Killer Instinct is a fighting game developed by RareWare and published by Midway and Nintendo. Initially released in arcades in 1994 it was later ported to the Super Nintendo. In the gallery below you can notice some early character designs for B.Orchid and Glacius. As they wrote at the Killer Instinct Arena, the earliest version of Black Orchid was a blonde amazon, but a later version of her featured a black outfit. In the final game Orchid wears a green and yellow dress.
Also, thanks to Lucazz we found out that a beta Killer Instinct ROM was somehow leaked online, and it contains many differences from the final version:
- the orchid stage and the cinder stage have the same beta floor
- glacius and jago have an unused song
- the gangsta theme is in glacius’ stage
- the fulgore theme is in cinder’s stage
- the menu screen is in a different position
- the orchid stage doesn’t have the rare and nintendo logos in the screens and the stage side is moved to the right
- the raptor sprites are corrupted
- the eyedol bridge stage is in the cinder’s stage, similar of the arcade
- in the continue screen the song is the same as the menu screen
Thanks to Robert Seddon and Lucazz for the contributions!
In a promotional video of Killer Instinct, embedded below, we can see an early version of the coin-op with some differences:
- Beta character selection screen
- Cinder’s name was Meltdown and Sabrewolf’s Werewolf.
- Some of the combo types were removed or changed, like Mondo combo and Elite combo
- The voice that announces the stage name is different
- Some stages were slightly different, like the Tower arena and the Sabrewulf livel
Images:
Videos:
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Besides that proto-Orchid render, there’s a later one which suggests black was going to be her default colour (as in ‘black orchid’, I imagine).
Thanks for the link Robert :) I still need to write a proper description for this beta..
there is a beta killer instinct rom that have many diferences
1 the orchid stage and cinder have the same beta floor
2 glacius and jago they had one unused song
3 the gangsta theme are in glacius stage
4 the fulgore theme are in the cinder stage
5 the menu screen is more down
6 the orchid stage doesn’t have rare and nintendo logo in the screen,and the stage side is more to the right
7 the riptor sprites are corrupted
8 the eyedol bridge stage have the cinder stage,similar of the arcade
9 n the continue screen the song is the same than menu screen
10 doesn’t have danger
http://www.rom-world.com/dl.php?name=Super_Nintendo&letter=K here is the killer roms
there is a another rom named (8mb)
I did not know about this beta ROM, interesting.. thanks Lucazz! I’m going to update the description :)
Another difference is that the beta version allows you to play in Eyedol’s background in 2 player mode.
This is the only background in the final released version that cannot be accessed in multiplayer. This explains the mysterious screenshots in the instruction booklet which show Jago and Spinal fighting it out in Eyedol’s lair (they must be from the beta version)
Interesting, can you make a screenshot of that background?
Killer Instinct 2 on the SNES is reality! According to the current issue of Retro Gamer where there is an interview with a Rare employee, the game was finished but never released probably due to the release of KI GOLD on N64. What a pity I would have loved to play the SNES rendition.