Prerelease:Knuckles' Chaotix

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Knuckles' Chaotix.

As the pitch for Sonic Crackers was accepted, it was decided that development would shift over to the upcoming 32X and would instead star Knuckles the Echidna, along with new characters like Espio the Chameleon and Vector the Crocodile, the latter of which was originally created and intended to appear in the original Sonic the Hedgehog, but was cut somewhat early into development.

While Chaotix didn't go through many drastic changes to its design and gameplay during development, there were still some semi-major changes, some of which could be seen in previews shown in gaming magazines of the time.

Sonic Crackers Concept Art

To do: Does anyone know where that first concept art image is from?

Sonic can be seen doing a wall jump, several places that never made it into Chaotix or even Crackers, and what looks like concept art of Techno Tower on the top right of the page.

Sonic holding a ring in a similar stance to Mighty's.

Looks to be a modified version of the Sonic and Tails boxart from Sonic 2, though with far less shading.

SuperJuegos Issue 33

Prerelease	Final

Early on, the game was known as "Knuckles' Ringstar" and had a very crude title screen almost devoid of shading and a background. Noticeably, a Greek symbol can be seen in the magazine scan (β, which stand for "beta"). Whether the symbol is an actual part of the title screen or was something added in by the magazine is currently unknown.

Prerelease	1207 Proto

The character select screen is similar to the one seen in the 1207 prototype. However, Mighty the Armadillo is known as "Nat" here, presumably his original name.

Also, Heavy is listed as "Heavy the Mechanic", rather than "Heavy the Eggman's Mechanic" as it would in the 1207 build.

Marina Madness is listed in the article as "Marina Museum". Given that the 1207 prototype contains the alternate name "Marina Drive" in places, it suggests that there was a lot of renaming going on at this point.

Hobby Consolas Issue 45

Appears to be the same build covered by SuperJuegos, as evidenced by identical differences referred to in text.

• The game is alternately referred to as "Chaotix", "Knuckles' Ringstar", and "Chaotix: Knuckles' Ringstar".
• The article text still refers to Mighty as "Nat". All other character names are essentially finalized.
• The title card seen on the first page refers to the game as "Knuckles' Ring Star". Also, based on the spacing and letter shapes, the level name would appear to be "Amazing Area" rather than "Amazing Arena". The 1207 prototype used the name "Amazing Zone" in some places.

TodoSega Issue #23

To do: Get a proper translation rather than a machine-based one.

Seems to be using a different build, or at the very least broke an information embargo. The pages themselves don't seem to have any noticeable differences, but the article text reveals that the build used by TodoSega had a playable Tails!

Running through Google Translate...

Coprotagonized (co-starring) by a new and extensive list of characters, this cartridge will come with the only premise to amuse and break the gameplay of the weak Sonic saga. Remember that this series was based on such simple pillars as time and rings. The only purpose of the game was to collect as many rings as possible in the least amount of time, without forgetting to avoid enemies. This gave rise to a series that offered four titles to the most players and fans of the Sonic clan: Sonic I, II and III, and << Sonic & Knuckles >>. The latter character is now in charge of becoming a star for the 32-bit Sega machine, MD 32X, in a cartridge with a similar game layout.

As we said before, the cartridge will offer almost 8 new characters, from a bee and a crocodile to an armadillo or a chameleon, going through two very rare types, not to mention Knuckles and Tails. Another novelty is the inclusion of a second character that will help the protagonist more directly. The rest focuses on the cheerful and colorful design of the scenes, as well as sound effects and music at the height of 32 bits. End of February is the date chosen by Sega for the launch.