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Mega Man 8 [PSX SAT – Beta / Unused Stuff]

Mega Man 8, known as Rockman 8: Metal Heroes in Japan, is the eighth installment in original Capcom’s Mega Man series, and was originally released in Japan on the Sony PlayStation on December 1996. The following year, Mega Man 8 saw a release on the Sega Saturn and was localized for both consoles in North America and the PlayStation in PAL regions. Director Hayato Kaji revealed that he initially designed Duo as robot created by the Mega Man 4 character Dr. Cossack. When it was decided that Duo would instead come from outerspace, his appearance changed but still retained remnants of Russian traits, such as his headware. [Info from Wikipedia]

Thanks to Proto1, we found out that MegaphilX uploaded an interesting video from a Mega Man 8 beta in his Youtube Channel.

Everything is practically unused in the footage. The background, the effects, no bolt item, Mega Man’s got a strange running animation and towards the end of the video, you can see early footage of the stage select screen. The bosses have not been made yet, so their Metools act as their temporary icons. Also, a sprite of Duo appears here as well, something that isn’t in the final at all.

– Completely unused BGM
– The background for the stage is unused and unfinished.
– Mega Man has an odd running animation. He’s very stiff in comparison to his final running animation
– His color when using the MegaBall is Green and Yellow instead of Pink and purple.
– Enemies appear at places they don’t usually in the final.
– Big yellow blocks have a blue streak through them. In final, they’re solid yellow.
– at one point in these videos, there’s an elevator lift moving downwards. In the final, elevators never go down, only up.
– No enemies in elevator portions.
– No hit detection with Whale Airship enemies.
– Bolt items weren’t implemented yet
– Beginning at 5:04 in this video, you can catch a quick glimpse at a work-in-progress stage select. Mettools represent stages under construction, and the Duo character is shown as the boss for the Island stage. Duo isn’t a boss in the Island stage, so perhaps he was in this particular build.
– Also at the stage select, Tengu Man’s mugshot appears on the top right column where Frost Man should be. In the final, he’s on the top left.

Thanks to Proto1 for the contribution!

Videos:

For comparision, here’s the final frost man stage:

Here’s an update showing the beta in more detail by DeGamer (aka Henger83)

Two more additional stages in this version seen above are covered here by JosephCollins

An even later beta build with many more differences can be seen in action here:
 

Mega Man X Command Mission [GC PS2 – Beta / Unused Stuff]

Mega Man X Command Mission (Rock Man X Command Mission in Japan) was released only a few months before Mega Man X8, yet it takes place arround 100 years AFTER the events of X8. Also of note, is that it’s the first Mega Man X Game NOT to follow the standard style, due to the fact of it being an RPG adventure. Below, you will see what appears to be a prototype build, and two beta builds, along with a few videos.

Demo Videos

There’s some unused dialoge between the characters, namely what Cinnamon says to you… that, and the fact that she’s even where she is doesn’t make much sense. The fight with Wild Jango starts VERY differently in the final, and although the battle area is right, how you get there, is WAY off.

Also, you go into battle with X, Zero, and Axl. In the final version, all you have at your side is Spider, but then, in this demo, almost everything is out of order, so I just assume it’s a demo from E3 or something, which would make sense. In the final, the voices and text are in english, instead of like in the videos. Also, these were uploaded to IGN on august 6th i think, at least a month before american release, and just after japanese release.

Here are a couple of Trailers of the game. One of which shows X using a slightly altered version of his Action Trigger, Charge Shot. The screen goes black upon firing, and the camera is behind the enemy. In the final, the charge shot attacks more than just one enemy, doesn’t go behind enemy/enemies, and the screen DOESN’T go dark.

Pictures

Prototype (?) version

In these, the most notable difference is that X is in his standard form. No special colors, just standard X. In the final, he looks MUCH different. And to those that have played the game themselves, notice the vendor for the shop just to the right of X? Vendor my eye, that’s an enemy!Also, the attack seen in the In Battle picture, is currently unknown. It appears to be a Final Strike. Also of note, the Battle HUD is different from next version’s, and also different from the final. And, take notice and compare the Battle HUD in this version, the the one in the next version. Something odd going on here.

Version 2 (beta)

Here can be seen a few differences from the final. Dialoge is different, battle HUD is different, and so is the map.

