Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was initially going to simply be called Paper Mario 2 and feature a far different logo, one reminiscent of the original Paper Mario’s logo. There were also many unused badges. All of the partners from the original Paper Mario were going to appear but were cut-off as well. Bow and Parakarry were the only ones left. There was also a strange robot creature and two palette swaps of Screamy. Bobbery also had a prototype sprite, which depicts him wearing army gear. There was also going to be a probable mini-boss called Dark Atomic Boo. Dark Atomic Boo would be a Dark Boo version of Atomic Boo, and some have theorized that it may have been a more powerful Atomic Boo fought in the Dark Boo-inhabited Poshley Sanctum.
Also, in the original trailer, one can see a HP Plus badge that is located on a ledge beyond a moving platform which has a wall over it in midcourse (and assumedly could be reached with the help of Vivian). None of this made it into the final game (except the area where these things are, minus the things themselves of course). The trailer also showed that Item Shops would be labeled with Mushrooms rather than the Fire Flowers seen in the final game. Red Bones was initially named “Red Koopa Skeleton“. In the same trailer you can see that “Tornado Jump” was initially called “Hurricane Jump”. [Info from Mariowiki]
The new Mario Kart for the GameCube was first showed at the E3 2001 with a seven seconds long trailer. The clip featured Mario and Luigi driving their karts on a bump mapped 3D surface with no background. At the time MK was still early in development, and the working title of the game was simply Mario Kart. This video was created by Nintendo only to let the players know that there would have been a new racing game with Mario on the GameCube, but the final concept was still not decided.
In April 2003, Nintendo released the first pictures and details of the real game, as well as revealing the title, which was Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. New features, such as having two characters drive one kart and different styles of karts, had been implemented. While the tech demo was more similar to the old Mario Karts, the final game was different from what we can see in these screens and video. Those Mario and Luigi models seems to be the same from Super Smash Bros Melee.
Thanks to DRMARIOX for the contribution!
[spoiler /Clicca qui per la versione in Italiano/ /Nascondi la versione in Italiano/]Il gioco presentato in questo video si rivela drasticamente differente da quello che sarà poi l’effettivo episodio della serie “Mario kart” uscito su Gamecube. Quest’ ultimo, infatti, innova con kart personalizzati ed ospitanti due personaggi contemporaneamente, uno adibito alla guida, l’altro al lancio di oggetti. Come è possibile constatare nelle foto invece, la versione preliminare si presentava come una normalissima conversione della normale formula di gioco su game cube, con kart standard e monoposto. Impossibile tuttavia dire altro a riguardo, dato che gli unici personaggi mostrati furono Mario e Luigi e data l’assenza di un vero percorso di gioco.
Mario 128 was a tech demo for the Gamecube shown at Spaceworld 2000. The demo showed 128 Mario’s doing various things like making a big sprite of Mario out of blocks. This was to show off the power of the Gamecube and specifically how much better it was from the N64. The N64 would never be able to render 128 Marios on screen (due to its clock speed).
This tech demo know as “Mario 128” was presented at the SpaceWorld 2000 and started with a 2D Mario, on a huge circular Monopoly board. After a while, various 3D Marios appears from under the big 2D one, until 128 Marios can be see on the screen. Each Mario moved and fulfilled various actions, but they were independent from the others.
In the video below you can see the game’s presentation at SpaceWord 2000. Miyamoto starts with a single Mario of 200-250 polygons (the same amount as in Mario64) and quickly brings 128 Marios on the screen. The bar at the bottom indicates how much processing power is being used. They go through different special effects modes showcasing what the system was be capable of. Some minutes later, a cel-shaded versions of Mario also appear, and after that, all Marios become invisible for a little amount of time.
This was initially rumored to be a sequeal to Super Mario 64, or at least another entry in the Super Mario series and there is some info to back this up. There was a 6 year gap (1996-2003 between Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine) without a Super Mario game. This leads to the consensus that there was a new Super Mario game being developed at that time, although there isn’t any evidence that Super Mario 64-2 was even being developed for the Gamecube, although there is no doubt that work was done on Super Mario 128 as a Mario game at one point. Shigeru Miyamoto has said that Mario 128 would feature a freshness that was lacking from Mario Sunshine. On November 29th, 2004 IGN made an article where they interviewed Miyamoto and he mentioned Mario 128:
“Mario 128’s status is a bit more questionable, and although mentioned by Miyamoto in the interview, we’re still not sure if the game’s a go on the GameCube. Says Miyamoto with a laugh, “We’re currently in development with Mario 128, which people throughout the world have been wondering about.” The state of the game is in question, though, as Miyamoto continues with: “We’re now at the state of conducting various experiments with Mario, so until a release has been set, we cannot make [the game] public.” [3]
IGN interviewed Miyamoto yet again on August 21st 2006, just months before the launch of the Wii, and Miyamoto did reference Mario 128:
Next, Mario 128. “We’ve been experimenting all this time,” said Miyamoto about the mysterious title that was originally shown as a GameCube video demo. “Some percentage is included as Mario Galaxy on the Wii.” Miyamoto wouldn’t break down exactly what in Mario Galaxy originated from Mario 128, but did give a few hints. “Mario 128 was a test concept for Mario, so, for instance, the parts in Mario Galaxy where you’re running around on the surface have come from Mario 128.” [4]
At this point it seems that work on Mario 128 stopped. The last known article on the game was on March 8th, 2007 and the article pretty much confirmed the end of Super Mario 128 yet gave more light on how it influenced other games:
“To wrap the presentation, Miyamoto said that one of the most-asked questions is what happened to Mario 128. Surprisingly, he went on to explain that while it was simply a tech demo showing off the power of the GameCube, it was also a kind of proof of concept that is still influencing design decisions today. First up, it was used as a basis for Pikmin’s many on-screen characters and AI, but more importantly, it is now influencing Super Mario Galaxy’s free-form level design and gameplay.” [5]
During his keynote speech at the Game Developers Conference 2007, Shigeru Miyamoto revealed what eventually happened to Super Mario 128:
“What happened to Mario 128?” said Miyamoto at the end of his keynote, “most of you already played it…,” then the screen showed that Mario 128 equaled Pikmin.
