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castlevania

The images below are from an old E3 Beta demo of Castlevania: SotN that was sold on ebay some time ago. The description said: “This auction is for the Castlevania E3 edition. Only one known to exist in collector’s hands this could be the highlight of many game collections. This disc was an early development version of the title which was released in the us as Castlevania SOTN. Early development titles such as this were run on test consoles by developers and game testors. If you lack the hardware required to play developmental software game do not bid.

The game gives 2 options. Normal and Special. Normal mode starts out at the end of the Bloodlines story but the text is in English while the voices are still in Japanese. I am unsure if this remains throughout the entire game or just for the first cutscene. Special mode starts you off further along with items and relics already as part of your inventory. In either mode dying brings up a different game over screen which instead says “To be continured September 1997″. I have not determined what other differences may exist and leave that all up to the buyer.”

Some more differences were noticed by Torentsu:

Alucard levels much more quickly
spells are still usable in special mode but they start out not being in the menu
Lead in to the music track in Catacombs is VERY different

This beta demo was leaked online sometime ago and you can download it if you search it on Google. If you play it and find some more interesting differences, let us know!

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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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Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Super Castlevania 4 [SNES – Beta]

U64 Staff & Contributors

14-04-2008

2 Comments

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! :)

Thanks to SNES Central for these images and to xan1242 for the video!

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Game.com, Others

Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night [Game.com – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

07-04-2008

2 Comments

A portable version of Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night was in development for the Game.com, the ill-fated handled console created by Tiger Electronics in 1997, but soon the project vanished in the vaporware limbo and it’s unknown how much of the game was really completed before the cancellation. As other Game.com titles (see Resident Evil 2), this Castlevania should have been a “downgraded port” of the Playstation / Saturn Symphony Of The Night, with some evident differences for the limits of the hardware.

Only few screens remain from this project, preserved in the gallery below.

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Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD

Dracula 3D / Castlevania 64 [N64 – Tech Demo / Beta]

U64 Staff & Contributors

04-04-2008

3 Comments

While in development at Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe (KCEK), Castlevania was originally known as Dracula 3D. United States news media referred to the game by this title as well as Dracula 64. In September of 1997, the game was approximately 10% finished and was 20% complete in February of 1998. In October of 1998 the game was featured at the Tokyo Game Show; several levels were playable and the game was a hit with the crowd. Later that month, it was revealed that KCEK decided to drop two of the planned four characters from the game “in favor of focusing the programming team’s development efforts and moving completion of the game forward”. [info from Wikipedia]

Most of the images preserved in the gallery below are from an early Dracula 3D tech demo, showing the main characters that were planned to be in the game. The graphic of this tech demo is much more detailed and definited than the final version and 2 playable characters were removed.

For more info on the beta: Castlevania 64 Beta Analisys

Most of the features planned for Castlevania 64 were later added to its sequel, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, that realizes some of the original game designers’ vision. For example, Cornell was present in early development media and press information for Castlevania 64, but was ultimately removed before the game’s release.

Thanks to Gilgamesh for some of these images!

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