Recently, my love for Retro Gaming has caught back up with me. I loved the good ol' days when I could sit down and play my Sega Mega Drive (yes, there WERE good consoles for PS2 came along) and play games such as Super Hang On, Columns, Daffy Duck goes to Hollywood and more specifically...Sonic 2.
Sonic 2, to be honest, is one of the greatest games of all time. It was revolutionary at a time when consoles were only just beginning to evolve. However, the famous Sonic Team made a mess of a great game by screwing up the storyline, and deleting a fair few levels.

How do I know this? Allow me to explain...
Before most games are released, a 'BETA' version is created by the publishers and sent off to Magazines and TV Shows so they can review the game. The BETA version most times does not differ from the final version, with more additions than deletions. Sonic 2 was the exception to this rule. The ROM for the game was stumbled across by an American called Simon Wai on a Hong-Kong Gaming Site. He found the ROM by accident and found himself A LOT OF FAME. He was pretty much helped by a guy called Andre, who collected Screen Shots of the 'Hidden Palace' Level of the Game, which had been lost in the final version. (More on that later)

A lot was changed from the BETA to the final version. It is pretty much fact that the 'Dust Hill' Zone was originally supposed to be a zone based in the Desert, but we had to wait about 3 years to see a Desert based level, in Sandopolis in Sonic and Knuckles. To sum up Sonic 2... IT WAS RUSHED... VERY rushed.

I downloaded the ROM, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. The first thing that strikes you about the game is the Start screen. No Sega Logo and no 'SEGA!' sound at the beginning (I've waited years not to hear that sound at the beginning of a game ). The BETA Version of the game has actually got Flowers in the background, whilst the final version has a kind of Island, probably where the game was based.

If you do the most famous cheat in gaming history...Up, Down, Left, Right, A + Start, a level select comes up. A few levels don't exist, such as Death Egg, Genocide City and certain acts of other Levels.

The most famous of the lost levels is Hidden Palace. As I said earlier, the buggers at Sega and Sonic team pretty much screwed the game with a poor storyline to begin with. There is many theories about the Hidden Palace level and it's premise, but, I believe a combination of theories.
For those who have realised, there is a message in one of the Sonic Games...I think it's Sonic 3, which states...
"Now Knuckles can go to the Hidden Palace!".
Thanks to very badly cocked up storyline you may not have realised that Knuckles the Echidna was originally employed by Eggman himself, Dr. Robotnik to guard the Master Emerald. Guess what pops up in the Lost Hidden Palace level...you guessed it, a rather large and green emerald. Makes you think...was Knuckles meant to be the original partner for Sonic? In my mind, YES. I think Tales was rather rushed like the game and was only put in to push Knuckles' debut back to Sonic 3. In fact, if you look at some pre-BETA shots of the game (EXTREMELY rare ALPHA game shots), you will notice that Tails isn't there. There was once a strong rumour that Knuckles should have been in Sonic 1, but that has since been squashed about a million times over.
Sonic Team have come up with a load of excuses for the reasons which the Hidden Palace level was dropped. The main one was time restraints. As I have said before, Sonic 2 was a rushed job, and SEGA themselves have admitted that. Some have said that the game was getting too big for it's own good. True, but Sonic 1 had 6 zones and 3 levels on each. That's around 18 areas to play. The BETA, had it been completed, would have had around 30 AREAS! This would have made Sonic 2 a very decent game in my mind, not like it isn't one already. I mean, most games these days should take a few normal days to complete. Look how long it took people to complete GTA 3 fully and let it be acknowledged? A long time in my mind.
To put it simply, it was great shame Hidden Palace was dropped, and rumours have it that it should have been the final level of Sonic 2. The bridges lit up as Sonic went across. HOW KOOL IS DAT? It was so fuckin sweet!

Onto another level that was dropped in Wood Zone. As you might have guessed, Wood was involved in this level. The zone itself was based in a set of rather high trees, and in the beta you can only get to a certain point before using some very hi-tech computer wizardry to get further into the level. There is not act 2 for this level.

Dust Hill...ah yes...the world famous Dust Hill level. Now, this was SUPPOSED to be a desert level, but as I explained earlier, it was dropped. Why? Because Sonic Team said Deserts don't appeal to a Japanese market. They do have The Discovery Channel and National Geographic in Japan, don't they? The Japanese are some of the most intelligent people in the world! Without them, PCs wouldn't be around! Of course they know what a fucking desert is! 
In the BETA version, there is a level called Dust Hill, but SEGA got very lazy and it turns out to be the Mystic Cave Zone from Sonic 2 Final.

Also, if you notice, The Casino Night Zone also has a different background to the one in the final game. I have not seen it myself and I pass no comment.

The Neo Green *something* *something* zone which you may if you press start at the Title Screen is actually 'Aquatic Ruin' from the final game, just with no bots or anything. 'Badniks' to be precise. Green Hill (aka EMERALD Hill) is the only one with full Badniks, including one or two from Sonic 1. Lucky buggers...

To sum up: Sonic 2 was a great game, but should have been left untouched. After playing the BETA (and quite surprisingly, completing it), you'll see that Sonic 2 should and COULD have been one of the greatest games ever, let alone the biggest selling Genesis/Mega Drive title ever created.