DRX has updated Hidden Palace with the Panzer Dragoon protos we talked about a couple of days ago:
Panzer Dragoon Saga – Sep 16, 1997 prototype – Disc 1 (of only 1?)
Panzer Dragoon Saga – Nov 30, 1997 prototype – Discs 1, 2 and 3
Panzer Dragoon Saga – Dec 22, 1997 prototype – Disc 1
Panzer Dragoon Saga – Dec 30, 1997 prototype – Discs 3 and 4
Panzer Dragoon Zwei – 45% prototype (preview) – Feb 02, 1996
“Thanks to the folks from The Will of the Ancients, a great Panzer Dragoon site with a really great community. In particular, I’d like to thank Solo Wing Dragon, Dragon Phoenix, Scott, Grumbler, alavaliant, Saturn_Worship, Lance Way, Gehpnaet, Heretic Agnostic, roushimsx, Shadow, snowgirl_orta and Chizzles.”
You can download a torrent with the all the files @ hidden-palace.org
Go, download, play and try to find the beta-differences! =)
At the end of january 2008 i was probably asleep somewhere, while Mato did an interesting translation of the Itoi / Miyamoto / Iwata round-table discussion about the cancellation of Mother 3 / Earthbound 64. Here are some parts:
“Iwata says the game was originally planned to be a Super Famicom game for a very short time (probably before MOTHER 2 was even finished, according to other stuff I’ve read), then for the N64 Disk Drive, then for the regular N64… it spanned 6 years, basically.”
“Miyamoto feels bad, but says it’s more correct to say that the project just couldn’t continue on. The project was taking too much of a toll on progress for the upcoming Dolphin (later called GameCube) system. It wasn’t because the game wasn’t progressing well or that it wouldn’t do well, it was just because of the GameCube development stuff. It just couldn’t continue on.”
It’s nice to read their thoughs about the end of the Mother 64 Project, even more now that you can read them in english, or at least the first 2 pages: there are some more pages of that misterious moon language that still need be translated, so check Mato’s blog for the future next updates!
Probably hardcore Panzer Dragoon fans already know about this, but for us it’s a great news: about two months ago, those wonderful geeks at The Will of the Ancients website started to collect donations to buy some old Panzer Dragoon prototypes, with the help of DRX. Now, it seems that the protos are ready to go and they will be soon shared to everyone! In date 11th of May, Solo Wing Dragon has wrote in his update section:
“Have you ever wondered what Panzer Dragoon Saga was like before it was completed? What changes were made prior to its release, what bugs were fixed? Well now this question has partially been answered. I recently had the opportunity to play through disc 1 of a prototype version of Panzer Dragoon Saga dated September the 16th, 1997. The prototype was bought off an unnamed contact of DRX, the owner of video game prototype website Hidden Palace, along with a number of other prototypes (of Saga and Zwei). These prototypes will all be released later in the week on DRX’s website, so stay tuned for another update here when that happens.”
Members of Panzerdragoon.net that have donated to the cause, are already playing one of the proto and have found some interesting differences:
“this screenshot shows the Dermot’s Ranch campsite: I don’t think that camp is used outside of the Box Game in the finished game.”
“ I haven’t played through it, but judging by the headers and the file structure, it seems to be basically Panzer Dragoon Saga on 1 CD, instead of four. It’s 3 months earlier than the Japanese final, which is very early for a Saturn proto.”
“ the world map is different… the village of cainus doesn’t show, it shows some kind of camp.”
“Interesting controls – right trigger moves the dragon forward and he keeps going until you press the left trigger to stop. Down is up and up is down by default (similar to PD1 controls) and there isn’t a way to change them.”
The images below are from an old E3 Beta demo of Castlevania: SotN that was sold on ebay some time ago. The description said: “This auction is for the Castlevania E3 edition. Only one known to exist in collector’s hands this could be the highlight of many game collections. This disc was an early development version of the title which was released in the us as Castlevania SOTN. Early development titles such as this were run on test consoles by developers and game testors. If you lack the hardware required to play developmental software game do not bid.
The game gives 2 options. Normal and Special. Normal mode starts out at the end of the Bloodlines story but the text is in English while the voices are still in Japanese. I am unsure if this remains throughout the entire game or just for the first cutscene. Special mode starts you off further along with items and relics already as part of your inventory. In either mode dying brings up a different game over screen which instead says “To be continured September 1997″. I have not determined what other differences may exist and leave that all up to the buyer.”
Some more differences were noticed by Torentsu:
Alucard levels much more quickly
spells are still usable in special mode but they start out not being in the menu
Lead in to the music track in Catacombs is VERY different
This beta demo was leaked online sometime ago and you can download it if you search it on Google. If you play it and find some more interesting differences, let us know!
Robert Seddon has wrote to us an email with some good info that he has found, about the development of Secret Of Evermore.
“I remembered about this, and thought it might interest you: www.inf.uni-konstanz.de/~kneer/androl/gf-archive-soe/052_1.html is an archive of a 2004 GameFAQs board thread with Brian Fehdrau, lead programmer on SoE. There are a few comments about unused/changed stuff:
‘That’s a pre-release screenshot. Notice the power bars are different and the dog’s head is on the other side of the bar. I’d hazard a guess that we changed the Mammoth Graveyard between then and release. Seems to me there was an issue with AI getting caught on the tusks.’
Also this: ‘Some of you probably know about the chicken effect. I won’t go into detail to avoid spoiling it for others. However, if you did trigger the chicken effect, you were meant to be run over (and hurt very badly) by a giant chicken on roller skates at various times during the final battle. He [another programmer] says the sprite is actually in the rom, but the scripting for it never happened due to lack of time.’
On the Seiken-style weapon system: ‘I do remember we had a different weapon system for quite a while, then Someone In Management decided we were going to copy SoM instead. (You can say that about a lot of things in Evermore, actually. :)’
There’s also mention of early concepts that didn’t even get as far as alpha: a Valentine’s Day world and a plug-in mini-cartridge to add new scenarios. (No wonder they were never implemented at all…)”
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