Nintendo

Super Mario Kart R [N64 – Beta]

On the 24 November 1995, Nintendo finally presented the final version of the Ultra 64, (renamed “Nintendo 64” because of copyright problem) at the Shoshinkai Software Exhibition. Among the thirty titles shown in playable form or in video (including Star Fox and Wave Race) one of the most interesting was Super Mario Kart R, an early beta version of our favorite kart-game.

Compared to other games that were shown at the Shoshinkai that year, it could be said that Mario Kart R was almost complete, since there appears to be no particular changes in the track design, but the differences for the playable characters are interesting. You can notice that Kami Koopa (Magic Koopa) was a playable character in the game instead of Donkey Kong and the “Character Select” screen had different avatars. Also, the multiplayer split screen could have been set to horizontally or vertically, but this option was removed in the final version (but implemented in Double Dash). The “Item Boxes” were different too and various other little graphic details (like the HUD) were changed before the game was published,

Also, the Feather item from the original Super Mario Kart, was meant to be used in Mario Kart 64 too, as you can see from one of the screenshots in the gallery below (in the image with the 4 player mode, Toad has it in his item HUD). The Feather would have let the player to jump very high, to reach new shortcuts or to avoid obstacles.

Thanks to Princess Toadstool for the contribution!

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StarFox 64 – Lylat Wars [N64 – Beta]

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During the early stages of development, Starfox 64 (Lylat Wars in Europe) looked very different from the final version. The level design was much more meager, lots of details, from the textures to the polygonal backgrounds, were much simpler and more blurred. Some enemies were slightly different, the HUB on the screen (energy, radar, maps etc..) was changed  various times before reaching the final version.

italian_flag.jpg [spoiler /Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano/ /Nascondi la versione in Italiano/]Durante le prime fasi di sviluppo, StarFox 64 (Lylat Wars in Europa) appariva molto diverso dalla versione finale. Il level design era molto più scarno, tantissimi particolari, dalle textures alla costruzione poligonale, erano molto più semplici e approssimativi. Inizialmente gli sfondi erano inesistenti e come in diversi titoli dei primi anni del N64, una strana nebbia riempiva le zone più lontane. Anche alcuni nemici erano leggermente diversi, le icone a schermo (come quella dell’ energia dell’ accelerazione, il radar, le mappe ecc.) sono evolute in diverse fasi, prima di arrivare quella definitiva. [/spoiler]

[Thanks to D-vide for some of the images!]

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Zelda: Majora’s Mask [Beta – N64]

The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask / Gaiden, released for Nintendo 64 as a “sequel” to Ocarina of Time lost some of its original features, including 4 days of the original 7 disappearing from the game, some dungeons, quests and a fishing mini-game (Jabu Jabu fishing) were removed. Yet even so, Majora’s Mask has managed to become one of the best games of the series.

Some more info on the beta development from an interview:

One of the developers for Ocarina of Time, Yoshiaki Koizumi, was not initially involved with the conception of Majora’s Mask, and was working on a different title until he was asked to abandon it. This turn of events resulted in the famous time limit.

Koizumi: That’s what he told us! I remember thinking to myself “That’s not helpful at all!” [Laughs] I’d originally been designing a board game, based around the theme of cops and robbers. I wanted to make it so that you technically had to catch the criminal within a week, but, in reality, you could finish the game in an hour. I figured I’d just throw what I already had into Majora’s Mask.

From Iwata Asks interview for the release of Majora’s Mask 3DS we can read more info on the early differences:

Aonuma: Right. But at first, it was one week.
Iwata: Three days was originally one week?
Aonuma: That’s right. But when you returned to the first day it was like “Do I have to go through an entire week again…”, so we thought three days would be just right.
Iwata: Wait, it got decided just like that? (laughs)
Aonuma: (laughs) In this game the townspeople do different things each day and many different things happen, but when the timespan becomes a week, that’s just too much to remember. You can’t simply remember who’s where doing what on which day.
Iwata: moreover, you probably wouldn’t have been able to make it in a year if you were aiming to make a game filled with so much content for seven days.
Aonuma: right, we never would have been able to do it. We felt it would be best to make it a three-step process, and we compressed all sorts of things we had planned for over a week into three days.

In an interview by Famitsu with Aonuma we can read some more info about the early development of Majora’s Mask:

Because of the tight schedule, the team needed to solve how to deal with the smaller volume. That’s when Yoshiaki Koizumi talked about a popular movie of that time, Run Lola Run, in which a heroine lives the same time periods multiple times. Koizumi suggested using a similar structure for the game. Originally, the cycle was planned to last a full week, but in that way Majora’s Mask couldn’t be finished in a year. The cycle was changed to contain of a start, a middle, and an end as a result.

In the gallery below you can see some beta screenshots released when Majora’s Mask was announced, with some interesting differences: there was an adult Link mask (later changed into Fierce Deity’s Mask), the instruments used by Deku Link, Zora Link and Goron Link were different, in the screenshot with Epona we can see a breakable wall that is not there in the final game, the moon did not have a face yet, some textures were different and we can notice a room full of skeletons that was completely removed.  For more info on the development of Majora’s Mask read this article: Project Zelda 3D – The Development of Zelda 64

Thanks to Nick Bizzozero for the english translation! You can find more info about Zelda: Majora’s Mask in the Zelda Wiki!

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1080° Snowboarding [N64 – Beta]

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1080° Snowboarding is a snowboard racing game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 in 1998. 1080°’s release was announced on November 21, 1997 at Nintendo’s SpaceWorld trade show;  the game’s working title was then Vertical Edge Snowboarding. 1080° was programmed by Englishmen Giles Goddard and Colin Reed, developed and published by Nintendo, and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto. Goddard and Reed had previously programmed Wave Race 64. [Info from Wikipedia]

In these early screens we can notice that the HUD was changed and that the character models where still not finished. I’m not sure, but it could also be possible that those maps on the right of the screen could be slightly different from the final track-design.

Beta Version:

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Final Version:

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Kirby Air Ride [N64 – Unreleased]

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Kirby Air Ride (known as Kirby’s Air Ride at the time) was originally in development during the early days of the Nintendo 64. It went through many changes during its elongated development period (it looked like a snowboard game for some time and rumors say that this proto could have somehow evolved into 1080°) before eventually being canceled and then resurfacing on the GameCube in the form of a short video preview in March 2003 at the annual DICE summit in Las Vegas. We’ll never know how the various N64 versions could have been played, but the GameCube version is probably similar to the latest concept that Nintendo created for the N64.

italian_flag.jpg [spoiler /Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano/ /Nascondi la versione in Italiano/]Lui è kirby, è una cosa rotonda e rosa, vola e mangia i nemici, è il protagonista di platform, picchiaduro, flipper e probabilmente altro ancora, ed allora perchè non farlo diventare una star delle corse? è questo probabilmente quello che i ragazzi della HAL hanno pensato mentre ideavano questo Kirby Air Ride. Probabilmente, cosi come l’idea era arrivata, è stata cancellata per N64, per poi venire riesumata su GameCube. Voci dicono che le basi del gioco furono in seguito riprese per costruire 1080° Snowboarding.[/spoiler]

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