In the August issues of British publications Sega Power and Mean Machines Sega, three different prototype versions of Earthworm Jim 2 for the Mega Drive were previewed. Each of them have some minor yet interesting changes compared to the final product, including a lot of material cut from the game.
Bomberman 64 is the first 3-D game within the Bomberman series. It also implements a different single-player mode by incorporating action-adventure and platforming stages, instead of arenas in which enemies or other elements must be destroyed. The game was released in Europe on November 27, 1997 and released in North America on December 1 of the same year. [Info from Wikipedia] In the beta version of Bomberman 64, the HUD was different, with more stuff on the screen, while the clock icon was round and not a square like in the final version. You can see a comparison between the beta (at the top) and the final (below). The levels and the characters from these old screens look just the same as the ones in the released game.
Images:
During its drawn-out three year development cycle, Earthworm Jim 3D changed publishers several times. This caused some problems as the game was based on the Earthworm Jim TV series which by the time of release, had been off the air for over 3 years. Also many locations displayed in early versions of the game are nowhere to be found in the released copy (such as a level set in a house, where Jim is ant-sized), and locations that were kept from early screenshots changed drastically before release.
In some cases, entire characters were changed – originally, Evil the Cat was to be the boss of Fear, but was changed to Professor Monkey-For-A-Head at the last moment, although his face can be seen on the records and record needles in the level “Boogie Nights of the Living Dead”. Additionally, Evil Jim, Earthworm Jim’s evil twin from the TV series, was reportedly a part of the game. Early screenshots also display Jim riding his Pocket Rocket. The characters of Earthworm Jim had to be redesigned for the shift to 3D. When the game was almost three quarters done, it suffered from framerate problems and poor animation. [Info from Wikipedia]
Also Makubeku noticed that the eye window its squared on the beta instead of how it was on the final! A beta demo was found by Nes World (as you can see in the video below), but we are not sure how many differences are in there.
Thanks to Lucas Araujo for the contribution!
Images:
Videos:
In the screen below we can see a beta version of Spyro The Dragon: the statue has another appearance in the final game and is not made of gold. The red gem inside the “return home portal” is not in there anymore. In the final game when the player touches a dragon statue, the dragon that is captured inside there will come out: the first dragon that Spyro rescues was called Silvus in the beta.
Also, Dirty Harry found some more differences in this beta demo:
Spyro was originally going to be a “traditional” green dragon but the developers chosed purple instead because it was more original. In the artworks, we can even see some different character designs for Spyro.
Thanks a lot to Lord Deathsaur, Dudaw and Dirty Harry for the contributions!
Images:
June 1998 Beta:
June 1998 Beta:
July 1998 Beta:
Change Log:
Gh0stBlade – Added June 1998 vids recorded by LXShadow/July 1998 beta video! 08/12/14
VB Mario Land is a cancelled game / prototype of the Mario Virtual Boy game that actually became Mario Clash. Nintendo was originally developing this as a full mario platform game, as show at E3 1995. The original project was cut and Mario Clash became just a remake of the classic Super Mario Bros, with featured small 3-d elements to show what the Virtual Boy was graphically capable of. For example, some parts exchanged the original idea of warp pipes with 3-d doorways that players enter by pressing up on the D-pad.
You can find more infos at Planet Virtual Boy
Images: