23:3633:29 whoa who's that guy he sounds familiar Jokes aside, thank you for letting me be a part of this video, Johnny. You make some of the best iceberg videos out there, and in general your videos are stellar. Also wow they're totally needs to be a rom hack with the Long Spring to rectify that false advertisement 😤
Yuji Naka has made a lot of weird, contradictory statements about Sonic 1. Hard to know what is true and what is being misremembered. (I hope you liked the little Howard Stern reference towards the end)
@@JohnnyVector I don't remember Stern advertising Sonic but he had an hour-long argument on-air about SEGA TV. It was probably an early form of viral marketing.
@@JohnnyVector With those new screenshots I'm 90% sure he's misremembering the demo being playable. The fact that we have multiple pictures, from multiple magazines all showing the same exact playthrough would be one heck of a coincidence if it wasn't an autodemo. I guess if you wanted to reconcile the two explanations: It could be possible that the TTS build was playable, but only shown as a pre-recorded autodemo at TTS itself. But I have serious doubts it was ever playable at the event itself.
@@marvelfannumber1 It probably was just a demo similar to what happens if you leave the title screen playing for too long without pressing a button. We have images of there being a title screen so that seems likely imo.
One thing I despise in Sonic games that's especially a problem in Sonic 1 are those goddamn spikes that pop up out of nowhere. There is no indication, so when they pop up, they likely damaged/killed you awhile you were just running, like hey, this area looks safe, get screwed by spikes sucker. It completely contradicts Sonic's main design, as the only way to effectively dodge them without any prior knowledge is to move slowly, also it's just not good game design in general. Now these spikes are not detrimental, you can still play the game as a fast paced platformer as it is designed, but god those spikes are the bane of my existence. Edit- This is a reply to Snowy, unfortunately for whatever reason my actual replies get shadowbanned, it's absolutely ridiculous, so until this problem is resolved (assuming edits will not shadowban this comment), I'm going to use this comment to reply to people, it's an absolutely messy way to reply to people, but here's the reply: Awhile we are on the topic of spikes that pop out of nowhere to give you a hard time, let me give a special shoutout to that goddamn spike maze in Palace of Shadows in Paper Mario TTYD. Now of course Paper Mario TTYD is not nearly as fast paced as Sonic, but god was it tedious to navigate. I despise that spike maze with ever fiber of my being, I rather get a lobotomy than deal with corridor with spike traps that have no indication of where they are.
Concerning 48:55, I know this is extra-canonical, but Mighty and Ray are recognized by Sonic in both the trailers of Mania Plus (Knuckles did as well, but Tails did not), and Angel Island Zone in the Encore Mode of the same game. We know that the four classic games and Mania are pretty closely knit, storywise. I feel like Sonic having met them before everyone else would make sense, especially if we assume that Knuckles Chaotix was after Sonic 3
99.9 percent sure Chaotix takes place after 3. The JP manual strongly implies that the Chaos Rings on Newtrogic High reacted to the Master Emerald falling to the ocean and being in proximity to awaken their latent power, making the island rise after it was sunk after Chaos wiped out the echidnas.
you may not know but, the classic sonic of Sonic Mania,Sonic Forces and Sonic Generations is from another dimension it is not canonical in the main timeline.A lot of people got confused in Sonic Generations with Classic Sonic, thinking it was from the past of modern sonic but it's not when Time weather was passed He accidentally ended up creating a parallel universe where Sonic didn't live the Sonic 3 adventures & Knuckles he only lived the Sonic 1 and 2 adventures, I won't say it all but it is Basically this.
Here’s what I think SEGA had in mind with the checkerboard patterns. They were used to convey a sense of speed. You can see similar use by the stripes in Outrun and Space Harrier. Passing by objects or markers makes you look fast. SEGA has always made arcade games for adrenaline junkies so it makes sense to me.
38:58 Personally, I believe that Sonic lets Dr. Robotnik run off so he can catch up with him later on. We all know Sonic has some cockiness to him, so perhaps he thinks that he can destroy any last resort Dr. Robotnik could build or unleash. In his mind, there is nothing Dr. Robotnik could do to him that would get him killed at that point.
It also explains why Sonic never actually can go at the speed of light. He doesn’t feel like it. At this point, beating Eggman is like going to work or doing chores.
Didn't the two have some relationship where one tries to "destroy" one another but never truly wants to do It and never actively attempts true murder, sonic never wanting to kill robotnik and the Dr saving sonic despite having the seemingly clear goal of getting rid of him? Like for the Dr being lonely and Sonic getting to play hero?
@@flyingstonemon3564 sonic never wants robotnik dead but robotnik defiantly will kill sonic Adventure two he out right tricked sonic into stepping into a capsule that sent him straight to space and exploded it and it was even said he was mentally celebrating while showing respects Eggman has respect for sonic and even in sonic frontiers ( no major spoilers) he even admits sonic is intedibly strong, ( spoilers ahead for the game) he admits the only reason he will work with sonic is because it’s he’s last choice
I've always thought that the remnants of a bird civilisation in Sonic 1 could easily be linked to the Babylonians, as seen in the Riders series. The Babylonians are bird-like aliens who, thousands of years ago, crash landed on Earth. The Babylon Rogues are thieves, with allusions to the fact that they come from a long lineage of pirates, searching for the lost engine units to Babylon Garden, their ship which crashed and stranded them on Earth. I like to think the Cuckoos from Tails' Adventure and the flickies are splintered evolutions of the ancient Babylonians, with the various remnants of bird civilizations we see in not just Sonic 1, but other games in the series too like 3D Blast and '06, as being due to the Babylonians. At the end of Zero Gravity, the gang is theorising about who reprogrammed the Arcs of the Cosmos into a doomsaday weapon, and when Tails suggests that maybe it was someone even more ancient than the Babylonians, Knuckles interest is piqued, suggesting that he's considering that maybe the echidnas had something to do with it. Knuckles can even read Babylonian. The idea of the Babylonians being thieves building fringe civilizations all over the place and coming into conflict with the echidnas, who possess the Chaos Emeralds, is pretty cool.
