Beta + Cancelled Action RPG Video Games - Page 28 of 33

In this article we can see a comparison between Secret Of Evermore beta screens and their final counterparts. During the game’s development Square USA made some interesting changes and probably the original story was a bit different from the one that we know.

Beta version

Final Version

The character’s bar was much different in the beta. While the area is essentially identical, with only little background differences, the enemies in the beta version are not the same as the final. The strange blue creature was completely removed, and we encounter raptors only much later in the prehistoric level. Also, you get the sword in Antiqua, the second area of the game.

Beta Version

I don’t recall this area anywhere in the game. The green dinosaur on the left was removed in the final version.

Beta Version

Final Version

Yet another enemy that was removed from the final game: the warrior with the pike at the center of the screenshot. Also, in the final version the machine is green (in the beta it looks to be black/grey) and there aren’t enemies in this area, maybe because the game’s story changed. The fake Fire Eyes (the girl at the center of the screen) didn’t exist or didn’t appear here in the beta version.

Beta Version

Final Version

An area with almost no changes. In the beta version the dog is still the prehistoric one.

Beta Version

This is a really strange beta screenshot. We can see what it looks like to be an early and much different version of Ivory Tower (or Ebon Keep when it is populated again). In the final game, the King is not here. Maybe the story was different ?

Here are some more screenshots from a pre-release version of Secret Of Evermore. The “dog’s bar” at the bottom of the screen has the “dog’s face” on the left side, while in the final version it’s on the right side.

Pre-release Version

Final Version

In these screenshots, we can see that this section of the market didn’t change at all. However, as in all pre-release and beta pics, the golden bar is different, and the dog is still the prehistoric one, while in the final version there are four different dogs.

Pre-release

Final Version

This area is different from the final version. There are not as many black crystals and there is only one skull. Also, the location seems much more barren. Thanks to Robert Seddon, that has found some infos from a developer / tester of the game, we know that they changed the Mammoth Graveyard because there was an issue with AI getting caught on the tusks. You can read more of these beta-infos on this old news: SoE beta infos

Pre-release Version

Final Version

We can see that in the beta versione there was no “heart” at the center of the spider.

Pre-release Version

Final Version

Again, as in the beta screenshot, the fake “Fire Eyes” girl is not here, but at least the machine is green now.

There are a couple of other beta screens in the gallery below, but they are not much different from the final version.

Images:

Unseen News

Secret of Evermore – Beta infos

U64 Staff & Contributors

13-05-2008

5 Comments

Robert Seddon has wrote to us an email with some good info that he has found, about the development of Secret Of Evermore.

“I remembered about this, and thought it might interest you:
www.inf.uni-konstanz.de/~kneer/androl/gf-archive-soe/052_1.html
is an archive of a 2004 GameFAQs board thread with Brian Fehdrau, lead programmer on SoE. There are a few comments about unused/changed stuff:

‘That’s a pre-release screenshot. Notice the power bars are different and the dog’s head is on the other side of the bar. I’d hazard a guess that we changed the Mammoth Graveyard between then and release. Seems to me there was an issue with AI getting caught on the tusks.’

Also this: ‘Some of you probably know about the chicken effect. I won’t go into detail to avoid spoiling it for others. However, if you did trigger the chicken effect, you were meant to be run over (and hurt very badly) by a giant chicken on roller skates at various times during the final battle. He [another programmer] says the sprite is actually in the rom, but the scripting for it never happened due to lack of time.’

On the Seiken-style weapon system: ‘I do remember we had a different weapon system for quite a while, then Someone In Management decided we were going to copy SoM instead. (You can say that about a lot of things in Evermore, actually. :)’

There’s also mention of early concepts that didn’t even get as far as alpha: a Valentine’s Day world and a plug-in mini-cartridge to add new scenarios. (No wonder they were never implemented at all…)”

Thank you Robert! This is usefull :)

Playstation, Sony

Shining Sword [Playstation – Cancelled]

monokoma

03-05-2008

1 Comment

Shining Sword is a cancelled action adventure that was in development by American Laser Games for the original Playstation. The game was meant to be an ambitious projects, but after a while the team fell into various development issues and Shining Sword had to be canned. Some details were shared by a former ALG developer on Wikipedia:

Yes I worked for ALG – in fact I was the first artist ever hired at the company, in 1993. I worked on Shining Sword for about a year. We had switched from 3DO titles to developing for the not yet released Sony playstation. We had some of the first devkits in the US at the time. There was a really long drawn out story that was full of every dungeons and dragon style cliche you can imagine. We had concept art for most of the main characters and first pass 3d models of all of them. We were using stretchy meshes with internal bones, which was kind of ahead of its time a little bit. Some of the staff worked in 3D studio for DOS, some worked on Lightwave, and some actually worked on Silicon Graphics workstations. I had built several environments including an Aztec style Temple level.
Unfortunately, the owner’s wife had gotten heavily involved in the company and convinced him and other investors to switch over to making games for girls, so games like shining sword were on the chopping block. To be honest, I think the game was never really a game, it was a bunch of ideas kind of stuck together and it suffered through a lot of rehashings. It was extremely derivative of other games, and wholly unoriginal, but I don’t think there were any copyright worries.
Getting a working game engine and tools for the playstation was a daunting task in itself, not to mention trying to make a successful title. In my opinion, Shining sword was more style than substance, and really never developed much style either. Somebody may have saved the original code, but one would need an SDK for the original playstation – it would be a complete waste of time to try to get it running.
When the company was restructured into “Her Interactive”, I and some others were laid off. I moved on to California to Novalogic, making Comanche 4 and a few other military games before switching over the Neversoft as Lead Artist and eventually Environment Art Director, where I helped create the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, Gun, and Guitar Hero III before leaving the biz.

Thanks to Pachuka and Discworld for the contributions!

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Unseen News

[Resolved!] Ernald: an unreleased SNES RPG? Not really.

monokoma

30-04-2008

5 Comments

This game was though to be unreleased, as it was not possible to find “Ernald” in the release list for SNES games, but after some researches by Pat & Robert Seddon (as you can read below the post, in the comment section) we have found out that this was just an early “translation” of the original japanese name (Elnard) for 7th Saga, released in 1993. Thanks to everyone! :)

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Nintendo, Nintendo DS

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

U64 Staff & Contributors

22-04-2008

7 Comments

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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