The GHZ Forum

http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php? ... t&p=805628

^ Azukara on Sonic retro posted some story boards from "SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works". It's a neat book that features concept art from various games from the 16-bit era.

The Sonic items are really interesting, as it looks like they had a whole cast of characters planned for the game. A lot of the ideas seem to have been recycled for the Advance games.

Fascinating. I wonder if we'd ever gotten Tails if Sharps was pretty much already filling his niche. Not that he isn't without his charms, presumably being a Ohshima creation and all.

So it's now confirmed that Sonic was intended to have "shitty friends" since the very first game. Will people stop using that as lazy criticism of the later games now?

Flicky, Picky, Cucky, Rocky and Ricky have always been described as being Sonic's friends, but nobody calls them shitty. They can get away with being flat by being unobtrusive, but when you have a shit character like Jet the Hawk or Marine the Raccoon hogging the camera, people are rightfully going to bitch about it.

Rob-Bert wrote:So it's now confirmed that Sonic was intended to have "shitty friends" since the very first game. Will people stop using that as lazy criticism of the later games now?

I don't see how an idea they obviously thought was a really bad idea and didn't go forward with somehow invalidates the criticism that too many shitty characters were added to later games.

I really like the idea of Sonic being a member of an 80's rock band and inhabiting a wizard of Oz-like world, but it probably would have limited the universe, and maybe Sonic would have became another Ristar. I also like the genesis art direction. The Japanese really didn't see Sonic with as much 'titude as we did and he comes off as adorable. It's too bad Iizuka took the character in a way past cool direction. It was a cool image in Adventure, but I've since grown tired of it.

I have to wonder how they made such a drastic change in such a little amount of time. I mean, they went from pop rockers in Wonderland to imprisoned animals, robots and mad scientists.

This is really cool! Interesting that the Sega logo intro is essentially what we got for Sonic 2, but with the Sonic Band characters.

Even more interesting is that the "Final Boss" concept art is clearly what must have inspired the Master System version's boss (which I always found much grander and more menacing than the Mega Drive's Final Zone). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgAmyhMNJNQ

The ending also implies the game ended in some sort of "Sky Base" - just like the Master System version!

Sonic falling and being caught by a flying buddy was of course re-used for Sonic 2 - and Spinball, S&K, Advance...

I was thinking maybe if we did get the band members in the game, we'd have gotten a Vector-related (roboticized?) boss battle for Labyrinth Zone instead of the timed gauntlet in the final version. I can't think of where Mach and Max would've fit thematically, but that'd still leave two Zones without a respective band mate to presumably rescue. That either means, a), there was more content than anticipated to justify their inclusion or, b), the never really had any relevance to the plot outside waiting for their lead singer to show up.

I dunno.

Dr. BUGMAN wrote:(roboticized?)

Maybe not.