News on Cancelled Video Games & Lost Media

In its beta E3 2001 version, Luigi’s Mansion featured different ghosts than the final version. The 3 main ghosts (Orange, Pink, and Blue) were very different looking than their present day forms. The Orange ghost used to be a pink colored ghost featuring smaller eyes and mouth. The tall and thin pink ghost was once an orange lanky ghost with a huge nose. The blue ghost was originally a purplish colored ghost with smaller eyes and mouth. There was also another ghost that was scrapped from the final. It was colored dark purple, had a similar look to the pink beta ghost, and was only found in the hallways of the Mansion. Of what the ghost did was come up behind Luigi and scream; causing Luigi to yell in fear and fall to the ground. This would cause 50 HP to be drained from Luigi’s health and temporarily shrink his total HP to 50 as well. If the ghost still exists, it would have the same behavior as a ReDead.

In very early screenshots (all being the E3 version), there were shots of a timer in the Game Boy Horror, possibly hinting that the game was either going to have a challenge mode or a time limit, but was scrapped in the final version. It is said that if Luigi did not save Mario within the 24 hours he had, the mansion, along with mario, would vanish. In other builds, the Gameboy Horror also feature a Gameboy Camera-like effect, so it showed everything it could “see”. It is suspected that the Gameboy Horror had at first the time keeping function, and then the Gameboy Camera-like mode, and the onto a different version of the final’s GBH. The near final build had more of a cartoony icon set, while the final build has the more realistic icon set.

The Poltergust 3000 once featured a “heat meter”, showing of how hot it would get from sucking objects and ghosts up. Its gauge went from a level of 1 to 10. Once it got to 10, the Poltergust 3000 would burst into flames, and cause Luigi to collapse onto the floor, also having Luigi lose some of his HP. On the side note, the Poltergust 3000 was more squarish compared to the final’s version.

Other differences include slight changes in room designs, a beta coin meter, and many other objects. – [info from Wikipedia]

The ending screen would probably unlock to your file a “congratulations” image, or probably just an image for the ending, such as a picture in the wall. Three unused different looking sprites were found by Gabrielwoj, as can see below:

“luigi_b.bti_color/alpha”, probably with Bad ending, with low money. (B = Bad)

“luigi_g.bti_color/alpha”, probably with medium ending, with a good quantity of money. (G = Great)

“luigi_V.bti_color/alpha”, probably with perfect ending, with all the money caught. (V = Victory)

Thanks to SteamingBullet, Matthew Burke and Gabrielwoj for the contribution!

Miyamoto recently spoked about the Nintendo 3DS system, and said that the Nintendo Gamecube was capable of playin stereoscopic 3D video. He said too that they made a compatible version from Luigi’s mansion that with an accessory is able to display in special LCD TVs the game in 3D.

According to a issue in nintendo power,there was going to be a hidden boss ghost that was a generic austrailian hunter guy,and had dialogue that was on the lines of saying he wanted to Kill you and mount your head on the wall. He shot his rifle at you as you ran around the Safari Room.

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GameCube, Nintendo

Super Smash Bros Melee [GC – Beta / Unused Stuff]

U64 Staff & Contributors

08-04-2008

15 Comments

Through an Action Replay, a large, gray stage with the background appearing to be some kind of pub, is accessible. The music is the same as used on Fox and Falco’s stage Corneria. This is assumed to be a test stage because of its name, which on the debug menu is TEST. There are also four stages, named AKANEIA (a possible predecessor to Castle Siege from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a homeworld for Fire Emblem), 10-2, IceTop (a possible precursor to the Summit stage from the sequel, which belongs to the Ice Climbers), and Dummy, a test stage that freezes the game when opened. In addition to this, the entire Debug Menu, which was used in pre-release testing, can be used when the game is hacked, allowing for complete editing of anything in the game. Giga Bowser, both male and female Fighting Wire Frames, Master Hand, Crazy Hand, and even Sandbag are all playable (to a limited extent) via the Debug Menu. [Info from Mariowiki]

Some level analyzes was been made, such as:

