History WhatCouldHaveBeen / SonicTheHedgehogCD

* Originally, there was a underground/dungeon zone named "Dubious Depths" (or "Ridicule Root" earlier in development) that would have been in between Palmtree Panic and Collision Chaos that would've had machinery, spike traps and giant fans. However, due to the music data not fitting into the CD-ROM of the game and the zone not matching Sonic's speed, it was cut very early in development with the only traces of the zone left being DummiedOut leftover files discovered when going through the game’s files on a PC (under the name R2, or Round 2), [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/thumb/1/1d/SCDconcept-R2RainbowWaterfalls.jpg/320px-SCDconcept-R2RainbowWaterfalls.jpg early concept art]], [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/d/d0/R2Sprites.png leftover enemy and boss sprites]], its [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/2/23/SCD_R2GIF.gif appearance in the ending sequence]] and its [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA93zsmmvbA present theme]], which would be recycled as the default track in the "D.A Garden" menu in the Japanese/European release (the American release uses an instrumental version of Sonic Boom instead).[[note]]There is a fan theory that "Sonic Stream" and the portion of D.A Garden in "Techno Power Mix" in ''Sonic the Hedgehog Remix'' (an official Japanese-only album consisting of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin remixed]] ''Sonic CD'' tracks) are remixes of [[EarlyDraftTieIn Dubious Depth's supposed good future and bad future themes]], respectively, since "Sonic Stream" features a similar backing to the final D.A Garden track and "Techno Power Mix" is a medley of bad future themes, but this is not officially confirmed.[[/note]]

* Originally, there was a underground/dungeon zone named "Dubious Depths" (or "Ridicule Root" earlier in development) that would have been in between Palmtree Panic and Collision Chaos that would've had machinery, spike traps and giant fans. However, due to the music data not fitting into the CD-ROM of the game and the zone not matching Sonic's speed, it was cut very early in development with the only traces of the zone left being DummiedOut leftover files discovered when going through the game’s files on a PC (under the name R2, or Round 2), [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/thumb/1/1d/SCDconcept-R2RainbowWaterfalls.jpg/320px-SCDconcept-R2RainbowWaterfalls.jpg early concept art]], [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/d/d0/R2Sprites.png leftover enemy and boss sprites]], its [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/2/23/SCD_R2GIF.gif appearance in the ending sequence]] and its [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA93zsmmvbA present theme]], which would be recycled as the default track in the "D.A Garden" menu in the Japanese/European release (the American release uses an instrumental version of Sonic Boom instead).[[note]]There is a fan theory that "Sonic Stream" and the portion of D.A Garden in "Techno Power Mix" in ''Sonic the Hedgehog Remix'' (an official Japanese-only album consisting of [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin remixed]] ''Sonic CD'' tracks) are remixes of [[EarlyDraftTieIn Dubious Depth's supposed Good Future and Bad Future themes]], respectively, since "Sonic Stream" features a similar backing to the final D.A Garden track and "Techno Power Mix" is a medley of bad future themes, but this is not officially confirmed.[[/note]]

* Originally, there was a underground/dungeon zone named "Dubious Depths" (or "Ridicule Root" earlier in development) that would have been in between Palmtree Panic and Collision Chaos that would've had machinery, spike traps and giant fans. However, due to the music data not fitting into the CD-ROM of the game and the zone not matching Sonic's speed, it was cut very early in development with the only traces of the zone left being DummiedOut leftover files discovered when going through the game’s files on a PC (under the name R2, or Round 2), [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/thumb/1/1d/SCDconcept-R2RainbowWaterfalls.jpg/320px-SCDconcept-R2RainbowWaterfalls.jpg early concept art]], [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/d/d0/R2Sprites.png leftover enemy and boss sprites]], its [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/2/23/SCD_R2GIF.gif appearance in the ending sequence]] and its [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA93zsmmvbA present theme]], which would be recycled as the default track in the "D.A Garden" menu in the Japanese/European release (the American release uses an instrumental version of Sonic Boom instead).[[note]]There is a fan theory that "Sonic Stream" and the portion of D.A Garden in "Techno Power Mix" in ''Sonic the Hedgehog Remix'' (an official Japanese-only album consisting of rearranged ''Sonic CD'' tracks) were [[EarlyDraftTieIn taken from supposed Good Future and Bad Future versions of the theme]], respectively, since the former features a similar backing to the final D.A Garden track and Techno Power Mix is a medley of bad future themes, but this is not officially confirmed.[[/note]]

