Action Adventure

StarFox Adventures [GC – Beta / Unused Stuff]

We already knew that StarFox Adventures once was the Nintendo 64 title Dinosaur Planet. However, the title did not only change during that transition, but also during its time as a StarFox game.

Although the main enemy in the game is General Scales, you will never fight him. Such a battle against General Scales was planned however, evidence was found in unused audio files on the StarFox Adventures game disc. In addition, it appears as if Fox McCloud would have had only to collect the Krazoa Spirits to save Dinosaur Planet; the Spellstones were only needed for saving Krystal. Fox did not want to leave the planet before Krystal was not safe.

Prior to fighting against General Scales, it seems as if Fox McCloud would have released Krystal. Both would have teamed up for the final section in the Krazoa Palace. [Sadly only Krystal’s audio files for this part were recorded.]

For games developed by Rare, it is also common that a special animation of the company logos was made [Example of Perfect Dark Zero]. For Starfox Adventures something similar was planned, but it did not end up in the final product:

Lead designer Lee Schunemann tried to give an explanation for all these changes: “We ran out of dev time due to the looming Microsoft buyout so we had to wrap up the game and just focus on one final boss.”

In the Krystal Archive we can listen to various unused voice clips that reveale many details on lost parts of the story. There are upwards of 50 clips for other characters that never made it into the game. The Starfox Online archive contains pages for ALL Star Fox Adventures voice clips. There were 730 non-duplicate voice clips in the game. All clips under the Unknown heading were not in the game. You’ll also find a few error clips, many alternate versions of clips, differing voice actors for characters, references to places and events that never made it to the game, and other interesting plotpoints.

Special thanks to Mr Krystal from the Krystal Archive!

As we can read from Giant Bomb’s Starfox Adventure page:

Members of the Star Fox Online forums discovered that a decent portion of the original Dinosaur Planet script is still contained within Star Fox Adventures. A file on the Star Fox Adventures disc called GAMETEXT.bin contains  text used in the entire game, both for the Nintendo 64 version of Dinosaur Planet and the GameCube version of Star Fox Adventures. Though not entirely complete, many scenes from Dinosaur Planet’s storyline remain intact.

[…]

It would eventually be revealed that by joining all Krazoa Spirits together at the Krazoa Shrine (originally called “Warlock Mountain” in Dinosaur Planet) they would form the ultimate weapon in the galaxy. Not enough of the Dinosaur Planet script remains to describe what happens after that.

You can find the GAMETEXT.bin to download at the Krystal Archive! Sadly there are numerous examples of text not listed in the file. While the amount listed is considerable, Mr Krystal noticed that only one version of each existed: a given phrase would only be from one game or the other, not both, but which game it referred to would switch from line to line. Large sections, and whole plotpoints appeared to be missing.

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Metroid Prime 3: Corruption [Wii – Beta]

Retro Studios intended to give Metroid Prime 3: Corruption larger environments than Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and enable the game to run at 60 frames per second. The developers were also interested in using the WiiConnect24 feature to provide additional content for the game that would be accessible from the Internet. A small Metroid Prime 3 Tech Demo was shown at E3 2005, created with the MP2 3D Engine. Nintendo then demonstrated how Metroid Prime 3 would take advantage of the controller’s special abilities with a version of Echoes modified for the Wii and shown at the Tokyo Game Show in 2005. The title Corruption and some of the first gameplay footage were revealed at Nintendo’s Media Release at the E3 2006 trade show.

From early screenshots we can notice that the Ridley fight in the beta did not have Meta-Ridley as in the final, different HUD, graphic details and thanks to some concept arts we can see various early character designs that were created before the final ones.

Also, thanks to a model viewer created by Interdpth and Revel8n, it is possible to find various unused models hidden in the game’s data. You can download the Metroid Prime model viewer (mpxviewer) in here. If you are able to find more unused models, please do let us know.

