In Crash for the Gameboy Advance, a series of early screenshots show us some differences, like the Life Crate Icon, a weird character sprite, much thinner waterfalls, a removed Jet-Sub, different Temple Background and some unseen levels, not used in the final game. For more informations check the Crash Mania archive! Thanks a lot to HPZr!
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SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom is an action video game based on the television show SpongeBob SquarePants. The game has been released for the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Joel has made us to notice about a beta video that shows some differences from the final game:
1. The green arrows that are shown when targeting an enemy are replaced by a white glove pointing at them in the finalized version.
2. A purple collectible is shown when an enemy is destroyed that is not in the finalized version.
3. Various sound effects and soundtracks are missing.
4. A playable character (Sandy) has a completely different animation for sliding down tracks by doing it on her tail.
5. Another playable character (Spongebob) is shown with less-finalized attacks, showing his “bubble moves” with less detail and they are more rounded in shape.
6. A non-playable character (The Flying Dutchman) is shown in a different area of a level and he looks somewhat different (since he is a ghost character he has a glow effect in the finalized version that isn’t in the beta).
7. There is a smoke effect that I do not recall seeing in the finalized version.
Thanks to Joel for the contribution!
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Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (Sly Raccoon in Europe and Australia and Kaitou Sly Cooper in Japan) is a platform game created by Sucker Punch Productions, and released on the Sony PlayStation 2 in 2002. The sequel, Sly 2: Band of Thieves was released in 2004. In Sly Cooper 3 they added an interesting bonus video documentary about the development of the series, in which we can see some beta footage and an early prototype of the original game and a removed level from the second game.
Thanks to NastyKill for the contribution!
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Known simply as “Sonic Saturn“, it was another project that was in development in 1995 / 1996 by Sega Technical Institute (STI) along with Sonic X-treme. This prototype was created by Peter Morawiec, the coder of the Sonic 2 special stages, with an interesting 3D Engine that was more “realistic” than the ones used in X-Treme. It seems that Yuji Naka did not like this proto and so the Sonic Saturn Engine was never used to develope a full Sonic game. STI tried to use the engine to create some Bonus Stages to add in the Saturn version of “Sonic 3D”, but for the lack of time they abandoned them in favour of a 3D version of Sonic 2’s special stage.
More infos on Sonic Saturn can be found on Sonic Retro and Sonic-Cult.
Thanks to Matt3 for the contribution!
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Ghostworld was a platform / adventure game somewhat similar to Psychonauts, that was in development for the Playstation 2 by Luxoflux, in mid-2000. The project started with a “dark” and unique theme, but then i was changed to a more “kid-friendly” game for younger audience, because the publisher tough that so it was going to be more profitable. In the end (2002) Ghostworld was cancelled as it was seen as a risky project. After this, part of the team started to work on Shrek 2: The Game.
“A bunch of very talented people have invested tremendous effort into it, and while the results were spectacular and generally everybody was very impressed, reality kicked in. Being an original, “non-proven” property the publisher took an extremely non-committing stance and the soon-to-follow constant changes of direction and target-audience, design-by-committee meetings and the vague atmosphere surrounding the fate of the game had completely extinguished the original spark and eventually led to abandon the project.”
Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!
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