Beta + Cancelled Nintendo 64 & 64DD Video Games - Page 21 of 36

The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask / Gaiden, released for Nintendo 64 as a “sequel” to Ocarina of Time lost some of its original features, including 4 days of the original 7 disappearing from the game, some dungeons, quests and a fishing mini-game (Jabu Jabu fishing) were removed. Yet even so, Majora’s Mask has managed to become one of the best games of the series.

Some more info on the beta development from an interview:

One of the developers for Ocarina of Time, Yoshiaki Koizumi, was not initially involved with the conception of Majora’s Mask, and was working on a different title until he was asked to abandon it. This turn of events resulted in the famous time limit.

Koizumi: That’s what he told us! I remember thinking to myself “That’s not helpful at all!” [Laughs] I’d originally been designing a board game, based around the theme of cops and robbers. I wanted to make it so that you technically had to catch the criminal within a week, but, in reality, you could finish the game in an hour. I figured I’d just throw what I already had into Majora’s Mask.

From Iwata Asks interview for the release of Majora’s Mask 3DS we can read more info on the early differences:

Aonuma: Right. But at first, it was one week.
Iwata: Three days was originally one week?
Aonuma: That’s right. But when you returned to the first day it was like “Do I have to go through an entire week again…”, so we thought three days would be just right.
Iwata: Wait, it got decided just like that? (laughs)
Aonuma: (laughs) In this game the townspeople do different things each day and many different things happen, but when the timespan becomes a week, that’s just too much to remember. You can’t simply remember who’s where doing what on which day.
Iwata: moreover, you probably wouldn’t have been able to make it in a year if you were aiming to make a game filled with so much content for seven days.
Aonuma: right, we never would have been able to do it. We felt it would be best to make it a three-step process, and we compressed all sorts of things we had planned for over a week into three days.

In an interview by Famitsu with Aonuma we can read some more info about the early development of Majora’s Mask:

Because of the tight schedule, the team needed to solve how to deal with the smaller volume. That’s when Yoshiaki Koizumi talked about a popular movie of that time, Run Lola Run, in which a heroine lives the same time periods multiple times. Koizumi suggested using a similar structure for the game. Originally, the cycle was planned to last a full week, but in that way Majora’s Mask couldn’t be finished in a year. The cycle was changed to contain of a start, a middle, and an end as a result.

In the gallery below you can see some beta screenshots released when Majora’s Mask was announced, with some interesting differences: there was an adult Link mask (later changed into Fierce Deity’s Mask), the instruments used by Deku Link, Zora Link and Goron Link were different, in the screenshot with Epona we can see a breakable wall that is not there in the final game, the moon did not have a face yet, some textures were different and we can notice a room full of skeletons that was completely removed. For more info on the development of Majora’s Mask read this article: Project Zelda 3D – The Development of Zelda 64

Thanks to Nick Bizzozero for the english translation! You can find more info about Zelda: Majora’s Mask in the Zelda Wiki!

Images:

Videos:

Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD

Dracula 3D / Castlevania 64 [N64 – Tech Demo / Beta]

U64 Staff & Contributors

04-04-2008

3 Comments

While in development at Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe (KCEK), Castlevania was originally known as Dracula 3D. United States news media referred to the game by this title as well as Dracula 64. In September of 1997, the game was approximately 10% finished and was 20% complete in February of 1998. In October of 1998 the game was featured at the Tokyo Game Show; several levels were playable and the game was a hit with the crowd. Later that month, it was revealed that KCEK decided to drop two of the planned four characters from the game “in favor of focusing the programming team’s development efforts and moving completion of the game forward”. [info from Wikipedia]

Most of the images preserved in the gallery below are from an early Dracula 3D tech demo, showing the main characters that were planned to be in the game. The graphic of this tech demo is much more detailed and definited than the final version and 2 playable characters were removed.

For more info on the beta: Castlevania 64 Beta Analisys

Most of the features planned for Castlevania 64 were later added to its sequel, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, that realizes some of the original game designers’ vision. For example, Cornell was present in early development media and press information for Castlevania 64, but was ultimately removed before the game’s release.

Thanks to Gilgamesh for some of these images!

