Beta + Cancelled Unseen Features Video Games - Page 10 of 15

Sonic fans probably already know Sonic Retro, one of the best websites for informations about Sonic protos, hacks and various unseen stuff from our favourite blue hedgehog games. In these last years, the SR community was able to realize a wonderfull series of projects and researches, that help us to know more about the development of the Sonic saga. Sonic Retro is now a perfect example on how to organize a group of expert gamers, “hackers” and lovely geeks, that collaborate togheter to preserve informations on lost games. What’s the secret of their success? We have contacted Scarred Sun, webmistress of SR, and she was nice enough to take some of her time to answer our boring questions about their site, the Sonic Retro sceners and the beta-gaming world.

U64: Thanks for your time Scarred Sun, would you like to introduce yourself and your site to our readers?

Scarred Sun: I’m Scarred Sun, the owner of Sonic Retro, a site dedicated to all things old-school Sonic, but with a focus on prototypes, hacking and technical aspects of the Sonic the Hedgehog series of video games. I originally joined the Sonic scene in 2001 while learning about a pirated Sonic 1 cart that I had and ran a couple of sites that eventually evolved into what we now know as Retro.

Unlike most other webmasters in this genre of sites, I do not actually do much hacking or research myself; instead, I basically aggregate the discoveries and news of others and make it more accessible for a wider audience. I started this through a site called Sonic the Hedgehog Information Treasury (aka SHIT) and it eventually evolved into its own community. On a day-to-day level I’m responsible for the glue that holds the site together by resolving personal conflicts, helping and hanging out with the community, coordinating projects, design and direction for the site, and obviously editing the wiki and front page.

U64: On Sonic Retro there’s a big collection of hacks and informations about beta and canceled Sonic games: how did the site started to archive this kind of unseen stuff?

Unseen Features, Unseen Interviews

Unseen Interviews: DRX from Hidden-Palace

U64 Staff & Contributors

16-09-2008

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[Interview by Xavio]

Xavio hasn’t updated a lot the last time, but no worries folks, the one and only Xavio is back – WITH AN INTERVIEW!! How great isn’t that? I was trying to contact Borman from Past To Present / Superior Version, but he was far to little on his computer (so we’ll have his interview for another time) and I decided to contact DRX from Hidden-Palace.org instead. God Bless that guy, now I’ll get an A+ in English. Anyway, let’s go down to business.

[spoiler /Click here for the censored version/ /Hide the censored version/]I went down the streets, looking for the man. The city walls were gray, and I smoked on my cigarrete as I heard the noise of the wind coming through me. Then I saw him. He stood in the city corner, the guy who took care of Hidden-Palace.org. He watched at me as I came towards him, with my cigarrete and my pimped out nose. We stood and chatted for a while, and then I began interviewing him.[/spoiler]

TEH EPIXZ INTERVIEW WIHT TEH L33T ADMIN

<Xavio> Hi DrX! Thanks a lot for this interview, we know that you probably have better things to do than reply to our questions, but we’ll try to be as fast as possible. :) Would you like to introduce yourself and your site to our readers?

[spoiler /Click here for the censored version/ /Hide the censored version/]<Xavio> Hi DrX! Thanks a lot for this interview, we know that you probably have better things to do than reply to our questions (like spitting in cans), but we’ll try to be as slow as possible. :) Would you like to introduce yourself and your site to our readers?[/spoiler]

<drx> It’d be a good idea, I don’t think that many people know me. I run a website called Hidden Palace, devoted to preserving lost video games and video game development history, among other things. Oh and don’t worry, I have enough time and cans to spit in them.

<Xavio> When did you get the idea to open a site for unreleased stuff? Why did you start the site?

Unseen Articles, Unseen Features

Daraku Tenshi: The Fallen… Beta?

U64 Staff & Contributors

15-09-2008

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[Article written by Torentsu]

In 1998 Psyiko’s “Steel Hearts” team released the highly obscure fighter Daraku Tenshi: The Fallen Angels. The game saw limited release in Japan, and even slimmer distribution in America and other places outside the land of the rising sun. Despite this the game was at least “semi” translated and there is a dip-switch option allowing you to change the after battle quotes into English. Perhaps the thing that makes Daraku Tenshi so interesting is the air of mystery that surrounds its development, and the finished product that we got. Thanks to the rise of the internet however, a few more scraps of info are starting to turn up. The general consensus is that Daraku Tenshi was released unfinished (or in the very least rushed). After being lucky enough to play this game a few years ago I created my first character modifier (and my first code for a video game at that). I wanted to check out claims of lost characters in the game, and hopefully play as them. Unfortunately I didn’t find any of the lost characters in the character array, but I did manage to make the bosses playable. You can see videos of this on my old youtube account:

Trigger

Unseen Articles, Unseen Features

Final Fantasy 6/4? Square VS Nintendo

Final Fantasy 6/4?

[Warning: this article was originally written in italian many years ago, with the help of information from lots of websites, forums and people.. but we don’t know anymore the exact source of some of these info]

According to some magazines in 1995, a new chapter of the Final Fantasy series was already in development for the Nintendo 64 and there were even rumors of a simultaneous release in the U.S. and Japan for the end of 1996. Was it for real? Not really. In order to test the new Silicon Graphics hardware, Squaresoft created a now well-known interactive CGI demo (not running on the real Nintendo 64 hardware, even if the N64 was powered by Silicon Graphics) with characters from Final Fantasy VI, to show it at the SIGGRAPH 95 expo. That was the “Final Fantasy 64” that magazines talked about, but it was not really a game for any console, just a tech demo. The real Final Fantasy 7 would later be released in 1997 as a PlayStation exclusive. But what really happened between Nintendo and Squaresoft, and why was there no Final Fantasy for the N64?

[Original article in italian by monokoma, translation by Yota with the help of FullMetalMC and Nate Edwards]

Unseen Articles, Unseen Features

Castlevania 64: The Beta, What We Got VS What There Was

U64 Staff & Contributors

28-08-2008

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[Article written by Torentsu]

Castlevania 64 underwent a no doubt rushed development phase and because of it, a lot of content was cut from the final game. The most obvious missing feature is that the final version only contains two playable characters as opposed to beta version’s promised four.

Originally, we were promised Reinhardt Schneider, Carrie Fernandez , Cornell, and Coller. Reinhardt and Carrie made it into 64 and Cornell was lucky enough to pull into the “directors cut” version of the game, but poor old Coller never saw the light of day. He was, however, replaced by Henry. Castlevania 64 obviously had a lot more content than what we got, but fortunately, thanks to a bit of picture hunting and hacking magic, we can see a bit more of what the developers originally intended.