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Nintendo

Epic Mickey is a platform/action-adventure game designed by Warren Spector (of Deus Ex fame) and developed by Junction Point Studios exclusively for the Wii. The game was released in November 2010. As the title suggests, it stars the world-famous cartoon character Micky Mouse, however, after toying around with a magic paintbrush on a model of Disney Land made by a wizard named Yen Sid (“Disney” spelled backwards), he accidentally creates the Phantom Blot. He tries to erase it with paint-thinner, but he spills more paint on the model in the process, creating a portal with the paint/thinner mixture, which The Phantom Blot enters. Eventually, Micky gets pulled into it by the Phantom Blot, finding himself in a dark world known as The Cartoon Wasteland, populated by Disney characters who haven’t seen the light of day in years, even decades, not the least of which is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Pre-production started in 2007 when the company was bought by Disney. Some concept arts were leaked in Summer 2009 from a former employes’ resumes, but the final game doesn’t really look like these. It’s possible that parts of the original concept were cut.

As we can read at the Escapist Magazine, the Epic Mickey project originally started out as a PS3 / Xbox 360 / PC game, but later the developers decided to go with a Wii exclusive:

Speaking to Official Nintendo Magazine, Epic Mickey developer Warren Spector revealed: “The reality is that we started Wii development in 2008, but before that we were a PC, PS3, and 360 title.” Spector told Disney Interactive Studios boss Graham Hopper that to develop a true success, “it’d be awfully nice if we could focus on one platform.” Everything was switched up when a Wii port of the game was discussed, with Spector rightfully believing that a regular port wouldn’t cut it due to the unique, arm-flailing nature of the Wii, so Hopper suggested that Epic Mickey go Wii exclusive.

Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!

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Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Toxic Crusaders [SNES – Cancelled]

monokoma

28-09-2009

9 Comments

Toxic Crusaders is an animated series based on the Toxic Avenger films. It features Toxie, the lead character of the films leading a trio of misfit superheroes who combat pollution. Video games based on Toxic Crusaders were also produced by Bandai and Sega, which were released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, and Sega Genesis.[Info from Wikipedia]

A Super Nintendo version was in development by Bandai, but it was never released in the end. It looked different from the Genesis version, that was developed by Sega. Some screens of the SNES version can be seen in the issue 39 of EGM.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Street Fighter Alpha 2 [SNES – Beta?]

monokoma

28-09-2009

8 Comments

Street Fighter Alpha 2 (also known as Street Fighter Zero 2) is a 1996 fighting game originally released for the CPS II arcade hardware by Capcom, and later ported to the SNES. Israel has found some beta SFA2 screens for the SNES/SFC version. These were published in the “Club Nintendo” magazine in Mexico.

According to the magazine, SFZ2 was going to include “an special chip to aid in data an sprite processing to make the game more fluid”. The description matches Nintendo’s SA-1 chip but there are no confirmations if it was going to be an SA-1 game.

There is some evidence that it could have been the case, thought:

1. The characters seem to be bigger in the beta, at least in the Rolent vs Vega shot. In the Sakura vs Sakura shot you can tell by the size of her thighs.
2. In the final build, the shadows flickered while in the beta they don’t (both can be seen in the shots). Why is this relevant? In the finalized game the flicker doesn’t look good. Why didn’t they just leave them like in the beta?

Israel thinks that they were indeed aiming towards a SA-1 cartridge but late in the development cycle they switched to a SA-1 + S-DD1 because of space constrains and maybe in the last few weeks decided to settle for a S-DD1 only cart due to costs concerns.

The screenshots were published in August 1996 so that means the the screenshots were taken in June or July. SFA2 was released in November so it must have gone gold in October at least.

Some differences noticed in the screenshots:

The game used to have a custom font for the character names. This was changed to a default SNES font.
Win icons were red (Sakura vs Sakura screenshot)
Shadows didn’t flicker, both are visible in the screenshots.
Characters seem to be a little bigger than their final iterations.

Thanks to Israel for the contribution!

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GameCube, Microsoft, Nintendo, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Tornado Alley [GC/XBOX/PS2 – Cancelled]

monokoma

27-09-2009

1 Comment

Tornado Alley is a cancelled action game that was in development by Atomic Planet in 2002 / 2003 for the Playstation 2, GameCube and Xbox. As we can read from the official press release, in the game the player would had to take control of one of the most powerful forces of Mother Nature, a Tornado, and guide it to do as much damage as possible, without running out of wind power.

To keep the twister alive we would had to follow the contours of the landscape, watching for thermals and building up the power of the cyclone with the right balance of warm and cold air. Cars and trailers could have been picked up to give ammunition to the vortex, to be churned around inside before being spat out with huge destructive force. Probably the gameplay would have been somehow similar to Katamari Damacy and Thornado (DS), but even with this interesting concept, the project was never released for unknow reasons.

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Nintendo, Nintendo DS

Henry Hatsworth [DS – Beta & Concept]

monokoma

25-09-2009

No Comments

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure is a Nintendo DS action-adventure and puzzle game created by Kyle Gray, who founded the “Experimental Gameplay Project” with Kyle Gabler, the creator of World of Goo. Gray led a seven-man team at EA Tiburon to develop the game. While the game is an action-platformer on the top screen, once enemies are defeated by Hatsworth, they are sent to the bottom screen as puzzle blocks. [Info From Wikipedia]

In the beta version of the game there were some differences in the HUD, levels and gameplay:

The Puzzle Meter was in the top screen.
Different icon for the Rifle weapon.
“Young” Henry had a full series of “silver hearts” to consume before return to the “old” Henry. In the final game, only half of the hearts are silver ones. It was like to have 2 energy bars at once (making the game easier).
Some of the puzzle blocks had a different design / face.
Henry’s animations were still incomplete.
A couple of parts in the beta videos seem to be from a removed level or an early design of a final one.
The bouncing baloons were pink, instead of yellow.

Also, in the concept arts we can notice many Bosses that were cut from the final game, as the ones that look like Benjamin Franklin or the 3 muscle men from the circus. In the artworks we can even see early and unused designs for the normal enemies, Henry’s ship (from one of the secret levels) and puzzle blocks.

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