Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door [Beta Sprites – GameCube]

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Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was initially going to simply be called Paper Mario 2 and feature a far different logo, one reminiscent of the original Paper Mario’s logo. There were also many unused badges. All of the partners from the original Paper Mario were going to appear but were cut-off as well. Bow and Parakarry were the only ones left. There was also a strange robot creature and two palette swaps of Screamy. Bobbery also had a prototype sprite, which depicts him wearing army gear. There was also going to be a probable mini-boss called Dark Atomic Boo. Dark Atomic Boo would be a Dark Boo version of Atomic Boo, and some have theorized that it may have been a more powerful Atomic Boo fought in the Dark Boo-inhabited Poshley Sanctum.

Also, in the original trailer, one can see a HP Plus badge that is located on a ledge beyond a moving platform which has a wall over it in midcourse (and assumedly could be reached with the help of Vivian). None of this made it into the final game (except the area where these things are, minus the things themselves of course). The trailer also showed that Item Shops would be labeled with Mushrooms rather than the Fire Flowers seen in the final game. Red Bones was initially named “Red Koopa Skeleton“. In the same trailer you can see that “Tornado Jump” was initially called “Hurricane Jump”. [Info from Mariowiki]

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Source: www.themushroomkingdom.net 

Wave Race [GC – Space World 2000 Tech Demo]

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Wave Race: Blue Storm is a jet ski racing game released as a launch title for the Nintendo GameCube on November 18, 2001. It was a sequel to the 1996 Nintendo 64 game Wave Race 64 and was developed by Nintendo-owned development studio, NST. [Infos from Wikipedia]

When the new Wave Race project for the Gamecube was first shown at the Space World 2000, Nintendo presented a small tech demo with a different graphic style than the one used in the final game, more similar to the Nintendo 64 version. Probably this was just an early concept for the title and the final character design was still undecided.

Also, as noticed by Rusko Star, if you look in the booklet in the released game or in the old videos you can see that Serena had a ponytail in the beta version!

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Retro Studios Football [GameCube – Tech Demo / Cancelled]

NFL Retro Football, also known as ‘Retro Studios Football’ was a cancelled sports game by Retro Studios, the developers responsible for the Metroid Prime series. It was being developed for Nintendo Gamecube from 1998-2000.

Retro Studios struggled in its early years, dealing with several cancelled projects and lay-offs. In 2000, Nintendo offered the company the license to the long-dormant Metroid franchise which proved to be a turning point for the company. One of the GameCube games that were cancelled to concentrate  the team on the development of Metroid Prime, was this NFL Retro Football, that was basically a traditional football game with impressive graphic and animations for its time (and a rumored create-a-player mode).

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Initially, this project was meant to be a Mario Football game,  but Nintendo wanted Retro to create more “mature” titles (that’s why they created the team) so it soon became a realistic / real world sport game. The concept above was not created by Retro Studios, it was just a drawing done by OptimalProtocol for an N-Sider article, to show what the game could have looked like.

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Raven Blade [GC – Cancelled]

Raven Blade was a game in development by Retro Studios for the Nintendo GameCube. It was due to be released world-wide but was later cancelled during development to free up resources for Metroid Prime. Slow development and the offer of developing the next Metroid game were the main reasons of cancellation. The models of Raven Blade backgrounds and creatures were good, but the textures were incomplete. Nintendo noticed their (tentative title) “Action-Adventure” project with a female main character and took the opportunity to ask Retro Studios to make Metroid Prime. Raven Blade, Action-Adventure, NFL Retro Football and Car Combat were all cancelled to work on the new game. – [info from Wikipedia]

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Some screenshots & artwork are from www.n-sider.com

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Gotcha Force [Beta / Concept – GameCube]

Gotcha Force is a brawl fighting game for the Nintendo GameCube, developed by Capcom. The game received poor reviews from critics, as well as a lack of advertising but it soon became a cult-hit among fans of fast-paced mech fights. Capcom themselves seem to consider the game as one of their favorites, as the official Japanese site is stocked with concept art, screenshots of the developers messing around, and videos. [Infos from Wikipedia]

The gameplay is a mix between Virtual On, Power Stone and somehow.. Pokemon (for the hundreds of robots that can be unlocked and collected).  The niche who have been able to devote the time necessary to appreciate Gotcha Force, were rewarded with a game really hectic and fun in single player. Unfortunately, the lack of more multiplayer modes and a better framerate, spoil the longevity of the title. The design of robots and their customization is still among the best ever seen in its generation.

Talking about the unseen beta elements, we have collected some beta screens and concept arts, in which we can see different arenas, menu, HUB and early design of the characters, with some changes from the final ones. It seems that in the official website there are some interviews with the team that worked on the game, where they explain the development of the project, but we still need to better translate those.

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