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Nintendo

Mimic Book is a cancelled Adventure / RPG in development by Blossomsoft for Nintendo DS. As we can read in some old messages in their (now closed) forum, the game was meant to take advantage of the touch features of Nintendo DS:

“I started to drop some hints about this unique RPG in the beginning of 2007. It’s currently one of the main commercial projects I’m putting effort behind, intended for the Nintendo DS.
This project has always been a mystery to everyone. Unfortunately, during these last few weeks, I’ve been racked with a dilemma as to whether or not I should start showing some early materials, as I’ve made some great progress on my own, but, in the end, I’ve decided the time hasn’t yet come — mainly due to exclusivity issues.
But keep it mind that this project is very, very, very special and should intensely please every type of RPG lover, especially the ones in search of new tastes. “

This was just one of the many games that the team was working on at the same time, along with Western Lords (GBA, PC), Sagrada Guardians (DS) and GUNNARr (DS), unfortunately neither of them was ever completed.

In 2008 Mimic Book was put on hold, as we can read from an interview by RPG Land:

“Joseph: Judging from your forum posts, you’re working on five projects (Project Eden, Mimic Book, GUNNARr, Sagrada Guardians, and Western Lords). What can you tell us individually about each of these games?
Elder: “During the recent years many game concepts crossed my mind, and I still aspire to complete each of them. I started with Western Lords/Sagrada Guardians in 2004, but I couldn’t complete it due to inexperience and tight budget. Besides, it was a GIGANTIC project. But it’s thanks to this project that I could develop various facets of my skills. Mimic Book and GUNNARr were two other game concepts I started to elaborate later. And both games were splendid even though they were less ambitious than Western Lords in term of development and budget, BUT I never expected that my determination would suddenly start to diminish considerably after many personal events in my life such deaths, love pain and aging. I started to realize that life wasn’t eternal, and time wasn’t infinite for me. Therefore I had to find realistic solutions to reach my goals, and finally, I started to work on Project Eden, which is 95% completed. I should note that Mimic Book and GUNNARr are both very special, and I will develop them once my budget get better. I have Nintendo platforms in mind for them.”

In December 2008 BlossomSoft released their first commercial game “Eternal Eden” on PC and the team is still making games, working on Eternal Eden 2 and a 3D reboot of the first title.

Game Boy Advance (GBA), Nintendo

Baketsu Daisuken [GBA – Cancelled]

monokoma

21-09-2019

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Baketsu Daisakusen is a cancelled horse-racing RPG / simulation in development around 2001 by Nintendo for their Game Boy Advance. As other horse-racing game popular in Japan you could play it as a racing game or as a simulation in which you just bet on the results, while the game internal AI would predict which horse would win the race based on their stats and previous 5 runs. It seems Baketsu Daisakusen would also let you play online against other players, using the GBA’s cell-phone adapter.

In the end, Nintendo never released the game for unknown reasons. Only a few, tiny screenshots still exist today to remember its existence.

Images:

Nintendo, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Wii

Hogs of War 2 [Cancelled – Wii, PS2, PC]

monokoma

14-09-2019

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The first Hogs of War is a turn-based strategy game developed by Infogrames Sheffield House (Gremlin Interactive), released for the PlayStation in 2000. While the game received average reviews at the time, it soon became a cult-hit and many years later (2008) Infogrames officially announced a sequel for Wii, PlayStation 2 and PC, titled Hogs of War 2. A Nintendo DS version was also announced, but we can assume it would have been much different from the others.

Hogs of War 2 artwork was preserved by the Gremlin Archive in their awesome book, with some more details about the project:

“Hogs of War II was started as a concept by the Infogrames Sheffield House team, but never materialized. Was cancelled at Gremlin by Infogrames, passed by Sumo Digital and then cancelled again by Atari (Infogrames) after Blitz Games (Oliver Twins) had started a DS version I think.”

Some images from this cancelled sequel are preserved below, to remember its existence. At the moment we don’t have any screenshot from the lost Nintendo DS version.

Images:

Nintendo, Others, PC / MAC, Wii

Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari 2 (River City Ransom 2) [Wii, PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

31-08-2019

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As we can read in the Kunio-Kun Wiki, Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari for the NES / Famicom is the third entry in the Kunio-kun series, published in the west as River City Ransom / Street Gangs. The game is more RPGish and open-ended than other beat ’em ups, with a non-linear city to freely explore while fighting against enemies to level-up your characters. In the main Kunio series you take the role of Kunio, a japanese high-school delinquent (bancho) with a good heart, punching and kicking other gangs to free the streets of your city.

The game was released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2007 and a sequel titled “Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari 2” was announced in 2011 by Miracle Kidz (a team of former Technos developers), planned to be released for Wii and PC. Unfortunately the team decided to officially cancel the project in 2012, to switch resources on different projects.

As noticed by Arc Hound on Twitter:

“Miracle Kidz’s teaser site for Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari 2 (the canceled Wiiware sequel to River City Ransom) is still up after all these years, although it only contains character bios and a link to purchase the planning document from their site.
Sueshiro and Okita, the two planned protagonists from DNM2, actually appeared in a fan-video from 2008 by AC-Promenade supporting the launch of Miracle Kidz’s website. Shame that the game become vaporware and Miracle Kidz has since been disbanded.”

If you can do a translation / summary of the details found in those japanese Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari 2 design doc pages (saved in the gallery below), please leave a message below!

Images:

Nintendo, Saturn, Sega, SNES + Super Famicom

Dragon’s Heaven [SNES, Sega Saturn – Cancelled]

monokoma

22-08-2019

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Dragon’s Heaven (ドラゴンズヘブン) is a cancelled JRPG that was in development by Digitalware in the late ’90s, planned to be published for the Super Famicom and later on the Sega Saturn by Data East (?). We found out about this unreleased RPG thanks to Video Games Densetsu, which found some images on old japanese gaming magazines, such as Sega Saturn Magazine (November 1996).

As you can see from artwork and screenshots, the game was heavily inspired by Dragon Quest, Breath of Fire and Akira Toriyama style. Turn-based combat were shown in a top-down isometric view, featuring at least 5 playable characters at the same time.

As noticed by Matthew Callis on Twitter, it seems the project was originally conceived as a SNES project, as seen in another japanese magazine he found. From what we were able to gather online the game was based on a roleplay novel (where readers could choose how to proceed with the story?) serialized in Maru-Katsu Super Nintendo gaming magazine, possibly as a parody of classic 16 bit JRPG. Later the series was also used to create a tabletop RPG book series published by Kadokawa Shoten.

We can speculate Digitalware tried to use the popular roleplay novel conceived in Maru-Katsu magazine to create a new roleplay video game, first on the Super Famicom and later on the Sega Saturn. For some reasons, the project was canned on both occasions, and then forgotten by everyone.

If you could read the description in these japanese scans, please let us know if there are more details about this lost project!

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