I actually think the same! All of the anthro birds, for me, are FOR SURE Babylonian descendants, only dispersed throughout the world. Besides that, the only thing I would add is their origin being in the Sky Babylon from Blaze's Dimension, and then being among the Great Civilizations from the past(Dr. Gerald cited in Sonic Battle the "Fourth Great Civilization", which is the Nocturnus, if Chronicles become Canon again)
@@GuilFernandes there’s actually a theory the Sol Dimension was retroactively created by the preemptive destruction of Solaris. That it looks like the island Blaze ended up on when she traveled back in time lends credence to this, as does the fact that absorbing Iblis had the exact same effect on her as drawing upon the power of the Sol Emeralds. Also being the princess of an entire dimension is pretty weird if you don’t have some deep connection to it.
@@tonyhakston536 While on the topic of Solaris, it has been theorised that the Time Eater from Generations is a remnant of Mephiles/Solaris considering they both have time powers and a black shadowy appearance.
I'm not into Sonic anymore, but I have to admit, early Sonic will always interest me. It really seemed like they were throwing in all their ideas and seeing what stuck, regardless of how outlandish they were. You could also tell that they were really pushing for the rubber hose-vibe back then lol
26:44 Fun fact: the Japanese credits are actually a part of all versions (or at least the U.S. version) of the game, but they can be seen by changing the pallette of the SONIC TEAM PRESENTS screen (either through ROM hacking or memory editing)
The esoteric section tickled the hell out of me. One other thing about the Egyptians: the hedgehog was sacred to Ra as it hunts venomous snakes, like the demon serpent Apep who tries devouring the sun nightly.
I did always love the idea that Sonic, Flickys, and Dynamite Dux are pretty much in the same universe. Just really cool to know these connections. Also haven't gotten the thought that the Sega Sonic arcade game was probably a prequel of the first game. Very interesting idea.
@@JohnnyVector considering that there is also some dream world from Shuffle, I think it can strangely fit. Who knows, maybe NIGHTS and Ristar are also canon in the Sonic universe
@@rayvenkman2087 because I feel like after the Adventure series, a lot of the lore pretty much got disregarded. They really tied in 2003 - 2010 but around the 2010, I feel like they tried to make the series more…. Simpler, which simpler doesn’t automatically makes it bad, but the lore I felt like took a huge backseat in this time.
The owl theory is incorrect. The images are flowers upside down. Flowers like the vines on the ceiling, or flowers like the kind the hyper emeralds and master emerald sit in/come from. It is easier to see the flowers in the 8-bit version art.
For the monitors, I feel like the goggles had something to do with a power up that gave longer times underwater without having to suck in a bubble. And the static monitor was just the sprite that showed when the display on the monitor statics out for about a second.
Taking it a step further, I think the goggles might've been a prototype water breathing tool that later was shifted to the water bubble once elemental shields became a thing.
Surprised Sega hasn’t turned one of those Pre-Sonic concept lead character like that Bart Simpson-looking Guy into their own Mr Mxyzptlk-type character by this point, given they like to take from Dragon Ball, DC and other properties for their series.
@@JohnnyVector If the reason Tails and other characters not acting like themselves throughout the Colors era along with the lore inconsistencies is because of that fifth dimensional nuisance deciding to meddle with the universe out of boredom Q-style, it would at least make some of the dumb Colors era moments more excusable.
@@JohnnyVector I think Sanic is a dumb meme that shouldn’t have been included in Forces and the only way he wouldn’t be dumb is if they make him into a Bizarro counterpart of Sonic aka his own Fake Crash.
If you want to know why the concept characters don't show up again. It was because of the Archie Comics lawsuit.. So SEGA basically decided to reboot the whole Sonic Universe during the Lawsuit and after the out of court settlement SEGA decided to basically pull away from Archie and Sonic 1 as possible!
It's not directly related, but Oshima Naoto's nickname "Big Island" is actually fairly basic once you break it down. 大 (ō) means "Big" and 島 (shima) means "Island", so literally "Big Island" Same with stuff like Toriyama Akira with Bird Studios: 鳥 (tori) means "bird"
Wow, I didn't know that about Ohshima’s nickname. I think that’s pretty neat. That just reminds me of Goichi Suda and his nickname. It’s “Suda51” which is derived from “go” which translates to “5” and “ichi” which translates to “1” thus the 51 in his nickname. He's the guy who made the No More Heroes series among many other games but that is what I personally know him for. I would like to offer you some trivia on Sonic 1 for enlightening me with that tidbit on Ohshima. Labyrinth Zone’s palette swapping water effect was inspired from another Mega Drive game called Gaiares which was released in December 1990 according to Sega Retro. This information comes from a 2018 Japanese interview with Yasushi Yamaguchi (aka Judy Totoya) and Naoto Ohshima which was published in a Phantasy Star doujinshi. Doujinshi is a Japanese word for self published printed works like a magazine for example. A Sonic Retro thread details the discovery of this here: forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/origins-of-the-sonic-1-water-effect-revealed.40037/ Here’s another one. The Japanese box art for the game includes the tagline “The Most Famous Hedgehog In The World” and it seems to be based off of something else. In 2019 one of Sonic 2’s graphic artists, Tom Payne, had given out floppy disks containing assets for Sonic 2 containing scanned art sheets and unseen sprites in order for them to become archived: megabitesblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/19/tom-payne-and-the-box/ One of the new things found inside these disks was this scanned photocopy of Sonic 1’s cover art with something else taking the place of where the tagline should be: i.imgur.com/AQVXrs1.jpg “Live Under The Sky ‘91 Out Of The World” was a music festival that occurred in Japan that was held during the summer seasons: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Under_the_Sky_(festival) The logo for the concert can be seen here in this video of the event: th-cam.com/video/NsCdilxs-B0/w-d-xo.html It’s at 1.20 in case the link doesn’t work. Here’s an image of it as well: i.imgur.com/GWqX6N8.png Special thanks to Sonic Retro user @Pengi who made a post about this which is how I discovered this: forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/unused-enemy-sprites-by-sonic-2-artist-tom-payne.38559/page-4#post-940891
Amazing iceberg as always. Shame we’ll never get anymore from ya but the most important thing for a creator is doing what makes you happy/doing what you want. Can’t wait for more content
47:00 The owl theory is incorrect. The images are flowers upside down. Flowers like the vines on the ceiling, or flowers like the kind the hyper emeralds and master emerald sit in/come from. It is easier to see the flowers in the 8-bit version art. I always thought it was owl or penguin faces too until about 2 years ago when I went through the 8-bit art.
