Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic 2 European box Sonic 2 European box
Developer(s)	Sonic Team Sega Technical Institute
Publisher(s)	Sega
Designer(s)	Judy Toyota (character design), Hirokazu Yasuhara (game planner), Yuji Naka (lead programmer)
Platform(s)	Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega Saturn (as part of Sonic Jam), , Windows (as part of Sega Smash Pack 2, Real Arcade, and Sonic Mega Collection Plus), Nintendo GameCube (as part of Sonic Mega Collection), Xbox and PlayStation 2 (as part of Sonic Mega Collection Plus and Sega Genesis Collection), PlayStation Portable (as part of Sega Genesis Collection), Virtual Console, Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade)
Release	November 21, 1992 November 24, 1992 November 24 1992
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Sonic the Hedgehog 2, or simply Sonic 2, is a platform game developed by Sonic Team in collaboration with Sega Technical Institute, and published by Sega for the Mega Drive/Genesis. It is the sequel to Sonic the Hedgehog, and was originally released in November of 1992. The game introduces Miles "Tails" Prower for the first time as a playable character. On June 11 2007, this game was made available on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console, as well as announced for Xbox Live Arcade on July 12 2007.

Storyline

File:Sonic2.png

Sonic 2 title screen

At the end of Sonic the Hedgehog, Dr. Robotnik's Scrap Brain facility was destroyed, but the evil doctor narrowly escaped.

Now Robotnik is back and plans to conquer the world once more. He secretly follows Sonic's biplane, the Tornado, to his vacation spot, Westside Island. According to legend, an ancient civilization once abused the power of seven "power stones" on Westside Island. Sonic meets a peculiar two-tailed fox named Miles Prower, better known as "Tails". The two become good friends. Meanwhile, Robotnik begins his search for the Chaos Emeralds to fuel his new Death Egg warship. One afternoon, he launches his full-scale attack on the island. He imprisons all of the animals of the island and turns them into mindless worker drones. Fortunately, Sonic is determined to thwart the Doctor at all costs. This time, he isn't alone, as Tails decides to aid him. Together they must locate the Emeralds before Robotnik does, and stop him before the Death Egg is complete.

Gameplay

Single player

Aquatic Ruin Zone

The gameplay of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 builds upon the basic set-up of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game. The player finishes each level, generally moving from left to right, within a time limit of ten minutes. Along the way, rings are collected and robots (known as "Badniks") are defeated. Star posts serve as checkpoints, where if the player were to lose a life then he or she would return to one. When the player has collected at least 50 rings, Star posts can be run past for an optional Special Stage. At the end of Act 2, Sonic confronts Dr. Robotnik.

Although zones have grown significantly in size since Sonic the Hedgehog, they now consist of two acts instead of three (with the exception of the Metropolis Zone, which has three acts, and the three final zones, which each have one), and there is greater emphasis on variety between levels. The gameplay has also become even faster; to that end, Sonic is able to perform a new special move referred to as the Spin Dash Attack. The Spin Dash attack allows Sonic to spin in place, as if revving an engine, before taking off at high speeds from a stationary start.

Special Stages track Sonic from behind while he runs through a (semi-) three-dimensional half-pipe course filled with rings and bombs. A set amount of rings must be collected to pass through three checkpoints and eventually obtain the emerald itself. The order of stages is fixed in rising difficulty, and Sonic cannot enter the next stage without passing the previous (unlike Sonic 1). Whether the player is able to obtain the emerald or not, Sonic is transported back to the last Star post he hit in the zone when the special stage is over and has zero rings.

From the options menu, players can select to either play as Sonic alone, Tails alone or Sonic and Tails. By default, players control Sonic while Tails tags along unhindered. However, a second player may control Tails separately. Should Tails move off-screen, he will eventually return.

Obtaining all seven Chaos Emeralds by clearing all of the special stages will unlock a new feature; Sonic's ability to change into Super Sonic. Sonic changes into his Super alter-ego when he has collected at least 50 rings and jumps into the air. At this point, he glows yellow and is virtually invincible, although he can still get killed by drowning, getting crushed, falling off the screen, or running out of time. His speed, acceleration, and jump height are all increased as well. This means that it is much more difficult to control Sonic in this form, especially when the player needs to make precise jumps. However, his Spin Dash Attack is decreased in effectiveness as the initial velocity is decreased speedily. Super Sonic consumes one ring per second, and when he has no rings left or he reaches the end of the act, he reverts to his normal state. There was a bug with this feature in the first two versions of the game - when the player reverted back to "normal" Sonic after passing the signpost or pressing the switch on the capsule, if they jumped again (with 50 rings or more) before the "Sonic has Passed Act #" screen appears, they would briefly transform into Super Sonic but almost instantly revert back to "normal" Sonic and they would be stuck in midair, usually walking or running on the spot. They would not be able to move and the Act would not end

Two player

In two player versus mode, players compete against each other - either as Tails or Sonic - in a split-screen race through three regular zones and one special stage. Regular zones include Emerald Hill, Casino Night and Mystic Cave and have different music from their one player counterparts, while the Special Stage is similar to the Emerald Stage in single player. In the regular levels, players are ranked in five areas (score, time, rings held at the end of the level, total rings collected, and number of item boxes broken), with the player scoring highest in the most levels winning the round, while in the Special Stage, players compete to obtain the most rings. Once one player finishes, the other player must finish the zone within 60 seconds or lose a life.

