Well, I checked this out, and I'm not all that impressed, to tell the truth. Wood Zone seemed poor to me: Highly linear, irritating enemy respawn rates (I kill an enemy and its respawn zone drops out of my view for a mere moment. I head back the other way and it pops up out of nowhere and attacks me.), and it seemed to lack a certain depth the official levels have - probably the background, I think, since all the others stretch off into the distance. The boss was also irritating - it was just Aquatic Ruin's boss with a slight colour scheme change (which really doesn't go with the rest of the scheme) and a pit in the middle which makes things really annoying; you get hit once, you're effectively screwed. If you don't fall down the pit due to the collision, your rings'll probably all bugger off before you can grab 'em. Oh, and there's a height limit on the battle area, so you jump to high and you might end up being forced back down faster than you intended.

Dust Hill...once again, this seemed to lack the depth of other levels. And for some reason I couldn't work it out - about 30 seconds into the first act, the color pallette changed for no good reason, and I found myself trying to climb up a bunch of platforms with springs trying to force me the other way, hitting a switch with seemingly no function, then falling down a slope which lead me back down to where I started the climb, the only alternate path leading to a jump Sonic can't seem to make.

Both of these zones used music from 2P/System Menus, both of which seemed innapropriate to the zone.

There are also a number of glitches present which I don't recall noticing on the original S2 - for example, Sonic has a habit of getting caught around curves when running around them at high speed, the only way to get out of them being to jump, losing all your momentum in the process. Kinda annoying.

Blah blah blah other stuff I'M DONE.

Yeah I noticed all of those as well too. And if you did not notice both acts of Genocide City Zone are just duplicates of each other. But I'm not too surprised the bosses got reused as probably the bosses that were intended for the level had not been coded into the game and thus there's no chance of knowing what the boss was actually suppose to be. According to the site though the current version is only 40% completed so we could see some improvements as the final touches are put into place. The one thing that annoyed me the most is Hidden Palace Act 1 as in the final section you cannot see the level and you just keep going right until you hit the sign.

It's something at least, I'm happy for that. Hopefully their project can get some people in there to make things look better and more on par with an official game. The graphics used in the 16Bit era can easily be replicated by today's technology.

This has actually been around for quite a long time, so I can safely say it's not an April Fool's joke (**discovered it about July of last year**)

The new levels themselves didn't really impress me, but it was still really cool to go through. Wood Zone was pretty easy, Genocide Zone even easier.... But Dust Hill frustrated me to no end. I don't think I ever got through it completely without glitching my way through or just skipping to the next level via Level Select.

What I really liked though was the way they used the music. It all sort of fit, and they made use of the song that was in the sound test but was never used in the game (unless it IS used and I just forgot). Hidden Palace Zone Act 1 seemed all right to me, but the 2nd act? There are no badniks, and you could almost just hold down the right arrow button and be at the end in less than a minute. What's the whole point of that then?

**ahem**

Knowing that all of this was hacked though really impressed me. When I discovered it and researched a bit of the history, I did go through to find tutorials on how to hack a Sonic game. It sounds like fun if only to see what you can do and change ^^;

EDIT: o.o **rewrites to make more sense**

~Shadowed Spirit Sage

Interesting. Now to import characters like Knuckles...or be able to play Tails by himself or team whoever you want to (similar to Knuckles Chaotix in a way).

Can't wait to see it 100%, with all the classics plus Wood, Dust Hill, and Genocide City Zones in place. Now, if only I knew how to work an emulator (sigh).

...you open it, load a ROM and play. Not rocket science.

Oh. I thought you had to download an emulator first.

That's assumed.

As long as I admitted my mistake, who cares?

Don't answer that.

(I gotta keep my big mouth shut... )

Also, you're talking (typing?) to the guy who turned on a fan and had the plug- and I mean JUST THE PLUG- explode. It took 7 years to get the scorch marks of my bedroom wall.

No joke- IT HAPPENED. I also ran myself over while riding a bike once... but that's another story for another time.

Revenge of the Spin Attack Smiley! REEEEVEEENGE.... of the Spin-Attack Smiilleeeeeeeyyyyy...!!!!!!!
(to the tune of the theme song of the "Attack Of the Killer Tomatoes" cartoon.)

I remember playing that Sonic 2 beta at home... but I'm posting this in St. John's now so I'm posting from what I remember.

Anyway, not bad. I noticed how oddly fitting the final version's multiplayer music seemed to be in the beta's singleplayer... like Casino Night multiplayer's general tone seeming to suit Genocide City better than Casino Night, well in my opinion anyway. Or how given that both Emerald Hill and Wood Zone could be considered "trees" levels, how fitting it was to use Emerald Hill multiplayer music for Wood Zone single player, and furthermore, the ending credits music fits better as all of it is in 1player mode in the beta. It makes it seem almost as if the BGMs were originally intended for the levels that were cancelled.

The new levels seem fairly logically placed, like how Wood Zone is after coming from Hill Top into Mystic Cave, after coming down from the upper areas of the mountain, then you're in the lower areas of the mountain and there's a forest for you to go through, and then later on you end up INSIDE the mountain, and inside the mountain there's a cave for you to go through... sorry if the wording of that didn't really make sense.

I noticed they didn't include the "beta" versions of certain levels like Casino Night Zone there... but as for the beta levels themselves...

[The following is talking about specific levels in the beta]

I don't know what to say about Wood Zone... the wooden tube thing where you fall down this wooden hole and walk through this wooden tube... that happens several times... I dunno something just seems odd about doing that several times...

Dust Hill Act 1 was REALLY confusing. If I remember correctly you eventually end up in a room where the half-circle loops on each side send you to a higher level of ground, ect... and I tried going in all directions I could find from that room but every way I went I ended up back in that same room. There was no way to tell which way was "out" of the level for that level and I ended up just going in circles. Dust Hill Act 2 was a bit confusing but not quite as much so as Act 1 as I eventually made it "out" and enjoyed that level otherwise a bit more so than Act 1.

With Genocide City I noticed how both Acts were about the same except Act 2 having a bossinstead of a sign. Pretty good though, I like how the music went with the level as in with the background and the level design... hard to explain really... I wonder why they call it GENOCIDE city. o.o

I liked Hidden Palace though. They took the music from what was originally supposed to be Hidden Palace rather than from another tune in the final version like I saw done in another version of the Sonic 2 beta. I liked the placement of the tunnels, platforms, and underwater areas. I also liked how the background was done and fit the music... not bad.

Death Egg extension, they apparently took the level design from Chemical Plant, (making it easier actually by removing the liquid) and gave it a new background... but it kinda indicates that Chemical Plant's design, if not for the lack of challenge would have been almost perfect for a "last level" being the one with some of the fastest moments or probably the most extendedly fast moments anyway...

Ok I'll stop there for now.