NOTICE THESE!

I wanted to do a special point out for the above pictures. Character mugshots are in the “turn” lineup, that aren’t even in the battle at the moment. Also, I could be wrong, but, I don’t think you can switch characters mid battle, and even if you could, how could it predict something that hasn’t been set yet?

My personal guess is that there was more to the battle system planned at this stage of development. Also of note, is that the Battle HUD is the EXACT SAME in all three pics, so at this point, it’s just as possible that the HUD is just an overlaying image. Look at the numbers used for the character stats even. they go in almost perfect sequence. I mean, X’s life energy and weapon energy put together, read 1234567, then zero’s reads 7890234, axl’s reads 3456456.

Version 3 (near final)

There’s not alot here that’s different from the final, but still of note, is the fact that the beta map is still in use. The final map, isn’t too much different than the beta map in either version, but one very noticable difference is the white lines on the right and bottom sides are gone in the final.

Now then. Like I said, if there’s something I missed, please let me know, or if there’s something i’m calling beta and isn’t, let me know that too. 

Some more characters cut from Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom

We already knew that Capcom thought to have Phoenix Wright as a playable character in Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, but it had to be cut in the end. Now we can read about some of the Tatsunoko characters that never made it into the final game, thanks to an article on Kotaku:

The hardest part of making the game, it seems, was figuring out which characters to include from Tatsunoko’s more than 80 cartoons, and then getting the company to OK their choices. […]

“One of the main anime we got more requests for than any others was Samurai Pizza Cats,” he said. “There were a lot of people who wanted to see that. I wanted to see that, but we couldn’t reach an agreement.”

Another set of characters shot down by Tatsunoko were the transforming-motorcycle riders of Genesis Climber MOSPEADA.

“They told us what we could and couldn’t use,” he said. “If they said no we cut them.

“We weren’t privy to a lot of their decision making process. They didn’t share a lot of reasons with us. When they said no and we asked why, they wouldn’t tell us, but would give us another suggestion.”

Thanks to Robert Seddon for the link! 

Talisman [X360 PS3 – Cancelled]

Talisman was a digital recreation of Workshop’s classic board game, basically a multiplayer turn-based fantasy RPG that was in development in 2007 by Big Rooster & Capcom for the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.  Players were able to explore dungeons to combat various enemies with weapons, spells and magic items. The project was officially cancelled in 2008, as reported by IGN:

“Rather recently we have finally stopped development completely. After a misfire at the start, the details of which I won’t get into, we evaluated several options for moving the project to new developers, but the costs of moving forward outweighted the potential revenue. I realize this will be disappointing for the fans of the game.

The rights have reverted back to Games Workshop where I hope someone will pick them up and try again. I too still would like to play a Talisman videogame.”

Thanks to Userdante for the contribution!

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Resident Evil Zero 0 [GC – Beta]

Resident Evil 0 is the prequel of the first Resident Evil. It was originally developed by Capcom for the Nintendo 64, but at the end it was ported and released on the Gamecube. In October 2009, Tyrant of resident-evil-beta.de discovered many beta backgrounds and some removed items in the trial disc of the game.

Also, Trebla Yevrah noticed other unused items in the japanese trial version:

If one has the proper tools available, they can view many unused and early versions of items in the Japanese demo of Resident Evil 0. Using GCNrd, I modified the item slots and browsed through the values. As one would expect, most of the items that can be uncovered cannot be obtained ordinarily in the demo, but the majority of them are found in the finished product.

An unused hand grenade is present in both the trial and the final version of RE0. I was curious to see the state of this item in this early version of the game, but although the model and icon are still present, it cannot be equipped (like the released game). Actually, almost all weapons are unusable in the trial if you hack them into your inventory. The only ones operational are the handguns, knife, and hunting gun. The only exception, or at least, the only other equip that won’t freeze the game, is the shotgun. Your characters can hold it, but the weapon model itself is unfinished with no textures to speak of, and it cannot be fired.

Almost every item that can be examined has a slightly different texture when compared to the final game. One prime example is the key card used to operate the brakes on the train. I have tried using some of the key items in their proper place on the train, but they either don’t work, or freeze the game. For example, the hook shot can’t be used in the window that normally leads to the roof.

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