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Earthworm Jim 3D [N64/PC – Beta]

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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!

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Spyro The Dragon [PSX – Beta]

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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:

  • Alternate music before rescuing Nestor.
  • Vortex looked more like the Dragon Pads.
  • Alternate dialogue from rescued dragons. Completely different voice from Nestor.
  • 1-ups are gold instead of silver.

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!

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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 

Mario Land [Virtual Boy – Cancelled]

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

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Super Mario World [SNES – Unused Stuff]

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Thanks to “hacking” softwares, it’s possible to find a few beta things left in the memory of Super Mario World. There are some unused levels and sprites [like the Flying yellow mushroom (gives 1-up), the flying red coin (Gives 5 coins) and the vertical pirhana plant up (Though the upside down pirhana plant was in, this one wasn’t], a castle that has slight differences from the one in the final game, a random castle entrance with woking pipe (that just sends you to an endless bonus game most likely). It’s even possibile to fix the removed “super mario bros”  

Conker: Live And Reloaded [XBOX – Beta]

Conker: Live and Reloaded is a remake of Nintendo 64 game Conkers Bad Fur Day. When the game was 1st announced it was called Conker: Live and Uncut, and was intended to be completely uncut and remove all the censoring of the first game, its name was later changed to Conker: Live and Reloaded and had even more censoring than the original game. Throughout the games development there were many cuts and changes to the multiplayer mode.

While it was a remake, the single player game went through a number of changes mostly involving different textures or models, especially for Buga The Knut and his girl. Her lips are larger in the older picture, and her bra is leopardskin rather than a standard brownish color in the final version. Also her nipples are showing in the beta version (not only that, but Buga has chest hair in the beta shot). Conker-bat was black in the beta, as in the N64 game, but in the final version it’s orange.

Thanks a lot to Airfoemoe, Supermoe1998 and Karrunaniara for the contributions!

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