What Could Have Been / Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Brenda Ross' mockup of the cut Sand Shower Zone.

Thanks to a large amount of Executive Meddling and time constraints, there is so much of What Could Have Been in Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

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Examples:

• The original plot synopsis was to have Sonic and Tails to chase Dr. Eggman throughout the first game's setting, South Island, as they travelled through time. A map of the island would be displayed between levels, and would change depending on the time period the characters were in; the details changed over the course of the game's development, but always involved Sonic and Tails travelling to the past, and later going to a "ruined" era in which Eggman had taken over the island, polluted the water, and practically wiped out all plant life; many of the levels in the released version of the game were designed with this concept in mind, with Oil Ocean, Casino Night, and Chemical Plant being part of that destroyed time period, and Hill Top taking place in the past. Time travel was also used for Sonic the Hedgehog CD, developed simultaneously, and was executed differently than what was planned for Sonic 2 but included a similar form of polluted, mechanized era as its Bad Future. ^How?Unlike CD, where the player would time travel within the zones themselves and thus change how they look visually, in 2, each time period had its own set of zones, tackled linearly, though some Zones would be counterparts of each other or visited more than once. At the end of each time period, a “warp point” would be used to travel to another time period.
• Originally about twice as many zones were planned, only to be cut down to 11:
  • The most famous of all is Hidden Palace Zone, which was one of the first stages developed and one of the last cut. Its intended BGM (track #10), incomplete layout, and part of its graphics remain in the final game unused. According to Yuji Naka, the stage would've been entered by collecting all the Chaos Emeralds which is where Sonic would be given his Super form. The concept was revived in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, where Hidden Palace Zone was accessible through giant rainbow rings (in addition to being the 11th zone) and allowed players to get Hyper Sonic.
    • And before that, Hidden Palace was going to be a cutscene-only area called "Hidden Shrine" or "Secret Palace" from where Sonic would be able to time travel. Remnants of this can be seen in the original demo version of its song having an ending (the unused in-game version loops properly), which initially led to confusion among fans as to whether or not the track was actually intended for the level.
    • Nearly two decades later, Hidden Palace would be realized in the iOS/Android port by Taxman and Stealth — albeit with a different layout and music, the connections to the Chaos Emeralds and Super Sonic absent, and the zone instead being accessed through what was originally the infamous spike trap in Mystic Cave act 2.
  • Wood/Secret Jungle was a heavily forested area, with an extremely incomplete version being playable in two of the leaked prototypes. Interestingly, design documents place it in the same location in South Island as Jungle Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog (8-bit), suggesting they're counterparts.
  • Ocean Wind would've been a coastal area with huge rock structures that Sonic could presumably run on. Design documents place it in roughly the same location as Bridge Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog (8-bit).
  • Tropical Sun/Tropical Plant, a tropical area similar to Angel Island Zone in Sonic 3.
  • Sand Shower (often thought to be called Dust Hill until the release of a "Pre-Beta" disconfirmed it) was a extremely yellow desert and cacti-filled zone that managed to appear in a mockup screenshot.
  • Another stage called simply "Winter" would reuse the same tiles as Sand Shower, but changed to blue and Christmas trees in place of cacti. Its Concept Art would later inspire IceCap Zone in Sonic 3.
  • Rock World is referenced multiple times in concept art. Going by its placement on the map, it's speculated to be the winter level.
  • According to its name, Blue Lake (later known as Blue Ocean) was an underwater level with caverns. Humorously its intended slot ($06) was overwritten with Wing Fortress in the final. It might have inspired Aqua Lake or Hydrocity.
  • Act 3 of Metropolis Zone was intended for another stage called Cyber City, or Genocide City in some prototypes as the partially Japanese staff apparently didn't know what genocide meant. Though its placement in betas has no data, the concept art depicts it as a pinball-like techno maze. It would have had 3 acts and would be the last zone visited before Neo Death Egg. It took place in the taken-over-by-Eggman time period, and each of its acts were set in the areas of the map where three grounded Death Eggs served as cities. Graphics and elements of Cyber City would be reused in Sonic Spinball's level "The Machine".
