ENG: This entry in the archive doesn’t have a description yet. If you want to add some info about the beta / cancelled stuff that you see in these images, just write a comment or send us an email! We’ll add your info in this page and your name in the contributors list. Thanks a lot for your help! :) Read more
The images below are from an old E3 Beta demo of Castlevania: SotN that was sold on ebay some time ago. The description said: “This auction is for the Castlevania E3 edition. Only one known to exist in collector’s hands this could be the highlight of many game collections. This disc was an early development version of the title which was released in the us as Castlevania SOTN. Early development titles such as this were run on test consoles by developers and game testors. If you lack the hardware required to play developmental software game do not bid.
The game gives 2 options. Normal and Special. Normal mode starts out at the end of the Bloodlines story but the text is in English while the voices are still in Japanese. I am unsure if this remains throughout the entire game or just for the first cutscene. Special mode starts you off further along with items and relics already as part of your inventory. In either mode dying brings up a different game over screen which instead says “To be continured September 1997″. I have not determined what other differences may exist and leave that all up to the buyer.”
Some more differences were noticed by Torentsu:
This beta demo was leaked online sometime ago and you can download it if you search it on Google. If you play it and find some more interesting differences, let us know!
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In this article we can see a comparison between Secret Of Evermore beta screens and their final counterparts. During the game’s development Square USA made some interesting changes and probably the original story was a bit different from the one that we know.
The character’s bar was much different in the beta. While the area is essentially identical, with only little background differences, the enemies in the beta version are not the same as the final. The strange blue creature was completely removed, and we encounter raptors only much later in the prehistoric level. Also, you get the sword in Antiqua, the second area of the game.
I don’t recall this area anywhere in the game. The green dinosaur on the left was removed in the final version.
Yet another enemy that was removed from the final game: the warrior with the pike at the center of the screenshot. Also, in the final version the machine is green (in the beta it looks to be black/grey) and there aren’t enemies in this area, maybe because the game’s story changed. The fake Fire Eyes (the girl at the center of the screen) didn’t exist or didn’t appear here in the beta version.
An area with almost no changes. In the beta version the dog is still the prehistoric one.
This is a really strange beta screenshot. We can see what it looks like to be an early and much different version of Ivory Tower (or Ebon Keep when it is populated again). In the final game, the King is not here. Maybe the story was different ?
Here are some more screenshots from a pre-release version of Secret Of Evermore. The “dog’s bar” at the bottom of the screen has the “dog’s face” on the left side, while in the final version it’s on the right side.
In these screenshots, we can see that this section of the market didn’t change at all. However, as in all pre-release and beta pics, the golden bar is different, and the dog is still the prehistoric one, while in the final version there are four different dogs.
This area is different from the final version. There are not as many black crystals and there is only one skull. Also, the location seems much more barren. Thanks to Robert Seddon, that has found some infos from a developer / tester of the game, we know that they changed the Mammoth Graveyard because there was an issue with AI getting caught on the tusks. You can read more of these beta-infos on this old news: SoE beta infos
We can see that in the beta versione there was no “heart” at the center of the spider.
Again, as in the beta screenshot, the fake “Fire Eyes” girl is not here, but at least the machine is green now.
There are a couple of other beta screens in the gallery below, but they are not much different from the final version.
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A certain beta screenshot depicts Mario, Luigi, and their baby selves fighting two red-shoe-clad Blooper foes in the Vim Factory. The Blooper still exists in the game’s code under the name “Scoot Bloop” but it’s attacks in battle are unfinished. It has sprites for the overworld as well. Although the screenshot depicts that they were meant for the Vim Factory, it’s enemy data is grouped with the Yoshi’s Island enemies, and it’s stats make it comparable to the enemies in Yoob’s Belly.
Another early screenshot shows the gang using a Mix Flower on two Boo Guys in Hollijolli Village, while Boo Guys were not present in this area in the final game.
Finally, it may be notable that Baby Mario’s initial artwork erroneously depicted him as having red shoes rather than his normal blue ones (this mistake was eventually changed and the artwork was re-released), although his shoe coloration would appear to have always been consistent throughout all of the actual game’s programming. [Info from Mariowiki]
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Robert Seddon has wrote to us an email with some good info that he has found, about the development of Secret Of Evermore.
“I remembered about this, and thought it might interest you:
www.inf.uni-konstanz.de
is an archive of a 2004 GameFAQs board thread with Brian Fehdrau, lead programmer on SoE. There are a few comments about unused/changed stuff:
‘That’s a pre-release screenshot. Notice the power bars are different and the dog’s head is on the other side of the bar. I’d hazard a guess that we changed the Mammoth Graveyard between then and release. Seems to me there was an issue with AI getting caught on the tusks.’
Also this: ‘Some of you probably know about the chicken effect. I won’t go into detail to avoid spoiling it for others. However, if you did trigger the chicken effect, you were meant to be run over (and hurt very badly) by a giant chicken on roller skates at various times during the final battle. He [another programmer] says the sprite is actually in the rom, but the scripting for it never happened due to lack of time.’
On the Seiken-style weapon system: ‘I do remember we had a different weapon system for quite a while, then Someone In Management decided we were going to copy SoM instead. (You can say that about a lot of things in Evermore, actually. :)’
There’s also mention of early concepts that didn’t even get as far as alpha: a Valentine’s Day world and a plug-in mini-cartridge to add new scenarios. (No wonder they were never implemented at all…)”
Thank you Robert! This is usefull :)