Sonic Hack - Sonic 2: The Secret Zones

imagine gaslighting a 90's kid by swapping his sonic 2 cartridge with this, him finding a secret zone, then swapping his cartridge back to regular sonic 2 when he tries to show it to his friends

I love how someone saw the secret entrance to Hidden Palace Zone and was like "What if all the other scrapped Zones did that?".

The idea of bottomless pits leading to alternate routes instead of death gives me big Rondo of Blood vibes, and I’m all for that.

It's been too long since I've seen a creative take on a ROM hack. I hope they update this with improved art. This may become my definitive way of playing Sonic 2 if they build upon it.

I just love how the scrapped zones (even Genocide City) had this organic flow and felt like they were always there hidden until sonic ventured off the path and discovered a whole new hidden world.

0:43 bro really going so fast he phasing through springs

I just love how the scrapped zones (even Genocide City) had this organic flow and felt like they were always there hidden until sonic ventured off the path and discovered a whole new hidden world. Specially the fact with some zones like Sky Chase or Metropolis Act 2 where you had 3 whole acts of Metropolis, here instead if you fall into the secret Cyber City zone you skip Metropolis Act 3 entirely and in sky chase if you fall into Snowy Winter zone not only you get a whole new zone to play with but the second part of Cyber City which leads to a totally different way of getting into the Death Egg, love how tails gets behind to operate the computer that allows sonic to being teleported into the Death Egg making more sense why Tails gets behind in the first place. The only thing i can nitpick about it is the lack of level transitions make them feel very disconnected from the regular main zones, the main zones were already very disconnected from each other without proper transition, but its just a nitpick because it fits with how Sonic 2 was made and because level transitions werent a thing until Sonic 3, but if you the creator of this hack ever read this it could be cool to have level transitions that makes the already nice flow the secret zones have even nicer if you ever want to revisit this and add something up to make it even cooler that is.

When most video games have secret entrances to hidden levels, the entrances are usually locatable through the player's own observational skill, not by jumping down a random bottomless pit. Why would you take an obstacle which is usually made to punish incompetent platforming, and now make it a reward? I'll say this though, I like the Oil Ocean --> Sand Shower secret. It's clever how at 17:11 the pathway right before you take that green elevator has a small glimpse of the bottom of the secret platform. It was a smart way of hinting to the player that a platform was floating there, without straight up showing us the platform in full.

Something I like about this is the fact that, despite the new zones, it's still Sonic 2. You can play through the entire base game, and not go out of your way to discover any secrets, and it would still work!

Wow, this hack is pretty accurate with the music and zone decision

Who else prefers the look of the beta version of Casino Night Zone? It just looks much more vibrant & inviting to me.

i like the hidden paths, their entrances fit really well within the level

0:18 Emerald Hill Zone Act 1 1:06 Emerald Hill Zone Act 2 1:36 Rock World Zone 2:42 Chemical Plant Zone Act 1 3:31 Chemical Plant Zone Act 2 5:04 Aquatic Ruin Zone Act 1 5:51 Aquatic Ruin Zone Act 2 7:08 Classic Casino Night Zone Act 1 No Classic Casino Night Zone Act 2 :( 7:22 Colorful Casino Night Zone Act 1 8:33 Colorful Casino Night Zone Act 2 10:21 Hill Top Zone Act 1 No Hill Top Zone Act 2 :( 10:28 Wood Zone Act 1 11:28 Wood Zone Act 2 12:49 Mystic Cave Zone Act 1 13:49 Mystic Cave Zone Act 2 14:31 Hidden Palace Zone 16:36 Oil Ocean Zone Act 1 No Oil Ocean Zone Act 2 :( 17:22 Sand Shower Zone Act 1 18:12 Sand Shower Zone Act 2 19:36 Metropolis Zone Act 1 21:25 Metropolis Zone Act 2 23:41 Metropolis Zone Act 3 25:37 Cyber City Zone Act 1 26:51 Sky Chase Zone 26:57 Snowy Winter Zone 27:35 Cyber City Zone Act 2 No Wing Fortress Zone :( 28:56 Death Egg Zone