  • Emerald Isle has concept art available and looks extremely similar to Aquatic Ruin; it's possible Emerald Isle evolved into Aquatic Ruin, or that it would have reused its graphics (similar to Emerald Hill's tiles being reused for Hill Top).
  • Madness Mountain would've been a dungeon or castle on a mountain.
  • Death Egg would've had two full acts, but was cut down to a single Boss-Only Level in the final. It would also have been a mid-game zone, with the final full zone being called Neo Death Egg (believed to be an upgraded version of the Death Egg from the future).
    • According to character designer Judy Totoya, the Mecha Sonic boss fight was originally much more elaborate, as it was intended to be a mid-boss for the full Death Egg Zone, but its moveset was cut down once the zone was reduced to its final state. Totoya lamented that this made Mecha Sonic a bit less memorable compared to Metal Sonic.
  • Early design documents also state that the game would have concluded in a "Last Battle in Space", suggesting the final boss would have been an Astral Finale along the lines of The Doomsday Zone.
• Early versions of Sonic 2 featured different sprites for Sonic which looked a lot closer to the original.
• The Nick Arcade prototype had a Scrappy Mechanic where running into walls fast enough would cause Sonic to bump off. Considering this is a Sonic game, this was obviously removed. Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) has a similar "feature".
• In early prototypes, Emerald Hill was originally titled Green Hill (tying into the fact the game was originally set in South Island), Wing Fortress was Sky Fortress, Aquatic Ruin was Neo Green Hill, and Mystic Cave was called Dust Hill. Development quotes and design documents suggest the latter was originally conceived as a dark version of Green Hill reminiscent of a haunted house, possibly explaining its early name and somewhat-unfitting carnival-like music in the final version.
• Earlier versions of Casino Night had a completely different theme, being pink/blue instead of golden.
• The Simon Wai build has very different takes on the game's music, with most of them matching up with Masato Nakamura's demo versions (especially Casino Night).
• In Beta 4 and 5, the Wing Fortress boss was capable of destroying the spike platforms, which respawn after three seconds. Clearly someone thought this was a Scrappy Mechanic and it was removed in Beta 6.
• Tails originally had one tail and Skintone Sclerae. In addition, Sega of America attempted to change his real name to Miles Monotail but was opposed by the devs.
• One of the planned sidekicks for Sonic was a turtle named Boomer. Boomer's shell could have protected him from enemy fire and Sonic could have rode it across spikes and lava, but if Boomer were flipped on his back, he would be vulnerable to enemy fire and have to have Sonic flip him back up.
• According to Craig Stitt, there were plans to invoke New Work, Recycled Graphics with a pitch known as "Segapede" later known as "Astropede". His idea would have involved a robotic centipede named "Zipp" who was stated to be one of Eggman's creations turned rogue (later seen in Sonic Adventure with E-102 Gamma and Sonic Heroes with both E-123 Omega and Neo Metal Sonic). Of the stages seen in the pitch, one of them reuses graphics from the Hidden Palace Zone.
• Before Masato Nakamura and Dreams Come True came back to do the game’s soundtrack, Sega of America originally had their own soundtrack planned for the game, however Sonic Team rejected it entirely due to hating the tracks sent to them.
• Some prototypes feature an unused spring monitor. It is unknown what it was to do as no effects had been coded for the monitor, though its icon looks incredibly similar to the spring power-up found in Sonic Chaos.
• Early prototypes featured a Scrappy Mechanic in which if the Tails AI gets hit by something, he would cause the player to lose rings without doing anything. It's unknown if this was deliberate or a result of Tails' character code being copied from Sonic's.
• At one point, Super Sonic was going to glow in seven colors. This visual was brought back in Sonic 3 & Knuckles and given to Hyper Sonic to distinguish him from Super Sonic.
• The Tornado was originally supposed to transform into something more resembling a rocket ship when heading into space after Wing Fortress Zone. They couldn't implement the animation, so they settled on just adding a jet booster to the original sprite. The idea of a transforming plane would eventually be realized with the Tornado 2 in Sonic Adventure.

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