At this point in time, nothing else has occurred from the project. No roms have been released and no more info on the game was given. It is unknown if the game disc still even exists as it could have been written over or tossed. All we know of the game is the one video on Youtube and the interviews with Miyamoto.
Super Mario 128 was originally used by fans to reference a series of projects by Nintendo to create a sequel to Super Mario 64, but in the end Nintendo just used it to experiment with new technology and ideas to incorporate into later games.
A highly prototypical demo, titled Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt, was included as a pack-in (now discontinued) with the DS launch on November 21, 2004 in North America, Australia and Europe. This demo was not released in Japan. First Hunt had a different layout to the lower screen, and a slightly different weapon system. There was a different default control method, in which the screens were transposed, and targets could be fired upon by tapping them with the stylus regardless of whether they were centered in view. The control schemes found in the final version were also available. The Power Beam had no charge function, and it had an ammo system. When Power Beam ammo was exhausted, the rate of fire slowed greatly.
There was also a “Double Damage” pickup that caused Samus to cause twice as much damage with each shot (which reappeared in the multiplayer battles of the final version of the game) and only two sub-weapons, missiles and the “Electro Lob” (similar to the Volt Driver and Battlehammer, it lobs and explodes on impact but also can impair vision). Three training scenarios were present, as well as a multi-card multiplayer mode. Some of the multiplayer levels from Hunters were included in the demo. – [info from Wikipedia]
The first 64-bit version of Zelda, was originally conceived as a way designed to use the features of 64DD. Internal Clock, rewritable discs with a size double what had ever been used on the cartridge, internet connection and tools for editing images, Zelda 64 was presented by Nintendo itself as a title so huge that it would be impossible to implement on a normal N64.
All this because of the possibility of 64 Disc Drive. But there was only one small problem: the 64DD was not greeted with much interest from professionals, remembering the bad purpose made by all previous add-on for console, the DD was growing slowly postponed, Nintendo itself lost confidence in the project and it was not clear if it ever really left. At this point, Nintendo had no other choice, because of low sales of the N64, they announced that Zelda 64 would have been ported to normal cartridges, so hoping to renew interest in the console market. But this change meant they had to remove all those interesting features that would have been only possible thanks to 64DD and part of the game and history had to undergo an extream cut.
From an interview with N-ZONE magazine (translated with google and reported by GoNintendo) we can read that Aonuma admits that Ocarina of Time originally had more temples and magic abilities that were cut.
Eiji Aonuma: Yes, you may be absolutely right, although I can not remember exactly all the details. There really is a difference between the temples, which we wanted to integrate and those that exist in the final game. And that had something to do with magic. We thought of integrating some actions, some plot threads, and some puzzles that have something to do with magic abilities.
We have come to the conclusion that other, already existing, just regular items to be a worthy replacement. So we had originally three temples, which would capture the young Link, three temples for the adult Link and three in which he was to learn each spell – but instead we have eliminated a temple of it. In the final game is now so 3 plus 3 plus 2, or 8 temples to find.
Also, some more interesting info from the early beta / prototype version of Zelda 64 were shared in the Iwata Asks dedicated to the Ocarina of Time 3D remake:
Iwata: Oh, he wanted to make an FPS (first-person shooter). Koizumi: Right. In the beginning, he had the image that you are at first walking around in first-person, and when an enemy appeared, the screen would switch, Link would appear, and the battle would unfold from a side perspective.
[…]
Iwawaki: But…I do think we tried out a first-person perspective a little. Osawa: I think we made something to try it out, but decided it wasn’t interesting visually and abandoned it right away.
[…]
Iwata: You were originally developing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64DD.13 Koizuma: Yes. Miyamoto-san said he had some ideas, like leaving behind all of Link’s footprints. Iwata: Yeah. (laughs)
[…]
Koizuma: That’s why he started saying that if Link was going to ride a horse, he wanted to include mounted archery and one-on-one battle. (laughs) We were able to include the mounted archery, but not the one-on-one battle. Iwata: But later you included it in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
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