Action Adventure

Thornado [GameCube – Cancelled]

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Announced shortly after the release of the Nintendo 64, with the more familiar name of “Turrican 64“, Thornado was meant to be the first 3D game in the Turrican series, but with a different name because of some copyright problems. From the first N64 concept, which development was confirmed several times by Factor 5 in different interviews, there are not many informations, apart from the rumor that it was  going to be even more inspired by the exploration-structure of Metroid. Like several other N64 titles, Thornado 64 was soon cancelled and its development  started again for the new Nintendo console, at the time still known as the”Project  Dolphin“.

At the Space World 2000 Thornado was finally presented in a real time demo-video at closed doors for few gaming journalists. In that video, the hero of the game was trying to escape from an explosion, running on a huge bridge while the cars and the street itself were flying in the air. Unfortunately this video was never released and neither has any screenshots from the game: only some concept arts were saved to preserve the existence of this cancelled project.

Few details on the game are available: as announced for the 64-bit version, Thornado should have been inspired by Metroid, combining  a third person shooter action with exploration, two playable characters (a man and a woman), the return of  the “hookshoot” and futuristic setting from the classic Turrican. As noted by Ross Sillifant, Thornado WAS planned to be a GameCube LAUNCH title after N64 version was cancelled, see ‘whatever happened to Turrican?’ Arcade Mags Timewarp July 1998 feature.

Is still unknown why Thornado was never released, but maybe the various Star Wars projects that Factor 5 developed for the GameCube were one of the reasons. F5 were too busy to work on those profitable Star Wars games, to think about finishing Thornado.

An interesting note: in a level of Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3 (Defenders of Ralltiir) for the GameCube, Factor 5 have added a small tribute to Thornado. Infact the great bridge in this mission is the same bridge that was modeled for the Thornado Tech Demo! Below  you can see some screenshots of the Ralltiir bridge, so we can have a vague idea about the Space World 2000 Thornado video.

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Action Adventure (Retro Studios) [GameCube – Cancelled]

When Retro Studios started to work on their GameCube projects (as NFL Football, Raven Blade and Car Combat), one of the first concepts created  in 1999 / 2000 was the one for this game, at that time simply know as “Action Adventure”. The player would have impersonate 3 females protagonists in an action game set in a alien / sci-fi world. When Nintendo came to Retro Studios to check for their progresses, most of their games were in a development hell, with few things done and lot of disorganization. Nintendo decided to cut most of Retro Studios’s projects to have them to concentrate on the development of Metroid Prime: Action Adventure was then cancelled and never seen again.

Probably there was not even a playable beta for Action Adventure (it was still unclear if it would have a third-person or a first-person view) and it seems that only few concept arts and some early tech demos (that you can see below) were made before it’s cancellation. Even if assets from Action Adventure were never re-used for Metroid Prime, the experience to design a similar concept was probably of some help for the successive work on Samu’s first-person adventure.

An interesting article on this project can be find at IGN

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Raven Blade [GC – Cancelled]

Raven Blade was a game in development by Retro Studios for the Nintendo GameCube. It was due to be released world-wide but was later cancelled during development to free up resources for Metroid Prime. Slow development and the offer of developing the next Metroid game were the main reasons of cancellation. The models of Raven Blade backgrounds and creatures were good, but the textures were incomplete. Nintendo noticed their (tentative title) “Action-Adventure” project with a female main character and took the opportunity to ask Retro Studios to make Metroid Prime. Raven Blade, Action-Adventure, NFL Retro Football and Car Combat were all cancelled to work on the new game. – [info from Wikipedia]

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Some screenshots & artwork are from www.n-sider.com

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Luigi’s Mansion [GC – Beta / Tech Demo / Unused Stuff]

In its beta E3 2001 version, Luigi’s Mansion featured different ghosts than the final version. The 3 main ghosts (Orange, Pink, and Blue) were very different looking than their present day forms. The Orange ghost used to be a pink colored ghost featuring smaller eyes and mouth. The tall and thin pink ghost was once an orange lanky ghost with a huge nose. The blue ghost was originally a purplish colored ghost with smaller eyes and mouth. There was also another ghost that was scrapped from the final. It was colored dark purple, had a similar look to the pink beta ghost, and was only found in the hallways of the Mansion. Of what the ghost did was come up behind Luigi and scream; causing Luigi to yell in fear and fall to the ground. This would cause 50 HP to be drained from Luigi’s health and temporarily shrink his total HP to 50 as well. If the ghost still exists, it would have the same behavior as a ReDead.

In very early screenshots (all being the E3 version), there were shots of a timer in the Game Boy Horror, possibly hinting that the game was either going to have a challenge mode or a time limit, but was scrapped in the final version. It is said that if Luigi did not save Mario within the 24 hours he had, the mansion, along with mario, would vanish. In other builds, the Gameboy Horror also feature a Gameboy Camera-like effect, so it showed everything it could “see”. It is suspected that the Gameboy Horror had at first the time keeping function, and then the Gameboy Camera-like mode, and the onto a different version of the final’s GBH. The near final build had more of a cartoony icon set, while the final build has the more realistic icon set.

The Poltergust 3000 once featured a “heat meter”, showing of how hot it would get from sucking objects and ghosts up. Its gauge went from a level of 1 to 10. Once it got to 10, the Poltergust 3000 would burst into flames, and cause Luigi to collapse onto the floor, also having Luigi lose some of his HP. On the side note, the Poltergust 3000 was more squarish compared to the final’s version.

Other differences include slight changes in room designs, a beta coin meter, and many other objects. – [info from Wikipedia]

The ending screen would probably unlock to your file a “congratulations” image, or probably just an image for the ending, such as a picture in the wall. Three unused different looking sprites were found by Gabrielwoj, as can see below:

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“luigi_b.bti_color/alpha”, probably with Bad ending, with low money. (B = Bad)
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“luigi_g.bti_color/alpha”, probably with medium ending, with a good quantity of money. (G = Great)
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“luigi_V.bti_color/alpha”, probably with perfect ending, with all the money caught. (V = Victory)

Thanks to SteamingBulletMatthew Burke and Gabrielwoj for the contribution!

Miyamoto recently spoked about the Nintendo 3DS system, and said that the Nintendo Gamecube was capable of playin stereoscopic 3D video. He said too that they made a compatible version from Luigi’s mansion that with an accessory is able to display in special LCD TVs the game in 3D.

According to a issue in nintendo power,there was going to be a hidden boss ghost that was a generic austrailian hunter guy,and had dialogue that was on the lines of saying he wanted to Kill you and mount your head on the wall. He shot his rifle at you as you ran around the Safari Room.

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Killer 7 [Proto / Beta]

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Killer 7 is an adventure game developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by Capcom. It was released in 2005 but it was first announced in 2002 as one of the original “Capcom 5” games. In 3 years of development the game changed a lot from its original concept trailer and when Killer 7 was finally released many parts of the story were removed.

None of the scenes from the first Killer 7 Trailer ended up in the final game. Garcian and Kaede smith look totally different from their final forms, and Harman Smith is wheelchair-ridden in the final game and only playable for a couple of sections throughout the entire story. The scenes with Dan Smith shooting the woman and Con Smith are never seen. We shudder to think what lost plot points and further story we would have gotten if that stuff would have stayed in there.

For more informations you can read the Killer 7 Beta Analysis Article

Thanks a lot to Dr. Swank for the contribution!

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