Do you remember that damaged ROM of a cancelled genesis game that was found by Mr. Mark? It was Kartoon Kombat, an arcade fighting game developed by American Technos, that was planned for the Sega Genesis, something like a parody of Mortal Kombat with cartoon characters. Sadly, as the ROM is broken we’ll probably never be able to play the game, but thanks to Rod_Wod from the Assembler Forum, we can at least take a look at a screenshot from it, as he found an image in an old magazine!
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Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is an action RPG developed and published by Square Enix for the Nintendo DS with assistance from Hand. Granville has created a topic in our forum with an interesting series of beta screenshots and early videos that show various differences from the final version.
This footage is the earliest known footage from a Nintendo conference in 2007. The two worlds shown are Twilight Town and Wonderland. The structures of the levels are very different from the final game, there are a kind of heartless in wonderland where there aren’t supposed to be any of that species, and you’ll just notice a lot of general differences from the final game. Especially the HUD, which is nothing like the final game. Different sky color in Twilight Town, and you don’t go in that little underpass area to my knowledge.
In the gallery below you can see the gradual development of the game, with an early scenario that could have been used to test the gameplay. You can also notice a different hud, with magic bars: in the final game, there is no MP bar at all. Magic and items are both handled by numbers instead of a bar that depletes and refills.
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In one of the beta screens there’s a place that seems to have been removed from the final game: it’s a grassy area with some broken columns (probably a beta Twilight Town). In another image we can notice a scene in which the player is chasing the rabbit in Wonderland, but that does not happen in the released game. Also, the area in the final version of wonderland seems more cramped than this one.
We can also notice that in one screen Roxas’ mugshot is slightly different from the final game. However, the old mugshot is still hidden in the game code as seen in the sprite rip from Barubary. There are actually SIX unused battle portraits listed in there.
In the July issue of Nintendo Power, the magazine told everyone that the worlds of Pinocchio and Traverse Town would be present in the game. Not so unfortunately. In the final game, those 2 areas were removed. However, a new sprite rip from Barubary has unveiled some other interesting mugshots that were unused but still hidden in the code. You can notice 3 character portraits from Pinocchio (Pinocchio, the Fox Honest John, the cat, and Gepetto). As Smouvy has made us to notice, if you play the mission where you face Guard Armor for the first time in the Colosseum, you’ll see flashes of Sora fighting Guard Armor in a fully modeled area of Traverse Town. So at least one area of Traverse Town did make its way into the final game.
Hidden in the game’s code there is also a Hercules character that doesn’t appear either: Megara.
Two more videos show a couple of unused scenarios: they were taken at a game conference back in 2008. It seems that these 2 unused scenarios were created specifically for that conference they were not intended for the final product.
Roxas and Axel in Twilight Town:
I don’t believe the scenarios or dialog ever happened as seen in this video. Perhaps a few parts did, but I know for sure that Roxas and Axel never fight that armored heartless beast in the final game. He does appear as a boss, but not in this scenario of this video.
Roxas and Xaldin in Beast’s Castle:
This one I know for sure has unused parts. For one, you only start out at that area once in the entire game. And it is not with the partner in that video (Xaldin). The events seen there do not happen, including the heartless ambush in the beginning. One more important thing- The potions you collect around the 2:05 portion of the gameplay are totally different looking in the final game. They just look like generic packages in the final. Same sound but different appearance. The boss there though did appear in the final game. There were some minor camera angle differences though.
Thanks a lot to Granville for the contribution!
Space Quest was an action adventure / platform game that was in development in 2003 at Escape Factory for the Playstation 2 and XBOX. The project was cancelled when fundings were cut, probably because they though that the game was not going to be enough profitable to finish it.
Thanks to Hey Hey and to TnS for the contribution!
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Konami’s Moto-X was going to be a postapocalyptic motorcycle combat game, that was in development by Konami in 2002, for the original XBOX and the Playstation 2. The game had six different riders with different strengths / bikes, hand-to-hand combat, weapon-based combat and various multiplayer modes. The game was later cancelled as many other car-combat games, probably because the fad about this genre was already over.
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Power Punch II was an NES boxing game released in 1992. Originally conceived as a sequel to the 1987 NES game Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! (with the title “Mike Tyson’s Intergalactic Power Punch”), the game was developed by Beam Software under supervision from Nintendo.
However, while the game was in production Tyson was tried for the rape of Desiree Washington and the project started to fall apart. In order to not promote Tyson’s questionable character, the designers changed the name of the boxer in the game to “Tough Guy” Mark Tyler and slightly altered his appearance, even though his face is still distinctly styled after Tyson. His attire in the game was also changed from Tyson’s traditional all black with red gloves gear to an all pink motif. Any references to Don King were also cut from the game. There is a manager bearing resemblance to King in the game, but Don King’s infamous hairstyle was removed from the character to try to dispel the association. [Infos from Wikipedia]
When Nintendo disowned the production of the game, it was published as “Power Punch II” by American Softworks Corp.
The original “”Mike Tyson’s Intergalactic Power Punch”” prototype conceived by Nintendo was later released thanks to the Nintendo Age Community (that raised $1500 for the owner of the proto to dump it) as a download or you can own the original reproduction of the prototype by Retro Zone to play it on your NES!.
Thanks to Ducky Wensel for the contribution!
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