Star Blade: Operation Blue Planet is a cancelled arcade on-rails shooter that was being developed by Namco. It was supposed to be a sequel of the first Star Blade, originally released in 1991. A proto of the coin-op was playable at Amusement Machine Show in 2001, but the game got quietly canceled, probably because the cabinet was too expensive.
The cabinet was known as “Over Reality Booster System” (ORBS). Its main feature was a special lens that projected a 180 degree image in order to create a very immersive experience for the player.
Tekken 6 is a fighting game developed and published by Namco Bandai, released in Japanese arcades in November 2007 as the first game running on the PS3-based System 357 arcade board. A home version was released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in October 2009. An old Tekken 6 trailer from 2006 seems to be from a beta version, which looks like it’s running on a different graphics engine. If you compare to the final version, Jin’s pants have a reflective nature that resembles Virtua Fighter 5. The stage and game style are not included in the current Tekken 6, and it feels like it’s almost an entirely different game. The models look like they were updated from Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, and the stage they fought on had destructible environments, to a level that had not been seen in a Tekken game. Although this looks like it was going to be a cut scene, the different character models make think it was using what they had for gameplay at that time.
Tales of Phantasia is a Jrpg developed by Wolfteam and published, only in Japan, by Namco for SNES in 1995. The game was originally based on an unpublished novel, Tale Fantasia, but, as we can read from Aselia wikia, the programming team encountered many difficulties in dealing with the publisher:
Several changes exist between the initial concept of Tale Phantasia and the published game, due to Namco’s interference with Wolfteam’s efforts, eventually cutting them out of the process and removing them from the credits towards the end of development. This includes changing the character artist from Yoshiaki Inagaki to the now-familiar Kousuke Fujishima, resulting in entirely redesigned and renamed characters with in-game sprites that are based on original artwork and not Fujishima’s revisions, which are shown in the status art, along with several alterations to key chars and plot points. A grand majority of the story was cut from the game, and no attempt was made to close the plot holes that were created by Namco’s actions.
In the beta pics below we can see the original character design of Inagaki and a scan of a pre-release version of Tales of Phantasia. I played the game ten years ago, so i don’t remember it too well, and the scan is low quality, but i don’t see any major changes. If you have more informations please make a comment and we’ll update the post.
Thanks to Youloute of the Assembler forum for the scan.
Below is a few sprites that are ripped from the final version of Tales of Phantasia, but these sprites go completely unused. They’re ‘angel’ sprites for when Raise Dead is used. Some of them are completely unknown, but clearly Brambert, Rhea and Morrison are in the list. Brambert was in the beta of Tales of Phantasia, as seen in the image below. Not much is known about Rhea but it appears NPC’s may have been usable in battle. There’s also a ‘Tactics’ icon for both Brambart and Rhea as well. Not too mention both of their names are stored in the same area as Cress and Co.’s.
The “Tales” series is very popular in Japan and other countries in the world. There is lots of versions from many consoles, such as Playstation, Gamecube. However, there is a version that never have been released for Gamecube. It is supposed to be a sequel of Tales of Symphonia. Here is a scanned picture from a Brazilian Magazine called “Nintendo World”, which talks about it.
-Scan taken on the Issue 66, February 2004, from Nintendo World, page 13.-
Translation by joaowojcikiewicz and help with some old grammar errors by KooPako:
“Sequel to Symphonia (Tales of Symphonia – GC)
================================================= RPG to Gamecube will have a sequel
Namco doesn’t stop. Just after releasing Tales of Symphonia, elected as Gamecube’s best RPG of 2003 by specialized game sites, Namco announces it’s sequel. Tales of Legendia will be the sequel of Symphonia, its plot takes place years after the events of the original game ( symphonia ). the game will also feature a Multi-Linear Battle system. (a mix of elements of RPGs and fighting games in battles), with 3D simulated graphics. Namco also revealed that the game will have connection with the new game of Tales which is being developed to GBA. More information in the next issues.”
NOTE: The magazine never came with more news about Tales of Legendia in the next issues. ====================================================
The game would also connect with Game Boy Advance. Connecting with an another “Tales” game that was not announced on this article. It could probably have E-cards with special items for the game, or use the Game Boy Link to play Multiplayer or something.
There is no other informations about this game.
In the day August 25, 2005, Tales of Legendia was released for Playstation 2.
Thanks to gabrielwoj for making the article, joaowojcikiewicz (for translating the Portuguese article) and KooPako (for helping with grammar) for the contributors!
Pac-Man Ghost Zone is a cancelled platform game that was in development in 1996 by Namco Hometek for the original playstation. This would have been the first 3D Pac Man game to be released for home consoles. Ghost Zone was previewed in various old magazines and it seems that it was even shown in some form at E3, but after a while Namco decided to kill the project for quality reasons. As we can read on the Playstation Museum:
We built a playable demo and even though there was some fun gameplay, the game just never felt right. The environments all felt too much the same and it was lacking a sense of grandeur found in other games like the recently released Mario 64. Japan must of felt the same way too – when we flew to Japan and presented it to Namco president Nakamura-San, he was very displeased. As a result, almost the entire team – save 1 designer (myself), 1 programmer (Gil Colgate) and 1 artist (Neil Strudwick) – were fired and we had to start again on what eventually became Pac-Man World.”
Thanks to Celine for the scans! (GamePro #100, Console+ #78, GameInformer #53)
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