[email protected]
Unseen64 is made with love, sleep deprivation and your help :)

Nintendo

The original Joust is a 1982 arcade game developed by Williams Electronics, that became quite popular at the time. As we can read on Wikipedia, “The player uses a button and joystick to control a knight riding a flying ostrich. The objective is to progress through levels by defeating groups of enemy knights riding buzzards”.

The game boosted a fun 2-players coop mode, that probably contributed to its popularity in arcades, where friends could play together to survive against dozens of enemies.

Midway tried many times to resurrect their Joust franchise in 3D, but with no luck. Dactyl Joust for the Atari Jaguar and Joust 3D for Xbox & PS2 were soon cancelled and forgotten. Adding to this list of canned Joust reboot, there’s the lost Nintendo 64 version, titled Joust X or Joust 64.

The game was officially announced by Midway / Atari Games and was featured in many N64 release lists in gaming magazines and online, as this one by IGN from 1998. In the end the game quietly vanished, and Midway never released any official screenshots of the project.

We can assume Joust X would have been a fully 3D game, set in arenas where to fight against hordes of enemies, riding your 3D ostrich and possibly playing it in coop with one or more friends. Imagine it as a mix between 007 GoldenEye and the Battle Mode from Mario Kart 64. The Nintendo 64 was a great multiplayer console thanks to its 4 controllers ports and many great multiplayer titles. Joust 64 could have been another fun game to play with friends, but unfortunately it never seen the light of day.

In the end Midway did release other remakes / reboots of their old catalogue on the N64, such as Gauntlet Legends and Paperboy 64. If you know someone who worked on Joust 64, please let us know!

Scan from 64 Magazine, issue 5.

Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Oh My Goddess! (Aa! Megami-sama) [Super Famicom – Cancelled]

monokoma

27-02-2019

No Comments

Oh My Goddess! (Aa! Megami-sama) is a manga and anime series by Kosuke Fujishima, serialized since September 1988 in Japan. It was quite popular at the time and it even got a few tie-in games for NEC PC-98, Sega Dreamcast and Playstation 2.

In the late ’90s a Super Famicom (SNES) Oh My Goddess! game was also announced in Japanese gaming magazines, as reported at the time by some english fansites. It would have been an arcade racing game similar to Mario Kart, set in the series’ NIT’s festival (?). It also seems each kart would have been driven by 2 characters at the same time (?):

Belldandy & Keiichi
Urd & Peorth
Skuld and Banpei-kun RX.
Megumi & Sora
Tamiya & Ootaki

Unfortunately it seems they never shown any actual screenshots from the game, only promotional artworks for the characters. Maybe something more is still hidden away in old japanese magazines?

Nes / Famicom, Nintendo

Geopolitic Shima ni Okeru Kokka Kobo Ron [NES / Famicom – Cancelled]

monokoma

20-02-2019

1 Comment

Irem developed and published many games for the NES / Famicom, such as Holy Diver, Hammerin’ Harry and Deadly Towers. They also had many projects that were never released, and this “Geopolitic Shima ni Okeru Kokka Kobo Ron” is one of them.

This is a really obscure and forgotten strategy / simulation game planned for the Famicom, and only a couple of images were found in a japanese magazine by Youlute.

It seems players would have been able to plan their war against enemy armies, to control the whole world. As it happens with old, cancelled 8 bit games, we don’t know much more about this one: at least we can now remember its existence. Maybe one day someone could find a prototype and share it with the world.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Images:

Game Boy (+ Color), Nintendo

Metro Panic (Nichibutsu RPG) [Cancelled – Game Boy]

monokoma

11-02-2019

1 Comment

Metro Panic is a cancelled RPG that was in development by Nichibutsu (Nihon Bussan) for Game Boy in early ‘90s. From the only screenshot found by Celine in Famitsu (Issue from 92/09/18) we can speculate it was some kind of adventure game set in subway stations?

It may have been somehow related to Nichibutsu’s Tube Panic, a 1984 shooter that seems to have been the first “3D game” (it used tubular vortex levels) developed in Japan. Or maybe they just use a similar / same title because they already own the copyright for it.

This could have a been a lost masterpiece for the GameBoy, or just another forgotten RPG. We hope someone could find more details still hidden away in some old japanese magazines.

“Metro panic (provisional)
A thrilling and suspense chase over Tokyo’s subway! This is also a Game Boy but the title has been discontinued.
The stage is a complicated Tokyo subway.
Children who come to play from the countryside get lost on the Tokyo subway. Players act as runners or chasers. Runners find the children and get away to the target station. Chaser will help you chase it. As a rule, it seems to be something like a tag game. Of course, it seems that communication battle was also possible.
You can confirm that the actual route and station name appear in the screen picture. According to the description, it seems that there was also a mode that can actually search the subway map.
Was it a problem that Tokyo local was, I do not know if I did not get a subway permit, It is a pity that it has been discontinued for interesting content as a plan.”

Thanks to A for the contribution!

Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD

Dear Blue (Konami RPG) [N64 – Cancelled]

monokoma

11-02-2019

1 Comment

Dear Blue (親愛なる青 ?) is the name of a new Konami RPG for Nintendo 64 that seems to have been quietly announced in 1998 on the March issue of Nintendo Power Magazine (Volume 106) and later seen in many list of “in development” N64 projects (such as this on by IGN). In Nintendo Power’s “Pak Watch” section we can read:

“Konami told Pak Watch to expect a new NBA title, a hockey title, an RPG tentatively called Dear Blue, a new fighting game and a game that has something to do with graffiti.”

We may assume:

NBA game = NBA In The Zone ’98
Hockey game = NHL Blades of Steel ’99
Fighting game = Deadly Arts
Graffiti game = Rakugakids ?

The only RPG developed by Konami for Nintendo 64 was then Hybrid Heaven, published in 1999, but it was a title already know since at least 1997, so Dear Blue must have been a different project.

The game was never mentioned again by magazines or websites, so we can speculate 3 possible reasons: the game was canned, the title and genre was a mistranslation of something else that was released (Goemon’s Great Adventure?), the game was canned for N64 and then released for another console (maybe Lost in Blue for Nintendo DS?).

It’ also interesting to notice that there’s a song titled “Dear Blue” in Konami’s Kukeiha Club Pro-Fusion Salamander OST released in 1996. If you’d like to dream, we could say Dear Blue was a planned Salamander RPG for Nintendo 64. But actually that’s highly improbable and we’ll never know the truth.

If you have more details about this lost N64 RPG, please let us know!

Images: