New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Game Boy (+ Color), Nintendo

Metro Panic (Nichibutsu RPG) [Cancelled – Game Boy]

monokoma
11-02-2019
1 Comment

Metro Panic is a cancelled RPG that was in development by Nichibutsu (Nihon Bussan) for Game Boy in early ‘90s. From the only screenshot found by Celine in Famitsu (Issue from 92/09/18) we can speculate it was some kind of adventure game set in subway stations?

It may have been somehow related to Nichibutsu’s Tube Panic, a 1984 shooter that seems to have been the first “3D game” (it used tubular vortex levels) developed in Japan. Or maybe they just use a similar / same title because they already own the copyright for it.

metro-panic-game-boy-nichibutsu-cancelled

This could have a been a lost masterpiece for the GameBoy, or just another forgotten RPG. We hope someone could find more details still hidden away in some old japanese magazines.

“Metro panic (provisional)

A thrilling and suspense chase over Tokyo’s subway! This is also a Game Boy but the title has been discontinued.

The stage is a complicated Tokyo subway.
Children who come to play from the countryside get lost on the Tokyo subway. Players act as runners or chasers. Runners find the children and get away to the target station. Chaser will help you chase it. As a rule, it seems to be something like a tag game. Of course, it seems that communication battle was also possible.

You can confirm that the actual route and station name appear in the screen picture. According to the description, it seems that there was also a mode that can actually search the subway map.

Was it a problem that Tokyo local was, I do not know if I did not get a subway permit, It is a pity that it has been discontinued for interesting content as a plan.”

Thanks to A for the contribution!

Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD

Dear Blue (Konami RPG) [N64 – Cancelled]

monokoma
11-02-2019
1 Comment

Dear Blue (親愛なる青 ?) is the name of a new Konami RPG for Nintendo 64 that seems to have been quietly announced in 1998 on the March issue of Nintendo Power Magazine (Volume 106) and later seen in many list of “in development” N64 projects (such as this on by IGN). In Nintendo Power’s “Pak Watch” section we can read:

“Konami told Pak Watch to expect a new NBA title, a hockey title, an RPG tentatively called Dear Blue, a new fighting game and a game that has something to do with graffiti.”

We may assume:

The only RPG developed by Konami for Nintendo 64 was then Hybrid Heaven, published in 1999, but it was a title already know since at least 1997, so Dear Blue must have been a different project.

The game was never mentioned again by magazines or websites, so we can speculate 3 possible reasons: the game was canned, the title and genre was a mistranslation of something else that was released (Goemon’s Great Adventure?), the game was canned for N64 and then released for another console (maybe Lost in Blue for Nintendo DS?).

It’ also interesting to notice that there’s a song titled “Dear Blue” in Konami’s Kukeiha Club Pro-Fusion Salamander OST released in 1996. If you’d like to dream, we could say Dear Blue was a planned Salamander RPG for Nintendo 64. But actually that’s highly improbable and we’ll never know the truth.

If you have more details about this lost N64 RPG, please let us know!

Images:

Dreamcast, Sega

Ninth Will (Seventh Cross 2) [Dreamcast – Cancelled]

monokoma
01-02-2019
No Comments

In 1998 Atypical Alchemists Associate and NEC Home Electronics developed and published a weird simulation game for the Dreamcast, titled “Seventh Cross Evolution”. Similar to other “life evolution RPGs” such as EVO: Search for Eden (SNES) or Cubivore (GameCube), in Seventh Cross players have to fight against other living being and evolve to become stronger, more complex animals / beings.

seven-cross-2-dreamcast-cancelled

While the game was received with average to low scores, NEC announced a sequel in early 2000 titled “Ninth Will”. Unfortunately it seems they never shown any image from the project (or maybe there are some forgotten in old Japanese gaming magazines?) and soon it was canned, probably for the low sales of the original title.

In the end Atypical Alchemists Associate and NEC keep working on other games for the Dreamcast, many visual novels and dating sims such as Sentimental Graffiti 2, Kanon, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien and Pandora no Yume. We can assume this kind of low-budget projects was more profitable for the Dreamcast market after the discontinuation of the console in 2001.

If you ever find something more about this lost game in Japanese magazines, please let us know!

Others, PC / MAC

Team Buddies 2 [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma
01-02-2019
2 Comments

Team Buddies was an interesting merge of top-down shooting and real time strategy elements, developed for the original Playstation by Psygnosis Camden Studio (later SIE London Studio) and published in 2000 by Sony Computer Entertainment in Europe and Midway Games in North America.

As we can read on Wikipedia, its gameplay was quite fun and original for its time:

“The game is a mix of Worms‘ humour and a typical real-time strategy game. Central to the game’s theme is the ability of a team of buddies to stack crates in a 2×2×2 pad located in their starting area. Stacking the crates in different ways make different items when the resulting larger crate is broken; for example, a single crate on a stacking pad produces a light weapon, four crates positioned horizontally makes a heavy weapon, and filling the pad creates a vehicle.”

This was the last game released under their Psygnosis name, before they were completely absorbed by SCEE. The same team was working on a new version of Team Buddies for PC, that was internally treated as a sequel because of how much more freedom they had when not constrained to the PS1 limitations.

Unfortunately Sony did not want to invest money into the PC market and all Psygnosis games in development at the time for Computers were either cancelled, moved to PlayStation consoles, or licensed to different publishers. This “Team Buddies 2” was then canned and the team was moved to other projects, such as Dropship: United Peace Force and World Tour Soccer 2003 for PlayStation 2.

A few years ago a small indie team started working on a fan-remake of Team Buddies and a former Psygnosis Camden developer got in contact with them, sharing a video of this lost sequel. You can watch the footage below:

Thanks to Matthew for the contribution!

Images:

Playstation, Sony

MooN 2: Mansion Omnibus Occupant Nest (LoveDeLic) [PS1 – Cancelled Pitch]

monokoma
25-01-2019
No Comments

LoveDeLic were one of the most interesting and creative Japanese developers active during the late ‘90s / early ‘00s. They developed cult-classic, peculiar adventures such as Moon: Remix RPG Adventure (PS1), UFO: a Day in the Life (PS1) and Lack of Love (Dreamcast). Unfortunately all of their games were too bizarre and unusual for their time, selling low number of copies and leading to the closure of the team in 2000.

moon-rpg-lovedelic

Moon was their first project and after the game was published by ASCII Entertainment in 1997 for the original Playstation, LoveDeLic pitched a sequel titled MooN 2: Mansion Omnibus Occupant Nest. Concept art and a photo of the early design document were posted on Twitter by former LoveDeLic’s Character Designer Kazuyuki Kurashima in 2017.

MooN-2-Mansion-Omnibus-Occupant-Nest-Lovedelic-PS1

In the end the project was changed from a sequel to MooN to a different, original adventure: it became “UFO: a Day in the Life”. UFO was later published in 1999 by ASCII, an interesting game that somehow mix together point & click adventures, characters and events which follow an internal clock (just like the original Moon, or Zelda: Majora’s mask) and a “photography simulation” somehow similar to Gekibo (PC Engine, 1992) or Pokèmon Snap (N64, 1999).

ufo-a-day-in-the-life-lovedelic-ps1

If you take a look at the concept art, you can see how it’s similar to the main idea behind UFO: a building divided into different rooms, inhibited by quirky characters. Instead than a cancelled “Moon 2” you could also see this as an early concept for UFO.

Thanks to Video Games Densetsu for the contribution!

Images: