Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)/Beta elements

This article pertains to the beta elements from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).

Characters
Originally, every character was going to have their own episodes, but the idea was scrapped from the final version. Metal Sonic was going to be an extra playable character as well, but was scrapped as well.

Silver the Hedgehog
Silver had a more than one background concept done by Sonic Team. One was leaked from the Sonic Team in a "XLS" containing biographies of all the playable characters, along with scripts. Here, Silver is described as having special power that can draw upon the Chaos Emeralds. The concept of his creation was based on Trunks from Dragon Ball Z according to the same profile. However, the profile of Silver was described as "Temporary", explaining why it was not used, while all the other profiles were were later used in the official guide and on the game's websites.

In-game model animations
By swapping the character files of some of the Amigo mode characters with those of the regular characters, it is possible to view animations of some of the supporting characters that do not appear on the character selection screen.

Knuckles's unused pose and quotes
In regular gameplay, Knuckles is the only character that cannot complete an Action Stage on his own. As a result, his finishing pose and quotes are unused. However, it is possible to complete Flame Core and Aquatic Base with Knuckles by avoiding the character-switch sections, thus recovering his following quotes at the goal:

Night and Day
A day and night feature was originally planned for the game, but was cut due to time constraints. This feature was shown during the TGS 2005 demo presentation of the game behind closed doors, and is evident during the first cutscene of Sonic's story where Sonic travels through Soleanna at night.

Super Hard
There was originally going to be a mode named "Super Hard" for Sonic, Shadow and Silver which was extra difficult missions for each character. It has been found in code, that Very Hard and Super Hard are separate difficulties, and Very Hard specifically was not meant to be DLC.

It has also been found that the Extra Missions for Tails' Wave Ocean, Rouge's Tropical Jungle, and Blaze's Wave Ocean have an unused placement for the Super Hard mode option.

Homing Smash
Homing Smash is a Homing Attack that does appear in the final game as the Clear Gem. However, mentioned by Sonic, he explains: "The Homing Smash can blow away whole groups of Enemies!" "The Homing Smash can crush Enemy Defenses and Barriers!" The Duke explains: "While Jumping, Hold the / for a long time, and release to perform a Homing Smash!"

Chaos Smash
Chaos Smash was supposed to be a less advanced version of the Chaos Snap. It is only mentioned by the Shop assistant who says that the Chaos Snap is a more advanced version of the former. However, it cannot be used in gameplay.

Blaze's Pyrokinesis moves
It was planned to be combos between Silver and Blaze. By pressing /, the player could use Blaze's pyrokinesis to wrap her in flames. There was also another combo where Silver could pick up Blaze and throw her to launch a powerful attack. These are all intended for both the first and third fight against Iblis.

Additionally, there are other unused properties for Blaze that can be added back via hacking. A move similar to the Accelerator Tornado exists in the game files but rather than having Blaze twirl around herself, she puts her left arm in front of her face and looks forward. There is also a faster variant of the animation that Blaze pulls after using the Fire Claw that allows her to cross more distance in the air and defeat consecutive enemies faster. Blaze also has another unused move where she jumps in the air and scratches as she is descending.

Unused missions
There are a number of unused lines in the game indicating there was a number of different missions that did not make the cut, as neither Chao, ghosts, or mode selections appear in the final game:
 * "Get to the goal within minutes!"
 * "Collect rings!"
 * "Defeat all enemies!"
 * "Wipe out all enemies!"
 * "Get to the goal within minutes!"
 * "Collect rings!"
 * "Get to the goal before your rival!"
 * "Get to the goal before the ghost!"
 * "Find Chao!"
 * "Find the Goal Ring!"
 * "Get to the new Goal Ring!"
 * "Clear the minigame!"
 * "Clear hard mode!"

Music selection
In the game files, there are plenty of music tracks from previous Sonic the Hedgehog games like that were going to be purchasable in the Shop:
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Sonic the Hedgehog 2
 * Sonic the Hedgehog 3
 * Sonic 3D Blast
 * Sonic & Knuckles
 * Sonic Adventure
 * Sonic Adventure 2
 * Sonic Heroes
 * Sonic R
 * Sonic Riders
 * Shadow the Hedgehog

Crisis City
Crisis City varies greatly between its prototype pictures and its finalized version. The Action Stage originally held Eggman's mechs (similar to that of the DLC version) instead of Iblis's minions and included sections that was cut from the final version. There were also Springs which Sonic used to bounce between walls instead of using the Wall Jump mechanic. Also the prominent tornado is still included, but is made of dust instead of flames.

