Sonic 2 mobile with Hidden Palace

[Esrever]

For those of you playing on phones, I do really recommend picking up a controller. I have this one... it works great with my Nexus 4. (You can use it with i-devices, too, since Sonic supports the iCADE standard.)

[G.Silver]

I thought the extra scene added to the ending was a nice touch as well and I liked how it linked to Sonic 3.

So I had to see this for myself (on youtube, anyway) and sought out some footage, and in doing so came across a partial credit roll that includes Mark Cerny's name (as "Programmer")--it even comes up before Yuji Naka's! At that moment the banal LP switches away so I wasn't able to tell if any other names had been added, but it's a really surprising change. There's no doubt that Cerny had a significant role in Sonic 2's history, but changing the credits 20 years later seems like a big deal! Why was he left out before, and why was he added back in? (That is, whose will is Christian Whitehead representing when he makes this change? Cerny's? Sega's? His own?)

[big_smile]

For those of you playing on phones, I do really recommend picking up a controller. I have this one... it works great with my Nexus 4. (You can use it with i-devices, too, since Sonic supports the iCADE standard.)

There's actually quite a few Android apps that let you use a Wiimote (and other Bluetooth controllers) with a phone.

[Neo]

So I had to see this for myself (on youtube, anyway) and sought out some footage, and in doing so came across a partial credit roll that includes Mark Cerny's name (as "Programmer")--it even comes up before Yuji Naka's! At that moment the banal LP switches away so I wasn't able to tell if any other names had been added, but it's a really surprising change. There's no doubt that Cerny had a significant role in Sonic 2's history, but changing the credits 20 years later seems like a big deal! Why was he left out before, and why was he added back in? (That is, whose will is Christian Whitehead representing when he makes this change? Cerny's? Sega's? His own?)

what are you going on about

• Cerny was always in the credits
• The credits are identical to the MD version, save for changing CAST OF CHARACTERS to the more sensible STAFF CREDITS
• You can clearly hear the music cut off through their yells
• Why would you make such speculation off of an extensively edited LP

[G.Silver]

Why would you make such speculation off of an extensively edited LP

Because it was the only credit roll for the iOS version that I could find. That's part of why I posted about it, I was hoping someone could point me to a full one, because wouldn't it be interesting if it turned out there were a whole bunch of people who didn't get credited the first time around? I can hear the cut though, now that you mention it. (I had the volume down when I watched before, it shouldn't be hard to guess why that was :P)

But no, Cerny's not in any credits that I ever saw, not before, anyway:

MobyGames Sonic 2 Credit list
Sonic 2 credits in-game

Was he added back in earlier re-releases? (Like "Revision 02?")

Edit: Ok, here he is at Retro (note the order difference), and I'm certainly not disputing his role in the game's development, but he's clearly not credited in the examples above. Had he left Sega by the time they "finalized" the credits?

[Neo]

That's weird, I was wrong. (That's not the weird part.) Mark Cerny in fact does not appear to be credited at all in the original game. I also checked Knuckles lock-on and it's an exact copy, so no luck there. This is kind of alarming because Cerny was the one who founded the STI and made Sonic 2 possible in the first place, so you would expect him to get at least a General Producer credit or something!

Maybe that's why Stealth/Tax they added him, though I'm not sure in how much capacity he was actually a programmer for the game. As far as I know, Naka only agreed to develop Sonic 2 at STI if he remained fully in charge of the project, and as such Cerny would only generally oversee Naka, who would oversee everyone else.

Having said that, this is not entirely surprising given that Sonic 2's credits were apparently thrown together at the last minute, and are generally inaccurate. See Tim Skelly interview by ICEknight (August 2004) over at the Retro wiki:

I know this will sound peculiar, but Peter Morawiec had nothing to with the Special Stage, or any other Sonic 2 artwork as far as I know, and I was the Art Director. The credits for Object Placement are correct. At least I know I worked with Sugano on that, and of course Yasuhara was involved in all game play. I don't blame anyone in particular for any miscrediting on the game. The credit list popped up at the last minute and was just stuffed in. We were all confused. I don't know who wrote it up.

I'm pretty sure there's no conspiracy going on, just good old incompetence. But thanks for pointing it out either way.

[G.Silver]

The credit list popped up at the last minute and was just stuffed in. We were all confused.

Hah! I guess that would be why it says "cast of characters" when it clearly isn't! Thanks for the link, I'm glad to see the topic had sort of come up before.

though I'm not sure in how much capacity he was actually a programmer for the game.

And that's pretty much why I came at it from the speculative angle. Like it's clear that the in-game credits are confused, but where does Retro (or Taxman) have the ability to be an authority on their one correction? They didn't fix Peter Morawiec's credit and we've actually got a source for that one (not like we'd know who to correct it to). Not saying they're wrong, just saying I wanna see their sources. :)