This article was written a few years ago as a personal collection of notes. Thus it is incomplete, but maybe someday i will finish it. Also, forgive me for the shortness and the bad overall quality of this analysis.
[Original article in italian by monokoma, english translation by yota]
The Eternal Darkness project was born on the Nintendo 64. This version had already many of the features and locations of the future Gamecube version.
Peter Jacob in the Cathedral.
Metroid Prime 2 for the GCN was a bit of a change from the metroid standard, as it featured for the first time, ammo for the beam weapons, and the ability to explore a dark world version of the main world. A bonus disk with a demo of the game on it was released as a gift from nintendo for a limited time, and a pack in bonus with copies of the first Metroid Prime. The demo takes several short cuts, jumping you straight to a mining facility that comes along a little later in the game. However, there are differences outside of that, that can’t quite be chalked up as cut backs for a demo release.
Video 1
3:40 Luminoth Webbing. scan is not in final game
3:53 “Mechanisms” is missing from log directory
3:56 it says that the statue’s motivator unit is broken, and won’t move. inthe final, instead of an eye, it has a dark crystal that when shot with the right beam, DOES move.
4:28 warns of a terminal fall ahead. not in the final game. Also, Luminoth Lore piece is missing from side of wall.
Video 2
2:04 Dark Webbing. scan is not in final game.
Video 3
This cut-scene is not in the final game.
Also, in one room in the final game, you can see a large number of flying enemies, but since you can only see it in morph ball form through normal play, you can’t scan it. However, if you enter the room by other means, such as going through or over walls with a glitch or Action Replay, you can scan it. The scan is as follows (as wrote on Wikitroid):
“Mechanism: Airthorns. Rogue airborne mechanoids. Targets are small and travel in packs for safety. Avoid contact.”
“The Luminoth made the Airthorn to patrol local airspace. The small, speedy machines were a boon to the war effort until their programming failed. Now rogue, they serve the Ing as fiercely as they served their creators.”
More information about unused enemies can be found at The Cutting Room Floor.
There are also enemies that were planned to be in the game at one point, but appear to have not even made it off of the concept art, which can be viewed at the Metroid Database
Retro Studios decided against recycling the features of the first game, and instead used new sound models, weapon effects, and art designs. They also implemented the Screw Attack and wall jumping features seen in previous Metroid games, which were not incorporated in the first Prime due to time constraints. [Infos from Wikipedia]
In some Pre-Release screenshots we can notice that the Hud, Dark Samus colors, the score counter in the Multiplayer mode and the visor hud while in morph ball are different. Also, there are other little changes in the scenarios.
Also, thanks to a model viewer created by Interdpth and Revel8n it’s possible to find various unused models hidden in the game’s code. You can download the Metroid Prime model viewer (mpxviewer) in here. If you are able to find more unused models, please let us know!
Images:
Demon Chaos is a hack ‘n slash game published by Konami for the PlayStation 2. The game is set in feudal Japan in the 1500s and revolves around a priestess who has been given eternal youth until she exterminates all the demons. She has been given charge of a mystical beast from the gods, Inugami, which is played by the player. The unique aspect of the game is that up to 65,000 enemies can be on-screen at once.
As we can read from Wikipedia, Thomas M. Disch’s Amnesia is a text adventure game created by Cognetics Corporation, written by award-winning science fiction author Thomas M. Disch. The game was acquired and produced by Don Daglow and published by Electronic Arts (EA) in 1986 for the MS DOS PC and Apple II systems.
Robert Seddon has linked us to Jason Scott’s weblog, in which we can read about the “beta” version of Amnesia, that “was originally supposed to be released by book publisher Harper & Row, but that was cancelled”. It seems that part of the original story was cut from the final game, for space limitations. The original game’s manuscript created by Disch was preserved and shared thanks to Stephane. As we can read from Jason’s blog:
To be clear: this is not a novel, this is not a script in the sense most people think of a play or a shooting script. This is a specification outline for an interactive fiction, where the descriptions Disch works in are meant to be manipulated by the player in the process of exploring a world.
This is an interesting piece of gaming history and it’s nice to know that it was possible to save it from being lost forever. Huge props to Stephane and Jason for sharing their find and thanks to Robert Seddon for the link!