Skrybe from Lost Levels has released many NES prototypes that were not yet available online. Thanks to him and the whole Lost Levels crew, those lost games can now be played and preserved. You can find download links for the roms in the related topic on the Lost Levels Forum.
Unreleased games
Hero Quest – Final build, or very close to it. Set your emulator to PAL mode for this.
Superman – Early version of Sunman.
Prototypes
AD&D: Heroes of the Lance
Adventure Island 2
Baltron
Banana – Early build with debugging features.
Bard’s Tale (Proto 1)
Bard’s Tale (Proto 2) – Different build from above.
Dengeki: Big Bang! – Clash at Demonhead. Several minor enemies have different graphics.
Famicom Shougi: Ryuuousen
Flying Warriors – The logo actually reads “Flying Warriros”!
Xenogears is a RPG developed and published by Square for the PlayStation on February 1998 in Japan and on October 1998 in North America. Originally, Squaresoft had intended to call the game “Project Noah”. The name was later changed to Xenogears for unknown reasons. It is the fifth part of a six-part story detailed in Xenogears Perfect Works; at the end of the game’s credits, “Episode V” appears on screen. [Infos from Wikipedia]
In April 2009 UltimateGraphics has translated the Xenogears Perfect Works in English, and it’s now possible to check many informations about parts of the plot that were left out of the games or changed before the release. The full translation can be found in here.
In the book we can find different design for the Omnigears and some unknown monsters. As Kid Fenris on the Lost Levels forum has pointed out, one playable party member, Margie / Marguerite / Maroeur, was reduced to a supporting role. Also, some characters illustrations that we can see in the book were not in the final game, but they were used as the character portraits during battles in the beta version.
Thanks to some articles on Xenogears: God & Mind, we can read about much more unused stuff still hidden in the game code, as various dialogue and text not actually present / or censored. “Point Bethlehem” is the name of an area that can be found in the text rip, but there’s no place with that name in the final game.
While the released Xenogears has 59 chapters (and a final epilogue) to play, we can find the name of 9 other chapters that were removed:
03. House On a Hill
05. Attack on Lahan
08. Broken Silence
09. Path to Aveh
53. Fall of Solaris
54. Shevat’s Move
55. Broken Ties
63. Waiting Death
67. Xenogears Wakes
Also, it’s possible to gain access to a series of Debug Rooms, in which we can see many deleted scenes, “new” areas and hidden extra’s.
As they wrote on X:G&M: “due to budget problems, lack of time, or perhaps merely a desire to forego work on Xenogears in favor of other projects, production on Xenogears was ultimately cut short, and the creator’s original vision for the game was never truly realized”. You can check X:G&M for more informations about the removed scenes and dialogues.
As Robert Seddon has made us to notice, there’s a Xenogears FMV (Stars of Tears) that exists in the game’s files and can be acessed from the debug rooms, but reportedly it isn’t used anywhere in the actual game. The song was included on the official OST, so in a sense it did get used.
Doomsday Rescue was an action / combat racing game that was in development at Beyond Games in 2002 and it was going to be published by Midway. The project was later cancelled as many other Beyond Games titles, probably because of the bankruptcy of the company.
[spoiler /Click here to read the original Midway press release/ /Hide the press release/] LOS ANGELES – May 22, 2002 (E3 Booth # 800, South Hall) – Midway Games Inc. (NYSE: MWY), a leading software industry publisher and developer, announced today that Doomsday Rescue, an all-new combat racing game, is in development and scheduled to ship in 2003 for next-generation systems.
When a deadly asteroid shower hurtles toward earth, the collective governments of the world band together to save the human race by resettling on Mars. In order to ensure the revitalization of human life, key scientists, doctors and politicians from around the globe have been selected for transportation and relocation to Mars. To further guarantee the success of the resettled civilization, a planet-wide relocation lottery was held and a number of lottery-winning civilians have been granted seats on ships to the new settlement. As a hotshot driver for the Doomsday Rescue Corp., you embark on a frantic adrenaline-rush mission to find and deliver these key humans to their waiting transport ships within 24 hours. Doing your job means saving your own life. If you complete your rescue missions, you can resettle on Mars.
“Doomsday Rescue is the only combat racing game set in apocalyptic urban environments where players battle with rioting civilians to save themselves and the human race,” said Helene Sheeler, vice president of marketing, Midway. “With an engaging mix of time-based combat racing and sheer wanton destruction, Doomsday Rescue brings a fast-paced, tension-filled experience to next-generation consoles.”
In your quest to resettle the human race, crash and bash your way through seven free-roaming urban environments and destroy anything and anyone between you and your goal – including hordes of rioting civilians who know they aren’t included in the resettlement. Players must be on high alert as meteorite showers pummel and obliterate urban buildings, cars and civilians, presenting new obstacles and opportunities as the environments dynamically evolve on-the-fly.
To complete your mission and guarantee your own relocation to Mars, you must also defeat the Back Yard Rocket Federation (BYRF), a group of terrorists whose plans to steal your colonists puts the survival of the human race in jeopardy. With a real-time physics engine tuned for pick-up-and-play driving action, players can jump right in the driver’s seat and unleash total carnage from their transport vehicle with an awesome arsenal of weapons including machine guns, lasers, missiles, chain guns, cannons and more. [/spoiler]
Elf Saga was a side scroller action game that was in development at Kaiko for the original Playstation. It seems that the project started as an Amiga title, but it was later ported to the PSX. Elf Saga was cancelled by its publisher (Software 2000) after almost 2 years of work.
Thanks to Celine, HDaudioCoYotE and Roberth Martinez for the contribution!
Highlander Online (The Gathering) was a MMORPG that was in development by Kalisto Entertainment in 2001 / 2002, before the company was closed down. It was based on the series of films with the same name, but the project was probably cancelled in early development. A new Highlander game is coming out in 2010 for the PS3 and XBOX 360, but it’s not related to this unreleased MMORPG.
Thanks to Fishinsoup and Pierre-Mony for the contributions!
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