Soulstar was a Mega-CD game created by Core Design, and after its release, two seperate conversions were planned. One was a port to the Jaguar CD, under the same name, whereas the other was an updated version for the 32X, under the name Soulstar X. In the end, neither of them were released.
In the YouTube channel of Sammature there’s a video from Twilight Princess that shows the beta bombs, an early version of the item that is still in the code of the game and can be seen thanks to a GameShark code. These bombs are similar to the ones that Link uses in the previous games, while the final ones in Twilight Princess have a more “realistic” design.
Although it seems to start out as something completely different, this is a promotional video for Earthworm Jim, mostly focusing on the Mega Drive version. As well as some insight into the design process of the game, it shows a lot of footage from an earlier version of the game. Unfortunately, the way the video has been edited together means that picking apart all the differences between the early version shown and the final game is very difficult, but some parts are clearer than others.
Some of the highlights include:
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From some beta screenshots that were published in Nintendo Power, we can notice various differences. On the new junk city images the background art design looks different and there’s also a moose head in everyone of them, but those are normally only used to swing from. The wheel monster has a completely different design in the final game. On the screenshots for What The Heck the design looks different and the backgrounds are different in at least one of the screenshots. On the screenshot of For Petes Sake everything about that level is different in the final game: the asteroids, the background, and the ground. Jim’s models also seems to be different maybe even better looking than in the final game. Also, in the last screenshot we can notice a weird looking enemy to the left of Jim which isn’t in the final game.
Also, thanks to Rocketworm.com we can see many concept arts from the development of the game, showing an early design for Intestinal Distress (the falling columns of fat aren’t in the final game, and the idea for the villi was later used in Earthworm Jim 2), early concept art for Buttville and New Junk City (with some gameplay ideas that would’ve probaly been impossible to pull of on a 16 bit console), a concept of a level based off of Bob the Goldfishes world which didn’t make it into the final game and various character designs.
Thanks to Earthwormjim, Lemm and retroguy205 for the contribution!
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Rayman is a video game designed and published by Ubisoft. It was originally released in September 1995 for the Atari Jaguar and MS-DOS, and in November 1995 for the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. A port of this game was to be released for the Sega 32X, but when the system died off due to low popularity, the port was canceled. Rayman is a traditional side-scrolling platform game which revolves around the titular character’s quest to save his world from the evil Mr. Dark.
Early in its development, Rayman was going to be about an eleven-year-old boy named Jimmy. Jimmy takes advantage of the realms that he discovers within his computer to create a fantasy world called Hereitscool. When evil invades Hereitscool, Jimmy turns into a superhero named Rayman to save Hereitscool. This idea was scrapped, and Rayman is his own being in his own world in the final version. There were a few comments in the story, such as “Sorry folks, this apparently can’t last. Do you want to play or what?”, but they were cut for the final version.
[Info from Wikipedia]
In these old screens from the back of the box from the Jaguar version, we can see some beta-differences.
beta rayman video: there is no sound and also the life icons are different. The life is in the top middle along with 8 life dots and instead of the orbs count you have a blue guys count but in the final version life count is in top left at the edge of the screen and the blue orbs in the top right rayman can also walk on his hands in this video (not sure about the final version).
Thanks to The_IT_08, Wilco and kieranmay for the contributions!
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Stop ‘N’ Swop is a hidden feature in Banjo-Kazooie. Rare announced that special areas and items in the game could only be reached by completing certain tasks in its sequel, Banjo-Tooie. BT was released in 2000 and offered a way to retrieve the items but without the need to acquire them in Banjo-Kazooie. It was later discovered that Banjo-Kazooie contains seven special items which can be accessed using in-game cheat codes or by using a cheat cartridge. These items would then be viewable in a menu entitled “Stop ‘N’ Swop”. There was also an inaccessible Ice Key shown in the sequence, which induced gamers to search for a way to get it.
In 2004, a patent filed by Rare was published which suggests that Stop ‘N’ Swop involved swapping cartridges with the power off to transfer data. The information would be momentarily retained by utilizing the Rambus memory in the Nintendo 64. As a result of changes done to the Nintendo 64 systems produced in 1999, the system could no longer do this effectively. [Info from Wikipedia]
At the RareWitchProject website they are working from many years to research the mistery behind the “Stop ‘n’ Swop” and a couple of days ago they have found another interesting proof of the Banjo kazooie / Donkey Kon 64 connection. As SubDrag says in his latest news: “DK64 has always had a mysterious connection to Stop ‘n’ Swop. In our DK64/BK SNS Special, we broke a revolutionary news story about Stop ‘n’ Swop originally not being between BK and BT, but BK and DK64!”. Runehero has find a way to activate the Ice Key in DK64, that was meant to open a secret door in the game!
For more info you can read the original topic in the RWP Forum! Huge props to Runehero and all the RWP users :)