* Originally, there was a underground/dungeon zone named "Dubious Depths" (or "Ridicule Root" earlier in development) that would have been in between Palmtree Panic and Collision Chaos that would've had machinery, spike traps and giant fans. However, due to the music data not fitting into the CD-ROM of the game and the zone not matching Sonic's speed, it was cut very early in development with the only traces of the zone left being DummiedOut leftover files discovered when going through the game’s files on a PC (under the name R2, or Round 2), [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/thumb/1/1d/SCDconcept-R2RainbowWaterfalls.jpg/320px-SCDconcept-R2RainbowWaterfalls.jpg early concept art]], [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/d/d0/R2Sprites.png leftover enemy and boss sprites]], its [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/2/23/SCD_R2GIF.gif appearance in the ending sequence]] and its [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA93zsmmvbA present theme]], which would be recycled as the default track in the "D.A Garden" menu in the Japanese/European release (the American release uses an instrumental version of Sonic Boom instead).[[note]]There is a fan theory that "Sonic Stream" and the remix of D.A Garden in "Techno Power Mix" in ''Sonic the Hedgehog Remix'' (a album consisting of rearranged CD tracks) were taken from supposed Good Future and Bad Future versions of the theme, respectively, since the former features a similar backing to the final D.A Garden track and the latter is part of a medley of bad future themes, but this is not officially confirmed.[[/note]]

* Originally, there was a underground/dungeon zone named "Dubious Depths" (or "Ridicule Root" earlier in development) that would have been in between Palmtree Panic and Collision Chaos that would've had machinery, spike traps and giant fans. However, due to the music data not fitting into the CD-ROM of the game and the zone not matching Sonic's speed, it was cut very early in development with the only traces of the zone left being DummiedOut leftover files discovered when going through the game’s files on a PC (under the name R2, or Round 2), [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/thumb/1/1d/SCDconcept-R2RainbowWaterfalls.jpg/320px-SCDconcept-R2RainbowWaterfalls.jpg early concept art]], [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/d/d0/R2Sprites.png leftover enemy and boss sprites]], its [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/2/23/SCD_R2GIF.gif appearance in the ending sequence]] and its [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA93zsmmvbA present theme]], which would be recycled as the default track in the "D.A Garden" menu in the Japanese/European release (the American release uses an instrumental version of Sonic Boom instead).

* Naoto Ohshima originally wanted the time travelling to be done in real-time, inspired by ''Film/BackToTheFuture''; however, the programming team deemed this impossible and compromised with the Time Warp loading cutscenes in the final game. Ohshima believed that if Yuji Naka, known for his incredible coding skills, were developing ''CD'' instead of ''Sonic 2'' at the time, it could have been possible.

* The music for the past appears to have been planned as CD-quality audio at some point -- an early build featured a CD rendition of Palmtree Panic's past theme, which eventually leaked online. However, the composers eventually decided to play the past music on the Sega CD's internal sound chip to give it a "prehistoric" sound. Contrary to popular belief, this wasn't done due to running out of disc space.

* The music for the Past was originally intended to be CD-quality as well, but Red Book couldn't hold all the music, so it was decided to make the Past tracks standard PCM instead. The CD version of Palmtree Panic Past eventually leaked on [=YouTube=]; it's the only CD-quality track for the Past levels known to exist.

