New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Super Paper Mario [GC – Cancelled]

Super Paper Mario is a Platform/role-playing video game developed by Intelligent Systems, a division of Nintendo. It was originally set for release on the Nintendo GameCube but then it was released for the Wii. It is similar to the previous two Paper Mario titles and the Super Mario Bros. for the Famicom / Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The game will combine side-scrolling 2D gameplay with free roaming 3D graphics and to a somewhat lesser extent, RPG elements. – [info from Wikipedia]

Also to note that in the Wii version the 8-bit sprites are in their original colors from the NES, but the Gamecube version had them in “modern” colors. Thanks to Cubivore10 for the contribution!

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Kirby Adventure [GameCube – Cancelled / Beta]

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Kirby Adventure is a cancelled platform game that was announced for the Nintendo GameCube at E3 2005, but only little information were revealed since then and it was absent from the show floor at E³ 2006. The levels were rendered in 3D, but the game play was still a side-scroller, much like in Kirby 64. Kirby was able to ride on the backs of up to three other characters. Those characters could have been played by other humans in a 4 players multiplayer coop mode. Kirby was also able to get abilities from partners or enemies, like in Kirby Super Star.

On May 26, 2006 IGN released an article which states that a number of games, including a “generically labeled Kirby game”  would have been released for the Wii console. The article also states that this information was gathered from the Japanese release list found on the corporate site of the Japanese Nintendo webpage.

As of September 14, 2006, a list of upcoming games in Japan for Wii has including the title (Hoshi no Kirby). While the list is labeled with the Wii name, a number of titles that were previously listed as being released on other Nintendo systems are listed on it as well. For a further note, quite a number of games have shifted from one system (presumed cancelled) and released on another. The December 2006 issue of Nintendo Power removed the game from the upcoming GameCube titles list, but did not place it in the upcoming Wii titles list. [info from Wikipedia]

During E3 2011, it was announced that a new Kirby Wii was coming out. This was to be the final product of what was started and known as Kirby’s Adventure for the GameCube. From the new Kirby Wii trailer and the old Gamecube trailers these games seem to run with a similar 3D engine.

As of January 28, 2011,the game was officially re-announced under the tentative title Kirby Wii, with a projected release date of fall 2011 in North America. Its final titles were announced in the following months, and was finally released for the Wii on October 2011 as Kirby’s Return to Dream Land.

Thanks to an Iwata Asks article, we can read more about the development and cancellation of a series of Kirby prototypes for the GameCube:

Kawase: Yes. To begin by introducing myself, I was originally a designer on a team called Jack and the Beanstalk Project and worked on games like Pokémon Snap4. Now I’m a producer in Tokyo. As for that 11-year gap between home console Kirby games, right after Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, we immediately began working on a new Kirby game. That was during the time of the Nintendo GameCube system, and screen shots were shown at the E3.

Iwata: “Were shown”? You sound so detached about it! (laughs)

Kawase: Oh, believe me, I’m not! (laughs) But after that, it never got updated, and I’m sure some people would wonder and ask, “Whatever happened to that?” To some, it had become an object of mystery.

Iwata: The release date went unannounced forever.

Kawase: Yes. Actually, there are three lost Kirby games. The first one is the one that pictures were shown of at E3. It was a Kirby game based on the concept of four-person simultaneous gameplay. That was when I learned how difficult it is to make a game that is both multi-player and single-player.

Kawase: That’s right. The second one was an experiment with extremely challenging gameplay that placed Kirby in 3D space and allowed players to freely move around. But unfortunately, we weren’t able to achieve the quality we hoped for and it never reached completion.

The third one involved an animated Kirby sort of like a pop-up book. We renewed the Copy Abilities, and tried to power it up. We spent 11 years… making and abandoning these three games.

Iwata: During that time, screen shots were shown and release dates went unannounced for a long time. Then the Nintendo GameCube system changed to the Wii console. Miyamoto-san says that video games are something you never really complete. It’s hard when a game simply refuses to come together.

You can find more about the released Kirby series in the WiKirby!

Thanks to Juan and Vahkiti for the contribution!

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Chibi Robo [Bandai Beta Version – GameCube]

Chibi-Robo was originally being developed by just Skip, and not Nintendo (But it was still intended for a Gamecube release). The game’s storyline back then was different, you needed to train Chibi-Robo to get home and avoid the burglars that were after him. The gameplay was going to be a point-and-click like adventure. Early videos show Chibi-Robo in a Lab of some sort, running around to collect batteries to raise his own internal battery. It seems that Chibi Robo would have been able to evolve itself, as we can see different robo-upgrades in one of the concept arts.

There were also other beta objectives like pushing things over, moving objects and other ideas to get batteries and other things. After a few years, Skip gave up on the project. Nintendo though, was still interested in the idea of the game and saved it from development hell by building on Skip’s project. Nintendo reworked the engine into its current action adventure status, gave it new environments, and a new storyline. – [info from Wikipedia]

[Thanks to Matt Gander for some images!]

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Too Human [GameCube – Cancelled]

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This title developed by Silicon Knights, was first presented in a playable form at E3 1999, on the original Playstation. It collected immediately the attention from the critics and the public, not only for it’s good graphic (at least for its time), but even for an interesting and promising gameplay.

The release of the game was scheduled for summer 2000,  on more than 4 CDs, filled with an huge world, an immersive story and hours of FMV movies… but it was never finished. At that time Nintendo, after seeing the excellent work that Silicon Knights were doing on Eternal Darkness (at the time in development for N64), decided to take over the team, making it one of its numerous 2nd parties.

After the cancellation of the PSX version of Too Human, there were rumors that the development of the game was switched to the GameCube. Those rumors were confirmed at SpaceWorld 2000, with a FMV presentation of Too Human for the Nintendo console. But even the GameCube version was never finished.

In 2005, Silicon Knights went under the control of Microsoft and the Too Human project was moved to the XBOX 360. The game was finally released in 2008, even if it has lost many of the original features.

For more info read this article: Too Human: the game that will never be?

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Project Katana / Red Steel [Beta / Prototype]

Red Steel is a FPS published by Ubisoft for the Nintendo Wii, created by the Ubisoft Paris studio and released on November 19, 2006 in North America. Red Steel was one of the first Wii games to be developed by other studios outside of Nintendo. [Info from Wikipedia]

When the game was just a concept, it was know internally as “Project Katana” and Ubisoft started to work on a  GameCube prototype, as the Wii Development Kits were still not available. Some screens from the Katana GameCube prototype build were somehow leaked thanks to Wombat on the Assembler Forum: “screenshots from the booting sequence of Project Katana ‘playing ground’. These were made prior E3 2006 and running on an standard GameCube devlopment kit, but offcource with the Wii-controller connected to it. This ‘playing ground’ was used by the makers to see how the wii-mote reacts and works.”

Additionally, some early concept arts from Project Katana can be seen in the gallery below: it’s possibile that some of those places were not used in the final game and even the protagonist’s character design seems a bit different from the final one. Also, there were some target renders released before the published game, that have a much more better graphic than the final one.

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