There’s a unused sprite in the 2020 prototype build that’s a circle with a skull on it, which was planned to be used in the special stages. Maybe that’s what would happen if you touched it?
45:21 I'd love to hear more about this piece of physical artwork. It has the EXACT same holographic pattern as early japanese pokemon cards, later adapted to the english ones as well. There has to be some kind of production connection
My headcannon timeline is SegaSonic > Sonic the Hedgehog, > Sonic 2 > Sonic 3 & Knuckles > Sonic CD. Cause I don’t see why Eggman would quit his emerald hunt and death egg launch for the time stones, and I believe the robot Sonic’s in 2 and &Knuckles are precursors to Metal Sonic.
Maybe he is from Białystok. Dude, when I hear someone from abroad mention Poland, especially in such a funny way this way (yes, Białystok is a meme in Poland) it makes me feel better inside. Love Your content, keep it up, my dude!
40:08 That’s a very interesting theory Johnny. It really reminds me of when Wile E. Coyote buys a pair of super powered sneakers to try to catch the Road Runner.
Fun fact:Sonic 1 was released in America and Europe 23rd of June 1991,whike the japanese version was released later on 26th of July 1991. And because of the later relaese the japanese version had some bugs and glitches fixed that are still present and one of the glitches that got fixed in the japanese version of Sonic 1 is the spike bug. By the way Great video! Keep up the good work Johnny Vector👍!!!
Holy crap! I know this is a small detail, but on the Michael Jackson footage played on the TV, did you edit it to be slightly grey like it had glare on it? If so, my hat is off to you. You are the first youtuber ive seen to do that right and man was that nostalgic. Don't get me wrong, I love CRT's and I had a wonderful small one to play my PS1 on when I was young, but oh my god the glare was a nightmare. Young people getting into retrotech, who have only seen the super expensive Sony Trinitron PVM's with super bright colours and a basically flat curve will never understand the pain we went through with cheaper TV's. Oh, and the video was great!
Thank you! I'd love to take the credit for the CTR glare but it comes from repo of CRT overlays which are designed to be used with Retroarch: github.com/TreyM/classic-crt-collection
@@JohnnyVector thats awesome. I didn't realise someone had gone this in depth with the Retroarch filters. The smokeyness of the screen perfectly captures an old 90s TV. As an aside, it always bothers the hell out of me when I see stuff being edited to look like its being played on a TV and its just HD footage cropped to 4 by 3. Ive seen it on actual TV shows and it bothers me so much. Just use a real TV and then match the hertz. If LGR can do it, so can you. Anyway rant over. Love ya.
I assume the Goggles power up is actually meant to be a Snorkle and would allowed Sonic to breath underwater, retain air better, or something. The yellow S just invokes the idea of Super Sonic that was probably changed to how we know it now.
13:05 I think it's pretty well known by now that the eggman with pajamas was an early submitted art that was selected to be the protagonist for sega, initially. Later on, they repurposed him as the villain, giving him the mustache that was more menacing, along with the name Robotnik (US only I believe). This was in part to the robots, then adding "nik" made it sound Russian: to sound more menacing after the Cold War.
I’ll be honest, I can’t really see segasonic being a prequel, but it’s an entertaining thought. also can’t really see the 8 bit sonic one being a direct sequel- it feels more like a retelling of the same story great video, btw. this is awesome!
My headcanon for Eggman outrunning Sonic is simply that Sonic was holding back. Beating Eggman is just a game for him (literally) so it makes sense that he'd give him a chance to bring out his big guns.
See, the reason why Robotnik managed to outrun Sonic in 1 and 2 is simple, without a mech, Sonic could easily beat the piss out of Robotnik, and he knows that, and he only had one option left. *Run.*
33:47 a slight correction, at least on Naka's part, is that if you hold A and press start after a game over, you start at the world you left off at on the first level. I think this wasn't well known for a long time. I was born in 1993 so I wouldn't know if Nintendo Power ever mentioned it
@@JohnnyVector Yes, yes I did. It was far from being my favourite mobile phone game, but I still liked it very much. I remember how me and my classmates were playing it together on our friend's phone trying to beat Green Hill Zone (we were near 8 years old then and were pretty bad at video games apparently). I was the first one among my classmates to beat the zone's boss and everybody just went crazy about it afterwards. Haha, good old times... Oops, sorry for the rant here, just got a little carried away with memories :'D
I find it funny how the concept of Madonna did ended up as the princess character from sonic 06 I hate it but it's still kinda funny I also like to imagine that cream the rabbit was inspired by feels the rabbit since she does use chease the Chao as an attack and uses her ears to fly And it being referenced int the sonic mania trailer as drawing bunny ears as a "mistake" was neat
I feel like if the "goggles" power-up had made it into the game, it would have functioned like some sort of snorkeling/scuba gear that helped him breathe underwater.
A nice Iceberg, and a good video. Is there a reason why you aren't doing Sonic 2? It's a shame this is the final one, but at least you gave us quality icebergs during that time.
Thanks! I wanted a break from the format for a while. I'm really happy with the four I put out so thought I'd try and leave it on a high before I get burnt out on iceberg videos.
My thoughts about robotnik outrunning sonic is... he's superhuman. Seriously. In Sonic Adventure 2 he uses a pulley by lifting himself and his mech up, he's punched cars and trucks away casually, survived his mechs exploding in his face and survived his death egg blowing up and falling out of orbit. All signs point to the fact that he's not an ordinary egg person, my thoughts are all that exposure to chao emeralds has affected his physiology
Aw, shucks I love watching your icebergs videos. I'm quite sadden that this is your final one, I was hoping you would tackle more Sonic/Sega stuff or other retro games in this format. But, it's understandable that you want to move on from it and all.
20:12 I’ve heard (though haven’t seen firsthand) that Scrap Brain 3 is listed in the code as Labyrinth 4. (Final Zone being Scrap Brain 3.) Not sure how true it is, but seems logical at least.
