Prototypes and cancelled games! And some interesting discussion (maybe?)

[The Almighty MegaMan]

Hello lovely people.
I haven't been here in what feels like forever, and I see... I haven't missed much in the last 2 months.

I've been reading about videogame prototypes lately.
IIRC I have a couple, and I'd sure like to have more.

Protos and betas may not be of interest to everybody, but I think we should give them a corner here on EP. They usually contain things that didn't make it to the actual finished products, and sometimes can be experiences on their own.

I recall the moment I learnt Sonic 2 was meant to have another... one? two? NO! FOUR EXTRA ZONES!
All of which had been cut out! And a beta dump of it allowed me (and thousands of others) to get to know what we missed out on.
The surprise and joy...

Have you ever thought that a version of your favorite game might have had characters, areas, music and art that you didn't get to see?

Or maybe you saw THIS GODDAMN THING THAT LEFT YOUR JAW TOUCHING THE GROUND and made you wonder "how did this never see the light of day?!"

What if said version was playable?
Wouldn't you be excited?

I sure would. EP is the #1 spot for me for everything retro (read, 98.75% of the games I play). Wouldn't it be nice to recopilate small bits of history that otherwise would've gotten lost?

What do you say?

Also, have you played any protos? Do you own any rare game?
Favorites, if any?

[JKDarkside]

Just here to remind everyone that Starcraft: Ghost will never become a reality. Not a DNF situation, just not being made and never will.

[MaslowK]

Wouldn't it be nice to recopilate small bits of history that otherwise would've gotten lost?

What do you say?

+1 on this; the "betas" section on the main page is rather lacking compared to what I've seen others post on the forums here (RE1 on gameboy anyone?)

On that note there were two games that I saw advertised that never saw the light of day. The first was supposed to be a sequel of sorts to Lufia 2 (from my understanding), and was said to be slated for release on the PS1 upon completion. At the time I was disappointed, as I didn't own a PS1 at the time. However shortly after seeing this I ended up getting a PS1, and it ended up becoming an entirely different game released on the GBC. Good a game as that was, I can't help but wonder what the game would have been like had it been released on the PS1 as originally planned.

The second I remember was actually supposed to be a remake of the classic Genesis action RPG Landstalker, being made for the PSP. This being one of my all-time favorite games (still have the original cartridge & case it came in), I was obviously excited to see it being remade on a more modern console. However as it turned out, aside from a video of someone playing what appeared to be a demo of the game at a convention of some sort, there was never any related media released. Very disappointing.

[Alakazander]

Borman, an old veteran of EP, runs a website almost completely devoted to this very concept: Past to Present online . His YouTube channel is chock full of cool stuff like that (Star Wars: Battlefront III ? ).

Also, coincidentally, I stumbled upon This thread about unreleased PSP games on Wololo (Devil May Cry portable... I can't believe they passed that up).

[Gare]

There are a few cancelled games that I would've loved to play. Like Final Fantasy: Fortress, which would've been (I think) an action/adventure title taking place in the world of Final Fantasy 12.



And the music would've kicked ass.



There's also the cancelled Outcast 2, would-be sequel to a great obscure classic.

And Totems, which also looked pretty great.

OH WELL.

[FlavaFlave]

Anyone remember the cancelled Warcraft Adventure game? Check it out...

[Borman]

Borman, an old veteran of EP, runs a website almost completely devoted to this very concept: Past to Present online . His YouTube channel is chock full of cool stuff like that (Star Wars: Battlefront III ? ).

Also, coincidentally, I stumbled upon This thread about unreleased PSP games on Wololo (Devil May Cry portable... I can't believe they passed that up).

Glad to see that Im not forgotten

[Stark]

We'd never forget about you

Also



Castlevania resurection for dreamcast. Would have definatly liked to see this one since playing the 3d ones on ps2.

[Gare]

Anyone remember the cancelled Warcraft Adventure game? Check it out...

That game was apparently finished, it was just never released to us lowly mortals. There was some guy uploading playthrough vids of it on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/0manbiker0

[FlavaFlave]

You're right, Gare. I found a complete 12 part walkthrough of the game..... I'm kinda surprised it wasn't released since it was finished and you would think that they would want to recoup some of the development costs. My guess is the game just totally sucked and they didn't want to take a chance and tarnish their record.



Not a cancelled game, but the final product sure turned out different than this version!

[Iamerror]

Great topic. i love to talk about beta versions of games and unfinished games. I saw beta stuff from Ocarina of time and Majora's mask. Apparently some interesting things was cut from the game. There's a unicorn fountain that tied into the zoras somehow that was scrapped. BUT the design of it is all over Zora's domain. Majora's mask was to take place over 7 days instead of 3. They felt the player would get bored, and reduced it. The most interesting though is Banjo Kazooie. It was a completely different game in it's early production. it was supposed to be about a boy that fights a giant. Some elements of this remain. There was originally a lava and forest level, but they were cut and put in the sequel. Super mario bros 2 was supposed to be a harder version of the original, but they felt kids in America wouldn't be able to play it, so it became a reamke of a game called Doki Doki panic just with Mario characters. Games that we'll never see...Earthbound for the N64. Legend of Zelda 3 for the nes.Sorry about the long post, I tend to ramble.

[Carlos Mendoza]

what about megaman legends 3 and starfox 2 for snes, well sf2 later became starfox 64

[Iamerror]

Oh, yeah. Conker was supposed to be a cute game then it turned into Conker's bad fur day. I think he was trying to retrieve gifts for his girlfriend, something like that. Go on youtube, and look at all the neat beta stuff from games. Some of it will blow your mind.

[Kool Aid Man]

Shenmue on the Sega Saturn looked very impressive. Yu Suzuki was right when he said "I think that only one out of 100 programmers are good enough to properly program the Saturn." That beta shows just how talented and visionary he was and it's a damn shame Sega rejected so many of his game ideas after the Dreamcast.

[The Almighty MegaMan]

Shenmue on the Sega Saturn looked very impressive. Yu Suzuki was right when he said "I think that only one out of 100 programmers are good enough to properly program the Saturn." That beta shows just how talented and visionary he was and it's a damn shame Sega rejected so many of his game ideas after the Dreamcast.

As much as I love Yu (specially OutRun, gods I love those games!) it was exactly that what set the final nail in the Dreamcast's coffin...

Ok so there seems to be an unanimous agreement. What do we do now?
Everybody posts up all the betas they have in a single thread?