News on Cancelled Video Games & Lost Media

64 Wars is the cancelled “Wars” sequel that was planned for the Nintendo 64. The “Advance Wars” series became famous in USA and Europe thanks to the GBA games, but it was know to the Japanese audience since the NES, with the name of FAMICOM Wars, originally published on the Famicom back in 1988. The game is a strategic turn based RPG, where you’ll be fighting with your army against the enemy’s one, planning carefully your strategy moves.

Hudson started working on the Nintendo 64 version even if the rights of the “wars” series were always been a property of Intelligent System, but Nintendo decided to let Hudson to work on the game for this particular occasion. Unfortunately, little is known about the project: the images in the gallery below are taken from various japanese magazines and the game was shown in non-playable form at the Nintendo Spaceworld 1999.

The style of 64 Wars seems to have been a lot like the previous episodes: a 2D map was used for the troop movement, while the battles were shown with a 3d engine. The most interesting part of the 64 version would have been the possibility to connect the N64 game to the GameBoy game.

GameBoy Wars 2 was developed by Hudson’s team too and it was published only in Japan. The GB title was able to connect to the N64 version with the GB Transfer Pack (a peripheral originally used with Pokemon Stadium) that could attach a GC cart to the N64 pad memory card port. With this expedient, people could have been able to begin a match of Wars on the N64, then continuing it on the GB and finish it back on the home console.

In the end 64 Wars has been cancelled without any official explanation, but it’s intriguing to think that inside the GB cartridge is still possible to access to the N64 Linking options, which was never used. Maybe the passage of rights between Intelligent System and Hudson caused some kind of problems, or maybe the N64 game didn’t match Nintendo’s quality standards.

Thanks to Linkx111 for the contribution!

[spoiler /Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano/ /Nascondi la versione in Italiano/]La serie Advanced Wars, divenuta famosa in occidente grazie alle versioni per GBA e DS, è invece nota al pubblico giapponese fin dai tempi del NES, con il nome di Famicom Wars, uscito nel 1988. Il gioco è un classico rpg strategico a turni, in cui far combattere le proprie armate contro numerosi nemici, studiando attentamente le mosse da compiere. Con l’uscita del Nintendo 64, Hudson ha cominciato i lavori su di una versione a 64 bit di Wars, chiamata con molta originalità “64 Wars”. La saga è sempre stata sviluppata dagli Intelligent Systems, ma in quel periodo Nintendo passò i diritti ad Hudson. Purtroppo non si hanno molte notizie a riguardo: le foto che trovate qui sotto sono state recuperate da alcune riviste Giapponesi dell’epoca ed il gioco è stato presentato in video allo Space World 1999.

Lo stile di 64 Wars sembra molto simile agli altri capitoli: una mappa in 2D per lo spostamento delle truppe, con l’unica differenza dei modelli 3D per i filmati degli scontri. La caratteristica più interessante della versione Nintendo 64, sarebbe stata la possibilità di collegare il gioco con l’episodio per GameBoy.

GameBoy Wars 2 è stato sviluppato anchesso da Hudson, ma al contrario di 64 Wars, è uscito realmente nel 1998. Il titolo per GB poteva essere collegato con i salvataggi della versione N64, grazie all’utilizzo del Transfer Pack (un aggeggio che si collega alla porta Memory Card dei Pad N64). Sarebbe stato così possibile iniziare una partita sul Nintendo 64, trasferirla su GameBoy per giocarla in giro ed in seguito finirla di nuovo sulla console da casa.

64 Wars è stato però cancellato senza dare spiegazioni, ma è affascinante pensare che nella cartuccia di GB Wars 2 esistano ancora le opzioni per il collegamento al Nintendo 64, ormai impossibile. Forse il passaggio dello sviluppo da Intelligent Systems a Hudson è stato la causa di qualche problema di organizzazione, oppure i lavori svolti dal team non raggiungevano lo standard sperato da Nintendo. [/spoiler]

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Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD

Rev Limit [N64 – Cancelled]

monokoma

04-04-2008

5 Comments

Rev Limit is a cancelled arcade racing game similar to Ridge Racer, that was in development in 1996 / 1997 by Seta Corporation for the Nintendo 64 DD as one of the early titles announced for the console. The game was postponed many times and it was even “downgraded” from the 64DD to a “normal” N64 game, but in the end Rev Limit was never released. It seems that a playable version of Rev Limit should exist for the Seta arcade board named “Aleck 64”, based on the Nintendo 64 hardware.

Rev Limit was one of the most hyped N64 games, and the fact that it was cancelled makes it one of the most fashinating unseen projects for the 64bit console. We’ll never know if it was really fun to play or it was just another crappy racing game.

Thanks to D-vide and Celine for some of the contributions!

