In 2005 TKO Software were working on a sequel to Ms. Pacman: Maze Madness, a platform game that was originally released for the Nintendo 64, Playstation and Dreamcast. Ms. Pacman: Maze Madness 2 was going to be published for the Xbox, Playstation 2 and GameCube, but the project was cancelled in mid development because of saturated market for the genre.
Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!
Video:
The Magical Ninjya: Jiraiya Kenzan (also know as Magical Ninja Ji Rai Ya) is a cancelled action game / platform that was in development in 2002 / 2003 by Capcom Production Studio 3 for the Playstation 2. The project was announced at the Tokyo Game Show 2003 but it soon vanished from Capcom’s release list and in the end Jiraiya was canned for unknown reasons. The gameplay would have probably been similar to the Mystical Ninja Goemon series or i-Ninja, with an interesting coop multiplayer mode for 2 players.
Players would also been able to summon beasts to help in battles, and earn new beasts by beating the game’s bosses. The 2° player in coop mode could have chose if being another ninja or if using one of these beasts.
Originally Capcom released few screens, some artworks and a trailer of Jiraiya Kenzan, but sadly only the images are preserved in the gallery below. The trailer (that was once available at Capcom’s official website) it’s now gone, so if you still have a high-quality copy of this (the file was named jiraiya_320.mpg), please let us know! The game’s characters were designed by Susumu Matsushita, the artist responsible for the design in Capcom’s Maximo series.
Thanks to Userdante, Celine, Maik and Sam Jones for the contributions!
Images:
Videos:
Sonic Rush is a platform game developed by Sonic Team and Dimps, published in 2005 for the Nintendo DS. Various screenshots from pre-release versions of the game show slightly different areas, different HUD, slightly different gameplay and the first screenshot of Blaze the Cat shows a Sonic life icon while, in the final version, Blaze has her own life icon. We can also notice a different main menu screen.
The Beta version had a totally different soundtrack for the main menu, for the Leaf Forest, for the boss stages and the end of an act. Also, some FX sounds are different from the final version (Sonic’s voice is different too).
In January 2007 DRX from the Hidden Palace released a prototype version of the game, that was shown at E3 2005. In the E3 version you were meant to play only one level, but Tanks from Sonic Retro has found out that there are 7 zones listed in the proto, and 3 are playable via hacking. He also found an unused set of sprites from Sonic Advance 3, but we don’t know how they were used in the development of Sonic Rush.
More info can be found at Sonic Retro and Sonic Retro Forum (this and this topics)
Thanks to Hiccup and YamiHoshi for the contributions!
Images:
Videos:
New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a side-scrolling platform developed by Nintendo EAD and released in November 2009. The game was announced at E3 2009, and from the early videos and screens, Kirby64 was able to notice various beta differences:
In the screen with Mario in the pinguin-suit we can see an area that was originally going to be world 3-1, but it was later removed. The ice structure has a different design in the final version, with a more blue color and snow on top of the ice.
Some more info on the beta differences can be found at Mario Wiki:
In the E3 2009 demo, after players go through the boss door, they all fall from the top of the screen and into the boss room, as the initial Larry and Morton videos showed. This was just like in the original New Super Mario Bros., where the player also enters the Bowser Jr. battles the same way. In the final version, the players are already on the ground when the boss room loads up.
Kab-ombs, Mr. Blizzards, Stretches and Bowser Statues were meant to appear but they were cut out as soon as the game was released.
Also, LucaPM noticed a unused file in the NSMB Wii code, called “test_lift.arc”. As we can read at Rusted Logic, it is a graphic file, a stretched grey block.
Thanks to Kirby64 and LucaPM for the contributions!
Images:
Videos: