Sonic X-treme Boss Engine

Since hl718 mentioned it,I'd be more than happy if he could write his recollections of it in this thread.;-)

 

I had the chance to spend time with two portions of Sonic X-treme back in the middle of 1996. At the time the different areas of the game were being developed in parallel, and on different engines, with the intention of later merging them into one game. The two portions that I saw at the time were built on the same engine. They were both running off Christina Coffin's work. There was no Nights code involved.

The first of these two builds is the "Green Hill Zone' demo that was leaked awhile back. It was designed to show movement in a 3D world and not much else. Today that demo might seem passe, but a decade+ back it was pretty impressive to see, especially up and running on a Saturn.

The other build was the one, and only, boss fight. Much like the "Green Hill Zone" the boss fight with Metal Sonic wasn't an actual boss fight in the sense that it was designed as part of the game. It was another tech demo.

Booting the Metal Sonic boss fight immediately dropped you into the arena. The arena itself was closed off. Think of it somewhat like a Virtua Fighter arena with walls on all sides. The background art and music were reminiscent of the Casino zones from previous Sonic games, but the focus was clearly on the arena battle itself.

The one thing that struck me the first time I saw it was how well the camera played out. It was easy to keep track of Sonic in the limited confines of the arena. You could navigate in all directions as well as jump with a spin attack.

Metal Sonic was oversized compared to Sonic. If you've seen any of the existing screenshots of this build, it wasn't just an effect. I'd hate to guess based on decade old memories, but the model was probably at least twice the size of Sonic himeself. Metal Sonic could fly around and was well animated.

Rings were standard, just like the old 2D Sonic games. If you got hit by one of Metal Sonic's attacks, rings would fly everywhere and you would need to pause and grab a few in order to stay safe.

I'll be very honest and say I don't recall all of Metal Sonic's attacks specifically, but I do believe he had a ranged attack which involved either a rocket or his fists shooting at you. He would also charge Sonic directly. Defeating Metal Sonic was also stock Sonic fare. Bash him enough times and you emerge victorious. The whole fight was mere minutes in length, but again, it was impressive to see that on the Saturn.

For the record, I do NOT have a copy of this build, nor do I know anyone who currently does. So please don't PM me asking for it. To be honest, I had hoped that whoever leaked the "Green Hill Zone" disc would have also leaked this one as the two were used internally at Sega as well as shown off externally.

The main reason the Metal Sonic boss fight is so well known is because Sega's PR team at the time was using both discs to demo the game to journos in the fall of 1996 (before the cancellation was announced). For obvious reasons, the Metal Sonic fight was the flashier of the two, so it is what was usually highlighted.

I would guess that this build is currently in the hands of at least one or two Saturn collectors out there. If it ever does pop up, it'll likely sell for a four figure sum, even with the limited amount of gameplay.

Hopefully this answers a few questions about the game. At the very least I can establish, without any sort of doubt, that the Metal Sonic boss fight was running from CD-R on a stock Saturn. Any screenshots and/or video that you can dig up from old magazines/shows are going to be in-engine and not mock-ups.

Enjoy.

-hl718

 

Thanks for your views on the boss battle, hl718. This should make some of the hard core Sonic fans happy

Yakumo

 

Thanks a lot hl718. By the way, did you see some other Saturn unreleased games in action back in the day?? Vf3? Shenmue? Something from Sega Usa?

 

Thank you for your nice take on past-memories regarding this subject, hl718. The boss fight sure sounds interesting. What strikes me the most is how well the camera was supposed to be. To this date cameras are still often a big problem in 3d games, and we are over a decade further now. Ironic.

 

Thumbs up for this man,you're awesome thank you!

 

Thanks for this info, hl718. I was working on a crappy Game Maker remake not too long ago and always assumed that Metal Sonic was just in one static position.

Just one question, when attacking Metal Sonic, not too sure how much detail you can remember but did he flash white or something to notify you have hit him, just like the old Sonic boss battles?

 

Yep. Successfully hitting Metal Sonic made him flash. If you got hit, any rings Sonic was carrying would drop and bounce with the appropriate sound. The mechanic was immediately familiar to any old-school Sonic fan.

The goal, as it was described to me at the time, was to develop a 3D game that was true to the 2D roots. Based on what I saw of the Metal Sonic boss fight, I think the team was on the right track.

-hl718

 

Oh? There was sound effects in the Coffin Boss Engine? Wow.

I always assumed that since the 718 didn't have any sound nor did the later PC Builds that Ofer Alon and Chris Senn made I always assumed this one didn't. Thanks for that info!

Man, I love little bits of information like this, especially of the Metal Sonic Boss Stage and I have such an urge to start my Game Maker remake again and release a second version of it now. :lol:

 

Thanks a lot for this great info. Then, didn't the disc also contain the Fang the neasel boss fight??

What about that emerald boss engine shown on e3?

 

I completely forgot about the Fang boss. If only there was a chance the unreleased game being released by hiddenpalace was it...

Also what about those screenshots of Sonic running around some arena with tons of rings spawning in the middle? Looks like it's running off the same engine.

 

This might be possible. There's no playable version of the boss engine demo, and it's unreleased. Might be possible...

 

I know it's a random place for a first post but, thanks hl718 for the great info on the boss engine. Maybe one day it will leak. So much xtreme stuff is out there already - just wished we had more of it in playable form!

 

That was the "empty" level made by Coffin to show at E3 '96. It was to replace the Nack level which was meant to be shown then but there was still a few problems with the boss and couldn't be shown at E3 so that level was made instead.

 

I see that level in this video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftNgzZ3Ovig

Of course probably everyone knows of this video by now, but I'm still wondering about those other actual levels that weren't just small test fields that you can see in the video. The video says E3 96, if it's from then, then it seems they didn't mind showing shoddy work. The physics look so preliminary and kind of embarrassing to show off considering this was the first public preview I assume? If they could show all of this, I don't get why they couldn't show the Fang one.

Was that "empty" level a playable disc outside of this video that was being looped at E3, or did they only ever have video of it for the public?

I'm still so confused because reading things that have been said by previous people involved with the game, especially Chris Senn, it seems like there's a stress to tell everyone that the Saturn version never got anywhere at all, even though this video seems to show that there were several levels made for it.

 

Indeed,I'm not sure whether or not the Saturn version got further in development than the so called PC Version that we see in the videos that have been released.

 

If it did I never saw it. The disc would boot into the Metal Sonic fight. If you wanted to play again you just reset the Saturn.

I never saw anything running on the PC. Only had exposure to the two levels running on the Saturn.

-hl718

 

Almost any materia relating to Sonic Xtreme is interesting :nod:, good stuff.

 

From an old VHS about the E3 96 given with a french magazine, the VHS wasn't ripped by me, you can find the full video on the link below, it's the third one: http://www.abandonware-videos.org/affiche_vid.php?vid=8&page=2

I extracted the Sonic X-treme clips, you can get them here and here

 

Thanks for the video links, unclejun.

Yakumo