Editing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (section)

===Conflicts===
The development was complicated due to cultural differences between the Japanese and American developers. Despite the fact that both sides were on friendly terms, there were many contrasts in their working styles. The Japanese were among Sega's top developers, making it difficult for the relatively inexperienced Americans to keep up. Both parties also had an entirely different work ethic, and many worked throughout the night and even slept in their office cubicles. Former STI member Tim Skelly believed that Naka would have been happier working in an all-Japanese team.<ref name="Sega16" /> In addition, due to the sheer scale of the project and the work environment in the United States, the small team was left to do all the work themselves.<ref name="Famitsu" />

[[File:HPZ.jpg|thumb|left|225px|Various Zones in ''Sonic 2'' were cut from the final game. The most famous was "[[Hidden Palace Zone (Sonic the Hedgehog 2)|Hidden Palace Zone]]" (recreation from the [[Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2013)|2013 remaster]] pictured), which was reintroduced in a few recent releases of the game.]]
{{Quote left|The game probably could have been three times the size if we left in everything that was there. [[Yuji Naka|Naka]] and team [...] weren't afraid to say, 'I've been working on this for four months, it's not working. Let's take it out.'|Former Sega of America marketing director Al Nilsen on the scrapped content in ''Sonic 2''}}
A lot of content ended up being scrapped from the game due to memory limitations. In retrospect, Nilsen said ''Sonic 2'' "probably could have been three times the size" had the developers left in everything that was planned to be there.<ref name="GameInformer" /> Amongst much of the scrapped content was "[[Hidden Palace Zone (Sonic the Hedgehog 2)|Hidden Palace Zone]]", which appeared in many advertisements of the game. It was intended to be a Zone with two Acts where Sonic would [[Super transformation|transform]] into [[Super Sonic]] after collecting all seven [[Chaos Emerald]]s. However, it was then changed to one Act before the developers eventually abandoned the proposal and instead allowed the player to access Super Sonic regardless of the Zone.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://uk.xbox.gamespy.com/articles/654/654750p4.html|title=Sega's Yuji Naka Talks!|publisher=GameSpy|page=4|quote='''GameSpy''': Was the Hidden Palace meant to be "hidden," then? / '''[[Yuji Naka]]''': You'd encounter the stage through normal play by collecting the emeralds. The idea behind the stage was, 'Where do the Chaos Emeralds come from?' That's where Sonic was originally supposed to be granted his Super Sonic powers. We finally were able to use it in S&K, though it wound up being quite different from what we had planned in Sonic 2. But even from Sonic 1 we'd been throwing around those sorts of ideas. Still, when we were running out of time, we looked over things quickly trying to figure out what to dump ... and CHOP went the Hidden Palace. There's simply no way we could have thrown that in by the deadline at the rate we were going.|accessdate=3 January 2015}}</ref><ref name="SRZ">{{Cite web|url=http://www.randomsonicnet.org/srz/index.php?page=interviews/cs.htm|title=Craig Stitt Interview|publisher=Sonic Research Zone|date=23 January 2001|accessdate=25 January 2015}}</ref> Other famously scrapped Zones included "[[Wood Zone]]", "[[Sand Shower Zone]]", and "[[Cyber City Zone]]". Naka recalls that as many as five stages were scrapped, one of them being cut from the game a few days before release despite having been fully completed due to the lack of memory.<ref name="Gryson">{{Cite journal|title=The People Making Sega's Future|journal=Beep! Mega Drive|publisher=SoftBank|date=January 1993|pages=46–48|url=https://mdshock.com/2021/12/28/the-people-making-segas-future/|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20211229012806/https://mdshock.com/2021/12/28/the-people-making-segas-future/|archivedate=29 December 2021|quote='''[[Yuji Naka]]''': There's still so much I want to add. For Sonic 2, we had to remove so much due to memory limitations. We actually made about five more zones, but in the end, we had to cut them all. We actually cut one zone at the absolute very last minute. Even though it was basically complete, we couldn't use it because of a lack of memory. There just wasn't enough space.}}</ref> The stakes for this game were so high that it was polished up until the very last possible moment, and then flown to Japan for production by two people on two separate planes, just in case something went wrong with one plane.<ref name="GameInformer" />