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Final build of Sonic Xtreme found, leaking as we speak
- Thread starter Krejlooc
- Start date
R10Neymarfan
Member
I guess a knowledgeable person with documentation and maybe an sdk could technically compile to Sega Saturn.
Could it be the original Saturn version of Sonic Adventure??
no.
POV came in on the very tail end of the project, so they wouldn't have had access to any of Sonic Team's stuff. They were brought in to assist Ofer. Early on they took his software renderer and tried to abstract it into platform independent calls when Ofer couldn't, but after a few revisions it looks like they gave up and began building their own 3D engine entirely from scratch. This looks like it's the same 3D engine they used in other games they worked on, like Criterion on the Saturn.
It's this hard fork in the development process that goes on 4 months after the last Ofer build. It looks like it became it's own completely different thing from the stuff in hand, but we haven't seen it running or anything.
Ha, yeah, I don't think he ever stopped being the guy to know. When I started looking at the the level DEF stuff, it was exactly then when we started talking, heh.
So, in case anybody isn't paying attention, a ton of early Sonic 1 stuff has leaked too, including early story boards from back when the game was about a singing hedgehog and his band saving madonna.
Including the original Sega logo screen, which not only featured Sonic running past it, but the whole cast.
Including the original Sega logo screen, which not only featured Sonic running past it, but the whole cast.
Links to this?
How does the Sonic fan community know this kind of stuff? Are the people who worked at Sega just really open about everything?
ZedIndyLil
Member
Godspeed, OP. Sounds like you're fulfilling a dream
and having a blast
cast
processing
years and years and years and years of digging.
Shadow Hog
Member
I don't believe there ever really was one. Chris Senn made some placeholder music, all of which has since been released (although the place they were released, via this FAQ, seems to have gone under, you can probably still find it with a bit of digging).
(Do correct me if I'm wrong about this. Xtreme's development is so twisty-and-turny that I can't keep everything quite straight.)
Wasn't it Howard Drossin? As far as I understand nothing that was "final" final was ever procured by the time the plug was finally pulled. Just a lot of production tracks.
As above, correct if wrong etc.
A Black Falcon
Member
PoV were brought in in early '96 it seems (so not "in the very tail end of the project", but instead in the middle of work on the Saturn version), and are the people who made the awful port of Alon's PC-only "levels" engine to the Saturn that Nakayama saw and hated so much that he said that the engine should be abandoned in favor of only Coffin's "bosses" engine... so hearing that they gave up on that in favor of some other engine of their own is quite interesting, but not entirely surprising I guess. It does make me skeptical about how good any of their other work on the game would be either, though...
Also, Criterion for Saturn? What's that? Never heard of it before.
Also, Criterion for Saturn? What's that? Never heard of it before.
Chris Senn has talked about the game quite a bit. As a result, the details of his and Alon's version is out there. PoV's version and Coffin's version, though, have much less out there about them, because they haven't talked extensively, if at all, about the project, much unlike Senn.
Shadow Hog
Member
It totally is. Even says it in the FAQ I linked. I keep getting Howard Drossin and Spencer Nilsen mixed up, even though they did totally different Sonic games (3&K and CD (US), respectively), and I don't know why.
Aaron Strife
Banned
I am Christina Aguilera
Member
For at least a lot of the promo videos, wasn't a lot of the music just lifted directly from the Japanese/European Sonic CD soundtrack? I remember hearing that Chris Senn from the Xtreme project liked the original Sonic CD soundtrack a lot and hoped that they would ultimately shoot for something stylistically similar.
Incidentally, has anyone in this thread mentioned yet about the retail product where the Sonic Xtreme Sonic renders actually wound up?
PetriP-TNT
Member
Hmm weird, didn't you just post about Sonix Xtreme on some vaporware/cancelled projects-topic a some days ago, Krejlooc? Pretty cool
Like this? That's from Sonic Xtreme (one of its many iterations) yes.
It looked like hand animated pixel art, cartoony.