I used to have this mini sega genisis in my room like a year or 2 ago and I played sonic, sonic 2, the first half of sonic 3, and sonic 3d blast. but I do also remember playing Ristar and Alex Kidd
32:30 An interesting note on NTSC vs PAL here is that Halo actually tries to correct this "slow down" effect. Looking at the speed values for things in both NTSC and PAL versions of the games shows that PAL is speed up by a small factor to compensate for the framerate. Both versions of the game feel like they play the same as a result and if you were to time it they would be moving at the same speed, but going frame-by-frame you would see the PAL version seemingly "skipping" frames due to the different framerates. Additionally this means that NTSC and PAL versions of the game can't actually play together through System Link (or I think Live, I don't know if this was still a thing by Halo 2) because they'd use different versions of the same maps and thus the game would not recognise them as the same.
About the ancient bird civilization, it's interesting to think that this idea was explored in Sonic Riders, with the Babylonians being avian creatures from another world
Since TH-cam’s censored all the real conspiracy videos, I guess I’ll have to resort to video game conspiracy theories lol. Very entertaining. Thank you
Ya know 1 odd thing is that while Felix the rabbit (my personal name for the rabbit) never fully existed in Sonic, he did escape into a game. If you know of FNAF, you’ll see the resemblance between Bonnie the Bunny and Felix. I don’t know if Scott consciously modeled Bonnie with Felix on the mind, but then again Fnaf is based off of a lot of late 80s-early 90s stuff.
23:36 33:29 whoa who's that guy he sounds familiar
Jokes aside, thank you for letting me be a part of this video, Johnny. You make some of the best iceberg videos out there, and in general your videos are stellar. Also wow they're totally needs to be a rom hack with the Long Spring to rectify that false advertisement 😤
I loved your SM64 iceberg video
@@gameboy8425 thank you!
@@MishKoz Can you do one about Mario Odyssey
@@gameboy8425 I have no plans for it, but who knows, that may change in the future. Odyssey does have a lot of cool stuff hidden in it.
Didnt you start this whole trend?
The Tokyo Toy Show Build is so interesting. Every time Yuji Naka mentions it he creates more of a mystery.
Yuji Naka has made a lot of weird, contradictory statements about Sonic 1. Hard to know what is true and what is being misremembered. (I hope you liked the little Howard Stern reference towards the end)
@@JohnnyVector I don't remember Stern advertising Sonic but he had an hour-long argument on-air about SEGA TV. It was probably an early form of viral marketing.
Yeah, it's a real shame the Tokyo Toy Show build was lost. It would have been interesting seeing what would have been in the game.
@@JohnnyVector
With those new screenshots I'm 90% sure he's misremembering the demo being playable. The fact that we have multiple pictures, from multiple magazines all showing the same exact playthrough would be one heck of a coincidence if it wasn't an autodemo.
I guess if you wanted to reconcile the two explanations: It could be possible that the TTS build was playable, but only shown as a pre-recorded autodemo at TTS itself. But I have serious doubts it was ever playable at the event itself.
@@marvelfannumber1 It probably was just a demo similar to what happens if you leave the title screen playing for too long without pressing a button. We have images of there being a title screen so that seems likely imo.
...This seems like a near-60-minute essay about how Yuji Naka is a very forgetful fellow
Haha, YES. Yuji Naka is making it hard to piece together the history of Sonic 1 with a lot of weird and contradictory statements.
Imagine trying to remember something you made after decades of it being lost
@@Sonictheoofhog4 that’s the ONLY circumstance under which I can remember things
Yeah, but at the same time he created a very amazing job. A masterpiece.
@@JohnnyVector 6:19
After seeing in the prototype that the spikes could hurt Sonic even when he's invincible, I think the spike bug is a feature.
Good point
One thing I despise in Sonic games that's especially a problem in Sonic 1 are those goddamn spikes that pop up out of nowhere. There is no indication, so when they pop up, they likely damaged/killed you awhile you were just running, like hey, this area looks safe, get screwed by spikes sucker. It completely contradicts Sonic's main design, as the only way to effectively dodge them without any prior knowledge is to move slowly, also it's just not good game design in general. Now these spikes are not detrimental, you can still play the game as a fast paced platformer as it is designed, but god those spikes are the bane of my existence.
Edit- This is a reply to Snowy, unfortunately for whatever reason my actual replies get shadowbanned, it's absolutely ridiculous, so until this problem is resolved (assuming edits will not shadowban this comment), I'm going to use this comment to reply to people, it's an absolutely messy way to reply to people, but here's the reply:
Awhile we are on the topic of spikes that pop out of nowhere to give you a hard time, let me give a special shoutout to that goddamn spike maze in Palace of Shadows in Paper Mario TTYD. Now of course Paper Mario TTYD is not nearly as fast paced as Sonic, but god was it tedious to navigate. I despise that spike maze with ever fiber of my being, I rather get a lobotomy than deal with corridor with spike traps that have no indication of where they are.
@@charliep7112 My mom and I were playing S3K and she had the issue about spikes always popping out
Concerning 48:55, I know this is extra-canonical, but Mighty and Ray are recognized by Sonic in both the trailers of Mania Plus (Knuckles did as well, but Tails did not), and Angel Island Zone in the Encore Mode of the same game. We know that the four classic games and Mania are pretty closely knit, storywise. I feel like Sonic having met them before everyone else would make sense, especially if we assume that Knuckles Chaotix was after Sonic 3
That's a great point
99.9 percent sure Chaotix takes place after 3. The JP manual strongly implies that the Chaos Rings on Newtrogic High reacted to the Master Emerald falling to the ocean and being in proximity to awaken their latent power, making the island rise after it was sunk after Chaos wiped out the echidnas.
you may not know but, the classic sonic of Sonic Mania,Sonic Forces and Sonic Generations is from another dimension it is not canonical in the main timeline.A lot of people got confused in Sonic Generations with Classic Sonic, thinking it was from the past of modern sonic but it's not when Time weather was passed He accidentally ended up creating a parallel universe where Sonic didn't live the Sonic 3 adventures & Knuckles he only lived the Sonic 1 and 2 adventures, I won't say it all but it is Basically this.
@@BrunoGamesBlogsBrasil2 that's some bullshit. I hate this dimensional split. Worst decision Sega ever made
@@BrunoGamesBlogsBrasil2 very confusing so I’ll ignore it
I'm honestly surprised that the Cheetah never came to Sega's mind when creating an animal that embodies speed.
