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! :)
Thanks to Segafreak – www.segadatabase.net and Ryo Azuki segasaturno.com for the contributions!
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Sonic Adventure was developed by Sonic Team and released in 1998 in Japan by Sega for the Dreamcast and is the first game in the Sonic Adventure series. One of its development titles was Sonic RPG, (although the final game was an adventure game, not a standard RPG).
Originally, Sonic was supposed to be able to engage his Super Sonic form at any time during gameplay, once he had gained all seven chaos emeralds during story mode. The proof of this comes in the form of an unused voice clip in the game, in which Tikal teaches the player how to become Super Sonic. The character reveals that Sonic must gain 50 rings before he can transform and warns the player to monitor their ring consumption closely, otherwise Sonic will lose a life when he runs out.
By hacking the 2004 US PC version version of Sonic Adventure DX, it is possible to access a number of unused assets from the Tokyo Game Show 2003 build of the game. One of the most notable of these is an early version of the character selection screen. The omitted menu section is fully functional if modded correctly and is labelled with the text, ‘Choose your buddy!’. Interestingly, this title is also the name of the background music composed by Jun Senoue for the finished character screen on Sonic Adventure’s official soundtrack, ‘Sonic Adventure Digi-LOG Conversation Original Sound Track’.
A two-headed mecha dragon boss was removed from the game before the final version, but it can still be found in the prototype / beta of Sonic Adventure DX that was leaked online. It was a part of the Sky Chase level, during Sonic and Tails’ approach to the Egg Carrier in Tails’ story section. It pursues the player up until the Egg Carrier fires its laser beam at the Tornado. You can find more info on Sonic Cult!
In addition, an unused animation for Tails has been unearthed in Sonic Adventure DX via modding. By replacing Knuckles with Tails in his story mode, players can activate a glitch in Casinopolis to trigger said animation. It is noticeably very similar to Tails’ swimming animation from Sonic The Hedgehog 3; suggesting there could have at one stage been bodies of water to swim in during one of his stages, or possibly even an entirely new water-themed level, a la Hydrocity Zone.
Thanks to FullMetalMC & BowserEnemy for some of these images!
SEGA Confidential images from SEGAKatana.com
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Sonic Adventure 2 was unveiled in June of 2000, at E3. During this time, Sonic Adventure 2 was headed in a completely different direction. There would be three playable characters; Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman. At the time, Shadow was just a cutscene character. How the game went at first was that what you do in the game differs what happens later. This was eventually incarnated into “Shadow the Hedgehog” for the Gamecube. When the trailer for the game was revealed, fans were outraged, for the fact that there were missing characters (e.g. Tails)
Before he had his SOAP shoes in Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic had his sneakers from the 2D games. The SOAP shoes enabled Sonic to grind on rails. Also Shadow’s original name was “Terios”, which means, “reflection of”, and Rouge’s original name was “Nails”. Shadow was also referred to as “Dark Sonic” in a preview showing off some concept art of Sonic Adventure 2.
Some unused videos were found hidden in the game’s code by Mariosegafreak
Thanks to FullMetalMC, CrashAndSonicChao, and Shade3c for the contributions!
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The third game in the series was originally intended for the Sega Dreamcast console, but, after Sega discontinued the Dreamcast, the game was retargeted at the Microsoft Xbox. A three-dimensional platform game, it was released in October 2002. The gameplay is primarily based on that of the original ToeJam & Earl, though elements from Panic on Funkotron were also included. The game presented a more adult approach, full random 3-D levels. – [info from Wikipedia]
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ToejJam & Earl 3 Dreamcast
Kirby Adventure is a cancelled platform game that was announced for the Nintendo GameCube at E3 2005, but only little information were revealed since then and it was absent from the show floor at E³ 2006. The levels were rendered in 3D, but the game play was still a side-scroller, much like in Kirby 64. Kirby was able to ride on the backs of up to three other characters. Those characters could have been played by other humans in a 4 players multiplayer coop mode. Kirby was also able to get abilities from partners or enemies, like in Kirby Super Star.
On May 26, 2006 IGN released an article which states that a number of games, including a “generically labeled Kirby game” would have been released for the Wii console. The article also states that this information was gathered from the Japanese release list found on the corporate site of the Japanese Nintendo webpage.
As of September 14, 2006, a list of upcoming games in Japan for Wii has including the title (Hoshi no Kirby). While the list is labeled with the Wii name, a number of titles that were previously listed as being released on other Nintendo systems are listed on it as well. For a further note, quite a number of games have shifted from one system (presumed cancelled) and released on another. The December 2006 issue of Nintendo Power removed the game from the upcoming GameCube titles list, but did not place it in the upcoming Wii titles list. [info from Wikipedia]
During E3 2011, it was announced that a new Kirby Wii was coming out. This was to be the final product of what was started and known as Kirby’s Adventure for the GameCube. From the new Kirby Wii trailer and the old Gamecube trailers these games seem to run with a similar 3D engine.
As of January 28, 2011,the game was officially re-announced under the tentative title Kirby Wii, with a projected release date of fall 2011 in North America. Its final titles were announced in the following months, and was finally released for the Wii on October 2011 as Kirby’s Return to Dream Land.
Thanks to an Iwata Asks article, we can read more about the development and cancellation of a series of Kirby prototypes for the GameCube:
Kawase: Yes. To begin by introducing myself, I was originally a designer on a team called Jack and the Beanstalk Project and worked on games like Pokémon Snap4. Now I’m a producer in Tokyo. As for that 11-year gap between home console Kirby games, right after Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, we immediately began working on a new Kirby game. That was during the time of the Nintendo GameCube system, and screen shots were shown at the E3.
Iwata: “Were shown”? You sound so detached about it! (laughs)
Kawase: Oh, believe me, I’m not! (laughs) But after that, it never got updated, and I’m sure some people would wonder and ask, “Whatever happened to that?” To some, it had become an object of mystery.
Iwata: The release date went unannounced forever.
Kawase: Yes. Actually, there are three lost Kirby games. The first one is the one that pictures were shown of at E3. It was a Kirby game based on the concept of four-person simultaneous gameplay. That was when I learned how difficult it is to make a game that is both multi-player and single-player.
Kawase: That’s right. The second one was an experiment with extremely challenging gameplay that placed Kirby in 3D space and allowed players to freely move around. But unfortunately, we weren’t able to achieve the quality we hoped for and it never reached completion.
The third one involved an animated Kirby sort of like a pop-up book. We renewed the Copy Abilities, and tried to power it up. We spent 11 years… making and abandoning these three games.
Iwata: During that time, screen shots were shown and release dates went unannounced for a long time. Then the Nintendo GameCube system changed to the Wii console. Miyamoto-san says that video games are something you never really complete. It’s hard when a game simply refuses to come together.
You can find more about the released Kirby series in the WiKirby!
Thanks to Juan and Vahkiti for the contribution!
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