Aaron Strife
Banned
There's this from the Sonic 2 HD project
The animations from Sonic the Screen Saver were also pretty cartoony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4FZWxW0CCU
Whoah where can I find this stuff. Was on retro just yesterday and didn't see any of this. So we are getting Sonic Xtreme, an unknown classic Sonic game, and assets to Sonic 1 have leaked? This is mindblowing.
Azure Dream
Member
You can't just say this stuff and leave without a link. On Retro I'm guessing?
Edit: Yep, Retro. Although they're scans from a book, I'm not sure I'd call that "leaked". Cool as hell, though.
They're from a book, so I can't provide them, but they're fascinating. It's crazy how similar the end of the SMS version of Sonic 1 is to the original story concept, down to the final boss and Sonic singing at the end. They even kept him falling out of the sky.
NeOak
Member
Playing? How? Where?
There's this from the Sonic 2 HD project
The animations from Sonic the Screen Saver were also pretty cartoony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4FZWxW0CCU
Nah it was similar to this, but looked like actual real sprite work intended for a 32 bit platform. Sigh, can't find it.
If it has been realized, I imagine it would have been a hit.
I'm a little confused why the guy would want people to stop developing with his engine. Seems egotistical.
I'm a little confused why the guy would want people to stop developing with his engine. Seems egotistical.
The FOV on that needs to be changed, but otherwise it looks interesting, too.
Internal politics/developer pride. There have been instances at other publishers/devs where there's pointless internal competition.
Oh wow, that Sonic 1 stuff. What that game was planned as and what it released as feel like completely different products. Even prototype builds wouldn't have revealed any of that. No wonder the series has never been able to find its footing, if it was struggling so much to pin down an identity before it even released.
No one's ever dug up any assets from early Sonic Adventure 2, have they? That's another game that's always seemed like it had a significant shift in direction mid-development.
No one's ever dug up any assets from early Sonic Adventure 2, have they? That's another game that's always seemed like it had a significant shift in direction mid-development.
That mindset at sega generally changed after that, though. I think there are tinges of racism in Yuji Naka's response. Going forward, sega used the ManxTT engine for a wipeout 2097 conversion, and teams started sharing tips. Team Andromeda shared some tech with AM2 at one point, for example. And sonic team would eventually develop the dreamcast SDK concurrently with the development of Sonic Adventure. The Tools Sonic Team used to make Sonic Adventure were the tools that comprised the early Dreamcast SDK.
I do very much assume part of the reason Yuji Naka got so upset with STI using his engine is that he perceived it as an American B-team working with the best tech.
ResidentDante
Member
Man a 32-bit 2D Sonic 4 which took full potential of the Saturn...I would have loved that!
Azure Dream
Member
Well, there's obviously the Black Market, which made it into the GC version and beyond, although some other Chao-related settings may not have made it. There were World Rankings ala Sonic Adventure 1, and a lengthy cutscene involving the President and Secretary. (In fact, the Sonic X anime makes direct references to scenes that we later found out were supposed to be in SA2, so they must have been working with a development script instead of the final draft). Eggman also spelled out their temporary alliance in no uncertain terms, claiming he would use his own power to take over the world. And Super Sonic and Super Shadow were going to be available in 2P Mode, being super-fast but dying if they ran out of rings.
Then there's the less blatant stuff, like seeing Sonic in shots for Sky Rail, lending credence to the rumor that the game was originally just about Sonic, Knuckles and Eggman being playable. But they also tried to keep Shadow and Rouge ("Nails" possibly) a secret for as long as they could, so maybe Sonic was just there since he was compatible with the stage mechanics. There was a branching pathway system to the levels planned, including an "escape the submarine" scenario described, although the branching pathways didn't really appear until Shadow The Hedgehog. Which also referenced the President again, who made specific references to Sonic Adventure 2 (photo scene, although it doesn't make a ton of sense why he has it, unless it was post-Heroes).