In case of a tie, an additional Special Stage round must be completed. Also, to heighten the stakes, there are two unique items in versus-mode: a teleport item that instantly switches positions between players in a zone, and a Robotnik item that damages the unlucky player. Furthermore, an optional setting allows that all item boxes in two-player mode are only teleports.

Development and release

While Sonic the Hedgehog was designed by Sonic Team in Japan, development duties for Sonic 2 were handed over to Sega Technical Institute in the United States. However experienced Japanese Sega members such as Yuji Naka and Hirokazu Yasuhara (the first game's lead programmer and game planner respectively) were brought in to work alongside the American developers.

Prototype versions

File:Sonic2 HiddenPalace.png

Hidden Palace Zone, as seen in the prototype version of Sonic 2.

A prototype of the game, dating from before Sonic 2 itself, was discovered on a Chinese GeoCities site and has been widely distributed on the Internet as Sonic 2 Beta. Only four levels can be played in "normal" gameplay; the rest (including several incomplete stages) have to be accessed through the level select code. First zone 'Emerald Hill' was named 'Green Hill' like in Sonic The Hedgehog (1991), the 'Aquatic Ruin' was named 'Neo Green Hill'. Also there was zones 'Winter Hill' with modified 'Marble Zone' music from Sonic The Hedgehog (1991) 'Dust Hill' and 'Wood Zone'. Many zones are not entirely playable, but can be explored using the debug code. The prototype is frequently examined by hackers to determine how Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was developed. It was recently stated in an interview with Yuji Naka that a prototype cartridge was stolen from a toy show in New York in 1992. Akinori Nishiyama has also stated that the leak was due to the lack of security at the time.

In Asia and Brazil, the prototype version was put on cartridges and passed off as the final version by pirates who have altered it slightly to stop the Sega logo from showing when the game boots up, as was common practice.

A prototype version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was featured in some episodes of Nick Arcade.

On November 7, 2006 an older prototype was dumped.

Releases

The game was released in Japan for the Sega Mega Drive on November 21 1992. The Sega Genesis release in the United States and the European Mega Drive release came three days later on November 24, a Tuesday, and the release day was dubbed "Sonic 2s day". Sega claims that they sold 400,000 copies of Sonic 2 in the first five days after release. It has since been re-released as part of the following compilations:

• Sonic Compilation (1995, Sega Mega Drive, Europe) and Sonic Classics 3-in-1 (1997, Sega Genesis, North America)
• Sonic Jam (1997, Sega Saturn)
• Sega Smash Pack 2 (2000, Windows PC).
• Real Arcade (Windows PC).
• Sonic Mega Collection (2002, Nintendo GameCube)
• Sonic Mega Collection Plus (2004, PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox).
• Sonic Mega Collection Plus (2006, PC).
• Sega Genesis Collection (November 7, 2006, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable).

The game was also released for the Wii's Virtual Console on June 11 2007, and will be available on the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade.

Sonic 2 with Sonic & Knuckles

File:Knuckles in Sonic 2 title screen.png

Knuckles in Sonic 2 title screen

Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a game activated by locking Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to the passthrough cartridge of Sonic & Knuckles that was released later by Sega. The resulting game is almost identical to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, except that one plays as Knuckles the Echidna. As Knuckles has abilities and weaknesses that Sonic and Tails do not, the game is an overall different experience. Knuckles can glide and climb walls, which allows him to access areas otherwise unreachable by Sonic and Tails, while his weaker jumping abilities make some situations, such as certain boss fights, more difficult. The two-player mode and options screen have also been removed. Players who are most familiar with the level layouts in Sonic 2 will notice a few minor differences. Unlike in the default game, when a player activates a star-post and enters the special stage, the ring count remains upon returning to the regular stage.

Although some fans believe that Sonic 2 was created with foreknowledge that such an add-on device would be made later, this is incorrect. The Sonic & Knuckles cartridge basically patches new data into the Sonic 2 ROM, and as many hackers have proven, no previous knowledge of such a patch is required for it to be implemented.

Credits

• Chief Programmer: Yuji Naka (YU2)
• Game Planner: Hirokazu Yasuhara (Carol Yas)
• Character Design and Chief Artist: Yasushi Yamaguchi (Judy Totoya)
• Zone Artists: Phenix Rie, Brenda Ross, Craig Stitt, Tom Payne, Jina Ishiwatari, Yasushi Yamaguchi
• Special Stage Art and CG: Tim Skelly, Peter Morawiec
• Object Placement: Yukata Sugano, Hirokazu Yasuhara, Takahiro Anto
• Music Composer: Masato Nakamura of Dreams Come True
• Sound Programmer: Tomoyuki Shimada

References

• An interview with Sonic 2 designer Brenda Ross
• An interview with Sonic 2 designer Craig Stitt
• An interview with Sonic 2 designer Peter Morawiec
• An interview with Sonic 2 designer Tim Skelly

External links

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 at MobyGames
• Sonic 2 at IMDb
• Sonic The Hedgehog Database Includes interviews with some of the Sonic 2 staff.
• Concept sketches drawn during the design phase
• Secrets of Sonic Team's Sonic 2 page
• Sonic CulT's Sonic the Hedgehog 2 article