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Mega Man 4 [NES – Beta]

Mega Man 4 was released in December 1991 in Japan and in January 1992 in America. Some days ago, Protodude has found an old scan with Electronic Gaming Monthly’s coverage of CES 1991, in which we can see a beta version of Mega Man 4 with a removed Boss (Sphinx midboss?), some different details in the levels and an early Stage Select! You can read more in the original post.

Thanks a lot to Protodude for the contribution!

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Maximo 3 [PS2 – Cancelled]

Maximo 3 is the cancelled third episode in the Maximo series, a game that many fans were waiting for, but unfortunately things went not as planned. The original Maximo: Ghosts to Glory is a 3D action game created as a spiritual sequel to the 2D Ghosts n’ Goblins series, developed by Capcom Production  Studio 8 and released for PlayStation 2 in 2001 / 2002. A sequel, Maximo vs. Army of Zin was released in 2003 and the third game was in the works by the same team, but after only a few months of development it was canned due to lower than expected sales from Maximo 2.

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Maximo 3 was started soon after Studio 8 finished to work on the second chapter (Maximo 2 ends with the promise of a third game, with Maximo and his allies teaming up to find Queen Sophia), and they created many concept arts that you can see in the gallery below, with new enemies, settings (an Arabian theme, inspired by the success of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time) and features. The “cartoony” feel of the original games was dropped for a more gritty look.

In the original design doc we can read more about Maximo 3’s gameplay mechanics and story:

Across the Southern Sea, in a land of exotic culture a great history, lies the city of Mashhad, the gateway to the ancient east, but lurking in the shadow of a proud people are the forces of blood and corruption. The Cult of Chut, a religious order legion with fanatics, is preparing to transform the city into a single bloody alter whose population will be the sacrifice in their apocalyptic ritual.

But all is not lost: Maximo stands against this tide of destruction. Having followed the trail of his lost love, Maximo arrived in Mashhad with hopes that his journey will soon end. Now he will pit his sword and wist against the church’s faceless leaders and rescue Sophia; the possessed conduit through which Chut makes itself heard.

Maximo 3 stars with Maximo and his band in bad shape. In their quest for Sophia, the heroes have encountered the Cult of Chut, death worshipers who find a “man who walks with Death” an affront to their beliefs. As a result, Baron has beel killed, Tinker maimed and Maximo and Grim have been merged into one, thanks to a curse. Maximo and Tinker have been hunting down cultist sects when they arrive in Mashhad, seeking revenge and a cure to Maximo’s condition.

The new connection between Maximo and Grim would have been used as one of the main features of Maximo 3, needed to progress through the game:

Maximo is covered in tatoos, which are actually the external manifestation of the cultist’s curse that has trapped Grim within him. With the press of a button, Maximo transforms into Grim, allowing him several abilities.

As a result of the curse on Maximo, turning into Grim drains Maximo’s Health. Stay as Grim for too long and Maximo will lose a life. Only by collecting the souls of the evil cultists can Maximo sustain himself in Grim form.

At some point in the game, Maximo will use Grim’s form as a disguise to infiltrate the cult’s tower during Chut Holy Day. Gameplay will have the players switch the two forms.

As a phantom. Grim can slide up walls, flow like a shadow along walls, give a little extra distance to a jump and glide down from long drops. In addition, the player can perform several attacks with his scythe. Grim attacks do not always kill, rather they are used to “prep” an enemy for Maximo’s attacks, such as breaking a cultist’s protection spell or “mortalizing” ghostly foes.

While in Grim form, the player cannot talk to innocents as they are too scared. However, Grim’s attack will free the innocents of the cult’s influence, turning them from enemies to normal innocents that Maximo must rescue from othe enemies.

After this first concept phase, Capcom Studio 8 created an early playable prototype with a test level which would have been the hub world of the game, to test out Maximo’s new abilities, as Wall Jump, Carry / Push / Pull / Throw items, Swim (to maneuver around obstacles, resolve puzzles and find hidden treasures in deep lakes), Talk to NPCs to gain information, advance the story, start mini-quests, rescue innocents from enemies and free them from the influence of the Cult.

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Some new items and weapons features were also planned, as the Sword Grapple to grab ledges, the Flintlock Rifle (a new gun-weapon type), Claws to climb up walls, the Crossbolt Gauntlet (to shoot bolts and to use it as a grapple hook to swing or to be pulled towards a secret area) and the Horn (to knocks enemies back and to cause parts of the scenario to shake and break to find new paths). There was also a “lock on” mechanic, very much like the 3D Zelda games.

