It works on a Mega Drive – a real one, that is. ^_^ It isn’t half strange, but I’ve come to some conclusions about the whole thing… First off, I’m only half inclined to believe that this may be Wood Zone music. Half of me just says that it is merely a Casino Night Zone tune, possibly a beta version of the music? Unless it’s just a screwed up version of the tune and means nothing… ^^
How did I come to that conclusion? Well, Roareye and myself conducted a few ‘tests’ on the code. we played the code VG offered us and sure enough, there was the tune, playing ever so quietly. We decided to take this further and alter the code a tad. The code VG gave us was
9CLA – 9TA1
So, we decided to go for
0CLA – 9TA1
See a pattern? 
Anyway, we played the sound test, and guess what? The weirdest thing… it played the same music as the last code, only differently. I mean that by the intro before the loud screwy sound (before the whole thing went quiet in the last code, that VG gave us) was a lot more polished off. It actually sounded Sonic 2-y rather than a load of bips and blops at the start. And the screwy sound before it all went quiet? It was replaced by a fire-y sound effect. Interesting…
After altering the code for an hour or so, we found out that the same two types of quality versions of the tune was playing, in a pattern. Use 7 at the start for example, and it would have the same effect as the code VG gave us. Replace it with an 8, and what we experienced was there instead. Replace it with a 9 and it was back to VG’s. Put 0 and it was back to our one. The thing is, with the more refined intro tune, after the fire sound effect, the middle of the tune (the bit after it) was worse than VG’s middle bit, but the intro on VG’s one was worse than our refined one.
If you’ve not been confused yet, I’ll continue. We decided to mix the best, most finished of the two versions together in two lines of code. We ended up putting this:
CCLA – 9TA1
DDLA – 9TA1
As I expected, both tunes were mixed together, with the better intro and the better middle together. One reason I was led to believe it was Casino Night beta was merely because it was playing off of Song #9 in Sound Test, a poor arsed excuse. I tried doing the Level Select, and going into Casino Night Act 1. Sure enough, the weird music played in the level, which raised my belief even more. Also, if you listen closely, you can hear parts of Casino Night Zone similarities, with the tune even trying to break its way through the weird tune if you listen for long enough.
Despite all that though, it still sounded jungle-y, like VG said. So, a few radical fantasy suggestions this time – either it is Casino Night Beta, or it would have been Wood Zone, but at the last minute it was replaced by Casino Night Zone. That was my radical suggestion.
Another one we came up with was the weird Fire sound effect at the start. Since Hidden Palace was locked away in the cart, and was going to be in Sonic 2, maybe Angel Island was to be included too. As you know, Angel Island had a ton of Fire near the end of act 1, but this sounds a bit far fetched because even in Angel Island there wasn’t any fire sound effects in the actual soundtrack. Unless Sonic Team decided to put it in the soundtrack while making Sonic 2, who knows? But this one does sound a bit likely, as Sonic 1 never had Knuckles palette in there, and Sega tried to fob us off with the travelator excuse. In Sonic 2, however, there was, which is why Knuckles was playable in Sonic 2 & Knuckles. Therefore, Knuckles COULD have been playable as early as Sonic 2, along with Hidden Palace Zone and the Master Emerald’s existence.
Ideas, guys?
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