Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) Prototype uncovered

[MondoMega]

Considered a holy grail for a long time and it's finally here; streamed by the wonderful folks at Hidden Palace earlier today. Here's a YouTube reupload of the stream VOD:




and a more brief playthrough of the prototype:




The date of the proto hasn't been revealed on stream yet, but I'll update this OP (and request a title change) when that happens. Apparently the ROM header isn't filled in, so we've got no build date. That's unfortunate.

Some notable changes:

• No "SEGA!" chant on start-up; just a Sega logo with no sound effect.
• "PRESS START BUTTON" text still present on title screen.
• Known beta elements like the rolling ball in Green Hill Zone Act 1 and UFOs in the background of Marble Zone are still implemented.
• No bosses besides the Green Hill Zone boss are implemented at this stage.
• Spring Yard Zone and Scrap Brain Zone still use their early names; Sparkling Zone and Clock Work Zone (written as "CLOCK ORK" in-game) respectively.
• Sparkling Zone's background is very different from the final.
• This build is generally unfinished in most areas, but that's to be expected. For example, Labyrinth has no water, so all three acts are broken.

A full list of changes (and there are a lot!) can be found at Hidden Palace's website, though since they are hosting a direct download for the beta I cannot link it here myself.

Screenshots:

 

[Noog]

I remember reading about that a long time ago. It's awesome that we finally get to see it

 

[Tigerfog]

Oh my, the UFOs are moving in Marble Zone. :O
Marble zone is also the 2nd stage, as usual. I thought the order was supposed to be different.

 

[Symphony]

Thanks for linking, I didn't know they had streamed more Sonic prototypes this year. And wow, what a note to end 2020 on, this seems to be THE holy grail Sonic 1 prototype, the one with Marble Garden UFOs, "Ring", the victory jump animation etc.

 

[FormatCompatible]

Oh shiiiiiiiiiii

 

[MarcelloF]

Haha, Barrel of Doom prototype in Marble Zone.

 

[RagnarokX]

Beta Marble Zone is evil

 

[Wireframe]

It's not the 1990 Tokyo Toy Show one - that's the holy grail. This and the S3 proto recently uncovered are probably the next two most sought after though.

 

[Zen_Master]

Ooh I love Sonic prototype stuff. Marble Zone's UFOs look like... Saturn logos?

 

[MondoMega]

I didn't know they had streamed more Sonic prototypes this year.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, they didn't do a full Sonic Month in 2020, but they streamed multiple protos in one stream yesterday; Spinball (PAL proto, not too different from the builds already out there), Mean Bean Machine (barely different from the final, not too notable) and a WIP localisation build for Adventure 2 with some debug features still enabled (the first full, non-demo build of that game). Plus an early animation test for Ristar from well over a year before the game released.

 

[Birdie]

Wait the one they apparently lost?

Edit: oh not the one with the little goblin enemy and the welcome to Green Hill sign?

 

[PyroPaperPlanes]

Marble Zone (act 2) has some additional paths and shortcuts that were seemingly removed from the final game. I wonder why, it makes the level far more interesting than the linear path we got in the end. There's also a spring layout similar to Sonic CD.

Edit: There's also more "waiting on blocks" sections though. Also Sonic has a different jump animation when passing the goal post.

Edit #2: WHOA Spring City Zone looks FAR more dazzling! And the snare is different too.

 

[aerie]

Yo, Sparkling Zone!?

 

[RecRoulette]

SPARKLING ZONE

 

[MondoMega]

Spring Yard Zone looks so different! Or, should I say Sparkling Zone!

Wonder if "Clock Work Zone" is still implemented in this build.

 

[Warszawa]

COPE!

 

[RecRoulette]

gotem

 

[MarcelloF]

Proto Spring Yard/Sparkling is really cool. The Casino aesthetic feels much more apparent. Very Vegasy.

 

[chezzymann]

loool the "cope" sign

 

[RagnarokX]

Weird how the background has signs written in Korean and Arabic?

 

[PyroPaperPlanes]

It seems you get a 1up for every 50 rings, instead of 100.

The level order is different now. It's gone Spring Yard Zone (Sparkling Zone) to... Star Light Zone.