Maximo 3 was going to be a much more ambitious project than Maximo 1&2 and would have taken the series into a full action-adventure game, more similar to The Legend of Zelda. The new lead designer was heavily inspired by exploration / puzzle aspects of Zelda, so the game was going to be more focused on exploration and to be less linear than the previous titles.

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In the Maximo 3 prototype it was possible to explore a small town, to interact with a few NPCs, climb upon its walls and fight with some enemies. There was just one functioning enemy, which was a the basic cultist that you can also see in the concept arts. Looking at this unfinished prototype and reading the design doc, it seems that Maximo 3 could have been the best game in the Maximo series, but unfortunately not much more work was done on it, as it was canned soon after the creation of this early demo.

Capcom Production Studio 8 was full of talented artists and after they finished Maximo 2 they started to work on 3 interesting pitches: Maximo 3, DeVargas and Final Fight: Seven Sons, the unreleased FF that was planned before Final Fight: Streetwise. In the end, only FF: Streetwise was greenlighted from Capcom, but when it was released it failed to achieve mainstream success and it bombed in sales. Capcom decided to not invest in their California team anymore and sadly Production Studio 8 was closed down in 2006. Only few concept arts, a video and a few pages from the design doc remain to preserve the existence of Maximo 3.

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Resident Evil 5 [X360/PS3 – Beta]

Resident Evil 5 was officially announced on June 2005, but it was shown to the public for the first time only two months later in a CG trailer. Capcom created another trailer for the game in 2007. Even in the last year of the development Capcom was still moving things around. For example, the crash site of the helicopter was originally a fully playable section, not a series of QTE.

For more informations, check the Resident Evil 5 Beta Analysis

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Resident Evil 5 Beta Analysis

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Article by yota

Resident Evil 5 was officially announced on June 2005, but it was shown for the first time to the public only two months later in a CG trailer. This video was essentially one of the concepts that the developers were working on since the release of Resident Evil 4: in what at time seemed to be the Middle East or Africa, we saw Chris exploring the alleys of a city and then being  attacked by a group of enemies.

The graphics style and the general mood were already much similar to the released game, even if Chris looked somewhat younger and less bulky.It is interesting to note that producer of the game said, in an old interview, that originally the time of the day and the weather were supposed to have a major impact on the gameplay and affect the main characters abilities. Also, Resident Evil 5 was intended to be single player. Sheva was originally a NPC and a member of a local militia.She would have meet Chris only later in the game.

Anyway, Capcom created another trailer for Resident Evil 5 in 2007. The beginning of this video was not that different from the final game:  Chris walked for a bit in the village and then suddenly all the natives seemed to vanish.  There were, however, many important differences:  Sheva and the dealer were nowhere to be found, Chris didn’t  have his safari dress, cutscenes and dialogues were shorter,  the  location where we fought for the first time was completely removed, enemies had some attacks that can’t be found in the released game, such as the headbutt, and so on.

Even in the last year of the development Capcom was still moving things around. For example, the crash site of the helicopter was originally a fully playable section, not a series of QTE’s.

2004 Beta artworks

The merchant from Re 4 was supposed to return in Resident Evil 5. There were many shops around the town and you could even stole weapons and ammo. 

Megaman Starforce [Beta / Unused – DS]

Granville has wrote an interesting topic in the U64 Forum, in which he showed us some misterious textures that seems to have been found by The Spriters Resource in the Megaman Starforce code. In these textures we can recognize various 3D models from the Megaman Battle Network series!

The problem is that there was no 3D MMBN for the DS and MMBN5 DS was just a compilation port of both GBA versions of Battle Network 5. It was pretty much identical to the GBA as it had the same 2D graphics apart from a couple of models. There were a total of 3 3D models in MMBN5 DS- Megaman, Protoman, and Colonel. The Megaman model that was found in MM Starforce could be from BN5, but that’s about it. Hidden in the MMSF code there’s Lan, some kid, a town, Lan’s room, and some net areas all in 3D and can’t be found anywhere in BN5DS.

As Granville has wrote, it could be possible that Capcom used “MMBN5’s engine as a base for Starforce at first. Likely they intended Starforce to be a true Battle Network 7 originally, but then they modded the game so much that it became its own series.” If this is trye, then these Battle Network 3D models could be the only remains from the original Starforce prototype.

You can read more info about these unused models at Mega Rock Blog!

Here are some beta images from MHFsilver, used in promotional videos and articles:

These images show a wide difference between the beta and final version. Some images include their beta version compared to their final version. For more information, you can check the Rockman EXE Zone Forum!

Thanks a lot to Granville, MegaRockReborn, tgarciao and MHFsilver for the contributions and huge props to MegaRockEXE for the find!

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