We have added some new beta images in these galleries: Super Smash Bros Melee, Advanced Wars Underfire, Assassin’s Creed & Super Mario RPG.
Earthworm Jim 3D [N64/PC – Beta]
During its drawn-out three year development cycle, Earthworm Jim 3D changed publishers several times. This caused some problems as the game was based on the Earthworm Jim TV series which by the time of release, had been off the air for over 3 years. Also many locations displayed in early versions of the game are nowhere to be found in the released copy (such as a level set in a house, where Jim is ant-sized), and locations that were kept from early screenshots changed drastically before release.
In some cases, entire characters were changed – originally, Evil the Cat was to be the boss of Fear, but was changed to Professor Monkey-For-A-Head at the last moment, although his face can be seen on the records and record needles in the level “Boogie Nights of the Living Dead”. Additionally, Evil Jim, Earthworm Jim’s evil twin from the TV series, was reportedly a part of the game. Early screenshots also display Jim riding his Pocket Rocket. The characters of Earthworm Jim had to be redesigned for the shift to 3D. When the game was almost three quarters done, it suffered from framerate problems and poor animation. [Info from Wikipedia]
Also Makubeku noticed that the eye window its squared on the beta instead of how it was on the final! A beta demo was found by Nes World (as you can see in the video below), but we are not sure how many differences are in there.
Thanks to Lucas Araujo for the contribution!
Images:
Videos:
[New Staffers] Are they enough now? Maybe.
It looks like that there are still some more beta geeks that want to help this beta archive, like Take_It_Slow and kmkanaka, that from today are officially hired in the Unseen 64 staff! We are happy to welcome them in our crew and we can’t wait to see what they can do :) The beta geeks army is still growing…
Nomura talks about KH: Birth By Sleep development
Interviewer: Can you tell us a bit about the development of Birth By Sleep?
Nomura: Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep is being worked on by the same team that created re: Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep’s development had originally started before the development of re: CoM, but production was stopped to complete re: CoM. At first it felt a bit weird starting the project again. I believe this project started before the other two of the Kingdom Hearts games, and I also believe it will be the last to hit the market.
[Maybe there was a proto of the Ps2 version made before the first KH? or it was just a concept that remained on paper and the real development began only on Psp ?]
Interviewer: In Birth by Sleep, is the gameplay done by choosing action commands lined up in command list?
Nomura: I believe it is necessary to say first, The Command Menu that was shown to the public [A.K.A scans, and video] has now changed. A system close to that of re:COM has been created, feeling like a command deck. However, the present screen shots show it was a bit too close to the idea of re:COM. The battle screens you see in the images now, have already been changed. However the operating sense is similar to that of the Kingdom Hearts series. The gameplay has slight influence from the DS game “It’s a Wonderful World”.
[They changed the command menu.. so the old scans and the video are beta!]
You can read the whole interview here .
Spyro The Dragon [PSX – Beta]
In the screen below we can see a beta version of Spyro The Dragon: the statue has another appearance in the final game and is not made of gold. The red gem inside the “return home portal” is not in there anymore. In the final game when the player touches a dragon statue, the dragon that is captured inside there will come out: the first dragon that Spyro rescues was called Silvus in the beta.
Also, Dirty Harry found some more differences in this beta demo:
- Alternate music before rescuing Nestor.
- Vortex looked more like the Dragon Pads.
- Alternate dialogue from rescued dragons. Completely different voice from Nestor.
- 1-ups are gold instead of silver.
Spyro was originally going to be a “traditional” green dragon but the developers chosed purple instead because it was more original. In the artworks, we can even see some different character designs for Spyro.
Thanks a lot to Lord Deathsaur, Dudaw and Dirty Harry for the contributions!
Images:
June 1998 Beta:
June 1998 Beta:
July 1998 Beta:
Change Log:
Gh0stBlade – Added June 1998 vids recorded by LXShadow/July 1998 beta video! 08/12/14