Tropical Jungle
While not to the same degree as Crisis City, Tropical Jungle is quite different from its finalized version. Here, Sonic's eyes are darker and some unknown sections were included. The Vine gimmick is also used to travel to an unknown area, whereas in the final version, they are just used to swing upward. Most noticeably however, is that Sonic does not carry Elise in beta screenshots.

Kingdom Valley
Kingdom Valley is quite different from the final version. There are multiple unknown areas that appeared in the prototype images which were not seen in the final version, some with different placements of the enemies and more Ring trails for the Light Speed Dash. In some of the very early screenshots, the Springs have a different model which resemble the one for Sonic Heroes.

Sonic vs. Silver
The early promotional images showcasing the fighting arena of the battle against Sonic and vice versa shows that battle area was going to have Steel Containers and Explosive crates in it. The official guide of the game also makes use of them in its guide even though they do not appear in the fighting arena of the final version of the game.

Test stage
A test stage remains in the game files. It features a Shuttle loop, a ramp, common objects like containers, several pillars and platforms.

New City
Using a glitch, Shadow can access New City before Dusty Desert. Doing so reveals an early version of New City with several prototype elements that were left out of the final version:
 * Vehicles that drive through the city. However, their AI is unfinished as they often drive into buildings.
 * Mirrors of Soleanna for Crisis City and Flame Core. However, they can not be entered.
 * An unused pigeon NPC called "Hatsun" that the player can speak to. This brooding little creature only say "Coo..."

Unused Town Mission/ Defeat all the enemies and protect company employees!
There is an unused mission in the New City that takes place at the same time Shadow is going to the Dusty Desert. Once the player proceed to where the unused Mirrors of Soleanna are, the mission will begin. In this mission, the player has to protect the employees and watch over their health measure. To succeeding in this mission, the player must destroy the leader of every group consisting of the purple Iblis Minions, thereby destroying them all. Some enemies are not linked though, and must be destroyed individually. The mission is filled with Super Rings and Chaos Drives power-up items. At the end, the player must destroy four Titans. After finishing it, the employee Mazzola will say what is happening and what they are working on at the Rimlight company. At the end, he will say that there is a Light Core reaction in the Dusty Desert. Note that this mission will not be saved in the save data once completed and every time the player reenters the unused City, it can be played again.

Forest
Using a glitch, Sonic can access the blocked portion of Castle Town and enter the Forest before Wave Ocean. Doing so reveals several oddities:
 * Double sets of doors in several locations, including the entrance to the Forest that can only be seen by clipping through the walls.
 * The Forest itself holds a multitude of signs, including signs with the "no" symbol, checkered strips, stop signs, and speed limit designations. The latter two can be destroyed with the Homing Attack. On top of that, they are unused remnant of the cars planned for New City.
 * No NPCs are included in the Forest.
 * The bridge to the gates are not present.

Castle Town
By utilizing a glitch, it is possible to reach an early development version of Castle Town right after returning to the present from Flame Core in Shadow's episode. This version is without its doors (just a black room) that lead to the Forest and New City. The player cannot speak to people and there are two bridges near the supposed entrance to the Forest. One leads the player to between both sides of the town and the other one leads into a wall. When entering this area, the player will be stuck and can only get out by exiting and reentering the episode. Should the players save their progress in this area however, they will be stuck there indefinitely with no escape.

Super Gem/Rainbow Gem
The Super Gem is a Level Up Item that was in the Demo/final version of the game, but was not finished and scrapped. This Gem was presumably meant to let Sonic the Hedgehog transform into Super Sonic in normal gameplay. By hacking through the game's files, the player equips Sonic with it, but using it only triggers transformation animation with no special capabilities.

Speed Up
There was going to be a Level Up Item in the game that Silver could buy in the Shop to increase his speed.

HUD items
Along with the Custom Actions, Key, Medal, gift and Disks, there are heads-up-display icons for various other items like the Rainbow Gem in-game data, but did not make it into the final version.

Score bonuses
Aside from the "Radical" and "Good" bonuses that appear when a pack of enemies is defeated, there are a lot of bonuses in various languages in the game files that were not used in the final game. It should be noted that they bear a resemblance to the score rankings that appear under similar circumstances in Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle.