DUMMY stage can be used, for the Victory Screen, an platform at the middle of nowhere for the players, at the victory screen, can be placed correctly;
TEST stage, of course, an stage for testing stuff, using Develop utility, at Debug Menu main. Can be placed any enemies (well, much of them), test graphics (like any stage on Develop mode) and more. Rumors say that looks Corneria Level, that’s because have the Music;
AKANEIA stage, an Fire Emblem stage what was to be made, only the code rested at the disc, that’s because no one could find any hack for playing it;
ICETOP stage, an end of Ice Mountain, the TOP of Ice Mountain? They say it, it’s possible to be entered by hacks;
TSEAK target smash stage, “T” for targed, “SEAK” is Sheik, Nintendo may was planing to do an target test for Sheik (may change it on the menu or something, just like Brawl), it could be so glitched when changing to Zelda, what they rejected, just one platform with 3 targets;
10-2 adventure stage, just after 10-1 ICEMT, so, it’s the Icetop stage for Adventure.

In some of the old screens, we can see some differences: in the Super Mario Field there is a warp pipe (the one next to donkey kong) which isn’t in the final game. Peach is on a platform that isn’t in the game either (at the Special Video, Nintendo did it with that platform, maybe they made at the VERY END of the game, they removed the platform when releasing and was keep at the Video, EVEN at the manual [At the Camera-Fixed Mode Page]), the fire emblem in the background where mario, kirby, and pikachu are fighting, are different than the final.

In a beta video, we can see that originally it was possible to go inside the laboratory in the Great Bay level.

As we can read from an article on N-Philes, through Melee’s Debug menu, it is possible to have a match with six characters instead of four, somethings about melee, if someone don’t know, it contains an Multiman-Melee, what they have 6 characters at the screen, maybe the config is for this mode, but been used at Melee Mode. Also Ditto was in the game as a Pokeball Pokemon but was pulled for whatever reason. There is some information about Ditto was removed: “At some sites (such as SmashWiki), tells the Ditto was causing much trouble for making it, he special power was to “steal” the move of the other players, but what about on a round of 4 players? Nintendo retired the idea, and stayed at disc, it’s possible to go into Debug Menu, but it only will hit a 12% at the character”

Some other enemies was “unused”, we can say, but they have a difference at the name: They are may beta design of the enemies stayed at the game, but only the code, cause it’s unable to be accessed, take a look at the list:

Old-Kuri, Kuri is the Kuriboh (Goomba);
Old-Lead, Lead is the Leaded (Re-dead);
Old-Octa, Octa is the Octarock (Octarock);
Old-Otto, Otto is the Ottosei (Enemy from IceClimbers).

Those maybe was testing who what “fits” better at the game, like the old texture or the used.

One thing found at the “Test things” on Debug Menu, was an pre-loader loading screen for all-star, showing the next battle, maybe not used cause 3 character or more, could not be appeared at the loading screen

Update: Gabrielwoj found some unused all-star intros into the Debug Menu.
They probably got unused cause All-Star uses a system for multiples teams for all-star…
Probably the all-star was only Player Vs. Player (without any teams)…
See the video below!
Update 2: Gabrielwoj recently found that in the Debug Menu is possible to unlock 2 special trophies…
Those trophies only appear on the Japanese Version of the game, but it still on the USA/PAL version of the game, and still translated, see video below!
Update 3: Just after unlocking those, and reboot the game, there is some special messages (translated too)!
See video below!

Thanks to Camdawg, Dark Rayman, Shade3c, Adriel, Abu5ername, Pierre Antonie and gabrielwoj for the contributions!

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GameCube, Nintendo

Mario Kart [GC – Tech Demo / Concept]

U64 Staff & Contributors

08-04-2008

4 Comments

The new Mario Kart for the GameCube was first showed at the E3 2001 with a seven seconds long trailer. The clip featured Mario and Luigi driving their karts on a bump mapped 3D surface with no background. At the time MK was still early in development, and the working title of the game was simply Mario Kart. This video was created by Nintendo only to let the players know that there would have been a new racing game with Mario on the GameCube, but the final concept was still not decided.

In April 2003, Nintendo released the first pictures and details of the real game, as well as revealing the title, which was Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. New features, such as having two characters drive one kart and different styles of karts, had been implemented. While the tech demo was more similar to the old Mario Karts, the final game was different from what we can see in these screens and video. Those Mario and Luigi models seems to be the same from Super Smash Bros Melee.

Thanks to DRMARIOX for the contribution!

