Action Adventure

Castlevania: Dawn Of Sorrow [DS – Beta / Unused]

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Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is an action adventure developed and published by Konami for the Nintendo DS, in 2005. As we can read in Wikipedia, the production of Dawn of Sorrow was announced on January 6, 2005 as the first Castlevania game to be released on the Nintendo DS. The DS touch screen was a primary point of interest, and several functions, such as picking up items on the screen and moving them, were originally intended to be incorporated. However, scheduling problems forced the development team to abandon many of these ideas.

As noticed by argh4430, in the first two screenshots (the ones where Soma is fighting a manticore and skeleton archer in the Lost Village), those enemies are not there in the final version of the game. They are in the next area you visit, the Wizardry Lab).

Thanks to Xelba we have some more info about the beta differences in the early game. There was one screenshot that showed Soma fighting Gergoth at the beginning of the Lost Village stage. Also, an analysis of the game’s rom revealed some unused dialogue hinting about the piano room and Hammer wanting to help out Julius, Alucard and Yoko fight against Soma/Dracula.

While the piano room doesn’t do anything in the final version, there might have been a puzzle that rewarded you an item if done so correctly, but this is only speculation. As for Hammer, no action sprites were found other than his normal sprites. But the hidden unused dialogue between him and Julius as well as before the fight against Soma hints that Hammer was once planned to be playable in Julius mode only.

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Zelda: Phantom Hourglass [DS – Beta / Concept / Unused / Prototype]

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass was the sequel of the classic saga of Wind Waker, featuring Toon Link. This game appeared on lots of magazine issues, before Nintendo release it, of course… There is one magazine from Brazil called Nintendo World, what they made a lots of issues featuring this Zelda, there was some beta changes in the screen shots (see the images gallery below)

An different “Go” and “Cancel” icons, well, at the final version are only text.
And different rupee/heart sprite…

Also, there is an unused short song on the game:

One Unused icon have been found by gabrielwoj in the game files. The icon located at /Test/banaicon.nbfc seems to be an old Icon for the Nintendo DS Menu [Which shows the game information and its icon]:
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Thanks to gabrielwoj for the contribution!

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Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland [DS – Beta]

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ENG: This entry in the archive doesn’t have a description yet. If you want to add some info about the beta / cancelled stuff that you see in these images, just write a comment or send us an email! We’ll add your info in this page and your name in the contributors list. Thanks a lot for your help! :)

ITA: Questa pagina dell’archivio non ha ancora una descrizione. Se vuoi aggiungere delle informazioni riguardo le differenze della beta o la descrizione di un gioco cancellato, lasciaci un commento o mandaci una email! Inseriremo le tue informazioni nella pagina ed il tuo nome nella lista dei collaboratori. Grazie per il tuo aiuto! :)

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Okami [Beta – PS2 / Wii]

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Okami in its beta version was much different from the final one. The game was originally planned to be rendered in a more photorealistic 3D style. However, Clover Studios determined that the more colorful sumi-e style allowed them to better convey Amaterasu’s association with nature and the task of restoring it. This change did not increase the game’s performance. You can play a video clip of Amaterasu in her original realistic style after beating the game. – [info from Wikipedia]

Also, on 1UP we can read an interview with Kamiya that talks about the early prototype of Okami:

“When I first started talking about it with [producer Atsushi] Inaba, the only starting point we had for Okami was a game that depicted a lot of nature,” he said. “I couldn’t say ‘I don’t know if this’ll be fun or not’ because than nobody on the dev team would be enthusiastic about it, so instead I was like ‘This is gonna be great! I know it will!’ So eventually the discussion shifted to a wolf running around, and we made this minute-long video depicting a wolf running through a field and trees sprouting up behind him and I told the team ‘See, isn’t that neat?'”

Eventually Okami made it to the prototyping stage, but Kamiya’s problems didn’t end there. “Our first test run was incredibly boring to play,” he recalled. “I was grinding my teeth at night, I was so worried. At one point, we were so far off-track that it had turned into a simulation game — you had hexes and trees sprouted on them. It was total garbage. A couple of devs said to me afterwards ‘Something was definitely wrong with you around that time, Kamiya!'”

Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!

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Psychonauts [XBOX/PS2 – Beta / Concept]

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Originally, the main character was an ostrich suffering from mental imbalance and multiple personalities. Tim Schafer killed the idea because he strongly believes in games being “wish fulfillments,” guessing that not many people fantasize about being an insane ostrich. Raz was originally named Dart and it had many different design before the final one. Even the Censors were different, with a more “green monsters” look. The HUD, the Menù, the Psi Challenge Markers and the Telekinesis style were changed too. Some “brains” were in different positions in the beta version, as the one at the top of the wall in front of the asylum. The Milla’s Lab does not exist in the final game.

Tim Schafer first conceived the idea for Psychonauts while working on Full Throttle, which originally was to have an interactive peyote trip sequence. The idea was deemed unsuitable for a family-friendly game, but it led to Schafer’s desire to do a game featuring psychological trips or interactive dream sequences. – [Info from Wikipedia]

 

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