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GameCube

Stage Debut was a game planned to be published and developed by Nintendo for the Nintendo Gamecube video game console. The game was intended for a 2004 release, but was indefinitely delayed, probably due to the cancellation of its sister peripheral for the Game Boy Advance, the GameEye.

Stage Debut was designed similarly to a game titled Mario Artist: Talent Studio developed for the Nintendo 64’s Nintendo 64DD peripheral. The player would take a picture of their face using the Game Boy Advance’s Game Eye peripheral (which was planned to be, in short, a spiritual successor to the Game Boy Camera). Then, by linking the GameEye to the Gamecube system via the Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance Cable, the player would be able to insert the image onto a 3D model within the game’s virtual world.

Stage Debut was widely assumed as either a canceled project or a project in development hell after no progress in development was announced on the title by Nintendo for quite some time. However, in a 2008 interview with Shigeru Miyamoto by the popular gaming news site IGN, an official answer was made. Not only did he cite Stage Debut as an inspiration for the Wii’s Mii Channel function, he also said that “In my mind, it’s still alive.” While this does not deny the cancellation of the project, it does not confirm it will never come to pass.

It seems that Tomdachi Collection, a new game for the DS will have some modes that were originally planned for Stage Debut.

Thanks to Matt Gander & sba sb3002 for some of these images and to Sdas for the contribution!

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Dreamcast, GameCube, Nintendo, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sega, Sony

Picassio [Cancelled – PS2, GameCube, Dreamcast]

U64 Staff & Contributors

08-04-2008

1 Comment

Picassio was a stealth / thief game that was in development at Promethean Designs, in which the player would have had to steal artworks to “win” a bet with another thief. The project had a long development cycle: it started as a Dreamcast game, then it was postponed and passed through PS2 and GameCube. In all that time the only playable build that was made was a very basic one, and is the one that you can see in the video below: basically the character creeping about and some very basic AI. Most of the gameplay ideas did not get implemented at all. It seems that they started the game with a man protagonist in mind, but in later screens we can see a woman as the main character, so it could have been changed to appeal more to the young public.

The project got radically changed halfway through development when the company boss saw the then newly released Shenmue and basically decided to copy it. Picassio then turned into a half adventure, half stealth type game but didn’t get any further than some character/level designs before getting canned. The company fell into severe financial difficulty and employees weren’t being paid for months. Subsequently they all left to work elsewhere and Promethean Designs went bust.

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Picassio Beta Trailer

GameCube, Nintendo

Resident Evil [GC – Tech Demos & Concept]

monokoma

08-04-2008

2 Comments

In these screens and in the video, we can see a series of concept arts and tech demos (for the 3D models and the animations) created by Capcom while the Resident Evil gamecube remake was in development. In these we can even find some pre-rendered backgrounds that were never used in the final game, as the “room on fire” or the “dark stairs” ones. It’s interesting to notice that Jill never uses all those kicks animations in the final version.

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GameCube, Nintendo

Gold Star Mountain [GameCube – Cancelled]

yota

08-04-2008

1 Comment

As it happens with all the new consoles, a lot of interesting titles are initially announced in the first few months, but sometimes those titles never see the light. That exactly what happened with Gold Star Mountain, an action rpg, that was presented officially at the Spaceworld 2001. This game was in development at From Software and it had an interesting feature: the ability to capture, breed and collect lots of monsters to use them as a support in combat.

Sadly the project was never finished, and it soon vanished without traces. In the few screens and video released we can see an early build of the game, where the combat system was not fully implemented yet. Probably this project was cancelled because it was seen as not enough profitable for the company.

[spoiler /Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano/ /Nascondi la versione in Italiano/]Come succede per tutte le nuove console, il periodo che ne precede il rilascio è sempre caratterizzato da annunci di titoli interessanti, che però spesso non vengono alla luce. E’ il caso di Gold Star Mountain, action rpg presentato ufficialmente allo spaceworld 2001, proprio a pochi giorni di distanza dall’uscita del Gamecube. Almeno nelle previsioni, il titolo From Software doveva presentare una caratteristica, che lo avrebbe differenziato sensibilmente dai classici del genere: la possibilità di catturare, allevare dei piccoli mostri per utilizzarli in combattimento.

Se vi suona leggermente familiare, direi che è assolutamente normale, visto che siamo nella sezione gamecube di questo sito. Ad ogni modo, la versione beta mostrata (che è possibile vedere anche nel video), sembrava ancora nelle fasi preliminari, con il sistema di combattimento non ancora implementato perfettamente. Il comparto tecnico, animazioni a parte, lascia a desiderare anche per un titolo di prima generazione. Tenendo in considerazione anche le difficoltà, nel creare e nell’integrare la parte dedicata alla crescita dei mostri, non è particolarmente complicato immaginare i motivi della cancellazione, avvenuta pochi mesi dopo.[/spoiler]

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GameCube, Nintendo

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles [GC – Beta]

monokoma

08-04-2008

No Comments

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is a action role-playing game released for the Nintendo GameCube and the first Final Fantasy game on a Nintendo console since Final Fantasy VI. In the time of Crystal Chronicles, the world is covered in a noxious gas known as “miasma”, to which direct exposure can prove fatal. Towns, villages and other settlements throughout are protected from the ill effects of miasma by crystals, which generate a barrier which miasma cannot penetrate. [Infos from Wikipedia]

Even the players need to bring a crystal around when they explore the game’s levels: this “concept” could have been created as a motive to have all the characters in the same screen in the multiplayer mode, but maybe it was not going to be in the game initially. Infact, in these early screens and video, there is no crystals or miasma that we can see. Obviusly this video was just going to be a “presentation” of the game, a simple tech demo without all it’s final characteristics, but we can only wonder if the crystal/miasma concept was created only in mid / late development. Other changes in the beta version of Crystal Chronicles are in the character design, different camera-angles and different enemies in the cave level.

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