Full question:
“Sonic the Hedgehog 2” originally was going to have a time travel system. (True/False, correct answer listed as True)
The problem as I see it:
I get where the question is coming from, as it’s rooted in some truth, but it’s (presumably unintentionally) misleading and over-represents what we know about the concept of time travel early in Sonic 2’s dev cycle.
A time travel-themed story was a proposal made very early in Sonic 2’s planning stage, before any significant development work actually began. There’s little evidence to suggest it was proposed as a mechanical gameplay “system” per se (a la Sonic CD a year later), but rather just storytelling element experienced passively by the player as part of a series of linear levels.
And in any case, there’s also little evidence to suggest that this time travel story had any significant development done on it, as we don’t currently have any reason to believe it survived the earliest of pre-planning stages. This sets it apart from something like the game’s Hidden Palace Zone, which was absolutely intended for inclusion into the final product and had significant development resources put into it, but was ultimately given up on and scrapped.
A useful source of this information: https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_2_(16-bit)/Development#Concept_art
My proposal:
Question: One of the earliest concepts for the story of “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” featured time travel as part of the main plot.
Answer: True.