 

[RecRoulette]

LMAO, Prototype Star Light fucking sucks.

 

[Birdie]

loool the "cope" sign

Click to shrink...

That's in the final though?

 

[MarcelloF]

I've never loved Starlight Zone, but this is hell lol

 

[MondoMega]

Only one act of Sparkling Zone and then straight to Star Light? Wonder if Labyrinth is still coming up.

 

[PyroPaperPlanes]

LMAO, Prototype Star Light fucking sucks.

Click to shrink...

As a commenter joked, this level was made by Dimps lol. Bottomless pits everywhere.

Edit: Now we're onto Labyrinth Zone (via Level Select). Clock Work Zone is the only other zone that hasn't been touched yet.

Edit #2: Labyrinth Zone clearly looks incomplete. There's no water or enemies.

 

[MondoMega]

Level select time. Clock Work Zone is there! That Labyrinth background is also different, right? Or is that just the lack of water messing with me.

 

[aerie]

Looks like Scrap Brain was called Clock Work

 

[RagnarokX]

That's in the final though?

Click to shrink...

And in Mania

 

[Ricker]

Doesnt feel as fast looking at it now hehe...still,classic.

 

[Anth0ny]

HOLY SHIT

HOLY SHIT

CAN IT BE

THE HOLIEST OF HOLY GRAILS

:O :O :O

 

[Sixfortyfive]

FUCK.

Need to get home and watch ASAP.

 

[Deleted member 23212]

Are they going to post a VOD on YT afterwards?

 

[RecRoulette]

Water coming soon

As a commenter joked, this level was made by Dimps lol. Bottomless pits everywhere.

Click to shrink...

 

[out_of_touch]

Is rolling ball GHZ here?

 

[PyroPaperPlanes]

Labyrinth Zone also has no goalpost and the level cannot be complete without using Debug mode to reach certain platforms.

 

[Birdie]

And in Mania

Click to shrink...

I don't know though what they meant by that...I'm guessing since you also see CPU, maybe it was a mistranslated "COMP"?

 

[MondoMega]

Is rolling ball GHZ here?

Click to shrink...

Yep, the rolling ball was in Act 1.

 

[PyroPaperPlanes]

It looks like they were experimenting with the endless slopes in Labyrinth Zone, act 3 (similar to that of Ice Cap Zone in Sonic 3).

Edit: It might also be a side effect of playing in Debug mode.

 

[RagnarokX]

It looks like they were experimenting with the endless slopes in Labyrinth Zone, act 3 (similar to that of Ice Cap Zone in Sonic 3).

Click to shrink...

You mean like the final version of Labyrinth Zone Act 3?

 

[PyroPaperPlanes]

You mean like the final version of Labyrinth Zone Act 3?

Click to shrink...

I guess it's been a while since I played the original Sonic. ^^;

 

[andymcc]

this is really incredible. i remember staring at pre-release photos of the game when i was a kid and it's strange to see it actually moving lol

 

[out_of_touch]

Yep, the rolling ball was in Act 1.

Click to shrink...

HOLY SHIT!

 

[andymcc]

the "sparkling zone" here reminds me of china town in Revenge of Shinobi

 

[Virtua Sanus]

I was hoping this would be even earlier. The game is relatively refined with this build, which is probably why we saw so much of these assets in magazines and such decades ago. I was thinking we might at least see the early swimming and goggles concepts but no water is in this.

Not to downplay this being out there at all, but I am still holding out hope that we see really early stuff with different character sprites, physics and overall much different art direction some day. My kingdom for a build with Madonna in it.

 

[MondoMega]

YES!

CLOCK ORK ZONE!

They still hadn't fixed the W not printing properly in this build I guess.

 

[ODD]

Oh boy, I want to see that.

 

[MondoMega]

Splats were a Marble Zone enemy?!

Guess Whitehead got that one wrong; he put them in Green Hill in his remaster.

 

[PyroPaperPlanes]

There's a night time palette for Green Hill Zone. Not sure why but there it is.

 

[MondoMega]

A night time palette for Green Hill? Weird. Wonder if this is something like the Night Mode in Sonic 2 and 3.