Nes / Famicom

Dota-kun no Bouken Roman [NES – Cancelled]

Dota-kun no Bouken Roman is a cancelled side scrolling platform / action game that was in development for the Famicom / NES that was produced by Atlus and was going to be published by Imagineer. There are basically no info about Dota Kun’s gameplay, but we can look at some scans that were uploaded on a japanese website. On GDRI we can read some more info on the development:

Dota-kun no Bouken Roman (“Dota’s Romantic Adventure”) is some sort of side-scrolling action game that was to be published under Imagineer’s WaveJack Jr. label. It was based on an MSX game by SystemSoft. You can see ads and screenshots here. The point is, I asked Esaki if it was developed by Atlus (because I suspected it was). He said it was produced by Atlus, but it was programmed outside the company. That seems to have been a common practice for Atlus, especially in the early days.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Dungeon Hourouki [NES – Cancelled]

Dungeon Hourouki (aka Dungeon Wandering Chronicle) is a cancelled RPG that was in development by ASCII for the Famicom / NES. It seems that in the game players were lost in a dungeon of some sort (a prison?) and they had to find a way to escape. An interesting feature of Dungeon Hourouki was its random generated dungeon system, that would have let to explore more than a million different combinations of levels. It’s currently unknown why the game was canned and only few screens were found in a japanese magazine.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Genjuu Souseiki [NES – Cancelled]

Genjuu Souseiki (aka Genjū Sōseiki / 幻獣創世紀, translated as “Mythical Beast Genesis” or “Genesis Phantom Beast”) is a cancelled RPG that was in development in 1990 by Nihon Bussan / Nichibutsu for the Famicom / NES. It seems that players would have took the role of a god, fighting with other gods to conquer more areas of the world, using the power of monsters that were able to evolve like in Pokemon. Only few screens, a video and some info can be found in a japanese website.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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PALPS [NES – Cancelled]

PALPS is a Nintendo unreleased Disk System exclusive game that many don’t know about. It was a very novel game. Basically it was an action game, where the player could not control the hero’s movement during play. The hero moves according to the player’s programmed movements. You defeat enemies with bullets and sometimes there will be an obstacle to deal with. As you advance through the game, the variety of icon tips increases.

The hero’s movement was programmed exclusively with the simplified language part that was said to be more intuitive and advanced than Family Basic. When it appeared on japanese magazines the game was said to not be ready to be seen at all and you can see below some screenshots from an early build. It was so early in development that the genre was still largely undecided. It’s still unknown why Nintendo decided to never release this piece of software.

Very grateful to Susumu for the translation from japanese.

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Rygar [Beta – NES]

Rygar is a 2D side scrolling action game created by Tecmo in 1986 and originally released for arcades in Japan as Argus no Senshi. An home-version for Nintendo was released on April 1987 in Japan for the Famicom as Argos no Senshi and later that year in the United States for the NES. A European release came in 1990.

Yes, a beta version of this horribly under rated classic exists somewhere out there in the world. However all we have to acknowledge its existence with are screenshots. The following screen shots were scanned from the back of the American, European and Japanese boxes as well as a Japanese magazine ad for the game.

The quality is not that great but these were not photoshopped at all.

This was taken from the back of the Japanese box. It shows the first stage. Notice the mountains are not purple and the trees have branches.

Here we see Garloz. Notice the shrine on the right not present in the final version of the game?

Here we see the very top of the Gran Mountain. Just before you travel to the Tower of Garba. Notice that the tree stumps that you use the cross bow on are thinner than they appear in the final version of the game? Also notice that the ropes are attached to different platforms than shown in the actual release?

Last but not least, the Japanese advertisement shown in magazines back in the day. MANY screenshots of an obvious beta are shown. Notice the Hermit’s room has no platform to the left or door to exit? Notice that the boss of the Tower of Garba is being fought on the first floor? Also notice that the world of Lapis is shown with Rygar crossing a rope on cliffs not seen in the actual game?

December 14th, 2012, another screenshot from the beta has been found. This time, a moon seems to have been removed from the background of the Gran Mountain stage. It seems that there was supposed to be some transitioning from day to night in this game that was scrapped.

A beta must exist somewhere and hopefully some day, someone will find it.

Post by Casey Strain

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