Me too . Cheetah's are the fastest things on Earth
@@alexjackson1130 false. I believe theres a fish which is actually the fastest animal. Cheetah might be the fastest land animal
@@linkthelobster8792 oh really? I thought I heard somewhere it was a fish
@@linkthelobster8792 good to know, thank you
@@linkthelobster8792 nah mate its a pizza
Here’s what I think SEGA had in mind with the checkerboard patterns. They were used to convey a sense of speed. You can see similar use by the stripes in Outrun and Space Harrier. Passing by objects or markers makes you look fast. SEGA has always made arcade games for adrenaline junkies so it makes sense to me.
My mom got the Space Harrier coin op. And it did feel fast
Fun Fact: You technically can beat Invincible Eggman if you use Debug Mode. As it disables the timer, you have enough time to take him out.
38:58
Personally, I believe that Sonic lets Dr. Robotnik run off so he can catch up with him later on. We all know Sonic has some cockiness to him, so perhaps he thinks that he can destroy any last resort Dr. Robotnik could build or unleash. In his mind, there is nothing Dr. Robotnik could do to him that would get him killed at that point.
It also explains why Sonic never actually can go at the speed of light. He doesn’t feel like it. At this point, beating Eggman is like going to work or doing chores.
Awesome!
Didn't the two have some relationship where one tries to "destroy" one another but never truly wants to do It and never actively attempts true murder, sonic never wanting to kill robotnik and the Dr saving sonic despite having the seemingly clear goal of getting rid of him? Like for the Dr being lonely and Sonic getting to play hero?
@@flyingstonemon3564 sonic never wants robotnik dead but robotnik defiantly will kill sonic
Adventure two he out right tricked sonic into stepping into a capsule that sent him straight to space and exploded it and it was even said he was mentally celebrating while showing respects
Eggman has respect for sonic and even in sonic frontiers ( no major spoilers) he even admits sonic is intedibly strong, ( spoilers ahead for the game) he admits the only reason he will work with sonic is because it’s he’s last choice
@@georgehater8370 if robotnik dies sonic would probably get quite sad
Despite being rivals they cant live without eachother
"You can't spell Masonic without Sonic"
Now that's what I call going out with a bang
I've always thought that the remnants of a bird civilisation in Sonic 1 could easily be linked to the Babylonians, as seen in the Riders series. The Babylonians are bird-like aliens who, thousands of years ago, crash landed on Earth. The Babylon Rogues are thieves, with allusions to the fact that they come from a long lineage of pirates, searching for the lost engine units to Babylon Garden, their ship which crashed and stranded them on Earth. I like to think the Cuckoos from Tails' Adventure and the flickies are splintered evolutions of the ancient Babylonians, with the various remnants of bird civilizations we see in not just Sonic 1, but other games in the series too like 3D Blast and '06, as being due to the Babylonians. At the end of Zero Gravity, the gang is theorising about who reprogrammed the Arcs of the Cosmos into a doomsaday weapon, and when Tails suggests that maybe it was someone even more ancient than the Babylonians, Knuckles interest is piqued, suggesting that he's considering that maybe the echidnas had something to do with it. Knuckles can even read Babylonian. The idea of the Babylonians being thieves building fringe civilizations all over the place and coming into conflict with the echidnas, who possess the Chaos Emeralds, is pretty cool.
It’d be a great plot to see in a new Sonic game... If Sega learns to take him seriously again.
I actually think the same! All of the anthro birds, for me, are FOR SURE Babylonian descendants, only dispersed throughout the world. Besides that, the only thing I would add is their origin being in the Sky Babylon from Blaze's Dimension, and then being among the Great Civilizations from the past(Dr. Gerald cited in Sonic Battle the "Fourth Great Civilization", which is the Nocturnus, if Chronicles become Canon again)
Game theory
@@GuilFernandes there’s actually a theory the Sol Dimension was retroactively created by the preemptive destruction of Solaris. That it looks like the island Blaze ended up on when she traveled back in time lends credence to this, as does the fact that absorbing Iblis had the exact same effect on her as drawing upon the power of the Sol Emeralds.
Also being the princess of an entire dimension is pretty weird if you don’t have some deep connection to it.
@@tonyhakston536 While on the topic of Solaris, it has been theorised that the Time Eater from Generations is a remnant of Mephiles/Solaris considering they both have time powers and a black shadowy appearance.
5:10 your theory is incorrect but I appreciate the thought haha
It's the guy that rants about Shitty adult cartoon rip offs!!!
So what *does* "LS" stand for?
Haha, it was worth a shot
@@najadamu2724 Nobody knows, except Mark of course
@@najadamu2724 it now stands for "lil stinker" until he tells us what it actually means
johnny vector filling the cybershell-shaped void in my soul
That is a gigantic void to fill but thank you
cybershell has been back for a year though
@@half-pipe9791 And he's just released a fascinating video.
Robotnik's name was recently confirmed by SEGA to be pronounced the way you originally thought: I-Vo instead of Ee-vo.
Me: Oh you did Sonic 1 now? That means next is Sonic 2 right?
Johnny Vector: Welcome to my final iceberg video.
Haha, all good things must come to an end
No way?
_No way._
@@JohnnyVector what about the sonic CD iceberg?
@@JohnnyVector nOOOOOOOO
I'm not into Sonic anymore, but I have to admit, early Sonic will always interest me. It really seemed like they were throwing in all their ideas and seeing what stuck, regardless of how outlandish they were. You could also tell that they were really pushing for the rubber hose-vibe back then lol
Yeah right. Researching this one was fun because it was like exploring lots of 'what if' scenarios for Sonic that never came to fruition
I agree with you, I only like the 2d pixel Sonic games & Sonic mania
Sonic's beta is fascinating.
Absolutely!
@fort pingas A word starting with A stating approval!
This is the best Sonic iceberg so Far, lots of unseen information and stuff i have never heard about
Thank you, I tried my best to do as much research as I could for this one.
26:44
Fun fact: the Japanese credits are actually a part of all versions (or at least the U.S. version) of the game, but they can be seen by changing the pallette of the SONIC TEAM PRESENTS screen (either through ROM hacking or memory editing)
The fact that Vector was once planned to be around from the beginning is amazing.
