Nintendo DS

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days [DS – Beta / Unused Stuff]

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is an action RPG developed and published by Square Enix for the Nintendo DS with assistance from Hand. Granville has created a topic in our forum with an interesting series of beta screenshots and early videos that show various differences from the final version.

This footage is the earliest known footage from a Nintendo conference in 2007. The two worlds shown are Twilight Town and Wonderland. The structures of the levels are very different from the final game, there are a kind of heartless in wonderland where there aren’t supposed to be any of that species, and you’ll just notice a lot of general differences from the final game. Especially the HUD, which is nothing like the final game. Different sky color in Twilight Town, and you don’t go in that little underpass area to my knowledge.

In the gallery below you can see the gradual development of the game, with an early scenario that could have been used to test the gameplay. You can also notice a different hud, with magic bars: in the final game, there is no MP bar at all. Magic and items are both handled by numbers instead of a bar that depletes and refills.

Images:

In one of the beta screens there’s a place that seems to have been removed from the final game: it’s a grassy area with some broken columns (probably a beta Twilight Town). In another image we can notice a scene in which the player is chasing the rabbit in Wonderland, but that does not happen in the released game. Also, the area in the final version of wonderland seems more cramped than this one.

We can also notice that in one screen Roxas’ mugshot is slightly different from the final game. However, the old mugshot is still hidden in the game code as seen in the sprite rip from Barubary. There are actually SIX unused battle portraits listed in there.

In the July issue of Nintendo Power, the magazine told everyone that the worlds of Pinocchio and Traverse Town would be present in the game. Not so unfortunately. In the final game, those 2 areas were removed. However, a new sprite rip from Barubary has unveiled some other interesting mugshots that were unused but still hidden in the code. You can notice 3 character portraits from Pinocchio (Pinocchio, the Fox Honest John, the cat, and Gepetto). As Smouvy has made us to notice, if you play the mission where you face Guard Armor for the first time in the Colosseum, you’ll see flashes of Sora fighting Guard Armor in a fully modeled area of Traverse Town. So at least one area of Traverse Town did make its way into the final game.

Hidden in the game’s code there is also a Hercules character that doesn’t appear either: Megara.

Two more videos show a couple of unused scenarios: they were taken at a game conference back in 2008. It seems that these 2 unused scenarios were created specifically for that conference they were not intended for the final product.

Roxas and Axel in Twilight Town:

I don’t believe the scenarios or dialog ever happened as seen in this video. Perhaps a few parts did, but I know for sure that Roxas and Axel never fight that armored heartless beast in the final game. He does appear as a boss, but not in this scenario of this video.

Roxas and Xaldin in Beast’s Castle:

This one I know for sure has unused parts. For one, you only start out at that area once in the entire game. And it is not with the partner in that video (Xaldin). The events seen there do not happen, including the heartless ambush in the beginning. One more important thing- The potions you collect around the 2:05 portion of the gameplay are totally different looking in the final game. They just look like generic packages in the final. Same sound but different appearance. The boss there though did appear in the final game. There were some minor camera angle differences though.

Thanks a lot to Granville for the contribution! 

Ninja Jajamaru-Kun [DS – Cancelled]

Ninja Jajamaru-Kun: Pen wa Ken Yorimo Kyoushidegozaru was going to be a DS remake of the original action game with the same name that was released in Japan in 1985 by Jaleco for the Famicom (NES).  It seems that something went wrong during the development of the DS remake and it was cancelled as reported in Famitsu. Jaleco was then closed down because of “increasing competition in recent years in the video game market”.

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Megaman Starforce [Beta / Unused – DS]

Granville has wrote an interesting topic in the U64 Forum, in which he showed us some misterious textures that seems to have been found by The Spriters Resource in the Megaman Starforce code. In these textures we can recognize various 3D models from the Megaman Battle Network series!

The problem is that there was no 3D MMBN for the DS and MMBN5 DS was just a compilation port of both GBA versions of Battle Network 5. It was pretty much identical to the GBA as it had the same 2D graphics apart from a couple of models. There were a total of 3 3D models in MMBN5 DS- Megaman, Protoman, and Colonel. The Megaman model that was found in MM Starforce could be from BN5, but that’s about it. Hidden in the MMSF code there’s Lan, some kid, a town, Lan’s room, and some net areas all in 3D and can’t be found anywhere in BN5DS.

As Granville has wrote, it could be possible that Capcom used “MMBN5’s engine as a base for Starforce at first. Likely they intended Starforce to be a true Battle Network 7 originally, but then they modded the game so much that it became its own series.” If this is trye, then these Battle Network 3D models could be the only remains from the original Starforce prototype.

You can read more info about these unused models at Mega Rock Blog!

Here are some beta images from MHFsilver, used in promotional videos and articles:

These images show a wide difference between the beta and final version. Some images include their beta version compared to their final version. For more information, you can check the Rockman EXE Zone Forum!

Thanks a lot to Granville, MegaRockReborn, tgarciao and MHFsilver for the contributions and huge props to MegaRockEXE for the find!

