Prerelease:Sonic Spinball (Genesis)

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Sonic Spinball (Genesis).

Sonic Spinball began its development as a way for Sega to release a Sonic game near Christmas 1993, primarily because of the development issues that had gone on with Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

"Sonic Pinball"

The first sight of Sonic Spinball was at the 1993 Consumer Electronics Show, as an Amiga-made concept video created by the Sega Technical Institute. Other upcoming Sega games were previewed at the show using this style, including Comix Zone and an unreleased game based on the ABC Sonic cartoon.

Lasting for over a minute, the video featured an early version of Toxic Caves with a yellow-green hue and different layout. The music played in this video is not from Sonic Pinball but a music for a demoscene called Sauron, composed by an extremely obscure composer Fleshbrain - it was highly mistaken this as an early Sonic Spinball music.

Prerelease Screenshots

At some point in development, a map cutscene similar to SegaSonic the Hedgehog would have played before each stage.

Sonic's balancing animation was different, with an appearance similar to the "windmill arms" animation found in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3. The level's color scheme appears to be from Lava Powerhouse.

The Teeth bonus stage had a very different appearance in early screenshots;

• Robotnik's head is at the top of the playfield, where the targets normally are.
• Instead of showing points (or snarky comments), the board at the top of the screen showed animations which depicted what was going on.
• Tracks can be seen on the playfield's surface.