Sonic 2 Was Originally Planned to Feature a US Soundtrack Similar to Sonic CD

It has been revealed SEGA of America approached the development team behind Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to use music written in-house. The development team rejected the music and found it to be of poor quality. Following this, Dreams Come True worked on the music. The interview took place in 2017 and was published in 2018. Sonic Retro member Gryson recently translated the interview and discovered this information.

–Ms. Numata, you also did a tiny bit of work on Sonic 2, didn’t you? Did you do some sound effects?

Numata: I just did some data inputting. For the music. I wasn’t even supposed to do that, but in the end…

–Did that involve converting the source music—porting it to the Mega Drive?

Numata: Right. I ended up doing that. There were five or six sound people.

–Oh, right, now that you mention it, quite a few names are listed in the credits for sound.

Numata: I think that, probably, the music I input doesn’t even appear in the game (laughs). I remember thinking, “Huh?!”

Yamaguchi: That reminds me: The music for Sonic 2 was completely different at first. Someone working in America, an American, came to us and asked us to use this music, but all of the tracks were awful, so together we rejected all of them.

Numata: For Sonic 2?

Yamaguchi: Yes, for Sonic 2. The tracks were just no good, so we called and explained how bad they were, and in the end, we were allowed to use Dreams Come True.

Ohshima: You mean that?

Numata: Dreams Come True.

Ohshima: What about M?

Yamaguchi: He said he was going to do it, but in the end… I guess maybe there was some future plan for him to do it. But I don’t really know.

Ohshima: Well, I received a cassette tape from the sound department, and it contained audio of M doing all the rhythms with his mouth, like “tsuttsuku tsuttsuku.”

Numata: Hold on – who is M?

Yamaguchi: He already passed away.

Ohshima: A famous person who passed away. Michael.

Yamaguchi: Jackson.

SST: Michael Jackson!

Numata: Whoa! He’s too big so he didn’t even come to mind.

SST: Wait, so Michael was going to do the music for Sonic 2?

Yamaguchi: Hmm, maybe he came and said he wanted to do it?

–Really?!

Ohshima: So he was going to do it.

Yamaguchi: Anyhow, the time I’m talking about, the demo tracks we heard were so bad that there was no way we could use any of them.

Ohshima: Wow, you rejected Michael’s songs?

Yamaguchi: No, I’m not sure they were Michael’s.

Ohshima: All of the songs were done by mouth.

Yamaguchi: Then that’s something different from what I’m talking about.

Ohshima: And there were even some “Wow!”s in there.

–(everyone laughs)

Yamaguchi: No, we never heard that.

Ohshima: But it was so cool.

–I wish I could have heard that.

Yamaguchi: No, that wasn’t it. The tracks we heard were probably from someone working at Sega of America. They got passed up to us, but they were all horrible and we said so.

Ohshima: But I heard that some of the tracks were secretly included in the game.

Numata: I doubt it.

Ohshima: What do you mean?

Numata: I doubt they were included. Wouldn’t that be bad if they were?

Yamaguchi: Anyway, all of Sonic 2 was done by Dreams Come True.

–The Dreams Come True source music also became a CD.

Numata: Someone was supposed to input the music data…

Ohshima: What about Sonic 3?

Yamaguchi: I don’t know about Sonic 3.

Numata: I don’t know about it either.

–Sonic 3 was apparently done internally.

Yamaguchi: But I do remember that there was talk of Michael Jackson during Sonic 2.

Ohshima: So maybe he came into it for Sonic 3.

Yamaguchi: Probably. Anyway, the music by the person that Sega of America recommended for Sonic 2 was, honestly, all bad. It didn’t fit Sonic whatsoever.

Numata: And that’s different from Sonic CD.

Yamaguchi: Yes, that’s different. I quite like the music from Sonic CD.

Ohshima: Sonic CD was done by Hataya.

Numata: It was done by Ogata.

Ohshima: Hataya.

Numata: Ogata.

–Ah, they both worked on it.

Ohshima: Ogata and Hataya.

Yamaguchi: But the music for the North American version of Sonic CD is different. I just asked Ohshima but he said he didn’t know. I wonder why it’s different.

–Yes, it’s completely different.

Yamaguchi: Completely different.

–I could understand if it was just the opening song. But all the tracks are different.

Yamaguchi: Right, all the tracks are different.

Ohshima: Oh, all the tracks are different?

Yamaguchi: Completely.

Ohshima: Really. I didn’t know that.

Yamaguchi: Not just the opening and ending, but all the tracks in-between.

Perhaps the rejected Sonic the Hedgehog 2 tracks will be uncovered in the future. As of right now, these tracks are fully hidden away.