Sony

Kabuki Samurai Sensei: Bride of Shadows [3DS, PSVita – Cancelled]

Kabuki Samurai Sensei: Bride of Shadows is a cancelled action RPG adventure that was in development by Smack Down Productions (AKA SDP games) for Nintendo 3DS and PSVita. The game was announced in August 2010, with just some concept art and vague details about its gameplay. Players would explore medieval Japan, through temples, floating castles and dizzying waterfalls.

The game was planned to feature Zelda-style side quests and “Dragon Ball style action”, with the main protagonist using swords and shurikens in epic fights. Battles would take place in arenas, with Quick Time Events, using magic elements of fire, earth, wind and water against different types of demons from Japanese folklore.

While the game was initially announced as a 3DS exclusive, we found footage of the game running on what seems a PSVita. At the time Smack Down Productions did not have a publisher for the game, so we speculate they never found one and the project was quietly canned. Bride of Shadows concept and models were later reused for a simpler side-scrolling hack & slash titled “Kabuki Samurai Sensei” which seems to have been published on Apple Store in November 2011, but later removed.

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Promethus (Geekaysoft) [PSP – Cancelled]

Promethus is a cancelled side-scrolling action game that was in development by Geekaysoft around 2008 – 2009, planned to be published on Sony PSP. Players would have been able to explore the Promethus planet using different skills and items, unlocking new areas and secrets (metroidvania style).

As we can read in their official press-release:

“You are the renowned space mercenary Angel. Your mission is to infiltrate the seemingly peaceful planet of Promethus and uncover the plot of the Evil Lord Duroth. Recover and use the energy blaster, katana, grenades and whip to vanquish the enemies. Uncover ancient promethan relics and crystals to powerup your attacks. Little does she realize the depth of the deception, and the perilous adventure that will decide the fate of the known galaxy that awaits her on the planet Promethus.”

Features

  • A mysterious world to explore – complex mazes and secrets take you to every corner of the planet
  • Can you outwit the Ancient Promethans and find the secrets to their crystal puzzles
  • An arsenal of weapons and acrobatics at your disposal
  • Customize and enhance your characters abilities
  • Fight through 7 bosses to the final epic encounter with Duroth

While the game is basically forgotten today, it was featured as a playable demo on PSN in 2009 and because of its similarities to Metroid people were quite curious to try it. As we can read from their old website:

“We are pleased to announce that a free demo of PROMETHUS  will be available on PSN starting October 29, 2009. Featuring 7 great levels of platformer gameplay in the full version, you will recover and use the energy blaster, katana, grenades and whip to vanquish your enemies.  customize your attacks and abilities with collectable powerups and crystals.  The demo will let you explore the first level of the game, Torden.  We hope you will enjoy the demo as we continue sprinting to the finish line on the final version”

Unfortunately this demo was not good at all, with unresponsive controls, bugs and floaty jumps. We can assume the team was not able to fix these issues and in the end decided to cancel the project. You should be able to find the playable demo online, preserved in various ROM pages.

Thanks to Iqra for the contribution!

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Technic Beat [Beta – PS2, Arcade]

Technic Beat is a music rhythm game developed by Arika for Arcade and Playstation 2, as a sequel to their title Technictix. Sossigu64 found some beta screenshots and videos on the old Arika website, using WebArchive. Here’s a list of the main differences found in these images / footage:

  • The tension gauge is different from both the arcade and playstation releases.
  • The intro is a lot shorter and very similar to Technictix’s intro.
  • Hassy (platypus) and Willie (giant stuffed bear) in the video are too fast. Both characters are considered slow characters and their speed is on the level of Bot (robot) and Cart (human glasses man, kinda resembles Klug from puyo puyo and Jeff from earthbound.).
  • The sets for each “session” are identical from Technictix but have a bit more going on (more visual effects) and the sets look a lot more cleaner (better refined)
  • Concept art found on the Omake page for Technic Beat also shows concept art for Technictix.