* The UpdatedRerelease was going to have two brand new levels: a ShiftingSandLand inspired by the scrapped Dubious Depths called "Desert Dazzle", and "Final Fever", a new TrueFinalBoss that would've been unlocked if all the Time Stones are collected. However, these zone proposals were [[ExecutiveVeto rejected]] by Creator/SonicTeam, who wanted the port to stay faithful to the original game, resulting in both stages being scrapped. [[http://i.imgur.com/LxkCq.png?3613 A glimpse of Desert Dazzle]] can be seen by entering "32" and "8" into the respective slots on the Sound Test menu (which, incidentally, also unlocks the level select for Tails), while half finished early attempts of the levels can actually be found in the games via hacking. Desert Dazzle later became the basis for Mirage Saloon Zone in ''VideoGame/SonicMania''. Whitehead later released a hypothetical [[http://www.tssznews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Picture-7.png screenshot of Final Fever]] as well as a [[http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=26302&st=2955&p=686737&#entry686737 description of how the level and boss battle would play out:]]

* The UpdatedRerelease was going to have two brand new levels: a ShiftingSandLand inspired by the scrapped Dubious Depths called "Desert Dazzle", and "Final Fever", a new TrueFinalBoss that would've been unlocked if all the Time Stones are collected. However, these zone proposals were rejected by Creator/SonicTeam, who wanted the port to stay faithful to the original game, resulting in both stages being scrapped. [[http://i.imgur.com/LxkCq.png?3613 A glimpse of Desert Dazzle]] can be seen by entering "32" and "8" into the respective slots on the Sound Test menu (which, incidentally, also unlocks the level select for Tails), while half finished early attempts of the levels can actually be found in the games via hacking. Desert Dazzle later became the basis for Mirage Saloon Zone in ''VideoGame/SonicMania''. Whitehead later released a hypothetical [[http://www.tssznews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Picture-7.png screenshot of Final Fever]] as well as a [[http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=26302&st=2955&p=686737&#entry686737 description of how the level and boss battle would play out:]]

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/scdconcept_r2rainbowwaterfalls.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:250:This is a piece of ConceptArt for the scrapped ''Sonic CD'' level Dubious Depths, Ridicule Root, or [[WorkingTitle R2]].]]

[[caption-width-right:250:This is a piece of ConceptArt for the scrapped ''Sonic CD'' level Dubious Depths, Ridicle Root, or [[WorkingTitle R2]].]]

* Originally, there was a underground/ruins zones named "Dubious Depths" (or "Ridicule Root" earlier in development) that would have been in between Palmtree Panic and Collision Chaos that would've had machinery, spike traps and giant fans. However, due to the music data not fitting into the CD-ROM of the game and the zone not matching Sonic's speed, it was cut very early in development with the only traces of the zone left being DummiedOut leftover files discovered when going through the game’s files on a PC (under the name R2, or Round 2), [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/thumb/1/1d/SCDconcept-R2RainbowWaterfalls.jpg/320px-SCDconcept-R2RainbowWaterfalls.jpg early concept art]], [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/d/d0/R2Sprites.png leftover enemy and boss sprites]], its [[http://info.sonicretro.org/images/2/23/SCD_R2GIF.gif appearance in the ending sequence]] and its [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA93zsmmvbA present theme]], which would be recycled as the default track in the "D.A Garden" menu in the Japanese/European release (the American release uses an instrumental version of Sonic Boom instead).

[[caption-width-right:250:This is a piece of concept art for the scrapped ''Sonic CD'' level Dubious Depths, Ridicle Root, or [[WorkingTitle R2]].]]

* On October 26, 2019, a prototype of the game shown off at a Sega World event in 1992 was dumped online. Only Palmtree Panic Zones 1 and 2 are playable, then known as "Salad Plain" (possibly hinting that the rest of the titles would have used food puns rather than {{Alliterative Name}}s). Every other round, including the elusive "Round 2/Dubious Depths" (notably this is the only known prototype to reference the level, meaning it was scrapped very early on), is listed in the Time Attack menu but is not present on the disc. There were two monitors that were cut from the final version: a Blue Ring monitor which basically acts as invincibility (in later builds, it acted like a triple-layered shield) and a Clock monitor that would stop time. Past themes were also seemingly going to use clearer Red Book audio like the Present and Future themes, instead of the Sega CD's own PCM audio chip. Finally, playing with a second controller would spawn a second, playable Sonic.

* Stardust Speedway was supposed to be the final stage of the game, not Metallic Madness. This can be evidenced by the Eggman statue that appears at the beginning of the ending FMV.