Twin Stars

From Sega Retro

GD Sonic1 Concept Art Twin Stars title.png

Twin Stars
System(s): Sega Mega Drive[1]
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega[2]
Development timeframe: 1989[2]
Genre: Action[2]
Number of players: 2[2]
State before cancellation: Early[2]

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Twin Stars, also known as ☆Twins Special☆ Exorcism: Wake Up If You Get Scared!! (☆ツインズ・スペシャル☆ 悪魔退治 怖くなったら目を醒ませ!!)[3] and Twinkle Star,[4] is an unreleased action game proposed internally by Sega character designer and artist Naoto Ohshima in 1989.[2][5] The proposal was never greenlit as a full project,[6] but its gameplay concepts directly informed the development of Sonic the Hedgehog.[4][7]

Gameplay

Twin Stars was conceived as an action game starring a pair of twin brothers as the player characters - one with blue spiky hair, the other with red spiky hair, each wearing matching shirts bearing a gold star emblem - running at high speed through smooth terrain featuring loops. The game was designed as a deliberate contrast to the right-angle-heavy terrain of contemporary action games.[8] The antagonist, Thirteen, was depicted as a giant grinning face in the sky with a long nose and sharp teeth.[9] Enemy designs visible in the concept art include a cannon, a rock creature, an exclamation point-shaped enemy, and a tree, among others.[10][5]

Production credits

History

Development

Aspects of Twin Stars served to inspire the later development of Sonic the Hedgehog.

In 1989,[2] Naoto Ohshima began conceptual work on a character-driven Sega action game with the working title Twin Stars. The premise of the game featured a pair of twin brothers from the Dream World defending it against the boss of the Nightmare World, Thirteen.[5] No target platform was specified in the 22-page[3] proposal,[5] but from internal comparisons to Super Mario World and the Super Famicom,[1] it is assumed to have been planned for the Mega Drive. While the gameplay concept was approved by Ohshima's superiors, the characters were not,[7] leaving Ohshima to come up with a new protagonist.[6] Sega indicated to Ohshima that if anyone could program the smooth terrain and loop mechanics, it would be Yuji Naka, and that Naka's involvement was a condition for the project to proceed.[8]

When Naka completed his work on the Mega Drive port of Daimakaimura and joined Ohshima's planning, the Twin Stars concept was set aside entirely.[4] Thirteen would continue to exist as a temporary enemy in the early development of Sonic the Hedgehog, before being dropped once Sonic's world was further developed.[11]

Legacy

Several enemy designs from the Twin Stars concept art carried over into the early development of Sonic the Hedgehog, with at least one - a lumpy creature with a distinct jaw - appearing in the 1990 Tokyo Toy Show demo of the game.[12] One further concept from the Twin Stars proposal - time travel - was not carried into Sonic the Hedgehog but would later be revisited by Naoto Ohshima as a central mechanic of Sonic CD.[4] Time travel would also play a central theme during the early development of Sonic 2, but was dropped from the final game before release.

A year after its creation, Ohshima gave a copy of the proposal (then known as Twins Special) to fellow Sega employee Tetsuo Shinyu in September 1990 as a reference for writing game proposals, by which point Sonic the Hedgehog was already in active development. Shinyu later shared his copy of the proposal publicly in January 2023,[3] the same month Ohshima revealed the proposal's name, full concept art, and surviving enemy designs on Twitter for the first time.[5]

Concept art

  • The unnamed protagonists of Twin Stars in front of a tropical, loop-covered area. The fanged visage of Thirteen hangs above.[5]

  • The twin brothers, along with a number of enemy concepts. Some of these would be reused once production began on Sonic the Hedgehog.[5]

  • Pages 1 through 12, thumbnails.[13]

  • Pages 13 through 22, thumbnails.[13]

  • Page 15, detail[14]

  • Page 17, detail[14]

  • Page 22, machine translated into English[15]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 File:GD Sonic1 Concept Art Twin Stars Page 22 Translated.jpg
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 @NaotoOhshima on Twitter (Wayback Machine: 2023-01-22 06:17)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 @tetsu_skytree on Twitter
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 https://shmuplations.com/sonicteam/ (Wayback Machine: 2026-02-22 11:21)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 @NaotoOhshima on Twitter (Wayback Machine: 2023-01-21 17:39)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 @NaotoOhshima on Twitter (Wayback Machine: 2023-01-21 23:14)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 @NaotoOhshima on Twitter (Wayback Machine: 2023-01-22 05:34)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/02/oh_boy_sonic_the_hedgehog_was_almost_human
  9. ↑ File:GD Sonic1 Concept Art Twin Stars 1.jpg
  10. ↑ File:GD Sonic1 Concept Art Twin Stars 2.jpg
  11. ↑ @NaotoOhshima on Twitter (Wayback Machine: 2023-01-22 05:57)
  12. ↑ 13.0 13.1 @tetsu_skytree on Twitter (Wayback Machine: 2023-01-23 23:23)
  13. ↑ 14.0 14.1 @tetsu_skytree on Twitter (Wayback Machine: 2023-01-21 23:01)
  14. ↑ @tetsu_skytree on Twitter (Ghostarchive)
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