Unused Mirrors of Soleanna
Every Action Stage except Crisis City, Flame Core and the End of the World have their own Mirror of Soleanna. However, there is a texture in the game-files that shows an image for the Mirrors for every gate, including the three absent stages. Some of these normally unused Mirrors were later found by forcing the game to load unused object layouts into some of the hub areas with the use of glitches and gameplay tricks, but due to fact that they were not programmed to behave like the Mirrors the player normally interacts with, they are not working.

His World
The game files hold a variation of "His World" without lyrics. It was the main menu track of the Xbox Live demo in September 2006. Other variations of this song can be heard at various points in the final game, such as in the main settings, multiplayer, and Solaris phase 2.

Dreams of Absolution
The game files hold the song "Dreams of an Absolution" without lyrics which is different from the final version of the track.

Unused Shield
The Shield was presumably a power-up that was meant to appear in the game and was even listed in the game's finalized manual. If the player uses a special mod to swap E-123 Omega with Silver the Hedgehog in Crisis City and grab an Item Box, the Shield's icon will appear on the bottom of the screen, although it will not change the contents of the Item Box.

Unused town icon
In gameplay, there are three types of icons that appear above the Town Stages People's head. One is orange, the other is yellow and the final one is blue. However, there exists a fourth icon that is green colored, but it is left unused inside of the game's files.

Unused shading effect
Inside the game files, there exists an unused type of shader effect that can make Sonic's body glow if activated in gameplay.

Unused lines and mechanics
In many of Sonic and Shadow's unused lines, several plot points can be heard which was removed from the game. These include absent parts of the stories and scenarios, like where both Sonic and Shadow worked together to find all the Chaos Emeralds before Eggman in a scrapped final stage. Unused animations in the game data also suggest that Sonic was going to use the Buggy and have an alternate falling animation. These differences also apply to some of the supporting characters, especially Amy Rose.

There are also lines that hints of moves absent from the game, multiplayer quotes for every character (even Elise), Shadow vs. Rouge Town Missions, and Eggman talking about many subjects, like the Eye of Solaris and some hidden stories.

Eggman without Sunglasses
In the game files, there is a yet-completed picture of Eggman without his glasses before he makes Team Sonic travel to the future.

Soleanna and Egg Carrier's maps
In the game files, there are a lot of pictures that are presumably used by Eggman on the Egg Carrier to locate the Chaos Emeralds. The maps included the errors that occurred onboard the Egg Carrier before it crashed.

The pictures also include renders of the Soleanna newspapers that Sonic read upon his return to the present from Flame Core.

Leftover E3 Content
Two loading screens from the E3 demo of the game were left within its data. Note that both of them state "Head for a Goal Ring!"

The HUD from the E3 Version is also in the games files. (Except the life icon)

Multiplayer
Several graphics related to the multiplayer mode of the game still exist in its data, but was not used.

Jump Board model
In one of the game's files, specifically the one called "jumpboard", there is an unused Ramp model that is identical to the one used in Sonic Unleashed and onward. It was most likely left out because the game uses the Ramp model for Sonic Heroes and the Trick Jump Panel.

Thief
In one of the models for the town stages' Humans, there is a model for a thief and his bag that did not make it into gameplay. They may have been implemented for missions such as: Town Mission 9: Chase the Fleeing Car! and/or Town Mission 3: Emergency Order: Capture the Thieves' Cars!, but were simply rejected. The thief can be restored by editing spawn rate file. After that, he walks with or without the bag around New City like a regular NPC.

Painter
The painter model, script and textures can be found among the files of other NPCs, but are not used. One of his textures is an oil painting of Castle Town featuring Sonic. He can be restored by editing spawn rate file. The painter was supposed to stay in the corner of New City dock and watch the sea. He cannot be found as Sonic, and his dialogue for Silver and Shadow is the same:
 * "They offered to pay me a lot of money to paint a forgery of a famous artist's painting of the sea."
 * "But I turned it down. I want to paint my own art, not get money for faking someone else's."
 * "Then the guy took off his hat, and said, "I've been looking for someone like you.". It was a world-famous painter!"
 * "He agreed to take me on his apprentice, and he never takes apprentices! I'm so happy, I don't know what to think!"
 * "I can't believe something like this would happen! I'm so glad I didn't give up.."

Dogs and pigeons
Dogs can be found sitting in several places in Castle Town, but they were also supposed to walk around the New City. They can be enabled by editing spawn rate file. The same way one can spawn pigeons in New City. Instead of walking, they slowly float above the ground. In the final version there is only one pigeon, Hatsun.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 Xbox Live Demo)
A demo of the Xbox 360 version of Sonic the Hedgehog that was once available through Xbox Live Marketplace. It is currently only available for re-download to users who downloaded the demo when it was publically available.