The esoteric section tickled the hell out of me. One other thing about the Egyptians: the hedgehog was sacred to Ra as it hunts venomous snakes, like the demon serpent Apep who tries devouring the sun nightly.
Awesome, thanks for sharing. Always cool to hear about Egyptian mythology.
I did always love the idea that Sonic, Flickys, and Dynamite Dux are pretty much in the same universe. Just really cool to know these connections. Also haven't gotten the thought that the Sega Sonic arcade game was probably a prequel of the first game. Very interesting idea.
I love the idea that Dynamite Dux is in the same universe too because it's a totally bizarre game. It's add a lot of flavour to Sonic's world.
@@JohnnyVector considering that there is also some dream world from Shuffle, I think it can strangely fit. Who knows, maybe NIGHTS and Ristar are also canon in the Sonic universe
@@MetaKnuxXbeats Now that you put it that way, how come Sega hasn’t already done a Justice League/Avengers type game featuring these guys together?
@@rayvenkman2087 because I feel like after the Adventure series, a lot of the lore pretty much got disregarded. They really tied in 2003 - 2010 but around the 2010, I feel like they tried to make the series more…. Simpler, which simpler doesn’t automatically makes it bad, but the lore I felt like took a huge backseat in this time.
The supposed owl imagery around south island sounds pretty dang interesting. 👍🏽
It'll be interesting to see if we get more of Longclaw and the Owl/Echidna conflict in the second Sonic movie.
The owl theory is incorrect. The images are flowers upside down. Flowers like the vines on the ceiling, or flowers like the kind the hyper emeralds and master emerald sit in/come from. It is easier to see the flowers in the 8-bit version art.
@@jjmartin6422 I don’t think so , considering what we’ve seen in the new Sonic 2 movie trailers.
I always thought that, instead of owls, the beings depicted are actually old Babylonians. Who knows, huh...
For the monitors, I feel like the goggles had something to do with a power up that gave longer times underwater without having to suck in a bubble. And the static monitor was just the sprite that showed when the display on the monitor statics out for about a second.
Taking it a step further, I think the goggles might've been a prototype water breathing tool that later was shifted to the water bubble once elemental shields became a thing.
Surprised Sega hasn’t turned one of those Pre-Sonic concept lead character like that Bart Simpson-looking Guy into their own Mr Mxyzptlk-type character by this point, given they like to take from Dragon Ball, DC and other properties for their series.
I'm surprised as well, especially considering Sanic appeared in Sonic Forces
@@JohnnyVector If the reason Tails and other characters not acting like themselves throughout the Colors era along with the lore inconsistencies is because of that fifth dimensional nuisance deciding to meddle with the universe out of boredom Q-style, it would at least make some of the dumb Colors era moments more excusable.
@@JohnnyVector I think Sanic is a dumb meme that shouldn’t have been included in Forces and the only way he wouldn’t be dumb is if they make him into a Bizarro counterpart of Sonic aka his own Fake Crash.
If you want to know why the concept characters don't show up again.
It was because of the Archie Comics lawsuit..
So SEGA basically decided to reboot the whole Sonic Universe during the Lawsuit and after the out of court settlement SEGA decided to basically pull away from Archie and Sonic 1 as possible!
“What’s blue and pisses all over everything?” This is the best sonic ad of all time!
It's not directly related, but Oshima Naoto's nickname "Big Island" is actually fairly basic once you break it down.
大 (ō) means "Big" and 島 (shima) means "Island", so literally "Big Island"
Same with stuff like Toriyama Akira with Bird Studios: 鳥 (tori) means "bird"
Wow, I didn't know that about Ohshima’s nickname. I think that’s pretty neat. That just reminds me of Goichi Suda and his nickname.
It’s “Suda51” which is derived from “go” which translates to “5” and “ichi” which translates to “1” thus the 51 in his nickname. He's the guy who made the No More Heroes series among many other games but that is what I personally know him for.
I would like to offer you some trivia on Sonic 1 for enlightening me with that tidbit on Ohshima. Labyrinth Zone’s palette swapping water effect was inspired from another Mega Drive game called Gaiares which was released in December 1990 according to Sega Retro. This information comes from a 2018 Japanese interview with Yasushi Yamaguchi (aka Judy Totoya) and Naoto Ohshima which was published in a Phantasy Star doujinshi. Doujinshi is a Japanese word for self published printed works like a magazine for example. A Sonic Retro thread details the discovery of this here:
forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/origins-of-the-sonic-1-water-effect-revealed.40037/
Here’s another one. The Japanese box art for the game includes the tagline “The Most Famous Hedgehog In The World” and it seems to be based off of something else. In 2019 one of Sonic 2’s graphic artists, Tom Payne, had given out floppy disks containing assets for Sonic 2 containing scanned art sheets and unseen sprites in order for them to become archived: megabitesblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/19/tom-payne-and-the-box/
One of the new things found inside these disks was this scanned photocopy of Sonic 1’s cover art with something else taking the place of where the tagline should be: i.imgur.com/AQVXrs1.jpg
“Live Under The Sky ‘91 Out Of The World” was a music festival that occurred in Japan that was held during the summer seasons:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Under_the_Sky_(festival)
The logo for the concert can be seen here in this video of the event:
th-cam.com/video/NsCdilxs-B0/w-d-xo.html
It’s at 1.20 in case the link doesn’t work. Here’s an image of it as well:
i.imgur.com/GWqX6N8.png
Special thanks to Sonic Retro user @Pengi who made a post about this which is how I discovered this:
forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/unused-enemy-sprites-by-sonic-2-artist-tom-payne.38559/page-4#post-940891
Amazing iceberg as always. Shame we’ll never get anymore from ya but the most important thing for a creator is doing what makes you happy/doing what you want. Can’t wait for more content
Thank you, very glad to hear you enjoyed it!
Now there's an iceberg of individual games
there should be an iceberg of icebergs
Ha, I think there actually is an iceberg of icebergs out there somewhere.
@@JohnnyVector oh my goodness
This is a true Iceberg here, I CAN'T WAIT TO WATCH THIS!
21:50 i think that would've been used when you enter a special stage ring or some sort of scrapped level or special stage with a birdseye view
That makes a lot of sense.
