having interacted with the flywheel. This is likely due to the platforms having the same trigger ID as a puzzle from earlier in the Act, causing both puzzles to be "solved" after completing only one.

Carnival Night Zone

• Act 2
  • (40:50 - 41:00) During the underwater "lights-out" sequence, two sets of balloons are absent in this build. The second set was most likely added to allow Sonic to hit one of them and regain horizontal control after being locked out of it after performing a Spindash (which funnily enough happens in this very tape!).
  • (42:29) There is a breakable wall next to the button where a set of ceiling spikes is in the final game. This was most likely changed as using Super Sonic and a well-timed jump, the player could jump over the button, burst through the wall with Super Sonic, and avoid turning the lights back on.
  • (43:57) Near the end of the Act, there is a Starpost that was moved further back in the final game (it is placed at around 43:50 in the final game).

IceCap Zone

• Act 1
  • (45:46) The screen does not shake when Sonic crashes into the wall at the end of the snowboard sequence.
  • (45:49) After the snowboard sequence, a stack of breakable ice blocks was added to the cave's entrance in the final game.
  • (45:49) In this build, there are only two crushing columns in the cave's entrance. A third one was later added after the second one.
• Act 2
  • (53:23) After defeating the boss, the snow does not stop falling like in the final game, causing the capsule to flicker during the Act results due to the large number of sprites on screen.
  • (53:39) The snow that Sonic rolls through in the transition cutscene makes a rumbling sound (CD in the Sound Test). In both the November 3rd prototype and the final game, the snow is silent.

Launch Base Zone

• Act 1
  • (56:27) One of the Orbinauts in one of the spinning tube rooms is placed closer to the end of the room than in the final game.
  • (57:00) Near the end of the Act, there is a flamethrower present where a Ring monitor is in the final game.
• Act 2
  • (1:02:05) After beating Ball Shooter, the timer stops, just like it does in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Unlike S3&K however, the timer remains stopped until the end of the game. Sonic 3 alone "fixes" this by simply leaving the timer on during the cutscene.

Credits

• (1:06:48) In the "Senior Programmers" section of the credits, Takahiro Hamano is in place of Hiroshi Nikaidoh with the name also properly centered.

(Source: Hidden Palace)

November 3rd, 1993 Proto	Late Prototype	Pre-Final Tape Build

Late Prototype	Final

The intro went through three variations after the November 3rd prototype; In the first picture, Sonic's sprites have been finalized, but Knuckles still wears green socks, clashing with the HUD palette (due to both using the same palette), which has also finalized. The camera is less centered than later builds. It's also a little hard to make out, but it appears that Sonic's Super palettes remain unaltered from 1103.

The second pic has Sonic and Knuckles' final palettes, lack of HUD and is more centered on Sonic, but swapped the purple and blue Chaos Emeralds so they could be better seen in front of the waterfall. The left boundary for this stage is also nearly final but is at X position $1300 in this build.

The third picture is exactly the same as the second except that the left boundary for the stage is now in it's final position at X position $1308.