The hill top to wood zone makes so much sense. Hill top is basically a mountain so falling into a forest below it makes so much sense

The idea of ​​expanding the secret entrance of Hidden Palace (Of the 2013 version) with the other deleted zones is quite epic

1:34 rock world zone 7:19 proto casino night zone 10:27 wood zone 14:29 hidden palace zone 17:20 sand shower zone 25:35 cyber city zone 26:50 snowy winter zone 27:34 cyber city zone 2.0 28:34 death egg zone 2.0

imagine being a time traveler and going to the year 1992 and then showing everybody this alternate version.

1:37 rock world zone ( was supposed to be a past version of sand shower zone and sonic 2 was supposed to have a time traveling feature and was probably scrapped to be in sonic cd it is not in any old builds of the game) 10:29 wood zone (Simon Wai build) 14:32 hidden palace zone (2013 iOS remake but a bit different) 17:24 sand shower zone (was supposed to be named dust hill zone I think also only is in Simon Wai build and nick arcade also was in sonic cd as desert dazzled and in sonic mania as Mirage saloon zone) 25:38 cyber city (was changed because of a word YouTube wouldn’t like also could be a cybershell reference cyber city was a mechanical based zone and was scrapped for act 3 of Metropolis zone it was also reused for the Machine in sonic cd) 26:57 snowy winter zone (was supposed to transition from sand shower zone and was based of of sand shower zone) 27:37 cyber city zone (again) 28:57 death egg zone (not a secret level but is way different from the actual death egg also was supposed to be called the last battle in space and was remade into sky chase was in the Simon Wai build) There are also these unused levels : Ocean Wind Zone (was meant to be the second stage in the game after Emerald Hill Zone and would've been a coastal area with piers) Tropical Plant/Tropical Sun Zone (a rather unknown stage with only concept art available) Blue Lake/Blue Ocean Zone (also rather unknown of a level and only has concept art was also reused for wing fortress) Madness Mountain Zone (ANOTHER rather unknown level and only has concept art available also possibly a early version of mystic cave) Emerald Isle Zone (a scrapped stage similiar to Aquatic Ruin Zone It is unknown if this was an early name for the level) Olympus Zone (one of the most unknown stages and only having proof of its existence is an early map of sonic 2 Hirokazu Yasuhara identified it as "The Shrine" given that his timeline notes a "Hidden Shrine" it’s possible this could be a earlier version of hidden palace zone) This took a long time so please like. 😄 Edit: 14:32 @kalpana gurung reminded me in the reply’s that hidden palace zone was actually not a modified version of the 2013 Christian Whitehead remake it was the proto palace secret where in the rerelease if in the sound test you played the sounds 3 3 3 B 10 10 10 4 and selected the hidden palace zone then it would load you into the original hidden palace zone or as it’s called here proto palace zone where the layout is the some as the original there is even a tails monitor and when you step on the otherwise breakable emerald you teleport back and I find it interesting because lots of people believe this was originally how you get super sonic and a similar green emerald was used in sonic 3& knuckles which also gave thing like meca sonic a super form so is this a coincidence? I don’t know but it’s pretty interesting! Also in 25:38 @certified gamer also reminded me in the reply’s that this wasn’t a cybershell reference it’s was changed because the Japanese developers where trying to make a cool name for a level and when they translated it it said well I’ll just say cyber city. And also at 7:24 prismatic prongle reminded me about the old casino night zone it’s not really scraped they just changed the colors probably because there was way too much color in the level and also changed the layout I mean look at all that pink

I love how you can ditch wing fortress of you spindash off the plane in wing fortress, clear snowy winter and cyber city 2, and you just get sent to death egg without beating wing fortress.

They should have put these zones in Sonic Origins