[spoiler /Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano/ /Nascondi la versione in Italiano/]Il gioco presentato in questo video si rivela drasticamente differente da quello che sarà poi l’effettivo episodio della serie “Mario kart” uscito su Gamecube. Quest’ ultimo, infatti, innova con kart personalizzati ed ospitanti due personaggi contemporaneamente, uno adibito alla guida, l’altro al lancio di oggetti. Come è possibile constatare nelle foto invece, la versione preliminare si presentava come una normalissima conversione della normale formula di gioco su game cube, con kart standard e monoposto. Impossibile tuttavia dire altro a riguardo, dato che gli unici personaggi mostrati furono Mario e Luigi e data l’assenza di un vero percorso di gioco.

Intro by Anonimo [/spoiler]

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GameCube, Nintendo

Donkey Kong Racing [GameCube – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

08-04-2008

3 Comments

A tech demo for a Donkey Kong game on the GameCube was shown at SpaceWorld 2001. The game was called Donkey Kong Racing and shown various characters, including Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Taj the Genie racing on Ellie, Expresso, Rambi, Enguarde, and Zinger, and presumably, Necky, Army, and Chomps Jr. that had been introduced in previous Donkey Kong games by Rare. This project was going to be a spiritual sequel to “Diddy Kong Racing”.

Following the sale of Rare to Microsoft in 2002, Rare announced that they were concentrating their efforts on Xbox games. [Infos from Wikipedia]

From some rumors it seems that the Donkey Kong Racing concept was somehow ported to the original XBOX, minus the Nintendo characters. The game so became know as “Sabreman Stampede Racing“, with the Sabre Wulf cast of characters. The XBOX version evolved in something more than just a racing game and the “adventure style” that you can feel in Diddy Kong Racing was even more expanded. Sadly not much infos are available on the subject, and in the end even the XBOX version was cancelled. An XBOX 360 port was started too, but never finished. Some of the concepts of Sabremen Stampede 360 were reused as initial ideas for Banjo & Kazooie Nuts & Bolts.

As we can read in an interview with Lee Musgrave:

It was a pure racing game, the underlying software mechanics were actually based on car physics, but it also incorporated the idea of riders jumping between different animals mid-race, to always be riding the ones that were bigger or faster . . . we had some awesome gameplay in place, and it was lots of fun – we even had a multiplayer version working – and when you fell off, you had to tap-tap-tap (HyperSports style) to run on foot and catch up with an animal. Fun, but it lost some appeal without the DK universe around it, and Microsoft were unsure of its potential with Xbox gamers I think.

[spoiler /Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano/ /Nascondi la versione in Italiano/]Presentato per la prima volta sotto forma di filmato all’E32001, questo gioco sarebbe dovuto essere il seguito del lodato Diddy Kong Racing su N64. Come si può ben vedere dalle foto i mezzi non sarebbero stati più kart o veicoli convenzionali, ma animali presi in prestito dagli archivi dei vari giochi Rare, Donkey Kong Country, 64 e Racing compresi. Purtroppo il titolo a causa delle vicissitudini che travolsero Rare non ha mai superato lo stadio di filmato, almeno in pubblico. Non è chiaro neanche se parte del progetto sia stato inserito nel racing per GBA Donkey Kong Pilot, ma le somiglianze sono veramente minime e tutto lascia presagire che questo gioco non abbia lasciato tracce di se in altre pubblicazioni Rare. Piccola curiosità: le foto beta di DKR si possono addirittura trovare sul retro delle confezioni dei primi GameCube! [/spoiler]

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GameCube, Nintendo, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Killer 7 [Proto / Beta]

U64 Staff & Contributors

08-04-2008

4 Comments

Killer 7 is an adventure game developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Capcom. It was released in 2005 but it was first announced in 2002 as one of the original “Capcom 5” games. In 3 years of development the game changed a lot from its original concept trailer and when Killer 7 was finally released many parts of the story were removed.

None of the scenes from the first Killer 7 Trailer ended up in the final game. Garcian and Kaede smith look totally different from their final forms, and Harman Smith is wheelchair-ridden in the final game and only playable for a couple of sections throughout the entire story. The scenes with Dan Smith shooting the woman and Con Smith are never seen. We shudder to think what lost plot points and further story we would have gotten if that stuff would have stayed in there.

For more informations you can read the Killer 7 Beta Analysis Article

Thanks a lot to Dr. Swank for the contribution!

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