Phantom Dust is a pseudo-card-based fighting / action game developed by Microsoft Game Studios and published for the Xbox in 2005. The game soon became a cult hit among hardcore gamers. Players construct “arsenals” similar to decks of cards and then use them to do battle against other players. The game incorporates strategy and action elements into a game that requires both mental and reflexive skill. [Info from Wikipedia]
In a 1UP article about the game are a couple of images from a Phantom Dust prototype / beta build, in which we can notice the early graphic, different HUD and a removed arena.
From an interview published on Xboxphreaker we can read even more info about those removed areas and other missing content:
If we had more development time, I would have really liked to increase the number of missions in the single-player mode. I also wanted players to be able to move from one underground town to another. (Take a look at the area near the town shop. The driller-like machine is the remnants of this plan.)
We had more than 500 skill ideas. From that large batch we organized them, edited them, and cut them down to the present level. At first, we had intended to create a lot more environments, including:
The Aquarium
This would be the ruins of an aquarium, with only water and fish still remaining. Only in the middle of the fish tanks would be lit up, and that light would be destroyed as players fought and destroyed things around them.
We also envisioned the floor to have leaking water on it.
The Station
The other stage we had in the planning stages was a station. In Tokyo there are a number of different subway lines, and we wanted to isolate one of them and make that into a 3D stage. In that one area there would be a memory train that was still running. Players could ride that train to different platforms. Inside the trains we would place the regenerating capsules. This is one of the very dynamic stages I had wanted to make.
You know, practically speaking it was just too much production work for our time to make these two maps, but I think we could have done it if we were creating the game on Xbox 360…
Lastly, we had also wanted to create maps to be used exclusively for multiplayer, but creating stages took longer than expected. Including normal-mapping took longer than expected, then getting designers to be comfortable with the development took a lot of time, so map creation was quite difficult.
Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!
Images:
Here’s a video from the final version:
Sonic Heroes is a platform game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, developed by Sonic Team USA and released in 2003 for the GameCube, Playstation 2 and Xbox. Kieranmay linked us to many beta videos from the game, as you can see below! Many cutscenes were still unfinished and the songs were changed for the final version.
Also, as we can read at Sonic Retro, various Sonic Heroes betas were leaked online:
Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!
Videos:
prototype of the early song “what I’m made of”
final version of what I’m made of
Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy in the US), is an adventure game developed by Quantic Dream and released for the Playstation 2, Xbox and PC in September 2005. The game evolved a lot during its development and from the early screens we notice various beta differences. The character models, some scenes and locations were changed in the final version. If you have finished the game and notice more specific differences in the gallery below, please let us know!
Thanks to Megalol and Anonymous for the contribution! More info on the game can be found at Omikron Game Blog
More beta differences were noticed by John Doom:
image 4: Tyler isn’t wearing a cap
image 5: armchairs aren’t zebrine in the retail
image 6: Lukas meets Markus in the square’s center in the retail.
image 7: Lukas and the local are different
image 9: the victim is different
image11: Markus seems… darker? o.o He has a slightly different look.
image13: the local insists with a palette of red, green and yellow rather than in the retial
image19: Tyler wears a slightly different cap in the retail.
image23: the policeman wears a different uniform
image24: the tap is out of order but there’s no sign in the retail.
image26: the bathroom has a different paint and there is also a glass in the retail
image27: it is the concept of Jeffrey.
image28: Lukas
image29: Probably Kate or Carla, but she is different from both
image32: he’s probably an early model of the victim
image35: she should be Kate because i remember that she dressed that blue dress
image36: it seems that Bogart is missing (or he could be hidden behind a bin and he’s impossible to see from this angle)
Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!
Images:
Videos:
Runebrid is an unreleased SRPG that was in development in 2003 / 2004 by Max Entertainment for the original XBOX. It would have been published by Takuyo, but only a single piece of artwork was ever shown for the project before its cancellation. Max Entertainment was a new company by Kenji Orimo, former Climax developer and co-director of the original Shining Force. Runebrid might have had gameplay similar to SF (and Orimo’s Super Famicom game FEDA: The Emblem of Justice), but sadly we’ll never know for sure.
Images:
