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Introduction
This page is a collection of intriguing, mysterious and downright goofy infromation about the (official) Sonic the Hedgehog line of games. It deals with everything from Sonic the Hedgehog on the Master System to Sonic Adventure on SEGA Dreamcast.
It's basically an archive of weird STH data the author has collected since 1998, when Andre Alex Dirk had shown the world his interesting Sonic 2 cartridge. Most of the info here is exclusive unless it was "borrowed" by others. Meaning there is stuff here you won't find anywhere else!
The original authors of the finding have been listed where I myself am not the author.
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Sonic CD Lost Level

The Intro:

What is R2?

The so-called Round 2 is a missing Sonic CD level discovered via the hole in the game's file system, along with other evidence pointing towards it. Unlike Sonic 2's Hidden Palace and Dust Hill zones, there are no actual screenshots of this stage. It has been commonly named Round 2, as its name is as of yet unknown. There are suggestions for the supposed name, the strongest being Rusty Ruin (a level found in Sonic 3D Blast), but I'll get to that later on.

The ways this level was discovered:

#1:

The PC version of Sonic CD uses directories to represent each of the game's levels. It works like this: R1 : Palmtree Panic
R3 : Collision Chaos
R4 : Tidal Tempest
R5 : Quartz Quadrant
R6 : Wacky Workbench
R7 : Stardust Speedway
R8 : Metallic Madness
If you've played any version of Sonic CD, you'd know that Collision Chaos is the second level, following immediately after Palmtree Panic. Palmtree Panic is located in a directory called R1; however, despite the order the levels are listed in, Collision Chaos is marked R3! Which means that the game skips checking for any respectable R2 directory, suggesting a R2 level that the game has been told to avoid. The actual level number 2 has been replaced by Collision Chaos, orginally concieved to be number 3.

#2:

There is no way I can show a screenshot of this, but the level select in any version has been told to skip level numbered with 2. Which means; holding up/down in the level select changes onscreen numbers, giving you a level. It's messed up, though, since pressing up (Down? It's been awhile since I last cheated in Sonic CD... :P) when you have numbers 1-3-D (the very last act of Palmtree Panic), brings you directly to 3-1-A (the very first act of Collision Chaos), skipping R2 entirely.

#3:

Does it really matter it's a BETA?

This is the level select screen from Sonic CD (CD Sonic) Beta ver. 510. Notice how R1 goes immediately onto R3, whilst R2 is nowhere to be found? Also note that this is an early Beta version of the game, and the level had already been scrapped at the time.

So far that's the only solid information we have about the zone. The rest is pure speculation - so read further with that in mind. :P

The Looks

#1:

The Desert

Little Planet

This is the loading pic of Sonic CD, representing the game's world. Most of the areas fit the game's levels:

The blue mountain (and the stuff around it): Palmtree Panic
The weird green bush thingie with square blocks near the water: Collision Chaos
The volcanoes/river: Tidal Tempest
The crystal island and the hive-shaped mountains: Quartz Quadrant
The big metallic building in the middle of the ocean: Wacky Workbench
The giant Eggman building and the stuff around it: Stardust Speedway
The vast metalic city: Metalic Madness
The yellow building: Final Boss, speculated to be the second scrapped level (R9) called Final Fever
There is a portion of the world map left with no level assigned to it; it's the desert with the giant saguaro (Cereus sp.) and several smaller Opuntia genus cacti. Could this be a leftover form the times when R2 still existed and was planned to be put into the game? It's certanly a bit too big to act solely as 'a filler', besides, the saguaro's appearance changes in Good or Bad versions of the world map:

Little PlanetLittle Planet

With R2 as a missing level, the name Dust Hill on reported level lists and the unused cacti area, this one ties together just a little too easily. It's not quite that simple, though...

#2:

The Ruin
...and this is why. We have more evidence that the R2 used to be a ruin level similar to Sonic the Hedgehog's Marble, Sonic 3's Marble Garden and Sonic 3D Blast's Rusty Ruin, than we have considering Round 2 = Desert relations.

