Hidden Palace Zone
This mod is an ambitious attempt to recreate in Minecraft the legendary scrapped location from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Sega Genesis - Hidden Palace Zone. In 1992, players saw this level on the pages of gaming magazines and in video previews, but after the release of the final version of the game, they discovered its absence, which created a mystery among series fans.
The history of this location is full of surprising turns. The Hidden Palace Zone screen was one of the first levels being developed and was only removed from the release at the last moment. Instead of the original design, subsequent games in the Sonic series featured locations with the same name but completely different design.
The breakthrough occurred in the late 1990s when Canadian fan Simon Wai discovered an early prototype version of Sonic 2 with the preserved level on a Chinese GeoCities site and shared the find with the Western gaming community. This discovery marked the beginning of the movement to preserve game prototypes and create archives, including the famous Sonic Retro wiki.
The second birth of the level happened in 2013 when Sega brought in famous Sonic modders to develop mobile versions of the classic games in the series. Using the game engine they created (Retro Engine), they restored Hidden Palace Zone in the Sonic 2 port. In the final version, this level could be found by jumping into a seemingly bottomless pit in the second act of Mystic Cave Zone.
Mod content:
- Full Hidden Palace Zone dimension
- Several unique mobs
- Numerous thematic blocks
- Work on mobs and map structures continues
Resource credits:
- Original and modified sounds, sprites, block and creature textures: Sonic Team and Sega
- Musical accompaniment: Masato Nakamura
- Music compositions: · FFMusicDJ — Hidden Palace Future · Masato Nakamura — Mystic Cave Zone 2 Player, Hidden Palace Cutscene
