Nightmare Busters is a cancelled beat ’em up / action game that was in development in 1994 by Arcade Zone (a french studio) for the Super Nintendo. After Sony decided to not publish Nightmare Busters SNES as the original Playstation arrived in Europe, Arcade Zone had to close down and cancel all their projects.
Turrican was released in 1989 for the Commodore 64 and 1990 for the Amiga and Atari ST. It was Programmed by Rainbow Arts and Factor 5. Then Accolade made a port to the Sega Genesis, GameBoy, and Turbo Graphix 16. The Accolade Ports were a huge disaster. However, Accolade wanted to do the same thing with Turrican 2, which is known to be the best Turrican game and in general one of the best games ever made. They screwed up a classic and they wanted to screw up another.
However, the members of Accolade wanted to make their new port into a game based off of Universal Soldier to make more money. Universal Soldier was released for the Sega Genesis and Game Boy and was given horrible reviews. It’s a shame they took such a great game and turned it into a mess. There was going to be a Super Nintendo version but Nintendo didn’t license it despite the message on the title screen.
The Super Nintendo version was even worse than all of Accolade’s previous ports! The controls are messed up, the music sounds good at first but it becomes a mess. For example, one of the best songs in Turrican 2 is “The Wall” but in the SNES Universal Soldier version you can’t even hear the song because the beat is too loud. The Sound effects are annoying, the graphics are obviously ripped from Turrican, and the collision detection is beyond terrible.
If it was released, it would probably be called one of the worst games ever made. If you want to try this disaster a ROM of it was leaked on the internet.
Thanks a lot to Edward Morley for the description / info and to SNES Central for these images!
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Time Diver: Eon Man is a cancelled beat ’em up developed by A.I for Taito for the NES. The game was finished, receiving a four-page strategy guide and review in issue 45 (February ’93) of Nintendo Power. Despite this, the game eventually disappeared from the Pak Watch section and was silently canceled.
According to game designer Shouichi Yoshikawa, the game was originally being developed as a sequel to Wrath of the Black Manta before being retooled.
Time Diver had 5 levels set at various points in time. These include the opening level Peaceful 1993, the Wild West, 1882, Devastated 2052, Devastated 1993, and a Peaceful Utopia version of 2052. An unusual feature (for the time) was that, with the exception of the first level, the stage order is randomized; allowing for some variation when playing through the game multiple times. [Info from Wikipedia]
A playable ROM of Time Diver was somehow leaked online and you should be able to find it easily with google. You can read more info about the project in this article by Lost Levels’ Frank Cifaldi!
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Hit the Ice is a cancelled Taito NES port of the popular 1990 arcade hockey game of the same name. Unlike the completed SNES home console port of Hit the Ice, the cancelled NES version centers around a “Quest Mode” with RPG elements. Much like the Dragon Warrior series, the player walks around an overworld map, exploring houses and stadiums and facing random encounters with rival hockey teams which provide experience and gold.
Shops sell P Drinks, which provide a temporary speed and power boost; hamburgers, which provide experience; and apples, which can be given to an old man somewhere on the world map in exchange for an inner tube, which allows the player to cross bodies of water safely.
Though there is a working prototype with a completable Quest Mode, the game’s RPG elements are very low on content and game balance. As the SNES came out and interest in the NES waned, Taito abandoned this experimental hockey RPG to focus on 16-bit development, without a Quest Mode.
For more info, Frank Cifaldi has a short feature on Hit the Ice here at LostLevels.org where you can also find Hit The Ice’s prototype rom.
Article written by Nate Edwards
Thanks a lot to NES World for these screenshots!
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Xybots is an old third person shooter developed by Atari released for the arcades and many home computers in in the 80’s. A porting for the NES by Tengen was supposed to be released in 1990, but it was canceled even if the game was almost completed. The prototype was somehow leaked online and it can be easily found with a Google search.
Thanks a lot to NES World for the scan!
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