Prototype Sonic

[Kristin Klodzinski]

Irecently got a box of Sega prototypes from some guy on an old website. We messaged each other for a while, probably a few days and well we settled on a price. This box of prototypes cost me 1390 not including postage and import.

The last prototype in the box was labeled Sonic Prototype 23-02-01. I was excited for this, to see a sonic prototype game is a dream come true. It was the holy grail of this box. It was a pc disc that had been really looked after well, it looked almost new but I can confirm it is an official Sega disc, the Sega logo was imprinted on the disc and had what you would want on a prototype disc.

So I placed the disc in to my DVD drive on my computer and had a look at the files. There was a folder called Sonic_Cover and inside was a file sharing the same name. There was a sonic logo with what I assumed was Japanese text underneath. I did some research and discovered that it translates to Power Ring. Sonic Power Ring? I also researched it and found nothing. So I decided to run the disc and try to play the test. There was a menu with music from one of the old sonic games although the audio was a bit low quality for some reason. The menu was blue coloured and had just a sonic logo and a bit of Japanese text which turned out to be Level Select.

The first level seemed to be just a 3D version of green hill using the original Green Hill theme but again it was kinda low quality, kind of sounded like it was poorly recorded. So sonic's controls were kinda limited, he could run, jump, turn, slide, spin and that's about it. There was no enemies except for one enemy near the end of the level that had missing textures. Running around the level I started collecting rings, there were only a few rings and as soon as I got the last one, I was chucked back to the menu.

This level seemed to be nothing but just beaches, this level had no music whatsoever and there was no enemies or rings. After around 5 minutes of playing on the level, a weird kinda of ringing noise suddenly started playing and then suddenly some corrupted sounding music was fazing in and out. Sonic's model also appeared to be glitching, his arms get going the wrong way, his leg animations were messed up and his head kept randomly bobbing and sometimes rotating. He randomly died a couple minutes later. I assumed it was just some kinda of glitch, the game was unfinished after all. The level restarted and for some reason his physics stopped working, you could jump and he would float into the sky. which was actually not as high as you would think, the level had a roof that wasn't has high as I thought it was. There was no music this time but a slight ringing sound whenever I got close to a ring or whenever I collected a ring. I realised that sonic had no sound effects or voice sounds, probably because as I said before, unfinished game. I collected the rings which let of a glitchy loud corrupted sound for each ring I collected. After collecting all the rings, I was sent back to the menu once again.

Level 3 was different, it seemed to take place in a forest. When the character spawned in, it wasn't sonic this time but tails. Tails? I thought. Using tails was about the same as sonic, the only difference being that he was able to hover and go as high as you want...well until you reach the roof that is. There was a couple of textureless enemies that started attacking. As soon as I got hit, the game crashed. I reloaded the game and went back to Level 3 and this time I avoided the enemies, There was a high pitch ringing coming from the rings, there was also a weird and completely messed up bit of audio playing, sounded like an out of tune green hill zone theme but was hard to make out due to the corruption, it also sounded like the angel island theme was mixed in with it too. I got towards the end of the level where I saw a low poly eggman model, interacting with it does nothing, but there was a weird sound effect playing where eggman was standing, sound like weeping but glitched. I had collected all the rings but this time I wasn't taken back to the menu, I had to reach the end of the level which was just a foot metres away. I got to a square that had Japanese text on it, I interacted with it and it spawned a bunch of glitchy sonics, all of which had completely messed up sounds, that almost sounded like moaning. A big massive ring had spawned near eggman too, so I interacted with it and was sent back to the menu.

I noticed another level had appeared on the menu labeled as error. I clicked on it anyway and was taken to what looked like a gray box. The entire level was just a gray textureless box with nothing to do, I did however realise that sonic was standing with tails, both of them low poly. A lowpoly eggman model spawned in and the gray coloured box turned a deep red. Tails suddenly despawned and a textureless enemie spawned in his place. An extremely messed up Green Hill Zone theme started playing, It was so corrupted that is almost lagged the game, the audio then changed to static. Eggman's model started glitching out as well as sonic's model. There was a loud beep and the screen went black. The game had crashed.

