Nintendo

GameCube, Nintendo

Don’t Call Me Max [GC – Cancelled]

monokoma
05-10-2009
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In 2002 Prolific Publishing were working on a new platform / action game for the GameCube, known as “Don’t Call Me Max”. The project was going to be  originally published by TDK and later by Destination Software, but in the end it was never released for some reasons. As we can read from the original press release the story was a real masterpiece:

In Don’t Call Me Max! the player takes control of a kangaroo named Max, who has run away from home looking for the circus that his father once traveled with. Max arrives at the Great Circus, only to find that it is a ramshackle, a shadow of its former glory. The circus has been overtaken by the curse of the evil Ringmaster. At the circus Max stumbles into an abandoned tent and finds himself surround by magician’s props. The ghost of the magician appears and gives Max his quest to travel to the magic realms and release the circus clans from the evil Ringmaster’s curse. Max’s only companion is the spirit of his father who resides in the magic staff he carries over his shoulder. Together they must travel through a variety of unique circus worlds, using magic and skill to survive the perils set forth by the Ringmaster. Can Max free the innocent Circus clans from the spell of the Ringmaster, and change the fate of the Great Circus?

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!

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Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Plok [SNES – Beta / Concept / Unused Stuff]

monokoma
01-10-2009
1 Comment

Plok was a Super Nintendo game developed by Software Creations and published by Tradewest Games in 1993 in the United States, and later by Nintendo in Europe and Activision in Japan. The game is a traditional platform game starring a character named “Plok.” [Info from Wikipedia]

At the Pickford Bros’s website they have an interesting archive with many info and concept arts from the development of the game, in which we can see some unused costumes and characters. The Plok project started out as another game called “Fleapit” a coin-op developed while Pickford Bros worked at Zippo Games, for Rare’s custom hardware ‘Razz’ board. The game was fully playable and about half complete when it was put on hold and eventually canned by the closure of the studio.

Retrogamer96 has let us known about three unused / test levels that were found in the game code. If you use an action replay you can acces to some glitched up stages called “Bedream Fens”, “Bredanni Bog” and more “Test Drive” levels. One interesting level includes all of Plok’s costumes including the ones used in the Fleapit stages.

Thanks to Adrien Baptis we found out more info about these removed levels (check the video below!). For the Test Drives, only the first one is playable and let you test all the vehicules and costumes of the game (the code is 7E084A28). The others Test Drives will drop you in an invisible water.

For the three beta/secret levels, they are “Brendammi bog” (the codes is 7E084A1D), “Badream fens” (the codes is 7E084A1E) and “Breezy beach”(the codes is 7E084A1F). Actually, we can see where those levels are on the map. All you have to do is to go in a regular level without the code, put the code on when you’re in the level, then die. With that, Plok will not return in the level but will be on the map : he acts like he just beat Rockyfella and wants to go in the fleas’ hole. But instead of jumping in, he walks forward and stops on the bogs. That’s where the level “Brendammi bog” is. With the other two levels, Plok walks through the bog and go to the south beach.

Thanks to Retrogamer96 and Adrien Baptis for the contributions!

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Nintendo, Wii

Epic Mickey [Wii – Beta / Concept / Unused Animations]

U64 Staff & Contributors
28-09-2009
8 Comments

Epic Mickey is a platform/action-adventure game designed by Warren Spector (of Deus Ex fame) and developed by Junction Point Studios exclusively for the Wii. The game was released in November 2010. As the title suggests, it stars the world-famous cartoon character Micky Mouse, however, after toying around with a magic paintbrush on a model of Disney Land made by a wizard named Yen Sid (“Disney” spelled backwards), he accidentally creates the Phantom Blot. He tries to erase it with paint-thinner, but he spills more paint on the model in the process, creating a portal with the paint/thinner mixture, which The Phantom Blot enters. Eventually, Micky gets pulled into it by the Phantom Blot, finding himself in a dark world known as The Cartoon Wasteland, populated by Disney characters who haven’t seen the light of day in years, even decades, not the least of which is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Pre-production started in 2007 when the company was bought by Disney. Some concept arts were leaked in Summer 2009 from a former employes’ resumes, but the final game doesn’t really look like these. It’s possible that parts of the original concept were cut.

As we can read at the Escapist Magazine, the Epic Mickey project originally started out as a PS3 / Xbox 360 / PC game, but later the developers decided to go with a Wii exclusive:

Speaking to Official Nintendo Magazine, Epic Mickey developer Warren Spector revealed: “The reality is that we started Wii development in 2008, but before that we were a PC, PS3, and 360 title.” Spector told Disney Interactive Studios boss Graham Hopper that to develop a true success, “it’d be awfully nice if we could focus on one platform.” Everything was switched up when a Wii port of the game was discussed, with Spector rightfully believing that a regular port wouldn’t cut it due to the unique, arm-flailing nature of the Wii, so Hopper suggested that Epic Mickey go Wii exclusive.

Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!

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Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Toxic Crusaders [SNES – Cancelled]

monokoma
28-09-2009
9 Comments

Toxic Crusaders is an animated series based on the Toxic Avenger films. It features Toxie, the lead character of the films leading a trio of misfit superheroes who combat pollution. Video games based on Toxic Crusaders were also produced by Bandai and Sega, which were released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, and Sega Genesis.[Info from Wikipedia]

A Super Nintendo version was in development by Bandai, but it was never released in the end. It looked different from the Genesis version, that was developed by Sega. Some screens of the SNES version can be seen in the issue 39 of EGM.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Street Fighter Alpha 2 [SNES – Beta?]

monokoma
28-09-2009
8 Comments

Street Fighter Alpha 2 (also known as Street Fighter Zero 2) is a 1996 fighting game originally released for the CPS II arcade hardware by Capcom, and later ported to the SNES. Israel has found some beta SFA2 screens for the SNES/SFC version. These were published in the “Club Nintendo” magazine in Mexico.

According to the magazine, SFZ2 was going to include “an special chip to aid in data an sprite processing to make the game more fluid”. The description matches Nintendo’s SA-1 chip but there are no confirmations if it was going to be an SA-1 game.

There is some evidence that it could have been the case, thought:

1. The characters seem to be bigger in the beta, at least in the Rolent vs Vega shot. In the Sakura vs Sakura shot you can tell by the size of her thighs.

2. In the final build, the shadows flickered while in the beta they don’t (both can be seen in the shots). Why is this relevant? In the finalized game the flicker doesn’t look good. Why didn’t they just leave them like in the beta?

Israel thinks that they were indeed aiming towards a SA-1 cartridge but late in the development cycle they switched to a SA-1 + S-DD1 because of space constrains and maybe in the last few weeks decided to settle for a S-DD1 only cart due to costs concerns.

The screenshots were published in August 1996 so that means the the screenshots were taken in June or July. SFA2 was released in November so it must have gone gold in October at least.

Some differences noticed in the screenshots:

  • The game used to have a custom font for the character names. This was changed to a default SNES font.
  • Win icons were red (Sakura vs Sakura screenshot)
  • Shadows didn’t flicker, both are visible in the screenshots.
  • Characters seem to be a little bigger than their final iterations.

Thanks to Israel for the contribution!

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