47:00 The owl theory is incorrect. The images are flowers upside down. Flowers like the vines on the ceiling, or flowers like the kind the hyper emeralds and master emerald sit in/come from. It is easier to see the flowers in the 8-bit version art. I always thought it was owl or penguin faces too until about 2 years ago when I went through the 8-bit art.
Interesting, thanks. I'll have a have another look and see if I can see the floral patterns instead.
I'll miss these Iceberg videos from you, I hope we get something just as good whatever you decide to do next.
21:52 I think this was gonna be used in the special stages when you touch one of the goal blocks
That does sound more likely
@@JohnnyVector I think it could’ve been used for when you enter a ring for getting 50 rings. I even made an animated mock up of it.
There’s a unused sprite in the 2020 prototype build that’s a circle with a skull on it, which was planned to be used in the special stages.
Maybe that’s what would happen if you touched it?
45:21 I'd love to hear more about this piece of physical artwork. It has the EXACT same holographic pattern as early japanese pokemon cards, later adapted to the english ones as well. There has to be some kind of production connection
5:12 I think you might be thinking of Mark's friend Splash Dash
Ah yes of course, thanks for the correction
Ah yes "friend"
Friend.
I officially give the unnamed Robotnik design the name “Bumbles”. That’s his name for now on
52:34 that java port looks a lot like a better sonic robo blast
I think you missed the timestamp
51:18
@@luisenieto495 *51:34
Your sonic iceberg videos are so good.
I wish you could make more iceberg videos of the main games of the Sonic franchise.
Jim Carrey once performed "I Am the Walrus."
My headcannon timeline is SegaSonic > Sonic the Hedgehog, > Sonic 2 > Sonic 3 & Knuckles > Sonic CD. Cause I don’t see why Eggman would quit his emerald hunt and death egg launch for the time stones, and I believe the robot Sonic’s in 2 and &Knuckles are precursors to Metal Sonic.
That's a really good point regarding Sonic CD
Maybe he is from Białystok. Dude,
when I hear someone from abroad mention Poland, especially in such a funny way this way (yes, Białystok is a meme in Poland) it makes me feel better inside. Love Your content, keep it up, my dude!
Haha that's awesome! I've visited Poland and love it there. Thank you very much.
40:08 That’s a very interesting theory Johnny. It really reminds me of when Wile E. Coyote buys a pair of super powered sneakers to try to catch the Road Runner.
i love how sometimes the fleetway comics are accurate to the games then they just throw in something extremely random lol
Finally somebody who also noticed mario in marble zone’s ruins
The way mike pollock says, “I work out.” Is the funniest shit.
Fun fact:Sonic 1 was released in America and Europe 23rd of June 1991,whike the japanese version was released later on 26th of July 1991.
And because of the later relaese the japanese version had some bugs and glitches fixed that are still present and one of the glitches that got fixed in the japanese version of Sonic 1 is the spike bug.
By the way Great video! Keep up the good work Johnny Vector👍!!!
I live in Poland and I always thought Eggman's name was a coincidence and was supposed to refer to badniks. Had no idea that it wasn't a coincidence.
Thanks man this is the best sonic 1 explanation ever about secrets glitches,prototypes and more
A weird side note about the grey emerald thing is that there's a bar referencing it in pumpkin hill
9:55 Sonic Devs in 1991: Let's Remove Madonna because Animal-Human Romance Doesn't Feel Right
People Who Played Sonic 06: yeah... right...
Haha yeah, and I think the more tongue-in-cheek romance with Madonna looked like it would have worked better than the overly-serious Sonic 06 stuff.
Holy crap! I know this is a small detail, but on the Michael Jackson footage played on the TV, did you edit it to be slightly grey like it had glare on it?
If so, my hat is off to you. You are the first youtuber ive seen to do that right and man was that nostalgic. Don't get me wrong, I love CRT's and I had a wonderful small one to play my PS1 on when I was young, but oh my god the glare was a nightmare. Young people getting into retrotech, who have only seen the super expensive Sony Trinitron PVM's with super bright colours and a basically flat curve will never understand the pain we went through with cheaper TV's.
Oh, and the video was great!
Thank you! I'd love to take the credit for the CTR glare but it comes from repo of CRT overlays which are designed to be used with Retroarch: github.com/TreyM/classic-crt-collection
@@JohnnyVector thats awesome. I didn't realise someone had gone this in depth with the Retroarch filters. The smokeyness of the screen perfectly captures an old 90s TV.
As an aside, it always bothers the hell out of me when I see stuff being edited to look like its being played on a TV and its just HD footage cropped to 4 by 3. Ive seen it on actual TV shows and it bothers me so much. Just use a real TV and then match the hertz. If LGR can do it, so can you.
Anyway rant over. Love ya.
Cope means in this case that you should trust that "loop" thing, it brings you to an upper stage were you can collect two power ups
I assume the Goggles power up is actually meant to be a Snorkle and would allowed Sonic to breath underwater, retain air better, or something.
The yellow S just invokes the idea of Super Sonic that was probably changed to how we know it now.
13:05 I think it's pretty well known by now that the eggman with pajamas was an early submitted art that was selected to be the protagonist for sega, initially.
Later on, they repurposed him as the villain, giving him the mustache that was more menacing, along with the name Robotnik (US only I believe). This was in part to the robots, then adding "nik" made it sound Russian: to sound more menacing after the Cold War.
"What's blue and pisses all over everything?"
No, I need an explanation. What are they even trying to imply with this? That peeing on shit is cool?
I’ll be honest, I can’t really see segasonic being a prequel, but it’s an entertaining thought. also can’t really see the 8 bit sonic one being a direct sequel- it feels more like a retelling of the same story
great video, btw. this is awesome!
I think the goggle moniter boosts how long Sonic can survive in water, as I think its 30 seconds regularly?
yeah its 30 Seconds
Labyrinth without water???? THAT would've been A LOT easier😂😂😂
26:09
THE LONG SPRING
My headcanon for Eggman outrunning Sonic is simply that Sonic was holding back.
Beating Eggman is just a game for him (literally) so it makes sense that he'd give him a chance to bring out his big guns.
I'd guess the monitor with the goggles on it was for unlimited air during underwater levels.
Amazing video! I loved the comparison between Eggmans actions and imperialism.