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Phantasy Star Zero [DS – Beta / Concept]

pso-zero-beta

PS0 is the new chapter in the Phantasy Star Online series of games, that was released for the Nintendo DS the 25 december 2008 (Japanese version). When SEGA started to work on the game, various prototypes and different character designs were tried before to choose the final one. In the earliest stage of development, they recreated the Forest area from the original PSO Dreamcast on the DS, with Boomas and the famous Dragon. It seems that initially items / mesetas were dropped on the field when an enemy was killed, instead of coming out from the final-box that appears only after all the enemies are died, as it is in the final version of the game. Probably SEGA decided to remove the single-enemy drops because of the limited graphic capabilities of the portable console (with too many 3D objects on the screen, the game could have slow down too much). In other concept arts and screens, we can see a “more stylish” design for the characters, that looked more like the one from the original PSO.  In one of the  artworks there are even some “flamed-head” enemies with guns, but there are no enemies like that in the final game. All these images were show at the Phantasy Star Zero Christmas Party that Sega organized to promote the game on the 25 December 2008.

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Mario Kart [DS – Beta / Kiosk Version Comparison]

mariokartds.jpg

Mario Kart DS - Beta

Mario Kart DS have some interesting beta differences. This game was going to include a few more tracks, such as Mario Circuit from Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (no obstacles etc.), which was probably replaced by GCN Luigi Circuit, a Koopa Beach-type track (nokonoko_course), and Mario Kart: Double Dash’s Block City battle area, which is unfinished. There was also an mysterious “Dokan Course” stage, as well as a simple, circular test area (test_circle) smaller than Baby Park; both of these (and the latter one for sure) could’ve been debugging stages not planned for inclusion in the final game. These areas can still be accessed using Action Replay DS (No textures) or ROM Hacking (with textures.)

Waluigi Pinball was also very different in betas, with fairly different music and no pinballs, and the objects looked very different, albeit probably a programming error. Demo copies of the game actually showed it with quite a few object differences (such as more bumpers and a less direct launch towards the beginning). The demo version also had a DK Pass-like course with a grassland theme rather than a snow one, with a lone Thwomp near the finish line, as well as many other small differences mostly regarding walls and jumps. It was replaced with the above course in the final.

Finally, demo version released for stores by Nintendo depicted the Chain Chomp (which could not actually be retrieved in the demo version itself) as an item; it is presumed that this Chomp munition would work in a manner similar to that of the Chain Chomps in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, making it likely that Chain Chomps were removed from the game in favor of Bullet Bills. The item roulette actually used placeholders from MKDD as their icons, so it could have just been carried from there.

Also, DRMARIOX and Falcon88 made us to notice about some other differences:

  • GCN Mario Circut has no hazards (ex. No Trees or Chain Chomps)
  • Chain Chomps have no mouth animation

On DSHack.org Forum has shared the “Mario Kart CW Tri” hack, with most of the Beta tracks playable with textures. Also at www.mariokartcw.org you can read all the Beta info that they found with hacking. Thanks to DSHack.org / Mario Kart CW Project we also know about the Beta Character and Cups:

  • E.Gadd was planned for MKDS.
  • The Retro GP used to be called SNES Cup, N64 Cup, GBA Cup and GCN Cup.

Mario Kart DS - Kiosk

First, what means a Kiosk game?

A Kiosk game are the free distributed games in such in conferences, stores or promoted places.

Mario Kart DS Kiosk have been released on the download station, 4 cups to play (2 from DS and 2 from Retro). And the classic characters to play.

But, Gabrielwoj have found some miscellaneous stuff that probably have been cut from the game:

  • Exploring the game, there is some Japanese menus. Which seems to be an old main menu to the game. The menu also illustrates Karts from Mario Kart Double Dash, it’s still unknown if the mechanisms of the game should be like Mario Kart Double Dash:


*Click it for enlarge*
Translated: (Thanks to Susumu for translating!)

*Click it for enlarge*

  • Probably, a minigame could be unlocked when progressing the game, Mario Bros. sprites are still banked in the game:


*Click it for enlarge*

There is even the pause:

Susumu’s translation:

  • Unknown:

Comparison:

Analyzing the game sprites of Kiosk and Final version, we can see little differences, such as in menus, in the physics, on the musics and others.

Item comparison:
Beta/Kiosk

Final

In the Kiosk version we can see some different styles in the icons. But we can notice too that they are sightly more shaded, or flipped.

Map Icons comparison:
Beta/Kiosk

Final

In the Kiosk version, there is some other effects, such as crashes (which sent the player diagonally to the side.), turbo in the game (which didn’t have a blue effect near the tyres)

In the Final version, the counter goes to 3x to 1x, in the Kiosk version, it only shows 3x and 1x

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Thanks to Borman for some of the videos and to UltimatePisman/YamiHoshi(.nl), DRMARIOX / Falcon88 and Gabrielwoj for the contributions!

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Videos