New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Gotham by Gaslight Game [Cancelled – Xbox 360 / PS3]

As we can read in Wikipedia, Gotham by Gaslight is a DC Comics one-shot comic, considered to be the first Elseworlds story, where DC Comics heroes are taken out of their usual setting and put into alternate timelines or realities. In Gotham by Gaslight, Batman is set in 1889, in a sort of steampunk europe.

A game based on Gotham by Gaslight was pitched by Day 1 Studios, and an early prototype was created. Some menù concept arts are and a video of the proto are saved in below, to preserve its existence. Thanks to Supererogatory and MitsuharuSan for the contributions!

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Lufia 2 [Beta – SNES]

As we can read on Wikipedia, Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, released in Japan for the Super Famicom under the name Estpolis Denki II, is an RPG developed by Neverland and published in Japan in 1995 by Taito, as a prequel to Lufia & The Fortress of Doom. In July 2012, Jackhead shared in the Assembler Games forum some screens and videos from an early beta version of Lufia 2, that has many differences from the final one.

The proto has many difference to the final Version! Complete other worldmap, other skills, many different screens. Awesome! I have to replace the battery, than i can show more from the proto.

The differents are big. The last two picture are the same dungeon. In the Final version Maxim has a bow and sword. In the proto you go complete different way without an bow.  In the Final Version you have a skill “GUT” in proto “FAI”. You also start with 50 elixier, and the difficult is much higher as in the Final version. Playtime on the proto also show seconds. And of corse the worldmap is complete different. Fighting animation, menue options… Thats what i see in the first 5 min off the game.

First bossfights never seen in retail version

While trying to dump the cart to preserve the game, something went wrong:

I was trying to dump the eproms with my willem. After that i replace it on the pcb but something is wrong… Game crash now after intro, sound is bad.
This is really really bad. The dumps also crashed after intro… All Dumps merged, nothing wrong with the dump itself.
I conatct a few persons, maybe the eproms are corrupt or a conection problem.
At this point i quit and give the cart away. I really hope someone out there can fix it. Im sorry…

Luckily Trevormacro with the help of JLukas from the Assembler Games Forum, were able to fix this problem and saved the Lufia 2 beta!

The prototype is way different from the final and a lot of different sprites, tiles, and possible music and sound

Thanks to Michel for the contribution!

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Cruis’n Exotica [Beta – N64 / Arcade]

As we can read on Wikipedia, Cruis’n Exotica is the 1999 sequel to Cruis’n World and the third entry in the Cruis’n series by Midway Games. The levels take place in exotic locations in the universe, such as Las Vegas, Thailand, and even the surface of Mars. The game also allows a player to choose a driver visible onscreen during races, including a martian, a baby, a clown, and a cowboy. The game was ported by Gratuitous Games and released on the Nintendo 64 in 2000.

Butterhands found some beta screenshots, that you can see below. There are 2 cars that are missing from the final version, and the car with the 2 girls is the Modbuggy, but is not faithful to the final versions. Also in the Ireland track there were cows are in the street! You could certainly have been able to hit them.

If you know someone that worked on this game or if you have a prototype with these differences, please let us know!

Images:

cruis'n exotica beta
cruis'n exotica beta
cruis'n exotica beta
cruis'n exotica beta
cruis'n exotica beta

Kunio-kun: The Claw of Kowloon [PSX – Cancelled / Concept]

Kunio-kun: The Claw of Kowloon is a cancelled sidescrolling beat ’em up game in the famous Kunio-Kun series, that was in development by Technos Japan for the Playstation. The project was probably still in early concept phase before being canned, but from what we can see in the images below, they planned to make the characters more “realistic” than the usual super-deformer style of the previous Kunio-kun titles.

A big thanks to Johnny Undaunted for the contribution and translation from japanese.

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Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D [Beta – 3DS]

Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D is an action game developed by Capcom for the Nintendo 3DS. Before the final product was released Capcom had a different idea for 2 game modes 1 called “scene attack” and the other called “survival”. Not much is known other than they were scrapped into one mode.  In the beta demo you could play a level known as 4-1 and in the video below you can see at 2:49 an Ax guy walking towards the player, but in the final game the boss was changed to a Garrador, a totally different boss. Also, you can notice that where the players score is in the HUD, there are six 0’s, but in the final it was changed to seven 0’s

Post by Nick Sena

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