Jump to: Curiousity #01 Curiousity #01 Updated: 05/16/01, 8:01 AM EST Subject: Sonic Adventure 2: The Trial Sonic Adventure 2 was a unique Sonic game; one of the first to have a widely distributed demo version, especially for personal ownership of gamers (barring the Sega Channel, and even then, that wasn't keepable). While they made sure to refine the stage pretty well before releasing it to lower the number of changes, even without the final version, as of this writing, we know of several alterations/additions. So here are a few of the changes and strange things you'll find in City Escape in the SA2 trial. At the beginning of the stage, once you regain control of Sonic, sans board (and out of the hedge area you're supposed to leap over if you were fiddling with the controls), you go up a small group of stairs, and are faced with a split route. The right side is guarded by a GUN mecha (your first one, in fact), and after defeating it, leads to a gray, immobile box. It won't budge, no idea why it's there. However, if you jump over to the other side of the box and take a look, you'll see a small red triangle sticking out. "What the heck?" you may say. It seems Sonic Team has a button here, and rather than remove it from the trial, they instead covered it up... oooook... Spindash here... ...to activate a trail of rings... no... as Blaze put it, GLITCHY rings. ^_^ Sure, you can grab them, and they're not gonna crash the game or anything, but you know that "twinkle" when they appear? It doesn't go away, I took this screenshot several seconds after they appeared. ^_^ The trail is obviously for the SA2-equivalent of the Light Speed Dash. See that? If you've just let the game take you straight down the building, it might look new, so when you play next time, jump when you've gotten around the loop and pull Sonic toward the screen and to your right, you'll see it on the building beside you. It's not a texture trick, it's a polygonal hole. The question begged is "Why?". The discussed answer is that, much like SA, the characters can play the same stage, but different sections, and another character (most likely Shadow) plays City Escape, but his route differs, and he rejoins Sonic's route after exiting the building through that hole. A new addition to SA2, much like the ledge pull-up (which was possibly planned for SA1, but more on that later), after the long fall, Sonic does a "lands, then gets up" animation. Makes sense if you fell off a fifty story building to at least be jostled a little when you land. Thankfully, no N64-style "fall damage" still. (I just hope Tails and Eggman's mechas don't worry about that, they DO have energy bars...) Often overlooked, this object's right by where you land if you jump off the building instead of run down (and hit the springs), off to Sonic's left. It's most likely how you access the Chao Garden in the final version, but it's obviously not finished, they haven't even finished translating the line yet. ^_^ And I'm sure you understand if I even suggested I was thinking about making a Zero Wing joke here, that I'd be severely beaten. And then minorly beaten. And then severely beaten again. Another line of rings for LSD- er... Light Speed Dashing, although they didn't even hide this one. These shots illustrate two things that changed from the promo videos; the truck is now MUCH smaller than it used to be (and, as a result, leaves the ground more often now), and the truck now has headlights on (during the day... for some reason other than showing off...) (Shot courtesy of IGNDreamcast.) One of several shots of the original promo videos, with Sonic leaping up and doing tricks... in the middle of the street... without any ramps... wait, what button does that again? *looks at his DC pad* Ah! Don't hit those speed bumpers! After the truck rams into the arch, you don't HAVE to keep going, you can stop yourself if you avoid the speed boosters, especially the second set. The truck is blocked by an invisible wall, so you can just taunt it a lot. ^_^ Until the driver rolls down the window and throws a brick at you. This PSO poster, actually one of the largest in the game (especially this close to the ground), is during the scene when you're running away from the truck, and also recessed, which usually makes it nearly impossible to see as you go by. There's logic for you... Annnnd of course you can pull a Station Square, looking at the great blue yonder you're not supposed to see. ^_^ It's rumored that the trial level actually stops prematurely, and you reach a "branching" point instead of the Goal ring. There is a "roll under" cage on each side, but ye olde invisible wall keeps you from getting there. In the second shot, there's an animal located in this box, a bit awkward to reach if you have to go past the goal to get it, it'd be skipped pretty often by accident... City_escape.gif (5k) A file found directly on the SA2 disc (albeit under the GDROM file system) in BMP format. It's most likely a map either for illustrative purposes for developers, or used ingame to keep track of the various "rooms" of the level. Or maybe they all got really drunk one day and one decided to get "artistic". That's all on the SA2 trial for now, but there will be more, it's rumored there are a few interesting developer hangovers tucked away... -Kulock Last Updated: 5/16/01