September 14th, 1992

This is a sub-page of Proto:Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis).

Level DifferencesLevels are looking like the final game now.

Attract Mode/Level Select#

Nick Arcade to August 21, 1992	September 14, 1992 to Beta 4	Beta 5

This is the first known title screen to have the menu present, while everything else is identical to earlier builds. This title screen is famous for appearing in non-Japanese manuals.

• Demos still use their Nick Arcade inputs, which remains the same for all prototypes.
• Demos will load the title card of the stage it is playing the demo of, causing the font to glitch out.
• The Level Select still uses the Sonic 1 setup. Hidden Palace can no longer be entered, with Wood and Genocide City being absent as well as the second Act of Death Egg.
• It's no longer possible to play levels in 2P mode from Level Select.

General Differences#

• The Sega screen has been changed to its final design.
• Spikes will still damage Sonic/Tails while they're in the brief invulnerability state after being hurt, just like in Sonic 1.
• Super Sonic is close to completion, with all of his abilities being present. However, the ring drain still has not been implemented. The question mark monitor can still be placed in debug mode.
• Tails' AI has been worked on and is now similar to the final game's, except that he can still destroy monitors on his own.
• Debug's rules now match the final game, although Tails can still automatically be brought to Sonic's location by entering and exiting.
• The unlimited time limit from previous builds is now disabled.
• The game now uses the final version's serial number instead of the same one as the REV01 build of Sonic 1 like the previous builds.
  • As Sonic & Knuckles cannot successfully apply the patch used to unlock Knuckles in Sonic 2 to any of the prototypes with the final version's serial number, the game fails to load and resets every second when locking on with Sonic & Knuckles.

Graphical Differences#

• Checkpoints still use their old art, which were later changed in the CENSOR build due to the signpost permanently overwriting its graphics.
• Crawl uses an updated version of its old art, now having more shading and better colors, along with being a bit shorter. The tiles for the sand/snow debris have been removed. Crawl is still stationary as well.

Nick Arcade to August 21	September 14

Sound Differences#

• Starting with this build, the background music is almost identical to the final version. The only exception is Green Hill Zone's 2 player music, which is lacking the bells in the right speaker due to using incorrect panning settings.

• Music is still played slower on European consoles.
• While all sound effects have been added, most of them are not used yet.

Unused Objects#

Object ID	Graphic	Name	Description
4C		BBat	Not used because of HPZ's removal, and behaves like it does in previous prototypes. Would be removed in Beta 5, as well as all of the other Nick Arcade leftover badniks.
4D		Stego (Stegway)	Also not used because of HPZ's removal, however this badnik was never placed. It slowly moves back and forth, and when Sonic approaches it, it activates its thrusters and charges at Sonic like the (removed) snail badnik.
4F		Redz	An unused badnik added in this build! Just kidding, it's leftover from Hidden Palace Zone.
50		Aquis	This page or section needs more videos. There's a whole lotta words or pictures here, but not enough videos. Please fix this. Specifically: Get footage of its behavior. from Oil Ocean Zone behaves somewhat like it does in the Nick Arcade prototype, however unlike Octus it hasn't been placed in the object layout. Moves in a simple path, left to right and back again. The movement range is 16×(lower four bytes of subtype) pixels wide. After 256×(upper four bytes of subtype) frames worth of time has passed, it will strangely start flying upwards. After a while, it will come back down. :* If the upper four bytes of the subtype are 00, the timer is set to FFFF, effectively preventing it from flying.
AE		Clucker	Despite being added in the last prototype, it's not placed in Sky Fortress. However, the previous object slot contains the Clucker's base, and has been placed into the object layout.
B7		SFZ Turbine Fire	Behaves the same as the final, however it doesn't play any sound effects when it fires. Appears after the used platform in the debug list, the two would be switched around for some reason.
BE		Retracting Platform	Is fully functional, just hasn't been placed yet.
D9		SFZ Hangable Bar	Is fully functional, just hasn't been placed yet.