Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Megadrive)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a side-scrolling platform video game for the Sega Mega Drive\Sega Genesis, sequel to Sonic the Hedgehog.

The video game was released in Japan for the Sega Megadrive on November 21, 1992. The Sega Genesis release in the United States came three days later, on November 24, 1992. The European Megadrive release came later in November 1992. Re-released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2002 as part of the Sonic Mega Collection.

The storyline as the instruction booklet has it: Dr. Robotnik (Dr. Eggman in Japan) has captured all of the animals of the world and it is up to Sonic to free them. However, no ingame plotline exists - it is simply Sonic and/or Tails running through various different zones with no connections between them.

The most noticeable addition to this game is the appearance of Tails, Sonic's sidekick, and a two player competitive mode. It was also possible for Sonic to become Super Sonic, turning his spines yellow and spiky. This is influenced by an ancient Japanese legend, the "Golden Warrior", which influenced both Dragon Ball Z and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Sonic 2 was special in that it was produced at the Sega Technical Institute in the United States. American developers helped with the creation of the game. Two artists in particular stand out - Brenda Ross and Craig Stitt. Peter Morawiec and Tim Skelly did some art for the Special Stages.

Time restrictions and Yuji Naka's hatred for the work the American artists did necessitated dropping some features and levels from the final game. Study by fans of the internals of the game using emulators and a debug mode revealed hidden incomplete levels and unused sounds and graphics.

List of zones:

• Emerald Hill Zone
• Chemical Plant Zone
• Aquatic Ruin Zone
• Casino Night Zone
• Hill Top Zone
• Mystic Cave Zone
• Oil Ocean Zone
• Metropolis Zone
• Sky Chase Zone
• Wing Fortress Zone
• Death Egg Zone

Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a game created by locking "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" to a passthru cartridge that was released by Sega later, called Sonic & Knuckles (this being the only passthru cartridge ever). The resulting game is identical to "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", with the exception that you play as Knuckles the Echidna throughout it. Some fans believe that Sonic 2 was created with foreknowledge that such an add-on device would be added later and that the unfinished levels were somehow connected with this fact, but this is incorrect - the majority of the changes to Sonic 2 are actually contained in a separate upper memory loaded by the Sonic and Knuckles ROM first loaded upon bootup, and the Sonic 2 data is accessed very rarely.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 beta

A widely distributed beta version of the game, Sonic the Hedgehog prototype v1.54, better known as Sonic the Hedgehog 2 beta, has arrays of incomplete zones.

In the beta copy, only 4 levels can be played in "normal" gameplay (though technically this is a prerelease to test some feature and so there is no real level order). The rest have to be accessed through the level select code. Many are not playable, so the debug code is used to explore the acts. Some of the acts are blank, therefore causing Sonic and Tails to fall to their deaths in the act. The widely distributed beta version may have been altered slightly by pirates to stop the SEGA logo from showing when the ROM boots up. The game was put on pirate cartridges in Asia and Brazil and passed on as the final version. The beta is frequently examined by hackers to determine how Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Megadrive was developed.

Zones accessible through normal play in the prototype:

• Neo Green Hill Zone (Aquatic Ruin Zone in the final)
• Chemical Plant Zone
• Hill Top Zone
• Green Hill Zone (Emerald Hill Zone in the final, only zone with a boss - game is rebooted with the SEGA logo after Doctor Eggman is defeated)

Zones accessible only through level select:

• Wood Zone (1st act incomplete, 2nd act empty - both are not in final version)
• Metropolis Zone (incomplete)
• Hidden Palace Zone (incomplete, Beta has graphics and objects - final version has garbled graphics, no enemies, and has the auto spins, but is otherwise the same. It can still be accessed on the final version via cheating devices.)
• Oil Ocean Zone (incomplete)
• Dust Hill Zone (beta name for Mystic Cave Zone)
• Casino Night Zone (incomplete)
• Genocide City Zone (empty, not in final version)
• Death Egg Zone (Empty, shortened to 1 act from 2 in the final version)

A mock-up picture exists which proves that at one stage in development, a desert-like zone complete with cacti was planned in a Sonic 2 prototype before the dumped version. Until recently this zone was believed to be named Dust Hill Zone; however, hacking has proven that this is not the case, and we have nothing to suggest that the level has ever existed in a playable format.