Hidden Palace Zone is one of the 4 levels that was scrapped in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and the most famous zone of those 4 because of several reasons:
1: It was one of the most featured zones that was scrapped before Sonic 2's final release.
2: While it's not completely playable in the final version, its song is still in the game's Sound Test as #10. Many, many players that heard this song from there had to figure out on their own where it would play during the final game.
3: It shares its name with a similar zone in Sonic(3) & Knuckles.
4: It contains what is considered the predecessor to the Master Emerald, which made its full debut in Sonic & Knuckles.
Among other things. According to Yuji Naka, this zone was originally planned as a final Special Stage that Sonic would venture through after getting all of the Chaos Emeralds from the regular Special Stages. It was all going to be an elaborated process of gaining the ability to turn into Super Sonic.
The emerald-like object at one point of the zone was thought to be the Master Emerald where Sonic would gain his Super Transformation. Later on, the designer of the zone confirmed that it was just something to break.
Trying to hack the final version of Sonic 2 to get to this stage will only greet you with a garbled mess of a level, but hacker "Sonic Hachelle-Bee" revived this zone where it was stable during Sonic 2's beta stages.
This version of the entire zone is from his hack called "Sonic 2 Long Version".
Notice how the green bridges light up as a character travels through it. Doesn't Sonic 3's Ice Cap do the same thing?
It uses Mystic Cave's boss as its own, and unlike the other revived zones, this one's boss doesn't appear to be any harder than it originally was.
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