Nintendo

Wii Sports Resort: the removed games

wiisporresot

From a email interview with Wired Online Magazine, Katsuya Eguchi shares with us some lost info about the recently released / popular Wii Sports resort.

“We considered fishing and a water slide activity before deciding on the final twelve events,” Eguchi said. We’re having a hard time imagining a controllable, skill-based water slide game, which may have been one reason it didn’t end up in Resort. “As for more unconventional concepts, we created a pretty fun prototype of kendama, a traditional Japanese toy, that just didn’t fit the game’s theme.”

More info if it comes, for now we thank Wired for providing this information! 

[Video Article] Kid Icarus Wii

LiamRproductions has recorded a video-article in which he talks about the development of Kid Icarus Wii, a prototype that was in the work at Factor 5. It’s still unknown if the project will ever be finished or not, but it seems that after the closure of the american studios, F5 are still working on some Wii games in Germany . You can check the video article below, thanks to Liam for the video!

 

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.

Images:

Movies:

 

Pokemon Platinum [DS – Beta / Unused Stuff]

When Pokèmon Platinum was announced, lots of scans and screens came out on the net and Nintendo also put online a website about the game, with a screen of the battle vs. Giratina Origin. Howerer, the Giratina Origin sprite that we see in this screen is not the same one as the final version.

Beta :

Final :

Also, there was a beta sprite of Shaymin Sky form that was dropped before the release. There are also some beta items in Platinum that are also in D/P:

  • S.S. Ticket = A ticket for sailing with the S.S. Anne (but there’s no S.S. Anne in D/P/P!)
  • Contest pass = A pass for entering the Pokèmon Contest (contests do not need a ticket)
  • Magma Rock = A magma rock from the stark mountain (proupose unknown,maybe has something to do with Hetran)
  • Red Chain = A chain created by the Lake Trio (even if it’s used by Cyrus for awakening Dialga/Palkia in the game,the proupose of this item is unknown)
  • Rule Book = A book that contains the rules of the Wi-Fi mode (the rules in the Wi-Fi mode are writed into the instruction book)
  • Seal Bag = A bag that can contain 10 seals (replaced with the Seal Case)
  • Treasure Sack = A sack that holds the treasures found in the underground (replaced with the Special Selections for the underground)

They have no function in the game but they can be found by hacking the game or cheating.

(Source : Bulbapedia)

Another thing just discovered : Pokèmon Platinum has a test music that’s just a remix of the Pokèmon R/S/E opening. Howerer, the music is unused in the game.

Update: most of the Pokemon Gold and Silver references could be used in the new G/S remakes, since it’s intended to be compatible with Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum. 

A summary of the Mother 3 project

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A little introduction

[Article written by Yota]

Mother 3 was going to be a Nintendo 64’s sequel of the SNES RPG know as Earthbound. It was, however, cancelled in 2000, but later the game resurfaced on the GBA and it was officially released in 2006. Now that the english fan-translation of Mother 3 is out, we can finally try to analyze the old beta with the help of the few informations we have in English. (Itoi posted some notes about the cancellation of Mother 64 on his japanese site, but unfortunately only two pages have been translated by Tomato.They can be found here).

It seems that Mother 3 was already scheduled for the SNES even before the release of Earthbound in America, but the development was quickly switched to the 64DD, and the game was officially announced only in 1996. We don’t know much about the Disk Drive version, but, like Zelda URA, it would have used all of the add-on features, and it would have been compatible with Mario Artist. Also, according to Dream 64, the original story was originally intended to cover ten years of the characters life.

In 1998 Nintendo said that the 64DD Mother 3 was going to be ported on a cartridge, with an F-zero-like expansion scheduled for later. The cart version had twelve chapters, more characters, more locations (like a jungle and a river that you can see  in a screenshot), but the main narrative was roughly the same as the GBA version, only more mature. Flint, Claus and Lucas probably had a bigger role in the first chapters compared to the final version.