The mystery behind Sonic 2's Soundtrack

I'm not a English speaker and this is my first talked video, I did my best to try to make the pronunciation as clear as possible, yet if there's something hard to understand, i'm sorry! I added subtitles, so you can read if it's hard to understand. Should I use my voice again in future videos? Or is text better?

I always found it odd that Sky Chase had such chill song for a, well, chase. So the idea that it was originally ment for an ice level makes SO much sense.

Wow, I embarrassingly never picked up on Sky Chase using this Christmas motif before. Then you played it with the snow image and it instantly clicked! It makes so much sense as a snow-themed level!

Another thing that adds to your Sand Shower theory is that many gimmicks of Oil Ocean are similar to ones in dessert levels. The oil acts like quicksand, and there are sections where you are carried by a stream of oil down a tube. Almost like a sand shower. Sorry for the late reply.

Watching this video has actually made me look at the Sonic 2 soundtrack in a completely different way now. Especially Sky Chase Zone's song. I personally don't care for that song but understanding now that it was meant for a snow level makes me appreciate the song more in that specific context. As soon as you overlayed the concept art with the song, my brain immediately went, "Oh yeah, this IS a snow level song!"

It makes so much sense now, notice how some levels like Hilltop Zone, Aquatic Ruins or Hidden Palace have dinosaurs as enemies. They all fit the theme of being set in the past

Collision Chaos Radio! You helped The Video Game History Foundation get in contact with Brenda Ross which is how they got their hands on the actual mock-up of Winter Zone! After all these years we finally know what it would have looked like if it was actually included in Sonic 2 thanks to you! I was absolutely shocked when they mentioned your name and it now means that you made history in terms of finding the original Sonic 2 concepts. I am so glad that you have been a great part of this community, thank you so much for answering my questions and letting me share my ideas and thank you for letting others too. I can’t wait to see your next project. You are a real legend Collision Chaos Radio 🎉

It’s crazy just how much more ambitious the original plan for sonic 2 was compared to what actually ended up happening. Obviously time was a big part of why the original plan never finished, but knowing all this I’m curious as to why certain zones like Aquatic Ruin and Sky Chase replaced the existing concepts for zones. Were those ideas just found to be more interesting?

This is such an amazing theory, you using the musical cues from the music as evidence was the best part too, it connected up so many things

After watching this I went back to Masa's Demos, and it is extremely clear that Aquatic Ruin is intended as a Wild West zone, and Sky Chase as a winter zone, due to the very specific instrumentation that he chooses. It's been sitting under my nose the whole time...

This is actually crazy. I'm pretty sure some people had the same idea, but they had zero idea on how to actually get the message through. Since you know what you're doing because you've toyed with Genesis music for years, you're able to use the music channels to your advantage to help get your point across. You did a fantastic job. Hope to see more soon.

I never picked up on that Metropolis Mushroom Hill similarity (that blew my mind.) Great video btw was very interesting considering how little info we have about Sonic 2’s time travel elements.

Keep in mind that time travel was dropped before development actually began, and it's very likely the island maps we have aren't the "finalized" versions of the original planned level order. The actual zone order as it was in the Simon Wai prototype does have some key differences. The "past" levels seem to have been rearranged at some point. Hill Top being in slot 07 and the Emerald Hill 2P music being assigned to slot 06 tells me the order was changed to Blue Lake -> Tropical Plant -> Hill Top after those maps were made. Not to mention the removal of the duplicate "Rock World". "Neo Green Hill" was probably further developed from "Genocide City II", as the word "Neo" certainly implies a level taking place in the future. Lastly, I'd argue that "Dust Hill" and "Neo Green Hill" were conceived during the time travel era as variations on Emerald Hill (like Hill Top), and those concepts were reworked when time travel was dropped to add a little more variety into the zone lineup. (not to mention having less Emerald Hill clones, one of them is enough already)

The more I learn about sonic 2's development the more mysterious it seems. This was a great video, I hope you make more like it.

i played sonic from such a young age that i built my music contexts based around the levels, this video breaks that lifelong bond between the levels and explains so much more, great vid

I always found it rather odd that the 2P mode changes up the music for Emerald Hill Zone, Casino Night and Mystic Cave. So, the reason for that is because those tracks were actually written for all those cut levels. The devs probably decided later on that they didn't want to just scrap those compositions because they were already programmed into the game. Hence, they just decided to make those songs appear in 2P mode. It seems like when Sonic games were developed, the dev's always began working on the music first and foremost. In fact, this is super obvious in Sonic 3, where you can actually hear the entire Sonic & Knuckles soundtrack in standalone Sonic 3-- even while all those zones were cut from the game. My guess is, music was probably one of the harder things to remove from the game, so the devs just do the best they can to avoid having to do that.

This is quite possibly one of the most interesting videos I've ever stumbled across, honestly this makes so much sense, and it all sounds so cool, I almost wish someone would make a version of Sonic 2 that has the time travel premise that was originally intended.

14:14 That is still very interesting, because on the concept art of Sonic 2 Death Egg Zone, you can actually see a background from the Sonic 3 (That zone was recycled to Death Egg Zone in the Sonic 3, I guess!), which is a very cool clue, we have a familiar situation with the concept-art of the Sonic 3 Mushroom Hill Zone, and Wood Zone from the Sonic 2 Beta (14:41)

There's one obvious little thing that makes more sense visually rather than musically: Neo Green Hill/Aquatic Ruin is the "missing" Olympus. But as soon as you started connecting the dots, I heard the western trill in the music right before you mentioned it, and I'd never actually recognized it as such before. They definitely recycled a lot of different things and tweaked a lot to make it all fit together in those short few months they had to crunch this game out.

when sand shower's mock up image appeared with oil ocean's music it sent a complete chill down my spine, it felt so genuinely unsettling and i don't know why