Beat ’em up

Jaguar, Others

Conan [Jaguar – Cancelled]

monokoma
12-03-2010
8 Comments

Conan is a cancelled beat ’em up similar to Golden Axe that was in development by Arcade Zone for the Atari Jaguar. The french studio was closed down after Sony decided to not publish their latest Super Nintendo game, as the original Playstation arrived in Europe. Without another publisher they had to give up on releasing Nightmare Busters SNES and Arcade Zone had to shut down. Conan Jaguar vanished with their closure and it’s unknown how much of the game was finished before the cancellation.

At 1Up Games can read an interview with former Arcade Zone’s developers, in which they mention this unreleased beat ’em up:

Lyes Belaidouni: We even made an attempt on the Atari Jaguar, the stillborn console for which we developed (without bragging) the most beautiful beat’em up with huge sprites and monumental backgrounds ! But this, alas, no one has seen it…

Celine was able to find some screenshots of the game in magazines CD Consoles #2, #5 and GF #95

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Microsoft, Xbox 360

2 Finger Heroes (Natal) [X360 – Cancelled]

yota
16-02-2010
No Comments

2 Finger Heroes is a canceled beat ’em up  made by Arkedo studios that was supposed to be played with the Natal, the Xbox 360 “play without a joypad” add-on.  From the concept arts, we can see that the characters were controlled using the fingers o with some basic gestures, like folding your arms.

An interesting  project, which like the other Arkedo games also displayed an original graphic style (as seen in the concept arts below) and  a twisted story.

Unfortunately in the end the game got shelved because of development issues. As we can read on NeoGAF:

“One of the designs flaws of this, apart from the fact that it demanded some very precise pattern recognition from the Natal system, is that it would have been HELL to localize. Yup, what can be understood as the victory sign in France, could be a terrible insult in the UK, for instance. And we are not even talking about Italian. Oh, the possibilities..”

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Unseen News

Denjin Makai [SNES – Not Cancelled?]

monokoma
05-02-2010
4 Comments

Denjin Makai is a series of beat ’em up developed by Banpresto and released for the Arcade from 1993 to 1995.  A Super Famicom / Super Nintendo version was planned too, but it seems that it was never released. It’s currently unknown if the SNES Denjin Makai was going to be a new game or a port of the first chapter already released in arcades.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution! (Scans from Super Power magazine issues #20 and #22)

Update: Celine later found out that this game was indeed released in japan under a different name:  Ghost Chaser Densei.

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Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Toxic Crusaders [SNES – Cancelled]

monokoma
28-09-2009
9 Comments

Toxic Crusaders is an animated series based on the Toxic Avenger films. It features Toxie, the lead character of the films leading a trio of misfit superheroes who combat pollution. Video games based on Toxic Crusaders were also produced by Bandai and Sega, which were released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, and Sega Genesis.[Info from Wikipedia]

A Super Nintendo version was in development by Bandai, but it was never released in the end. It looked different from the Genesis version, that was developed by Sega. Some screens of the SNES version can be seen in the issue 39 of EGM.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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32X / Mega CD, M2 / 3DO, Mega Drive / Genesis, Others, Sega

Dyno Blaze [G/MD/3DO – Cancelled]

monokoma
06-08-2009
13 Comments

Dyno Blaze is a cancelled beat ’em up that was in development by Bonsai Entertainment for the Genesis / Mega Drive, Mega CD and 3DO in 1994 and it would have been published by Virgin. A playable prototype of the game was somehow leaked online in 2008, in which you can try a series of (almost empty) levels where to move your rollerblade-dinosaur to fight enemies with an hockey stick. The levels are incomplete and bugged but it’s possible to go trought them waiting for a bit at the end of the area and pressing the jump button.

The original press release for the game:

Today, Virgin Interactive Entertainment and Bonsai Entertainment Corporation signed a multi-SKU development contract for DYNOBLAZE®, an original game for SEGA CD and SEGA GENESIS.

Bonsai Entertainment will develop the original game based upon designs previously developed. “It’s a game about ‘Teenage Mutant Ninga Dinosaurs’, that play street hockey on the streets of New York”, said Joseph Moses, President of Bonsai Entertainment. He added, “Teaming up with Virgin, already a key player in this industry, is a major step for Bonsai. We intend to make them very proud.”

“DynoBlaze” is scheduled for Christmas 1995 release across multiple platforms.

A weird Dyno Blaze proto was seen at the Video Game History 2008 expo in Monza (Italy), organized by our friends at Games Collection. In the VGH2K8 proto you can just see a rolling demo of the game’s menu (without any gameplay) and a strange graph for a medicine know as “Lotensin” by CibaGeneva pharmaceuticals. We dont have any clue about what this all means, so if you have a good explanation feel free to share it!

The 3DO version was in development by Alexandria Inc but sadly after some months of work the lead background artist died from an illness and the game was soon canceled not long after. The 3DO port had better graphic (as you can see from the scans below, found by Celine in Game Fan #95 and Cd Consoles magazines) and animations, almost like a cartoon.

Thanks to Jean-François Thébé and Scott Rogers for the contributions!

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