Beta + Cancelled Nintendo Video Games - Page 30 of 207

Created by Adriano Baglio (Virtual Spaghetti) and published by Shibuya Interactive, Blue Angelo was originally developed in 2004 for the Korean GamePark 32 console and well received by the public. Little information is available on Shibuya Interactive but the company appears to be no longer in existence. Unfortunately the GP32 sold poorly and prevented the game from gaining any real attention. While a Game Boy Advance version of Blue Angelo was planned for release after the European launch of the GP32, the Korean handheld was never released there and thus the Game Boy Advanced port was canceled.

Firmly embedded in sci-fi and fantasy, Blue Angelo’s storyline involves the idea that Earth is a planet created by a group of unknown creatures. While Earth is instinctively violent, humans have progressed to the point where a large number of the population has left the planet in order to pursue colonization in other parts of the galaxy. One of these planets, Lyra, has been afflicted by a variety of monsters and demons. The scientists on Lyra create a fighter of their own (controlled by the player) in an effort to eliminate any existing threats on the planet. Mysterious in nature, the fighter does not eat or drink and has a lifespan limited to the course of only one year. This creature is called “creature 331” or Blue Angelo. The subtitle of the game appears to have been “Angels from the Shrine,” but it remains uncertain exactly how this subtitle factors into the Blue Angelo storyline.

Blue Angelo for the Game Boy Advance was about eighty percent completed on Livello, a level editing program, before it was canceled. There are currently two playable versions of the of the GBA version available online: one offers only a demonstration of two monsters, while the second version is a more polished prototype. These small samples of the game are merely intended to provide an idea of the work in progress and show off gameplay elements. The GBA version of Blue Angelo utilized parallax scrolling of 4 or 5 layers while adding transparency special effects, which at the time was unprecedented for handheld consoles. It is unknown if the GP32 version used the same method.

The sidescrolling mechanics and button use for Blue Angelo appears to be fairly standard with the exception that the L button of the GBA port is designated as the “call the invocation lavos” button (according to available information on the game). While not exactly explained, this does sound like a summons button and would fit with the game’s world.

For many years, a reboot of Blue Angelo was considered. A failed Kickstarter campaign was launched for a PC version of an updated Blue Angelo game, emphasizing a complete redo of the game with improved graphics and providing each character with a unique feature. The game’s designers wanted to use the Unity Engine 2D to achieve organic 2D effects that are both easy to understand and simple to navigate. New stories and a unique universe apart from the GP32 and GBA versions of the game were also created for this renovation. It’s unknown how much of the story would carry over from the original game.

This Kickstarter was run by the publisher Vetasoft, a company founded in 2009 by the brothers Adriano and Massimia Baglio in Mons, Belgium. Vetasoft has established a reputation as a game developer for mobile devices, developing such games as Lucky Luke Shoot & Hit, Yakari Wild Ride, and Garfield’s Wild Ride. While the Kickstarter failed to reach its goal, it’s unknown if Vetasoft will continue pursuing the Blue Angelo reboot.

Article by Blake Lynch, thanks to Lanz for the contribution!

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Game Boy Advance (GBA), Nintendo

Chronicles of Eden Vol I: Vangarde’s Tale [GBA – Cancelled]

Lesur

28-02-2017

3 Comments

Long title, short story. Chronicles of Eden Vol.I: Vangarde’s Tale was announced in 2004 by its developer Lightspire Studios as an upcoming Gameboy Advance title. The game was supposed to be a top down story driven action adventure/ role playing game. At the time of announcing the game no publisher was known yet and nor was a hint given on a final release date.

The game tells the story of Dyrvaine, an elite agent of the Elven Council of Tannale. The agent is sent out to investigate mysterious activities with a gate seal on a world called Elzian. The game was divided into four episodes and would give the player three characters to choose from, each wit an unique style of gameplay and each one with a different look on the storyline. A fourth character would become available after completing two of the four episodes. An interview with one of the makers of the game by Planet Gameboy can be read here.

After the announcement things became quiet on the game and it is assumed to be fully cancelled, most likely too hard to find a publisher for the game.

Promotional video:

Screenshots:

Extra – Artwork, possible Box Cover & Lightsphere logo:

(note: I only picked 3 recognizable pictures shown in the promotional video. more?)

Microsoft, Nintendo, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Wii, Xbox 360

Project FUUB (Juice Games / THQ) [Xbox 360, PS3, Wii – Cancelled]

Andy Moore

06-02-2017

No Comments

Project FUUB was a peripheral device being developed by THQ Digital Warrington (Formerly Juice Games) at some point between 2006 and 2010 for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii consoles. Acting like a set of four individual dice, which were to be bundled together as one purchase, the FUUB was predominantly aimed towards local group play. Each player would interact with one or more of the dice when playing one of the FUUB specific games designed for the device. The devices themselves were fitted with some physical sensors, though it’s not exactly clear what each device was actually able to monitor. We also believe that the FUUBs required a separate, external camera to track the their movement in 3d space, though this cannot be 100% confirmed.