I know what the COPE sign means
It just struck me that 'LS' could be short for Light Speed. It would make sense
51:18 sonic looking a lil bit cracked out there…
Feels the Rabbit is basically Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
Facts 👌🏻:)
4:57 Kousoku is actually a cool name 👍 if it was Sonics name I wouldn't mind that
See, the reason why Robotnik managed to outrun Sonic in 1 and 2 is simple, without a mech, Sonic could easily beat the piss out of Robotnik, and he knows that, and he only had one option left.
*Run.*
Haha fight or flight instincts kicking in
Came here from Mish Koz' latest metroid video.
Awesome stuff here man, subscribed.
Awesome, thank you! It was nice of Mish to give me a little shout out, his stuff is great.
and another thing: sonic cd could also be a prequel due to the badniks NOT having animals in them but rather flowers
2:15 send this bit to someone and they will be pissed
“Cope”
Man, does this really have to be the finale? Id love a Sonic Heroes or Sonic 06 iceberg
As of right now I don't have plans for another but a Sonic '06 one has occasionally tempted me.
@@JohnnyVector it would definitely be a clusterf*ck of a video, and that's exactly why I'd love to see it. Keep up the great work!!
HE FADED THE MUSIC INTO THE EXPLANATION THANK YOU
been waiting for that this whole time
33:47 a slight correction, at least on Naka's part, is that if you hold A and press start after a game over, you start at the world you left off at on the first level. I think this wasn't well known for a long time. I was born in 1993 so I wouldn't know if Nintendo Power ever mentioned it
Amazing history and facts. I didn't even know half of this.
Thanks!
That 2005 Java version of Sonic 1 was actually my first Sonic game
Did you enjoy it back in the day?
@@JohnnyVector Yes, yes I did. It was far from being my favourite mobile phone game, but I still liked it very much. I remember how me and my classmates were playing it together on our friend's phone trying to beat Green Hill Zone (we were near 8 years old then and were pretty bad at video games apparently). I was the first one among my classmates to beat the zone's boss and everybody just went crazy about it afterwards. Haha, good old times...
Oops, sorry for the rant here, just got a little carried away with memories :'D
I find it funny how the concept of Madonna did ended up as the princess character from sonic 06
I hate it but it's still kinda funny
I also like to imagine that cream the rabbit was inspired by feels the rabbit since she does use chease the Chao as an attack and uses her ears to fly
And it being referenced int the sonic mania trailer as drawing bunny ears as a "mistake" was neat
Oh hell yeah
I'm gonna save this video for lunch
Never Knew An Iceberg Of Sonic 1 Alone Existed But Im Glad I Found This And Your Channel
Omg. The slow version. This explains so much as to when I tried a US version and was really struggling, despite being a master of the game.
On the LS Mark thing, LS stands for LoSer. No I'm not making this up
I used to have Sonic 1 on a old flip phone, it was the full game with the phones directional control and this would have been in about 2008
This was both enlightening and pretty fun! Also, the "Can't spell Masonic without 'Sonic'" bit was a good laugh
I feel like if the "goggles" power-up had made it into the game, it would have functioned like some sort of snorkeling/scuba gear that helped him breathe underwater.
A nice Iceberg, and a good video. Is there a reason why you aren't doing Sonic 2? It's a shame this is the final one, but at least you gave us quality icebergs during that time.
Thanks! I wanted a break from the format for a while. I'm really happy with the four I put out so thought I'd try and leave it on a high before I get burnt out on iceberg videos.
My thoughts about robotnik outrunning sonic is... he's superhuman. Seriously. In Sonic Adventure 2 he uses a pulley by lifting himself and his mech up, he's punched cars and trucks away casually, survived his mechs exploding in his face and survived his death egg blowing up and falling out of orbit. All signs point to the fact that he's not an ordinary egg person, my thoughts are all that exposure to chao emeralds has affected his physiology
Aw, shucks I love watching your icebergs videos. I'm quite sadden that this is your final one, I was hoping you would tackle more Sonic/Sega stuff or other retro games in this format. But, it's understandable that you want to move on from it and all.
20:12 I’ve heard (though haven’t seen firsthand) that Scrap Brain 3 is listed in the code as Labyrinth 4. (Final Zone being Scrap Brain 3.) Not sure how true it is, but seems logical at least.
Weren’t the Sonic shoe colour scheme based on Santa Claus
5:05 Dang, love the casual exposure of ls mark 😂
I used to have this mini sega genisis in my room like a year or 2 ago and I played sonic, sonic 2, the first half of sonic 3, and sonic 3d blast. but I do also remember playing Ristar and Alex Kidd
Please do a Sonic Iceberg, can't wait to see it!
32:30
An interesting note on NTSC vs PAL here is that Halo actually tries to correct this "slow down" effect. Looking at the speed values for things in both NTSC and PAL versions of the games shows that PAL is speed up by a small factor to compensate for the framerate. Both versions of the game feel like they play the same as a result and if you were to time it they would be moving at the same speed, but going frame-by-frame you would see the PAL version seemingly "skipping" frames due to the different framerates.
Additionally this means that NTSC and PAL versions of the game can't actually play together through System Link (or I think Live, I don't know if this was still a thing by Halo 2) because they'd use different versions of the same maps and thus the game would not recognise them as the same.
About the ancient bird civilization, it's interesting to think that this idea was explored in Sonic Riders, with the Babylonians being avian creatures from another world
YAAASSSS
Feels is back in sonic superstars
The Meg thing is one of the most interesting things related to Sonic I’ve heard
It's such a very strange origin, I kinda love it
Since TH-cam’s censored all the real conspiracy videos, I guess I’ll have to resort to video game conspiracy theories lol. Very entertaining. Thank you
I always figured Robotnik already had one Emerald in Sonic1. That said...the Game Gear games only had 5 or 6 collectable emeralds.
Ya know 1 odd thing is that while Felix the rabbit (my personal name for the rabbit) never fully existed in Sonic, he did escape into a game. If you know of FNAF, you’ll see the resemblance between Bonnie the Bunny and Felix. I don’t know if Scott consciously modeled Bonnie with Felix on the mind, but then again Fnaf is based off of a lot of late 80s-early 90s stuff.
Doubt that,I'm pretty sure Bonnie was designed without inspiration.