The demo includes Sonic's first section of Kingdom Valley. The Action Stage, as well as the game ,itself contains some differences from the final version. It also contains the game's 2006 E3 trailer but without the voiceover.

General

 * Different enemies, item placement, and no Medals.
 * Rings are dispersed in a wider circle when Sonic is hit.
 * Sonic immediately re-spawns after losing a life. The screen will not black out.
 * Sonic never falls back from hitting a wall and never gets temporarily stunned from being clipped to the sides of the walls.
 * Most trails of Rings can be used for the Light Speed Dash.
 * Sonic falls from ceilings instead of being rooted to their surfaces (e.g. the high cave full of Egg Bombers).
 * Camera angle shots were added in the beginning of the Action Stage.
 * The camera control is much slower than in the final version.
 * The Action Gauge starts out empty, but it can be filled by defeating enemies. However, it fills much slower than in the final version. The first of the three bottom-right squares are red, showing a non-existent Custom Action Level 1. The bar below the Action Gauge also has a small section of red filling it, in contrast to the final version where the gauge is always empty.
 * The Homing Attack is affected by gravity.

Visual and sound

 * Title screen uses one of the last riffs from "His World" (Ali Taba. & Matty Lewis version) instead of the song's introduction.
 * The title screen and pause screen's options refer to the demo as "Play Demo" and "Quit Demo" respectively.
 * The controls are shown on the Action Stage's loading screen in the demo.
 * The music and the screen will not fade out after losing the last life.
 * The visual effects of the Homing Attack are a little different.
 * There are no flashy effects for the Spin Dash.
 * The Bound Jump's "shockwave" is mostly white with yellow edges instead of blue in the demo.
 * Surfing on the wind paths in the demo does not produce the appearance of wind debris being stirred up from the character's feet.
 * No voice sound effects except for subtitled scripts. There are also no scripts on the results screen.
 * Pressing or  on any option on the pause menu will not produce the "confirming" high-pitched sound effect in the final version. Instead, it will produce the "cancel" sound used for pressing "Start" or.
 * There is no music for the result screen, although there are unused result music in the demo's files.

Scoring

 * 1-Ups rewards 0 points instead of 200.
 * Light Speed Dashing earns a "Good!" bonus and the point increments increase by collecting more Rings via this way.
 * The Light Speed Dash is configured properly with the Slide, unlike in the final version.
 * Hitting a rock pile is worth 20 points, and hitting any of the scattered rocks gove 20 points each. In the final version, the rocks disappear immediately when scattered but the initial pile is still worth 20 points.
 * The Egg Searcher wields three re-spawnable pods that are each worth 100 points. The robot itself is also worth 100 points. Any pods that the Egg Searcher is armed with upon its defeat will add to the total point score. Defeating an Egg Searcher when it is armed with all three pods earns a "Radical!" bonus in the demo version. This does not happen in the final version.

Bugs

 * Egg Bombers can crawl in mid-air.
 * Homing Attacking an empty 1-UP capsules will get Sonic stuck in midair and then dropped down.
 * Completing the Action Stage in twenty minutes and one second, or over will result in an S-rank, regardless of score.
 * In the final version, if the player repeatedly Homing Attacks a Wind Grind Rail, sometimes, the player will be stuck in place and after a few seconds lose all momentum and fall through the rail.
 * When wall-running in Kindom Valley, if the player heads to the secret cave towards the top of the wall and start wall running. By pausing the game there, the camera will recenter so that the player will land on the ground up right. Sometimes the game will also recenter outside of bounds, leaving the player to fall into a bottomless pits.
 * If too many destructible items are broken off-camera at once, the game might crash and freeze.
 * When using a Hint Ring while the characters continue to move, the text box will disappear before the in-game narrator can read it.
 * In most cases, upon earning a "Good!", "Great!", and "Radical!" bonus in quick succession, the player will earn -2,112,941,584 points, causing the score to be maximized. Completing the Action Stage with this score will cause every factor besides the time to be maxed out.
 * Also, completing the level with a timer that is 20 minutes and 1 second or over will result in an S-rank regardless of score.

Unused musics
Within the demo are unused music files, including early themes for the invincibility/Speed Up and the results screen.

