This article is about the cancelled Game Gear game. You may be looking for the cancelled Mega Drive game.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a cancelled platform game developed by Aspect, and presumably would have been published by SEGA for their Master System and Game Gear consoles, had the game been released. The only known prototype of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is an "AutoDemo" developed for the latter, and credited to be from December 5, 1991 internally, though the demo's title screen is copyrighted to 1992; the game would have most likely been released that year. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was intended to be a sequel to the 8-bit Sonic the Hedgehog, and based on the contents of the AutoDemo, would have contained similar gameplay. Although it shares the same title with the also-cancelled Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Genesis and their releases most likely would have coincided, as had been done for both game's predecessors, the games have little in common and share no levels.
On April 7, 2016, a development EPROM containing the AutoDemo was sold to the user drx, a prominent member of the video game hacking and prototype community. The ROM was released to the public afterwards. A patch to allow a player to control Sonic within the AutoDemo was created on May 1.
Gameplay[]
The only prototype known to exist of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the "AutoDemo", internally dated to December 5, 1991. As the prototype's nickname suggests, the AutoDemo cannot normally be controlled by a player - instead, it is a showcase of what the game would have been like upon release, in order to increase anticipation for the game.
The AutoDemo opens with an introduction sequence showing Sonic running in an area similar to Green Hill Zone from the previous game; it is unknown if this is the same location. Following this is the game's title screen, which more closely resembles its Mega Drive counterpart than the first 8-bit Sonic the Hedgehog game. After the title screen, three levels are demonstrated.
The first level demonstrated in the AutoDemo is the Green Hill Zone-resembling area from the short introduction. This level demonstrates gameplay that is very similar to Sonic the Hedgehog 2's 1991 predecessor. Appearing to be a side-scrolling platformer, Sonic the Hedgehog runs at high speeds throughout the level, collecting Rings placed along the way, and, notably, running through a vertical loop; a feature present in the Mega Drive Sonic the Hedgehog game, as well its own cancelled sequel, but absent in the 8-bit Sonic the Hedgehog game.
The second level demonstrated by the AutoDemo is notable for featuring Sonic riding in a hang-glider through a largely empty, though stormy sky area.
The third and final level shown as part of the AutoDemo is an underground area, through which Sonic rides a minecart, though this level is only shown briefly.
The AutoDemo then fades into a yellow "Coming Soon" screen, before looping from the beginning. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was never officially released.
When modified to allow the player to control the AutoDemo, Sonic controls almost identically to the way the character controlled in Sonic the Hedgehog 2's predecessor, though his physics appear to be broken; it is likely that the physics would have been re-worked for Sonic the Hedgehog 2, had it been completed. Additionally, the vertical loop present in the first level appears to be a scripted event; when the player enters the loop from the opposite side from where the AutoDemo normally enters, the sequence is broken, with Sonic walking on air.
Notably, there are no enemies featured in the AutoDemo, and Sonic cannot take damage or lose a life at all, even though spikes appear frequently within the levels contained in the AutoDemo's data; most of which are not normally demonstrated, and instead require hacking to access. Additionally, bottomless pits, despite being present within certain unused levels, do not work correctly in the AutoDemo; when the player falls into a bottomless pit, the game crashes, with corrupted graphics and sound. None of the levels within Sonic the Hedgehog 2 are officially named.
Development and cancellation[]
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was developed by Aspect, unlike its predecessor which was developed by Ancient. The game is theorized to have been cancelled around August of 1992; this is around the time that the final known prototype of the game's Mega Drive counterpart was developed.
| This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit video_game), which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors). | 
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