Two games are known to have been designed for the FUUB, to varying degrees of completion. The first, titled “FUUB” was a simple, cartoonish Mario Party style game which you can see concept mockups for below. It’s not clear how far this game got into the development cycle, but it’s possible it never level the early conceptual stages due to the lack of actual gameplay or information available on it. Since it also shared a name with the device itself, it’s likely that the game was meant to come packaged alongside the FUUB device, much like Wii Sports did with the Wii.

A second game – tentatively titled “Quest for the Magic Stones” – was also being developed, which you can see footage of in the video below. A developer described the game as being aimed at “fans of the Harry Potter series” as it shared a mystical narrative theme, and was set in a magical dungeon. Several minigames were already implemented, including logic and physics puzzles, as well as a simplified take on the rhythm-based format of the Guitar Hero/Rock Band games.

Ultimately, the FUUB concept was scrapped as THQ were in the middle of realigning in their priorities, and as a result the studio’s focus was shifted away from physical releases, causing multiple projects to be scrapped. Two other projects – Split Shift Racing & Stormbirds – were also known projects that were also cancelled due to the change in direction.. The studio would go on to make Red Faction: Battlegrounds and Warhammer 40K: Killteam before being closed by THQ in 2011.

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Nintendo, Nintendo DS

Katamari [DS – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

10-01-2017

2 Comments

In 2005 the Katamari series was on a roll (pun intended), and speculations about the series hitting Nintendo consoles started to emerge. In March 2005 Nintendo Power listed the game as in development for the DS. On the same month that year IGN approached Namco to ask about the possible title to which they simply replied “At this point we haven’t made any announcement for the future development of this franchise.”.

Unfortunately that was the last note regarding the title before disappearing.

Some say that this game ended up being dropped in favor of the PSP Katamari game Me & My Katamari which was released on December 2005. Sadly, Nintendo consoles still haven’t managed to get a Katamari game of their own aside from the DSiWare spinoff Korogashi Puzzle Katamari Damacy.

In 2016 the franchise came back from it’s 5 years hiatus with Tap My Katamari for iOS and Android so maybe the future might hold something for Nintendo platforms after all.

Article by Silvio Carrera

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Nintendo, Nintendo DS

Rewind (Two Tribes) [DS – Cancelled]

monokoma

28-12-2016

No Comments

Rewind is a cancelled on-rails shoot ‘em up in the vein of StarFox that was in development in 2008 by Two Tribes for Nintendo DS. After their work on Worms: Open Warfare 2 DS for THQ in 2007, Two Tribes started to plan their next game and wanted to create an original Sci-Fi shumup for the same console. IGN reported the announcement of Rewind DS in July 2008, but even they did not have much info on the project:

“[…] ReWind, described as an on-rails shooter with a twist. What this twist is hasn’t been revealed yet, but Two Tribes says it is taking full advantage of the DS’ abilities. ReWind is set in a “carefully scripted game world” where players have one objective: blast everything.[…] It will use the DS microphone and feature a CD-quality soundtrack.”

By looking at the title, we can speculate that Rewind’s “twist” could have been a way to rewind time during the game or to go backwards during its on-rails levels. Unfortunately not much more was ever revealed about Rewind and it soon vanished among many other lost DS games: it’s possible that Two Tribes never found a publisher interested to support them for this project.

After releasing such a clever hidden gem as Toki Tori 2 in January 2014 Two Tribes had to close down for bankruptcy because of low sales of the game. Their parent company Two Tribes Publishing B.V. formed another small team to develop their last game, under the working title “RE:Wind”, later published in September 2016 as Rive for PC, Wii U, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Rive is a side-scrolling shooter and not an on-rails shooter as Rewind DS was planned to be, but we can still speculate that the released game is an evolution of their original, unreleased concept for the portable console.

Update: thanks to Maik we found an interview on N4G featuring Martijn Reuvers (co-founder of Two Tribes) that confirm some of these details:

Martijn: When we started with RIVE, it was about 2005, so a long time ago. Its original name was “Rewind” and it was meant to be a small game reusing the level designs and artwork that we had. You would shoot a couple of enemies, rewind back in time, and then go to a point slightly before where you started. This way we can just reuse assets and every time you rewind, you’re replaying the same content, but it’s become a little more difficult. So, that was the original inspiration for RIVE. We actually started with the concept, but when we were play-testing it, we found out that it really sucked, so we dropped it. The energy orbs that drop in RIVE were meant to allow you to travel back in time with Rewind, but we don’t know what to do with them anymore, because the whole rewinding system is out of there. We still have a warp system in there, but it has nothing to do with time travel. It’s a very iterative process. We start with something, decide it doesn’t work, and move on from there.
In addition to RIVE being built from the remnants of Rewind, we played a lot of Gradius and Metal Slug back in the 90s, especially in arcades. Collin and I played a lot of those, and we always wanted to make a game like Gradius. So, when the company went bankrupt two years ago (2013), we had been making a lot of puzzle games and we wanted to make something with shooting and explosions. We said to ourselves, “Why not go back to that original design from 2005 and do something with that?” The real inspiration for this game is our passion for those types of games.

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