New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Resident Evil [GC – Tech Demos & Concept]

In these screens and in the video, we can see a series of concept arts and tech demos (for the 3D models and the animations) created by Capcom while the Resident Evil gamecube remake was in development. In these we can even find some pre-rendered backgrounds that were never used in the final game, as the “room on fire” or the “dark stairs” ones. It’s interesting to notice that Jill never uses all those kicks animations in the final version.

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Gold Star Mountain [GameCube – Cancelled]

As it happens with all the new consoles, a lot of interesting titles are initially announced in the first few months, but sometimes those titles never see the light. That exactly what happened with Gold Star Mountain, an action rpg, that was presented officially at the Spaceworld 2001. This game was in development at From Software and it had an interesting feature:  the ability to capture, breed and collect lots of  monsters to use them as a support in combat.

Sadly the project was never finished, and it soon vanished without traces. In the few screens and video released we can see an early build of the game, where the combat system was not fully implemented yet. Probably this project was cancelled because it was seen as not enough profitable for the company.

italian_flag.jpg [spoiler /Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano/ /Nascondi la versione in Italiano/]Come succede per tutte le nuove console, il periodo che ne precede il rilascio è sempre caratterizzato da annunci di titoli interessanti, che però spesso non vengono alla luce. E’ il caso di Gold Star Mountain, action rpg  presentato ufficialmente allo spaceworld 2001, proprio a pochi giorni di distanza dall’uscita del Gamecube. Almeno nelle previsioni, il titolo From Software doveva presentare una caratteristica, che lo avrebbe differenziato sensibilmente dai classici del genere: la possibilità di catturare, allevare dei piccoli mostri per utilizzarli in combattimento.

Se vi suona leggermente familiare, direi che è assolutamente normale, visto che siamo nella sezione gamecube di questo sito. Ad ogni modo, la versione beta mostrata (che è possibile vedere anche nel video), sembrava ancora nelle fasi preliminari, con il sistema di combattimento non ancora implementato perfettamente. Il comparto tecnico, animazioni a parte, lascia a desiderare anche per un titolo di prima generazione. Tenendo in considerazione anche le difficoltà, nel creare e nell’integrare la parte dedicata alla crescita dei mostri, non è  particolarmente complicato immaginare i motivi della cancellazione, avvenuta pochi mesi dopo.[/spoiler]

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Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles [GC – Beta]

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is a action role-playing game released for the Nintendo GameCube and the first Final Fantasy game on a Nintendo console since Final Fantasy VI. In the time of Crystal Chronicles, the world is covered in a noxious gas known as “miasma”, to which direct exposure can prove fatal. Towns, villages and other settlements throughout are protected from the ill effects of miasma by crystals, which generate a barrier which miasma cannot penetrate. [Infos from Wikipedia]

Even the players need to bring a crystal around when they explore the game’s levels: this “concept” could have been created as a motive to have all the characters in the same screen in the multiplayer mode, but maybe it was not going to be in the game initially. Infact, in these early screens and video, there is no crystals or miasma that we can see.  Obviusly  this video was just going to be a “presentation” of the game, a simple tech demo without all it’s final characteristics, but we can only wonder if the crystal/miasma concept was created only in mid / late development. Other changes in the beta version of Crystal Chronicles are in the character design, different camera-angles and different enemies in the cave level.

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Mario Kart: Super Circuit [GBA – Beta]

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When it was first shown, Mario Kart for the Gameboy Advance looked a bit different than the final version. If you take a look a these beta images, the characters had bigger heads and smaller karts. Also it seems that the tracks had some differences in the details and in the course design, as we can see in the images and the video below.

Mattrizzle of The Cutting Room Floor discovered that there are a few unused tracks still in the final game’s data. Most of them appear to be Super Mario Kart’s battle courses, which means that they were probably at one point planned to be in the game along with the Super Mario Kart tracks. Unfortunately, the starting positions in each of the battle courses don’t exist, so the starting points default to position 0,0.

Thanks to Mario125 and Goomther for the contribution!

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The unused tracks:

StarFox Armada / Assault [GC – Proto / Beta / Unused Stuff]

Star Fox: Assault was first announced on May 8, 2002. It had a tentative release date of April 2003 for Japan, and would be developed by the same employees who worked on Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies at Namco. New information about the game didn’t show up until a short video montage at 2003’s E3 in Los Angeles, which showcased the game’s first-person perspective.

During development, the game had three working titles: Star Fox Armada, Star Fox 2, and Star Fox. It eventually came to be known as Star Fox: Assault. [Infos from Wikipedia]

In 2003, the game was intended to be multiplayer oriented and was rumored to have a LAN mode too, but sadly it never did.  If you play the game you can almost feel that there is more content in the multiplayer mode, with more stuff to unlock. Most of the missions in the single player are the same arenas used in multiplayer, with a touch of story.  There was going to be a coop-mode for the Adventure mode, but sadly it was cut.

In these screens and video, we can see an early version of the game, with inferior graphic,  Aparoids from level 9 seen in level 2, different text, slightly different character design and HUD.  It’s interesting to notice that the Star Fox Armada Project was going to have an arcade version too, as it happened with F-Zero GX. The arcade version of Armada was never released and we can only wonder which kind of differences it could had.

Also a Unused Game Over music has been found by Gabrielwoj, it is the same Game Over Music of Star Fox 64, see video below!

Update: New video of the E3 Trailer (the other one was deleted, enjoy this one)

Thanks to bydolord and Gabrielwoj for the contribution!

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