I relaunched the game and was met with only one level. The level was labled as error, just like the previous map. I clicked on it and was taken to what looked like a very realistic street. The street seemed to be based on Japanese streets. There were vending machines and Japanese text on the signs. There was a road that Sonic could walk/run on. I ran through the street which was especially eerie due there not being audio. The further I ran and got to a house that looked like it had burned down, I wasn't able to interact with it so I continued on, I got a bunch of rings along the way and was getting close to the end of the level, I saw a big yet low poly eggman standing at the end of the level. As I approached him, a static sound turned into corrupted green hill music and would get louder and louder. I got semi close to eggman and the game went completely black. I thought it had crashed but I was suddenly at the menu, this time with no levels to select and eggman just staring at the screen. There was nothing else I could do, so I clicked on eggman and was met with a test level that was just a bunch of models T-posing. A loud piece of audio that was inaudible suddenly started playing, it was corrupted to shit. The game decided to crash. I relauched it one final time and the menu screen was just corruption with messed up loud audio that sound like static mixed with green hill but out of tune.

I relaunched the game about 4 more times and was met with nothing but corruption, I checked the folder on the disc again to see if anything had changed. There was no change at all. In the end I took the disc out and placed it back into the box. The box has been in my cellar ever since.

This build reveals a game that was originally tuned more for traditional platforming and exploration rather than for speed, which would eventually become the hallmark of the Sonic series. It also features a plethora of interesting content that was previously only seen in grainy magazine screenshots and raw gameplay footage, like the rolling checkered boulder in Green Hill Zone, the UFOs in Marble Zone, and Spring Yard Zone when it was still called "Sparkling Zone". Also, Splats the Bunny!

Long considered a holy grail by the Sonic community, a Sonic 1 prototype was sought after for nearly thirty years. This hunt and scarcity was in part due to the game being the first foray of the Blue Blur, and in part because publicity for the game was actually quite subdued, at least compared to Sega's later efforts.

During the time before this build surfaced, prototypes of all the other 16-bit Sonic games were discovered, dumped, and shared with the public. Along the way, there were also a few ROM hacks created as attempted guesses to what such a prototype would look and play like (including the historical Sonic 1 Beta Hoax, one of the first ROM hacks ever created back in May 1999).

It wasn't until late 2020 that an individual by the name of Buckaroo found a cartridge containing this prototype, and released its contents through Hidden Palace (on New Year's Day) for gamers to enjoy. According to drx, this build was originally sent to an unspecified UK video game magazine in early 1991 for their pre-release coverage.

Normally, only eight stages are playable without the Level Select. In order: Green Hill Acts 1-3, Marble Acts 1-3, Sparkling Act 1, and Star Light Act 1. This disproves the long-held theory, based on the level select of the original "REV00" US release (which also happens to match this build, different Zone names notwithstanding), that the level order was rearranged late in development.

Zone ID 06, which is used in the final game for the ending, hasn't been implemented yet. Trying to access it by modifying the current Zone/Act address will lead to "ZONE ACT. 1" briefly appearing onscreen, followed by the game softlocking because no level data exists for this level slot.

However, the "Act 4" stage ID (03) is also functioning, to varying degrees. Most other levels either contain nothing or an object layout from the first Act of that stage. Notably, Green Hill's "Act 4" slot contains a complete (yet buggy) duplicate of Act 3, heavily implying it was once considered for the ending cutscene before being moved to its own level slot.

If the Special Stage layout is edited to remove objects, the player can go out of bounds. Notably, the out-of-bounds garbage data differs from not only the final's out-of-bounds area but also this prerelease screenshot that also looks very much out-of-bounds. It is also extremely prone to crashing often.

The prototype doesn't yet have its own ROM header and instead contains basic template information, with no game name and having a date stamp of 1989.JAN, implying that this build was somehow compiled before development had even begun. A reasonable estimation, based on visual cross-checking against UK prerelease coverage of Sonic, places this prototype around February/March 1991.

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