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Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD

Zool Maju Tsukai Densetsu [N64 – Beta]

monokoma

04-04-2008

2 Comments

Zool Majū Tsukai Densetsu (ズール　～魔獣使い伝説～, Zool Majū Tsukai Densetsu? lit. Zool: Legend of the Monster Trainer) is a role playing game for the Nintendo 64. It was released in 1999 in Japan only. This game is unrelated to the Amiga game Zool. [Infos from Wikipedia] In the early screens from the game we can notice some little differences, like the portrait of the girl on the left instead that on the right. Maybe the image that shows the map has some differences too, but we did not have play the game, so we are not sure.

Thanks to Loco for the contribution!

Beta Version:

Final Version:

Images:

Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD

Body Harvest [N64 – Beta / Unused Stuff]

monokoma

04-04-2008

1 Comment

The owners of a Nintendo 64 had to wait several years before being able to get their hands on this title developed by DMA Design. Body Harvest was announced as one of the first launch titles for the N64, but it was released only in October 1998 and it ended up clashing with Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Body Harvest is one of the most interesting projects for the Nintendo console, but due to the clamor for the release of the first three-dimensional Zelda, Body Harvest was missed by many gamers, as they were already too busy to play with an ocarina.

Body Harvest’s levels are huge, probably some of the bigger areas available on the 64-bit console: players can use many vehicles from small cars to powerful alien ships, to move and kill all the enemies in their path. Sadly a lot of the beta vehicles (shown in the gallery below) never made it into the final game. BH’s development team is the same one that a few years later created one of the most popular games of the last generation: GTA 3.

Perhaps if Body Harvest would have been released in a different time, it would have had a better success in sales. All the images in the gallery below are from the beta version, with different HUD, incomplete graphic and target renders. In the early version, the energy bars were oval and the radar was circled by a red line. Also, there are some unused logos created before the final one!

Missions in Japan, Hawaii and Antarctica were removed from the game or changed into the Alien Cometh, Java and Siberia. As was noticed by SilverStingray on the GameSpot Forum:

It’s interesting to note that there was originally a Japan 2010 level which looks a little bit like the comet. I guess Japan morphed into the comet when the game was struck by a speeding deadline. Also America looks a lot greener, I guess it felt too similar to Greece so the devs killed the grass.

Many interesting info on Body Harvest’s development can be found on this article by Edge:

The Body Harvest story begins a long time ago, in a small development house just outside Dundee. In 1995, Nintendo saw great potential in a game design document drawn up by DMA Design. […]
After two years of hard slog DMA eventually presented an action game to Nintendo. Unsurprisingly, it was not what Nintendo had seen in the design document and more importantly, it was not to its taste. A crack team of Nintendo experts, including a producer from the Zelda series, flew over to sort out the mess. It was suggested that the game be reincarnated as an RPG – not what DMA wanted to hear. […]
On its return home, DMA noticed a distinct pattern emerging – more bad news. Body Harvest was being developed alongside another game called Zenith – an original mix of platform and racing action. Zenith was to be canned and several people were given the unpleasantly singular option of joining the Body Harvest project. […]

If you can notice more differences in the beta images, please let us known!

Some screens from: www.flickr.com/photos/mikedailly/sets/

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Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD

Gendai Dai-Senryaku: Ultimate War [64DD – Cancelled]

monokoma

04-04-2008

2 Comments

Officially presented at the Space World 1999, this title developed by SETA for the 64DD was a turn-based strategy game very similar to Advance Wars. The setting of Ultimate War was more realistic than the Nintendo title, but the clashes between the armies played out more or less the same. The user could move his troops on a two-dimensional map and, once came close enough to the enemy, attack with the weapons available. Then a real-time cutscene which showed the effect of the assault would start.

Ultimate War supported an online multiplayer mode for up to 4 players thanks to the Randnet network available for the 64DD. SETA postponed the release of the game several times and after the failure of the Disk Drive in 2000 UW was moved to cartridge. The change in format led to further problems for the development, like the removal of the online mode , and the end the game was cancelled.

[spoiler /Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano/ /Nascondi la versione in Italiano/]

Presentato ufficialmente allo Space World del 1999, questo titolo sviluppato da SETA per 64DD era uno strategico a turni, dalla struttura molto simile alla serie Advanced Wars. L’ambientazione di Ultimate War era più realistica rispetto al titolo Nintendo ma gli scontri fra le armate subivano lo stesso svolgimento. Il giocatore poteva muovere le proprie truppe su di una cartina bidimensionale ed una volta arrivato abbastanza vicino al nemico, attaccare con le armi a disposizione. A questo punto la visuale del gioco cambiava e si poteva assistere ad un filmato tridimensionale, che mostrava gli effetti dell’attacco.

Ultimate War avrebbe supportato una modalità multiplayer online fino a 4 giocatori, grazie alla rete Randnet disponibile sul 64DD. Seta ha posticipato l’uscita del gioco più volte e dopo il fallimento del Disk Drive, nel 2000 è stato modificato per essere trasferito su normale cartuccia. Il cambiamento di formato ha comportato ulteriori problemi per lo sviluppo, difficoltà di programmazione e la rimozione della modalità Online. Il passaggio su cartuccia non è purtroppo servito a molto: Ultimate War non è mai stato rilasciato, scomparendo senza spiegazioni.[/spoiler]

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