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Streets of Rage Online (BottleRocket) [PS3, Xbox 360 – Cancelled]

Streets of Rage Online is a cancelled sequel to the SOR series, pitched by BottleRocket Entertainment to Sega around 2008. The game was planned to be developed for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, during a strange period in which Japanese publishers hired western developers to create new games for their old IP series. Sega did the same with Golden Axe, and the result was the average Golden Axe: Beast Rider, developed by Secret Level and released in October 2008.

Marvel artist Roger Robinson drew concept art for this Streets of Rage Online pitch, which was shared online on his DeviantArt profile in 2010. As far as we know development for this pitch by BottleRocket did not went much further, possibly because Sega reconsidered their plan after seeing what happened with Golden Axe: Beast Rider.

Since the mid ’90s Sega did try many, many times to create a new Streets or Rage (SOR by Grin, SOR for Dreamcast, Fighting Force, etc.), but in the end fans had to wait until 2020 for the release of Streets or Rage 4 by DotEmu & Lizardcube. BottleRocket also worked on the beta version of Splatterhouse reboot and the cancelled The Flash video game, before closing down in 2009 for lack of funds.

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Ape Escape: Trapped in Space (FAKE) [PS2, PS3 – Cancelled]

Update: thanks to Brian, Specter, and Keichoro on Twitter, we found out Ape Club was not officially related to Sony and Trapped in Space was just another fake game they conceived:

“The english Ape Club was the product of a fan who tricked various news outlets that it was an official, Sony-sponsered Ape Escape website. They made up fake news stories, fake statistics, etc”

“This has proven to be false, as there were no official information from Sony regarding this game. If I recall, the concept pages they used and claimed are for “Trapped in Space” were actually from Ape Escape Million Monkeys. I also checked Ape Escape Japanese sources like piposaru.com and they have no evidence of “Trapped in Space”.”

Original article below:

Ape Escape: Trapped in Space is a cancelled action game in the Ape Escape series, which was conceived by Sony Japan Studio for Playstation 2 (or possibly Playstaton 3) after the release of Ape Escape 3. Players would have been able to visit different planets to catch monkeys, exploring a virtual universe created by Specter. The project was never officially announced by Sony, but some details were shared online by Ape Club (now offline) around 2010:

“Ape Escape: Trapped In Space (working title) was a game that was originally set for release in 2006, however due to complications, it was never released. The game was in the process of being made after Ape Escape 3. Several paper’s containing the concept were leaked on the internet in mid 2005. Japan Studio continued to develop the game, hoping that the concept wouldn’t be taken. Originally the concept was that Specter had kidnapped The Professor and it was up to the protagonist (character had not been announced yet), to get him back by catching the monkeys and defeating bosses. Specter had created a computer generated universe, with many planets which the protagonist would have to visit and capture the monkeys. The planets would each be very unique and each have its own theme. Finally, the protagonist would defeat Specter and the Professor would be rescued. After E3 in 2006, Japan Studio was disgraced to find out another popular platforming video game franchise had used this concept after it had leaked. The game was scrapped.”

While it’s said that some pages about Trapped in Space were leaked online in 2005, we were not able to find anything unfortunately. If you saved a copy of those pages back in 2005 and could help us to preserve them, please let us know!

Ape Club was founded by a few people who previously worked with Sony, as we can read in this old interview by Siliconera:

“Originally Ape Club started out as a Promo site for SCEE’s Ape Escape titles and was run by them up until 2007. In 2007, there wasn’t any maintenance to be done except Newsletters. So Rebecca, who was a major fan, was left in-charge of that. She updated the newsletters and received updates from SCEE, and Japan Studio about upcoming Ape Escape games. She was also asked to promote Ape Quest when it was released.

Are there any other canceled Ape Escape games you’re aware of?

Apart from Trapped in Space, the only other game would be Ape Escape 2 which was going to be released on PlayStation 1. However, Japan Studio (JS), was already releasing Piposaru 2001 beforehand, so releasing a PS1 game after a PS2 game didn’t make much sense. So in Early 2000, they stopped working on AE2-PS1, and worked on AE2-PS2. Apparently, looking at the leaked photo of it, it seemed to have the same graphic engine, and look, as the first.”