Sonic...who runs through a ruin.Sonic...who is about to get eaten by a monster...in color! ^_^
These emerge Sonic Jam and are from an early version of Sonic CD's animated ending. They show Sonic running through a ruin-like level, hopping over some collapsing floor panels and outsmarting a level enemy that seems similar to Sonic 2 GameGear's Under Ground Zone boss (the mechanic antlion). The entire movie shows footage of Sonic running through all the game's levels, and this one comes right into place of Round 2 (after Palmtree Panic and before Collision Chaos). Also, the footage of this level has been removed from the final version of Sonic CD, suggesting it in fact was a scrapped level they don't want you to see.

(Footage remained partially in the Pencil Test, but it doesn't show the level, just Sonic running through it and escaping the antlion:
Sonic...who is about to get eaten by a monster!)

Sonic 3D Blast holds a similar level, called Rusty Ruin, which is in fact the second level of the game. Even more, Traveller's Tales, the group that made Sonic 3D Blast, tends to re-use old sketches of previous games (*cough* Crash *cough*), upon which they base their own products. The list of Sonic 3D levels and how they tie up to various Sonic CD footage:
Green Grove: This one's easy. Sonic, running through a tropical bayside resort. Palmtree Panic.
Rusty Ruin: Suspicously close to R2 footage; also, the second level...
Spring Stadium: A no-brainer...the footage of Collison Chaos in the Sonic Jam movie doesn't quite match the actual CCZ; it's similar to Spring Stadium, tho'.
Diamond Dust: Quartz Quadrant. Makes sense after you look at the Sonic Jam movie version of QQZ...all it shows are a couple of crystals, which CAN be found in Diamond Dust.
Volcano Valley: The volcanoes. Tidal Tempest. After all, making a 3/4 perspective water level in Sonic 3D would have been tough as heck.
Gene Gadget: Wacky Workbench. See the movie to spot the resemblance I mean.
Panic Puppet: My favorite! ;P Look at the giant Eggman statue in Act 2 and then tell me it doesn't resemble Stardust Speedway!
The Diamond Dust and Volcano Valley levels are out of level order, giving sceptics something to yell about. However, in the Saturn and PC versions, the order matches with Sonic CD levels! ^_^

In case I haven't stressed this enough, the above, especially the Sonic 3D - Sonic CD thing is speculation. Don't take it for granted, but you are allowed to let it make you think. :)

The Music:

Er...right. What we have here is an itriguing piece of information; it tells us that the 'Lost Level' music is still used in Sonic CD (well, at least in the original, PAL Mega CD versions of the game. The track named "Little Planet" is, accoring to reliable sources, never used in the game, aside for some weird testing screens (no, unlike the USA's "Sonic Boom" it's NOT used in Time Attack and Visual modes). That's not the sole thing...this track is obviously 'ruinish' and similar to the music from Sonic 3D Blast's Rusty Ruin. Since EmuZone doesn't allow mp3s, I can't put the music up, but hopefully I'll have a MIDI rendition up next time...

Another point is made in one of Sonic Remix CD's music tracks (Sonic Remix was a music CD with tracks based off the original Sonic CD). Track #2, "Techno Power Mix", lasts for app. 7 minutes and features all of the game's Present music in more or less the order they take place in the game (think Sonic 2's ending music). They're a bit mixed, but they go a bit like this:
- Wacky Workbench
- Palmtree Panic
- Little Planet
- Collision Chaos
- Tidal Tempest
- Quartz Quadrant
- Stardust Speedway
- Metalic Madness
(The MP3 of this is even rarer and there are currently no MIDI renditions, so don't expect to hear it anytime soon...)
See my point? Aside from Wacky Workbench, the level order here ist correct up to the point where it shows the lost level music used in its rightful position... where Round 2 was supposed to be!

Misc Info:

You can see the lost level in the Sonic CD Beta's Time Attack menu...well, sort of. The space for the level has been deleted and the names were moved slightly to 'cover it up', but, if you move them around a bit, you can see that there is enough space for just one more level. Like I did here:

And that's it. ;)

Sonic CD Page 1 - Home
Legal Information
Page created in 1998 by Jan Abaza
First hosted by Academic Research Network of Slovenia, now part of Sonic Stuff Research Group
Sonic the Hedgehog and all related indicia are owned by Sonic Team
The author and the page are no way affiliated with SEGA or Sonic Team.
This site was created with MS Notepad. I hate the "make the page for me" programs.
And so freaking what if I link to the MS homepage. Boo.