Unused characters and lines
The Xbox Live demo has many leftovers. They were kept with some changes in the final version but never used. Some unused characters are listed in the code: Enrique, Guido, Emma, Moldi, Hyande, Metti, Nicol, Tayje, Faren, Morrio, Samasun, Mizo, Danny, Madouna, Mary, Maxi, Cabas, Makerolens, Abraham, Ding, Bob, Simona, Tomaso, Baldasare, Tronto, Laura, Simon, Marco, Luca, Federico and Kiara.

TGS 2005 demo
The gameplay of the game was first shown off at TGS 2005 in a prototype stage. A number of differences was present due to the early stage of the game's development:
 * In the demo, Sonic's character model is different: he looks a little more detailed and resembles his illustration in pre-rendered CG cutscenes. The final game features a much brighter, less detailed Sonic. His game model's animations are also different: Sonic's shoes are shiny and the surroundings are reflected in their surface.
 * In the demo, the game is running slower, due to how early in development it was. Despite this, Sonic goes extremely fast when grinding.
 * In the demo, the wooden containers do not have stars on them, unlike in the final game.
 * Debug functions were used in the demo that did not make it into the final version, including freecam, and levitation.
 * In the demo, a day-night cycle could be used via debug controls that were built in.
 * In the demo, the Action Stage's assets are a little different from the final version.
 * In the demo, Sonic's animations are unfinished.
 * In the demo, Sonic seems to aim directly into the ground when Homing Attacking, unlike in the final version of the game where he Jump Dashes instead.
 * In the demo, Sonic's victory pose is different. Here, he gives a thumbs up with the Sonic Heroes victory music playing in the background. Kingdom Valley also ends earlier because the Action Stage had not been finished at that time.

E3 Demo and trailer differences
The E3 demo containing both Sonic's Kingdom Valley and Silver's Crisis City has several differences from the final version, and the trailer showcased there:
 * Unreleased characters arts for both Sonic and Silver.
 * The first section of Kingdom Valley is similar to that of the final version, except when Sonic grabs the eagle it, takes him to the Super-Speed Stage, and not to Silver's section like in the final version.
 * There is no voice for the characters.
 * The loading screen depicts a blue screen with the Action Stage's name and the objective at the bottom, rather than an image of the Action Stage with control tutorials like in the final version. The "Now Loading" text also fades away instead of disappearing completely.
 * The HUD is different, featuring a Sonic head for the character icon. Sonic's Action Gauge is also not used.
 * Sonic and Silver have all their moves unlocked in the demo.
 * Blaze's section was not included in demo's version of Crisis City.
 * In the demo, Silver's speed increases the more Rings he collect, like Sonic. Both of them are also faster than in the final version.
 * The sound effect for collecting a medal is completely different in the demo.
 * In the demo, Sonic's Homing Attack works differently. When using it, he falls to the floor instead of dashing through midair. He also has multiple different animations for flips among other things, which are used with the White Gem in the final version.
 * In the demo, Silver can fly while carrying objects, unlike in the final version.
 * In the demo, Kingdom Valley has a big blue sky rather than an overcast one in the final game.
 * In the demo, when the Goal Ring is touched, the game does not freeze to load data like in the final version. It also depicts a Mission Completed text.
 * In the trailer of the E3 demo, the Castle Town seems lively than in the final version, with more people interacting with each other.
 * In the demo, Crisis City has Eggman's robots instead of Iblis's Minions as enemies.
 * In the demo, there are a few grammar errors in the dialogues.
 * In the demo, the characters' text boxes are simple black rectangles, unlike in the final version.
 * Crisis City and Kingdom Valley's background music are different in the demo.

Trivia

 * Despite the fact that this variant of "His World" is ultimately unused in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), it is used in many of Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog TV advertisements.
 * The New City glitch can be performed before proceeding to "Save the Archaeologist" mission as well, but the entered version is without the unused mission and the Flame Core and Crisis City warp gates.
 * It is possible to score 50.000 points in the unused mission of New City.
 * The Homing Attack used in the earlier demo of the game lets the player to instantly destroy multiple enemies, unlike in the final version.
 * There are message files about unused settings: "Vibration Settings", "Turn tilt Settings", "Display Settings", "Brightness correction" and "Gamma correction". The player could also have been able to adjust voice settings and choose between Japanese, English, French, German, Spanish and Italian languages. This language setting was mentioned in the US manual.
 * US manual also has a picture of main menu with "XBOX LIVE" option.
 * It should be noted that some of the game's beta elements are very similar to those in in Sonic Unleashed, like the day and night cycles, the Chao and ghost missions.