Originally the ambitious game of Yu Suzuki and his AM2 studio, Shenmue, was planned to be released for Sega Saturn instead of Dreamcast. Finishing Shenmue 2 for Dreamcast or Xbox, you can unlock a rare video of the Saturn version of Shenmue. It was just an early demo, but you can see the untapped 3D graphical power of the Saturn, with an amazing graphics for its time and hardware, all in real time on the original Saturn, without using the famous “booster cartridge”.
Shenmue was in fact considered a “killer app” for the Saturn, but it was canceled because of time needed to complete the game and the arrive of the new Sega 128 bit console. The first chapter of Shenmue for Saturn would have been published on more than 8 CD!
The game was originally going to be “Virtua Fighter RPG” a role-playing game based on Akira, a character from Virtua Fighter (a fighting game developed by AM2) that looks a lot like Ryo, the protagonist of Shenmue.
Sonic X-treme is an unreleased platform game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It started as a project for a new Sonic game, developed by Sega Technical Institute (STI) for the Mega Drive / Genesis but soon moved to the Sega 32X (Sonic Mars) and eventually to the Sega Saturn. After many problems and a long hiatus of development hell, it was finally dropped in 1997.
X-treme for the Saturn was just the “final” project of a long list of Sonic prototypes, created to find the best way to develope a new 3D Sonic for the new SEGA console. The X-treme project can be seen as 2 different games in one as it was initially developed separately by two teams in parallel. The first team was in charge of developing the main game engine, while the second team was creating the separate “boss level” portions of the game that was suggested to use a different viewpoint from the main game.
From a code standpoint the boss engine and main game were basically two games developing at the same time that shared some global memory to remember game state and use a process called executable chaining to switch from the main game to boss levels and back. The boss level engine began to evolve into a game of its own using this new source of inspiration, trying to stay closer to its 2D roots by adopting a 3D but side-scrolling viewpoint.
There were four planned Zones: Jade Gully, Crystal Frost, Red Sands, and Galaxy Fortress. Sonic himself was to be equipped with a large set of new moves, including a spin slash, a ring throwing ability, and a downward dash.
In March 1996, Sega of Japan representatives went over to Sega Technical Institute’s headquarters to verify the game’s progress. They were unimpressed at the progress made on the main game engine, but they were impressed by the boss engine and they requested the entire game be reworked on that engine instead.
By then, the team was running short on manpower, and the project all had fallen on the Sonic Xtreme Project Team to finish it up before the Christmas deadline. Coffin, who had been overworking non-stop to get this project out, came down with pneumonia. Since Coffin was leading the technology end and creating the engine, the loss caused the project to be indefinitely delayed and the studio director informed management that the team could not continue and the game would not be released in time for Christmas.
The project was officially cancelled. Sega of America decided to discontinue the game and switched to an alternative project: Sonic 3D Blast. [info from Wikipedia]
A disc of a test engine of X-treme exists. A copy was sold at auction to an anonymous collector in September 2005, and a high-quality gameplay video was expected to be released by the end of the year. An animated GIF image of the gameplay was released to the community. The disk image was finally leaked in July 17, 2007.
Dopo il CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 1994, SEGA diffuse la notizia che un titolo di Ecco The Dolphin per 32X era in lavorazione. Subito le riviste specializzate presentarono alcune immagini del nuovo titolo, catturate da un video mostrato al CES, che vedeva Ecco saltare dentro la “O” del suo nome.
Tuttavia il gioco venne posticipato dalla sua data di uscita, e dopo un po’ di tempo cancellato definitivamente. Gli sviluppatori avevano infatti paura che il gioco non sarebbe stato comprato da nessuno, dato che il 32X aveva ormai finito il suo ciclo e il Saturn era alle porte.
Insieme a Ecco The Dolphin 32X, fu rumoreggiato anche un gioco di Ecco the Dolphin per Saturn, vennero presentate alcune immagini, tuttavia il gioco non saltò fuori. Perché? Semplice, perché non c’era mai stato nessun gioco! Mi spiego meglio: le immagini presentate di Ecco Saturn, a detta del producer di Ecco, E. Ettore Annunziata, servivano solo “[…] to ‘sell’ the idea of a 32x/Saturn game to Sega […]” e non rappresentavano dei giochi in fase di sviluppo! Erano solo delle scene in CG che volevano usare per Ecco 1 CD ed Ecco 2 CD.
ENG: This entry in the archive doesn’t have a description yet. If you want to add some info about the beta / cancelled stuff that you see in these images, just write a comment or send us an email! We’ll add your info in this page and your name in the contributors list. Thanks a lot for your help! :)
ITA: Questa pagina dell’archivio non ha ancora una descrizione. Se vuoi aggiungere delle informazioni riguardo le differenze della beta o la descrizione di un gioco cancellato, lasciaci un commento o mandaci una email! Inseriremo le tue informazioni nella pagina ed il tuo nome nella lista dei collaboratori. Grazie per il tuo aiuto! :)
Some scans were shared by Yakumo and Rod_Wod in the Assembler Forum, props to them!
ENG: This entry in the archive doesn’t have a description yet. If you want to add some info about the beta / cancelled stuff that you see in these images, just write a comment or send us an email! We’ll add your info in this page and your name in the contributors list. Thanks a lot for your help! :)
ITA: Questa pagina dell’archivio non ha ancora una descrizione. Se vuoi aggiungere delle informazioni riguardo le differenze della beta o la descrizione di un gioco cancellato, lasciaci un commento o mandaci una email! Inseriremo le tue informazioni nella pagina ed il tuo nome nella lista dei collaboratori. Grazie per il tuo aiuto! :)
The HUD in the beta version was different.. and maybe there were some more differences?
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