Images:

Videos:

Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD

Dinosaur Planet [N64 – Cancelled]

monokoma

04-04-2008

37 Comments

Dinosaur Planet was going to be Rare’s swan song on the Nintendo 64. However, the game was finally released in 2002 only on the Gamecube, and the title changed to Star Fox Adventures. According to many, in the porting Rare dropped some of the most interesting features, so we may never know if the Nintendo 64 version was better. Certainly much has been changed in the porting process: the main character, Saber, became Fox Mc Cloud, Crystal’s role was heavily cut (she should have been a fully playable character), and many scenes from the old Dinosaur Planet build are missing. Even more interesting are the pre-production artworks, which shown a more adult version of the characters, maybe because Saber was required to grow up during the adventure, or because there was a time traveling device like in Ocarina of Time.

For more info, check the Starfox Adventure GameCube Beta page too.

[English Translation by yota]

Thanks to Karrunaniara and Ducky Wensel for the contributions! Huge props to IOnEIFalcon for sharing more than an hour of gameplay from Dinosaur Planet’s E3 1999 / 2000 (?) demo!

Images:

Videos:

Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD, Sega

Teo 64 (Fin Fin) [N64 – Cancelled]

monokoma

04-04-2008

2 Comments

Teo 64 was a pet simulation video game, very similar to “Hey You Pikachu!”, the Nintendo title where the player could interact with the pokemon talking to him through a microphone connected to the N64. In this game, however, the protagonist was a strange cross between a dolphin and a bird. Speaking with the animal it was possible to became his friend, feed him and explore the world.
For many it will be a shocking news, but “Teo” is not the name of the dolphin / bird, but of the planet where he is living. Known under the title “FinFin on Teo, the Magic Planet”, the virtual puppy FinFin made his first appearance on a PC game released in 1996. According to the producers, the 64DD version was not a porting, but a completely new game. The development of Teo for 64DD was probably stopped because of the failure of the Disk Drive, and it is likely that we will never know how different the 64DD game was supposed to be.
If you are curious to learn more about the PC version of the Teo or try it for yourself, you can download the iso of FinFin from these sites:

http://www.alassea.net/finfin/
http://home.arcor.de/emge/index_e.htm

[English article by yota]

[spoiler /Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano/ /Nascondi la versione in Italiano/]

Teo 64 doveva essere un simulatore di animale virtuale, molto simile a “Hey You Pikachu!”, titolo Nintendo in cui il giocatore può interagire con il pokèmon, parlando con lui attraverso un microfono collegato al N64. In questo gioco invece, il protagonista era uno strano incrocio fra un delfino ed un uccello, dall’aspetto abbastanza inquietante. Parlando con l’animale era possibile fare “amicizia”, accudirlo, offrirgli del cibo ed esplorare il mondo.

Per molti sarà una notizia sconvolgente, ma “Teo” non è il nome del delfino/uccello, ma del pianeta in cui abita. Conosciuto con il titolo di “FinFin on Teo, the Magic Planet”, il cucciolo virtuale FinFin fece la sua prima apparizione su Personal Computer, uscito nel 1996. Stando alle affermazioni dei produttori, la versione per 64DD non era però un port del titolo PC, ma un gioco completamente nuovo. Lo sviluppo di Teo per 64DD è stato probabilmente fermato a causa del fallimento del Disk Drive e non potremo mai sapere quali novità avrebbe portato questo adattamento.[/spoiler]

Images:

Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter [N64 – Proto / Beta]

monokoma

04-04-2008

6 Comments

Published in 1997, Turok has been one of the first Ultra 64 titles to be developed for the console. The game is based on the homonymous comic series, about a native american and his fights between evil cyborgs and dinosaurs. Thanks to its famous fog effect, which covered almost every part of the immense game levels, the game became an icon of the “fog problem” but it surely marked the hearts of many Nintendo 64 owners for its fun gameplay.

Proto / beta:

Final Version:

Before the release, the game has been shown in magazines with some pics taken from the early prototype. One of the images show a very raw 3D model of a T-REX: this enemy should be the “alpha” version of Thunder, a genetically modified dinosaur, which later has been used as a boss. The proto differs from the final version by the absence of the metallic parts covering the head and the foot of the dinosaur. Also, the polygonal model was less detailed. At any rate is difficult to note any other details, due to the blurryness of the image. The prototype colors are less shiny and “realistic” than the final version. It’s interesting to note how the fog effect was allready present: this makes us to wonder if Acclaim really intended to use that effect in the game and not just to cover eventual pop-up problems.

Surely the images in the gallery below represent an early beta stage of development, in wich they were still creating the 3D models and the scenario with not much gameplay finished. Do you know if some of these models were not in the final game? Acclaim begun to work on Turok in 1995, initially thinking to make a third person shooter, but later they chosed a first person view, in order to make it more involving.

Thanks to Linkx111 for the contribution!

Images:

Videos: