The GHZ Forum

…for I have finally acquired the Jam! Released in 1997, the Sonic Jam strategy guide is often regarded as a Sonic bible among Japanese fans. It’s not hard to see why, as each page is bursting with information series, with much of it being written directly by Sonic Team.

Obviously, being a strategy guide, most of the content is of the ‘how to play’ variety. It does, however, seem to impart a generous amount of the story and behind
-the-scenes style information that is a trademark feature of official Sonic Team publications.

Translations of the following scans (even just the gist), would be most appreciated.

From Sonic Team
Sonic Team appear to have written a brief paragraph about every zone. For the moment, I’ve only scanned a random selection, as I suspect that they only provide gameplay information. If they offer anything interesting, I’ll capture the full set.
Green Hill
Emerald Hill
Mystic Cave
Oil Ocean
Angel Island
Lava Reef
Lava Reef
Hidden Palace/Sky Sanctuary

Endings
Translations of these (even just gist-translations) would be handy so we can have the definitive interpretation of the closing cut-scenes.
Sonic 1 (Could this explain those ‘mysterious’ flowers?)
Sonic 2
Sonic & Knuckles
Sonic & Knuckles (Clearer capture of side box 1)
Sonic & Knuckles (Clearer capture of side box 2)
(The Sonic 3 one simply states that story will be continued).

Another Player
This provides intros and conclusions to the Tails and Knuckles games in Sonic & Knuckles (The stiff spine made it difficult to scan neatly). Most of it is gameplay information although the ending sections appear to be story releated.
page 1
page 2

Zone Intro
Again, I’ve only scanned a random selection of these for the same reasons as the ‘From Sonic Team’ boxes. Interestingly, the Lava Reef Zone and Hidden Palace ones reference the Emeralds.
Lava Reef
Hidden Palace/Sky Sanctuary Emerald Hill
Aquatic Ruin
Hydrocity
Marble Zone

Super Emeralds
A little intro is given about these enigmatic gems, although I suspect it is probably only gameplay information.
Scan

Other interesting things:
-Sonic’s moves are written in English and are named ‘spin jump’, ‘rolling’, ‘spin dash’, ‘W Spin Attack’ and ‘Special Attack’ (The last one refers to a shield move).
-The big rings are named ‘special rings’ (written in English).
-The three part Mary Garnet story (which Hari Hari scanned previously) is presented as a prologue to the series.
-Tails is referred to as Miles through out.

I’m a bit pressed for time, so I’ll scan the rest of the information, which includes previously unseen concept art, as soon as I have my next free moment.

Incidentally, I’m currently trying to arrange for this guide to be available to all GHZ members. If you are interesting in buying it, please post in this thread stating your location and maximum price. Refrain from making insincere requests, as it will hamper the chances of obtaining other guides.

Argh. I hate kanji.

I figured I'd take a shot at Hidden Palace/Sky Sanctuary for the hell of it. I own a pretty good kanji dictionary, but I have no idea what the large combinations mean (for those who don't know, kanji are the big, complex, frightening, Chinese-like characters in Japanese), so I don't know how much of this I got right.

1st sentence:
"One cannot enter this place because Knuckles stands in the way." I'm pretty sure about this translation, but there also seems to be some indication of a saint or god that protects the place. It's probably just a reference to Knuckles himself.

2nd sentence:
"Hidden Palace holds the Master Emerald, Sky Sanctuary is in Angel Island’s sky, one can’t enter because of the saint’s boundaries." The first part is obvious, and was all I could gather from the kanji. The second part is definite. The third part seems to bring up the concept of a saint again, like it's establishing borders that outsiders can't pass.

3rd sentence:
"But it’s more, and the Eggman Robo is spreading big." This sentence confused me the most, and I don't think I even came close to the right translation. Ths general gist seems to be that Eggman's robots are somehow threatening the sky.

I have to go to work, so I can't do more than that for now. If you want me to try with another page, I can, but I probably won't be happy with the results.

Make G.Silver do it!

