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Hidden Palace Zone


Hidden Palace Zone is probably the most famous of all the lost zones, mainly because so much of it was left behind in the final Sonic 2. The two screenshots below are taken from the same part of Hidden Palace Zone, except that the one on the right is from the version of Hidden Palace Zone in the real Sonic 2 that you get when you do the Pro Action Replay Code. You just fall and fall until you die. Similar to Genocide City Zone. The music for it is completely different to the music for it in Sonic 2 Beta. 

 

Emerald Hill Zone

This is Emerald Hill Zone, but the color palette has gone all out of whack! Apparently, it is accessible with one of the Pro Action Replay codes below.

It is rumored that Dust Hill Zone was originally a level set in the desert, but was taken out of the game because it was thought that it wouldn't appeal to the Japanese market. In the Sonic 2 Beta, Dust Hill Zone is similar to Mystic Cave Zone. The screenshot above is supposedly from Dust Hill Zone, though many say it is fake. What do you think?

You may be wondering why I've got two Dust Hill Zone pictures above. Well, the one on the right proves that the picture on the left is not a fake and that the Dust Hill Zone palette is 03! It's all thanks to Rocket. Here's the full story.

"I took the Hidden Palace snapshot and played around with the brightness and as trying to get it as close to perfect color and all as possible. I finally acomplished it closly after about 5 to 10 minutes. So, I took the Dust Hill snapshot and thought that since the same person scanned both of them, it would have the same settings on brightness and all. So, I did the same steps. I darkened the color, set the "bright" yellow to a darker yellow, depixelated it to get the best look when finished, and loaded the 64 color palette from level 03 (palette instead of level is the incorrect name as you may already know) into the picture. I tried all other Sonic 2 color palettes and none of them matched quite that good. Most made it look totally ugly. Level 03's palette didn't however. So, I can say that theres a %99.99 (might as well say 100) that its real and that 03 is Dust Hill Zone. I have always believed it to be real and not once did I think it wasn't. But just to try and proove myself, I decided to make this.

I believe it may be possible that the level was being reconstructed. Yes, although this seems highly doubtful and lame, but there is proof. Genocide City. In the beta, it had Chemical Plant music. In the final, it has Sky Chase music. this is because it uses the same sound number. Yeah, so in the beta stuff starts at 80 and not 00. It is still the same value "internally". Sky Chase overwrote Hidden Palace Zone slot. But, Dust Hill Zone, although has Oil Ocean Zone music in the beta, has a different sound (which gives is the same music) in the final. So why would Sega take their time to change it?"

 

This little picture is from the Sonic 3 level select screen. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that it relates to Hidden Palace Zone. The green crystal in the picture is the same as the one in a screenshot of Hidden Palace I have.

This music is the same as sound test #10, but it is not the same music as the Hidden Palace I've played. That is Sound Test #3.

Title Screens

 

The title screen on the left is from the regular version of Sonic 2 and the one on the right is from an earlier version. The one on the right is not the same as the one on my friend's Sonic 2. His version had the flowers in the background, but it didn't have a Two Player Versus mode option on the title screen.

Hidden Palace Zone Codes

Do you have Sonic 2? Do you want to access a crap version of Hidden Palace Zone (it's better than nothing!)? Well, all you have to do is key in these Pro Action Replay codes. Note:- You will need a Pro Action Replay cartridge for these to work.


Code 1 000080:322F
Code 2 000080:322F FFFE10:0001
Code 3 FFFE1F:0000

These codes courtesy of Michael Stearns.

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