In January 2012, thanks to fundraising organized by user over on Assembler Games, a 2006 demo, which documented a beta version of the second planet of Metroid Prime 3, was dumped and released to the community. The proto was developed to run on Gamecube hardware with 128 mb of ram, so it’s playable only on a custom version of the Wii emulator Dolphin. Using the debug menu it is possible to active/deactivate the various power-up and to try the third-person  camera.  The map is still incomplete, so only a few areas are accessible. Apart from minor differences, the general layout of the location is remarkably similar to the final version. Cutscenes are unfinished, and of course  the interface is still based on the gamecube controller.

Thanks to Dark_ViVi for the contribution!

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Castlevania: The Bloodletting [32X – Cancelled]

As we can read from Castlevania Wiki, Castlevania: The Bloodletting is a cancelled Castlevania game that was intended to be released for the Sega 32X add-on for the Sega Genesis console sometime in 1996 or 1997. A single sprite for three characters are all that remain of this game. Through later interviews with Iga, it has been revealed that the game was intended to feature Richter Belmont, Maria Renard, and a rival to Richter.

Although announced for the Sega 32x (including two reported, although currently unrecovered, screenshots), the game soon disappeared from the radar. Sometime thereafter, Symphony of the Night was announced for the PlayStation.

As noted by Celine:

“Konami showed new installments to some major franchises, with Parodius on display, as well as Dracula X for the SNES. There was also Castlevania: The Bloodletting images to look at, a new Castlevania, which was being planned for the 32X. However, the team working on this game was eventually swallowed up by the Symphony of the Night team, and Bloodletting was no more.”

More infos on the game can be found on Castlevania Realm!

Thanks to Kiddo for the contribution!

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casltevania-bloodletting-01 casltevania-bloodletting-02

Also, James found this short ads about Castlevania: The Bloodletting from a 1995 Konami CES brochures, in which the game was promoted as a Playstation / Saturn title.

castlevania the bloodletting cancelled 

Soul Reaver (Shifter) [ PSX / PC / DC ] Beta / Debug / Unused Stuff]

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is a third-person adventure game developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Eidos. It was released for the PlayStation and PC in 1999 and for the Sega Dreamcast in 2000. Soul Reaver entered development alongside Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain in 1997 and focused on puzzle solving instead of Blood Omen 2’s action.

Initially, the game was set to be released October 1998. The secondary release date was then made January 1999. Due to the game still remaining unfinished. It was granted a final delay of approximately 7 months which then, the game went gold in July 1999 and subsequently got released August 1999.

Unfortunately, these delays occurred because the game wasn’t progressing quickly enough in terms of asset creation to fulfill their original vision for Soul Reaver. Several interviews suggested the designers noticed they had an overly designed game thus had no option but to remove certain areas of the game.

Some removed areas are known as:

  • Under City
  • “Turel’s Territory”(Must confirm the exact name)
  • Mountain Retreat

Amy Hennig stated that the development team split the original, much larger plans in two after realizing that they had “over-designed the game”. This decision explains Soul Reaver’s cliffhanger ending and the appearance of originally planned material in later games. Despite the split, Hennig explained that the team left unused components in Soul Reaver’s game engine to avoid unforeseen glitches that might have arisen from their removal. [Infos from Wikipedia] This is why certain reavers are accessible even though they are not actually obtainable on the retail version.

As we can read in this interesting article from The Lost Worlds, many items, weapons and areas were removed / not used in the final game, as the Amplified Force Projectile & Possession abilities, The Amplified Reaver and The Ariel Reaver weapons, Five additional Reaver upgrades and the The Mountain Retreat area. You should check the Lost Worlds article for more informations, it’s really well done!

Thanks to John Doom for the contribution!

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Alpha: July 1998

Alpha: January 1999

Beta: 12th May 1999

Beta: 28th June 1999

 

Space Quest [XBOX PS2 – Cancelled]

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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