Well, the saint thing can bring some speculation and assumptions--Knuckles comes from a particular bloodline in the ancient echidna civilization where you are born into sainthood and are "christened" since birth to guard the Master Emerald. Another theory is that Knuckles' spirit has lived for centuries and is passed on from guardian to guardian.

The Eggrobo sentence indicates that the Eggrobos are destroying the Sky Sanctuary, what with the laser guns and all, which would contribute to its destruction.

Incidentally, I’m currently trying to arrange for this guide to be available to all GHZ members. If you are interested in buying it, please post in this thread stating your location and maximum price.

I'd pay up to £15 for one. Does it contain maps?

I'm a cheapskate, so...$20-25. My location's made pretty clear in my avatar.

I'm going to Sapporo this summer; I can try and look around for more copies there. No promises, though.

Wow, awesome find I gotta say.

Is there anything special in this guide that isn't present in the Mega Collection guide?

If it has pretty pictures I'll buy one.

Friends
page 1
page 2

Merchandise section
page 1
page 2
page 3
page 4
page 5

Trivia section
page 1
page 2
page 3
page 4

Sonic Team section
Includes previously unseen concept art
page 1
page 2

Regarding questions about the guide: It has no maps. The main attraction of it over the Mega Collection Guide are the ‘From Sonic Team’ comments. It has plenty of ‘pretty pictures’, but you can already find all of them on the internet. As I have scanned all of the exclusive content, the main reason for buying one is for the sentimental value of having a physical copy.

I’ll be passing on the details of interested people to the seller on Monday, so there is still plenty of time to place (or retract) a request. I should point out that the seller isn’t completely sure how many copies he can obtain, so it probably isn’t a good idea to get too excited when posting a request.

If you want me to try with another page, I can, but I probably won't be happy with the results

If you have the time, that would be great. It doesn’t matter if the translation isn’t perfect, as the main objective is to find out about elements that aren’t mentioned in game, such as the Saint of Sky Sanctuary.

^_^

I like the very Japanese backdrop in one of the images in the Sonic Team staff section. I think it would be neat to see that kind of Zone in a Sonic game, considering how the Sonic series broke the mold in terms of where platformers can go..from chemical plants to ruins and even factories and icy summits.

These aren't 100% but I think I got the general idea.

Green Hill Zone
This is the stage that took the designers the longest to get properly arranged, and from the beginning of development the graphics were probably redone 4 or five times. The art and maps for this zone alone took half a year to produce! At the time, we were aware of computer graphics, but we tried to get that look by hand (laugh) -- (Sonic Team, Naka)

Emerald Hill
Visually speaking, through all three games, we always start with an island. At the time, we were developing in San Fransisco, and south of there was a town(?) called Emerald Hill. We were doing a location test at a shopping center there when we saw it, and since it was a Green Hill-like name we thought well, let's use it in the game! (Naka)

Mystic Cave
The feel here is a haunted-house (obakeyashiki), isn't it. But we ended up making a cave stage instead. When making this map, first we had drawn the island, there was a cave, there was a lake, a mountain, a construction site, we were thinking of all these areas. Like Sonic would be here at first, and then he'd go someplace else. That was part of the reason for the cave. (Naka)

*note: I believe he is talking about having a wide variety of stages, and the cave is an example of how diverse they were

Oil Ocean
This stage was made by Tom on the SOA staff, it was amazing what could be made with the MegaDrive at the time. But if the Sonicness of it wasn't coming through, sometimes the artist had a taste for darker color schemes, we would fix up certain pieces of it. (Naka)

*note: it's hard to tell if he's seriously knocking on the SOA staff or how much had to be "fixed" in order to get things to look right. I tried to keep the tone neutral, but...

