New Sonic 1 Alpha Screenshots Uncovered

Screen Shot 2015-05-03 at 22.05.27New screenshots have been unearthed from the Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) alpha thanks to a scan from the August 1990 issue of old SEGA magazine, Mega Drive Fan, uploaded to a forum for discussion.

The scan was uploaded to fansite SEGA-16 and discovered by Retro members, and quickly identified as the alpha due to their extreme visual similarities to previously discovered media shown at the 1990 Tokyo Game Show, where the title was first revealed to the public.

The screenshots are some of the highest quality available of the alpha, giving us better look at some development designs and alterations the launch title for the SEGA Mega Drive went through.

Screen Shot 2015-05-03 at 22.06.35

Aside from the instantly recognisable differences – such as the majorly differing mountain range background art and a completely different badnik design never seen in the final game, there are other small changes to be seen. These include Sonic’s sprite design, the palmtrees and the title screen logo.

You can also spot what could be various gameplay differences too, as Sonic (seen in the screenshot above) is not in his iconic spin jump form while coming in to seemingly aerial attack the badnik. It could be a possibility that the pinball nature of Sonic had not been established yet.

You can take a look at the screenshots in our gallery below, including cropped, blown up and touched up images thanks to Retro user cornholio857. Credit to the original scan goes to JumpingRyle of SEGA-16!

The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.

Published by

Symbotic

A video game enthusiast, dog lover and dedicated Netflix user. Would probably spend every day eating pizza and talking about movies quite happily.

8 Comments

    1. Exactly my first thought. This looks closer to the 8bit version than the 16bit one, with no background for the title and this sprite.

  1. Why does that Badnik seem so familiar? I know I’ve see him before, but I forget where and what game.

    1. It’s Mr Monster Guy.

      He was found a while ago from some other scans which were slightly blurred, this is the most clear image ever found of him.

    2. It kinda looks like Sonic’s version of a Goomba, with the fangs and all.

    1. And a… uh… interestingly shaped Badnik on the bottom right there.. O_O’

Comments are closed.