Sony

Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Kingdom Hearts 2 [PS2 – Beta]

monokoma
24-09-2009
4 Comments

Kingdom Hearts 2 is an action RPG developed by Square Enix and published by Buena Vista Games and Square Enix in 2005 for the PlayStation 2. Superfun64 has noticed a beta screenshot from an old magazine article, in which we can see Donald and Goofy in the scene with the huge Heartless war battle, but they are not in there in the final game.

Also, in a beta video from Tokyo Game Show 2003 we can see a different Twilight Town, the removed Hollow Bastion Tower and various removed scenes, like one in which Donald freeze himself.

Yaz0r found out that there is a Woddy & Buzz (from Toy Story) model in the KH2 data. They are unfinished/untextured but it looks like they were planned as summons. They are in the middle of the other summons models, that’s why we can assume that they were planned as summons. During KH2 production, there were an issues between Disney & Pixar (especialy around Toy Story 3 and the deal they had signed together). It’s possible that Square scraped the Pixar stuff to prevent from beeing involved.

There are even more early screens at KH2 website, if you can find other beta images, let us know!

Thanks to Superfun64 and Yaz0r for the contributions!

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Playstation, Sony

Jet Moto 4 (2124) [PSX – Cancelled]

monokoma
22-09-2009
3 Comments

Jet Moto 2124 is the cancelled 4th episode in the Jet Moto (Jet Rider in Europe) series of futuristic racing games, that was in development for the original PlayStation as the previous 3 games. The gameplay differs from that of a traditional racing game with cars, as players instead control hoverbikes which hover close above the ground and can be driven over both land and water. [Info from Wikipedia]

Soon after finishing Jet Moto 3 the team started to work on the sequel: JM2124 was set in the future and it had 16 tracks to play through, across the  entire solar system from the Moon to Jupiter. Even if Jet Moto 4 was almost finished, after the low sales of the third game  they decided to kill the new project and the development was stopped. A playable build exists somewhere out there and maybe in the future it could be preserved somehow.

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!

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Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Kingdom Hearts [PS2 – Beta]

monokoma
21-09-2009
No Comments

Kingdom Hearts is an action RPG developed and published by Square in 2002 for the PlayStation 2. The idea for Kingdom Hearts came about when producer Shinji Hashimoto met with a Disney executive in an elevator;  Square and Disney had previously worked in the same building in Japan. The game began development in February 2000 and originally the beta focused more on the gameplay with a simple story to appeal to Disney’s target age range.

After executive producer Hironobu Sakaguchi told director Tetsuya Nomura the game would be a failure if it did not aim for the same level as the Final Fantasy series, Nomura began to develop the story further. Some content that did not make it into Kingdom Hearts was later added into Kingdom Hearts II.

The “Pride Land” from The Lion King, for instance, was infeasible because an additional program was required to process movement on four legs—a necessity since Sora would become a lion in that world. Due to time constraints, the developers left out an optional boss battle, similar to the Sephiroth battle, against Tifa Lockhart. She was later included in Kingdom Hearts II as a more developed character. [Info from Wikipedia]

In a beta trailer from 2001 you can see many differences between the beta build and the final build. Such as Sora roaming around Disney Castle. In the final build, you do not go to Disney Castle, but there is an image of it on the world map, but it is never selectable.

More differences, as spotted by YT users:

  • The logo’s different
  • Goofy’s cloth is different
  • Sora’s beta hair color
  • removed scene with Riku on the Clock Tower

In an interview with Nomura, we can read that:

“Actually,” he continues, “the first weapon I showed Disney was a chainsaw. It was this chainsaw-like weapon that I had a rough sketch of when I first showed my concepts to Disney. Everyone got this scrunched-up look on their face and nobody said a word in the entire room. Dead silence. And I thought ‘No, I guess this wouldn’t work, huh?'”

Shadowdorothy also noticed:

  • In the beta Riku didn’t have his black gloves he does in the final release
  • Kairi’s skirt is longer in the official release.
  • The opening monologue by Sora went through a major change, as in the commercial it appears that Sora is having a conversation with someone.
  • The magic system was changed dramatically, as the magic system sub-menu originally opened on top of the action menu.
  • The door was also removed, and by “the door” I mean that strange door on Destiny Island that you can’t see until Sora has a flash back that involves Riku and him being kids.
  • It also appears that Sora, not Kairi, was the one that needed saving, as per some dailouge seen at the end of the com.

Some more info on the beta can be found on X-Cult!

Thanks a lot to Brad and Shadowdorothy for the contributions!

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Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Tidal Riders [PS2 – Unreleased]

monokoma
21-09-2009
No Comments

Tidal Riders is a cancelled racing / sport game that was in development by Bungarra Software in 2001 / 2003 for the Playstation 2. The player would have been able to ride around the globe in various and different tracks, to race against the AI or to reach new high scores in trick mode. It seems that Bungarra tried to find a publisher for the project but without luck, and even in 2004 they signed a PAL territory Publishing Agreement with XS Games LLC to release the game in Europe.. but something  went wrong and as far as we know, Tidal Riders was never released in the end.

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!

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