Angel Island
We started development on "3" with a story in mind, but it turned out we couldn't make it in time without problems. In the end, the game ended up being cut in half (laugh). This stage starts off with a certain impact, as the flame thrower machines set fire to the island and change the color of the stage considerably. (Sonic Team, Izuka)

Lava Reef
This is the last stage a Special Ring appears in. I suppose you noticed that in both acts of this stage, the Death Egg's face appeares. In the act select for Sonic 2 you could see a bit of a scene like this, but this is where you'll see the real thing. (Izuka)

Hidden Palace / Sky Sanctuary
From here on out, it's the holy territory that is forbidden to all but Knuckles. Hidden Palace is where the Master Emerald is stored, and Sky Sanctuary is the sacred precinct in the sky above Angel Island where no one is allowed to enter. I'm degressing, but the scaling of the EggRobos emerging from the center is managed internally by the software. (Izuka)

G.Silver, you're the best.

Hey, on the 4th trivia page, what's the connection between Sonic 3 and Virtua Racing?

Also, this information is good, and I request a second helping.

G.Silver wrote:We started development on "3" with a story in mind, but it turned out we couldn't make it in time without problems. In the end, the game ended up being cut in half (laugh).

I always just thought it was a scam to make more money.

Hey, on the 4th trivia page, what's the connection between Sonic 3 and Virtua Racing?

Apparently they wanted Sonic 3 to make use of the SVP chip, and originally there were early plans for a completely different Sonic 3. But Sega wanted a new Sonic game out before the development of the chip could have been completed, so it was scrapped at the concept stage and they did another 2D Sonic instead. (I am thinking that was probably for the best)

Also in the trivia section, the Sonic 3 bonus stage concept was inspired by the small planet King Kai from Dragon Ball Z lived on. It seems that even when he was working on the games in the US, Naka was having DBZ recorded and sent to him on tape. The "unknown" animation in Sonic Jam was done as a test for 3D backgrounds in 2D animation. Sonic 1's special stage was deliberately inspired by Taito's Cameltry (released on the SNES as "On the Ball"). Iten #11 says something about Tails being a tanuki (maybe his original design?), but the text is too small to read clearly, could I get a better scan?

G.Silver wrote:It seems that even when he was working on the games in the US, Naka was having DBZ recorded and sent to him on tape.

IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW

G.Silver wrote: Emerald Hill
At the time, we were developing in San Fransisco, and south of there was a town(?) called Emerald Hill. We were doing a location test at a shopping center there when we saw it, and since it was a Green Hill-like name we thought well, let's use it in the game! (Naka)

Did the translation actually say it was San Francisco, because if so Naka is wrong, since at that time SOA was stationed in Red Wood City: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q= ... city&meta=

Redwood City is part of the San Francisco urban sprawl, they are all mashed together. The text says SanFran quite specifically, but they might have just said that so Japanese readers would have a better idea where they were. The "town" I mentioned is probably something more like a shopping center, and there are Emerald Hills all over that area of california, apparently.

But do they have rings, posts and doombuggies with drills on the front of them?

Thanks for the translations, G.Silver. I can now see why the guide is valued among Japanese fans.

Also, this information is good, and I request a second helping.

Due to a lack of webspace (and time), I’ll have to post the comment boxes in segments.

I've started working backwards beginning with Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Hydrocity
Marble Garden
Carnival Night
Ice Cap
Launch Base
Mushroom Hill
Flying Battery
Sandopolis
Death Egg

(maybe his original design?), but the text is too small to read clearly, could I get a better scan?

Tails’ Trivia 1
Tails’ Trivia 2

---

Apparently they wanted Sonic 3 to make use of the SVP chip, and originally there were early plans for a completely different Sonic 3.

This must tie-in with the isometric Sonic 3 Yasuhara talked about.

Redwood City

Cool, I was born in Redwood City. I live now down in San Diego, and I know that knowing where I was born will benefit none of you, but I recall a lot of squirrels in Redwood City (never see any squirrels where I currently live).

Where does the Death Egg appear in act 1 of Lava Reef, that's got me confused.

Just keep your eyes peeled on the roof of the cave, and you should see it eventually. You can see it in screenshots here.

I want a Tails yo-yo so bad...

Also, isn't there any Shadow and/ or Rouge underwear? That would really rock!