Shadow himself has a few little details too, like how he was originally named "Terios", and there might have been fights over this name being used, but I can't locate a source for that. There was also something weird going on with Shadow's eye in the Dark Side Story Preview:
Could just be a rendering bug (you can see through Eggman's neck in the shot right beforehand, I think that's the case in the final game too), but I often wondered if Shadow was supposed to betray more of his "artificial" side.
So, there's a few things.
Cave Johnson
Member
What a nice surprise to find this thread. Following through the first post it was a cavalcade of feelings and emotions of hope; but then following near the end of the thread that the prototype is in due progress! Goddamn, this is the kind of stuff that makes me interested in gaming.
Krejlooc or whoever you are, you have unknowingly opened up a passion nearly lost inside me to the point of actually trying to play games again (I'm currently game exhaustive). But your tenacity and openness brought up feelings of motivation to log in to my games library. I've been an avid follower of sonic but to pull this out from gaming abyss is nothing short of a miracle. I will be awaiting very patiently for the final release!
Krejlooc or whoever you are, you have unknowingly opened up a passion nearly lost inside me to the point of actually trying to play games again (I'm currently game exhaustive). But your tenacity and openness brought up feelings of motivation to log in to my games library. I've been an avid follower of sonic but to pull this out from gaming abyss is nothing short of a miracle. I will be awaiting very patiently for the final release!
The Spoony Hou
Member
Dang, back in the 90s I wanted an NV1 so bad...At least for a while. But then Monster 3D came, and between that and PCGamer calling the NV1 the "first 3D decelerator" I kinda lost interest... But I still wanted those Sega games .
.
ResidentDante
Member
You sure about this? Isn't the Saturn version fairly similar to the PC version; longer draw distance than the PS1 version for example.
Android18a
Member
[/IMG]
I'd be all over a Sonic platformer that looked like this. Maybe a visual aesthetic along the lines of Wario Ware Shake Dimension? That'd be so hot.
Nah it was similar to this, but looked like actual real sprite work intended for a 32 bit platform. Sigh, can't find it.
[/IMG]
That is from a screensaver that came with the PC version of Sonic 3&K.
You're probably thinking about this fan-made gif
RAIDEN1
Member
I think this was one of the rare instance when game development nearly cost a person's life! This was meant to be Saturn's killer app..and its fair to say period between 1993-1998...sega was in free-fall hence projects like Sonic X-treme became one of the "high profile casualties"...by the time Sega finally got itself sort sorted come 1998....it was the beginning of the end...
Sonic Adventure was all things Sonic X-treme wasn't..and that probably wasn't a bad thing at the time...
Sonic Adventure was all things Sonic X-treme wasn't..and that probably wasn't a bad thing at the time...
Nah it was similar to this, but looked like actual real sprite work intended for a 32 bit platform. Sigh, can't find it.
[/IMG]
I've always loved this sprite sheet. It's like a Sonic from the CD/Sonic 3 era with a greater emphasis on expressiveness.
It runs on the Tantlus 'Duck' engine, which was created for ManX TT. House of the Dead runs on the same engine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalus_Media
Shows they helped develop ManX TT, HotD Saturn, and Wipeout 2097.
MrCunningham
Member
That is from a screensaver that came with the PC version of Sonic 3&K.
You're probably thinking about this fan-made gif
That fan made .gif is based on the pencil test animation that is hidden in Sonic CD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNJpTFPiGfs
Oh now I know what you mean, someone shared an image of that over on Sonic Retro. I should really look into purchasing that book. On the site there was a really cool image of a loop that had decorations including the Sun at the top, very interesting.
Wow! This really is amazing.
Just curious as to why this hasn't ever been mentioned or bought up before considering everything else did?
But again, bloody amazing!
The people forthcoming about the old info on sonic xtreme, ofer alon and chris senn, wouldn't have had information on this build.
Surely it couldn't be that hard to do some kind of a sprite swap of that Sonic into the version/platform by Christian Whitehead. Would look nuts (aside from it being higher res than the rest of the game).
lostinblue
Banned
Will we ever know the story behind this leak?
Whose computer was it, why did they have both of those, you know?
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