News/Sonic Month Part 3 - Sonic Chaos (GG/MS)

Hidden Palace and The Cutting Room Floor present...

Sonic Chaos (May 17, 1993 prototype)
Sonic Chaos (Jun 30, 1993 prototype)
Sonic Chaos (Jul 13, 1993 prototype)
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Continuing with our Sonic Month, today we have various prototypes of Sonic Chaos for the Sega Game Gear and Master System!

The development history of this game is somewhat unknown. When development began, the game was given the title "Sonic the Hedgehog 3". Internally, the game was referred by this title many times even going as far as being mentioned by this name in several printed media throughout 1993. It's possible that the title for the game, "Sonic Chaos", was originally going to be both the international and regional title for the game. The game seems to have been shown for the first time (at least in the United States) at Summer CES 1993, which was held on June 3rd to June 6th. Then sometime after CES 1993, Sega of Japan decided to give the game a completely different title in Japan called "Sonic & Tails". The game seems to have been in development primarily for the Sega Master System, as there are signs in the prototype from May that the Game Gear version was being developed separately at the same time. This could explain why many of the songs are different in both versions of the game.

Having prototypes of this game is pretty special, as prototypes of this game haven’t been released before. Not only that, but we have prototypes that cover a wide range of the development cycle for the game. These prototypes were dumped fresh from the EPROMs, and have been dumped multiple times to ensure that the dumps are correct. The dates of the prototypes themselves come from a mixture of dates that were written on the EPROMs themselves (which are most likely burn dates and not build/version dates) and a date written within the ROM itself that can be verified.

There's plenty more just around the corner. I wonder what's coming out next?

Until next time! More prototypes on November 9 and 10, 2pm Pacific!