SEGASonic Bros. finally got dumped! - And It's already playable on MAME

[Solister]

You probably already have heard the history of this game, so I don't know what say more. An article was just published on Sonic Stadium showing a gameplay of it.

[links removed - please do not distribute dumped ROMs of games, even if they're just old prototypes at this point. Thanks!]

Edited December 5, 2018 by Sean

[Sean]

We do not condone ROM distribution on the forum, so please refrain from posting links or directions where to find the game.

[E-122-Psi]

It's amazing that the Sonic 3 special stages were actually a shout out to this game. The BGM is even pretty much a direct rip from one of its tunes.

 

 

 

[Mr Loopone]

It's not officially in MAME so at the moment, it is considered leaked and might affect preserving stuff in the future. At least it is good that the game is preserved even though I can see why Sega cancelled the game with the graphics looking rough at spots and gameplay that isn't clearly explained despite having a tutorial.

As mentioned in the article, Sonic 3 Blue Sphere theme was actually composed for this game and has a variation that was meant to have a different intro. Not only that but one of the songs (Sound Test 83) was also later used in Chou Kyuukai Miracle Nine as the Final Results theme. So at least we know by the latter that Naofumi Hataya worked on the music and is one of the composers, possibly also Milpo as well who most likely programmed the sound engine too. Probably wanted some of the music to be into good use.

[Tornado]

I know it's probably kind of early-ish in development, but Sega already had two similar-ish (at least on the surface level) games in arcades anyway that were even on the same hardware and this seems kind of convoluted as well. It is interesting that they kept trying to make Sonic themed Tetris-looking puzzlers and that some of the music was reused, but I definitely get why they didn't bother with it in the end.

[Multikaris]

I hope that this means we now have more of a chance of seeing stuff like Sonic Generations (PSP), the original Sonic 1 prototype, Synergy, etc. come to light. The Sonic preservation community is awesome and fascinating. Interesting to see how some of the music was Re-used. Coincidentally, ToeJam and Earl are also red and yellow. 

[Your Vest Friend]

Gotta bump for Vector in SegaSonic Bros. Unused sprites of all the band members. 

[Multikaris]

2 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

Gotta bump for Vector in SegaSonic Bros. Unused sprites of all the band members. 

Apparently he might have been meant to be purple, given that the sheet notes that he had a purple color instead of the ligjter green originally. 

 

Someone on Retro also suggested that Sega might have canned this due to Sonic having recolored siblings. Sega didn’t go hard on this until 2013, but the mandate probably existed internally beforehand.

[Your Vest Friend]

I've just realised something @Pengi; this would explain why the later Vector and "Max artwork sprang up around the time the early Mighty and Ray Ohshima drawings did. They were all being batted around as potential characters to show up on the arcade side. 

It also suggests to me that there may still be missing pieces of a puzzle I don't even know yet. 

[DabigRG]

On 12/5/2018 at 3:26 PM, E-122-Psi said:

It's amazing that the Sonic 3 special stages were actually a shout out to this game. The BGM is even pretty much a direct rip from one of its tunes.

 

 

 

 

11 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

Gotta bump for Vector in SegaSonic Bros. Unused sprites of all the band members. 

 

11 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

Apparently he might have been meant to be purple, given that the sheet notes that he had a purple color instead of the ligjter green originally. 

 

Someone on Retro also suggested that Sega might have canned this due to Sonic having recolored siblings. Sega didn’t go hard on this until 2013, but the mandate probably existed internally beforehand.

Holy crap, SEGA were pretty adamant about not just throwing everything away throughout development back then, eh?

On 12/14/2018 at 1:45 AM, Miragnarok said:

I hope that this means we now have more of a chance of seeing stuff like Sonic Generations (PSP), the original Sonic 1 prototype, Synergy, etc. come to light. The Sonic preservation community is awesome and fascinating. Interesting to see how some of the music was Re-used. Coincidentally, ToeJam and Earl are also red and yellow. 

There was gonna be a PSP version of Generations?

[Multikaris]

27 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

 

 

Holy crap, SEGA were pretty adamant about not just throwing everything away throughout development back then, eh?

There was gonna be a PSP version of Generations?

https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=36780

[Pengi]

21 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

I've just realised something @Pengi; this would explain why the later Vector and "Max artwork sprang up around the time the early Mighty and Ray Ohshima drawings did. They were all being batted around as potential characters to show up on the arcade side. 

It also suggests to me that there may still be missing pieces of a puzzle I don't even know yet. 

I doubt there's any connection. SegaSonic Bros. was super early in the series' lifespan (the ROM header is dated November 1991). All of the background art is derived from Sonic 1. Vector, Mach, Max and Sharps were Sonic 1 characters, so it makes sense that they'd play a role in SegaSonic Bros. But then they got dropped from Sonic 1, and in turn got dropped from SegaSonic Bros. as well.

[Your Vest Friend]

Yeah, but they still had a presence on the arcade side by being here. Even if it was some side material dropped to the wayside that Ohshima revisited when asked to give a hand to SSH. I mean, SSH only entered design phase a year later. 

I'm not saying they were seriously considered for SSH, just that there's now a reason why they'd appear in the same concept batch.