Dragon Quest VII (Dragon Warrior 7 in USA) was originally announced for the 64DD in 1996, but one year later the development switched to Playstation and the game was finally released in 2000. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the beta versions of DQ7, but thanks to a video from the V Jump festival in 1998 (check below), uploaded by Carnivol in his YT Channel, we can see that originally Keifer (the blonde character) had a different dress.
Also, in the V Jump 1999 Festival video the monsters (especially their animations), seem to look better than their counterparts in the final version. What do you think?
Videos:
Compare the beta battles to the final ones (video below @ 3:36)
The Witcher is RPG for the PC developed by CD Projekt RED STUDIO and originally released in 2007. The game tells the story of Geralt of Rivia, who at the opening of the game is tasked to cure the daughter of King Foltest of a curse which causes her to transform into a feral monster. [Info from Wikipedia]
The Witcher Outcast was a planned add-on that was in development by roXidy, a Canadian group which previously created the Neverwinter Nights: Wyvern Crown of Cormyr premium module for BioWare.
Outcast was going to be released as DLC in most countries and have a disc release in some countries, like Poland and Russia. It was in development from late 2007 until around mid-2008, when it was canceled by CD Projekt.
The draft of the story for this add-on can be read below:
The story takes place in the early part of Geralt’s life, before he is established as a Witcher, during the reign of King Videmont of Aedirn (around 1190). It takes place in the Skellige Isles off the west coast, on an island ruled by jarl Harald. Many years ago, a monster attacked Harald’s pregnant wife Morganna. In return, Harald went out to slay the monster, with the help of the gnome Shiltzen. As payment, Shiltzen demanded Harald’s firstborn, but when Morganna gave birth, she bore twins. Seeing that the second child was monstrous, Harald gave that child to Shiltzen instead of the firstborn Astrid.
The full design doc can be downloaded from GameBanshee!
Talisman was a digital recreation of Workshop’s classic board game, basically a multiplayer turn-based fantasy RPG that was in development in 2007 by Big Rooster & Capcom for the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. Players were able to explore dungeons to combat various enemies with weapons, spells and magic items. The project was officially cancelled in 2008, as reported by IGN:
“Rather recently we have finally stopped development completely. After a misfire at the start, the details of which I won’t get into, we evaluated several options for moving the project to new developers, but the costs of moving forward outweighted the potential revenue. I realize this will be disappointing for the fans of the game.
The rights have reverted back to Games Workshop where I hope someone will pick them up and try again. I too still would like to play a Talisman videogame.”
Little King’s Story (originally known as “Project O”) is a simulation / strategic RPG co-developed by Town Factory and Cing, released for the Wii in 2009. The game was first shown at the Tokyo Game Show in 2007 and in the early screens we can notice some interesting differences:
Some enemies were never implemented in the game, as a papercraft bird that could have been able to transform itself into a paper airplane.
The beta city had a completely different layout than the final one, with buildings and rivers in different places.
It seems that the king was able to guide more than 30 people at once.
In the beta the edifices were build by the town folks and you were able to see them work on their new houses while they were in development (as it happens with bridges in the final). In the final game, you just chose which new building you want to create from your throne, and when you came out from the castle, the new building is already finished.
In one of the screens we can notice the king at the top of an house’s roof, from where he talks to his crowd. You can’t go over roof in the final game.
There are a couple of images with Verde and a weird character (with a yellow head) that seem to be from a cutscene that was removed from the final game (or did i miss it?).
A red dragon was on the beach too, but it’s never in there in the final version.
In the final game every Animal Hunter has a “cat cap” on their heads, but in a beta screen we can see one of them that doesnt wear any cap.
In one of the screenshots there are 2 “wooden-totem” enemies, but in the final we meet just one of them in a quest (or did i miss them in some other quest?)
Howser was able to join the king army too, to battle along the other people.
In the first trailer from Tokyo Game Show, the intro of the game was different.
Also, from a postmortem article on Gamasutra we can read about a removed chapter that was planned for the beginning of the game and other unseen features:
In the original code, there was an introduction chapter where you could play Corobo (Little King’s Story protagonist) in pajamas looking for the crown. It took you around 40 minutes before you could find the crown, and it actually hindered the tempo. That’s why we decided to cut this and replace it with the opening you can see in the final game.
We had to scrap the multiplayer feature: A local two-player feature was implemented in the code but had to be removed. I also had to abandon the idea of having a network feature.
In the original concept, we were considering having a system in which the NPCs would develop automatically through their life simulation in the kingdom without requiring the user to grind. However, we started to realize that by using such a development system, the NPCs couldn’t keep up with the later enemies or became far too strong, ruining all the level design created to that point.
In an interview by Cubed3 with Marvelous Entertainment’s Yoshiro Kimura we can find some more info on the removed Multiplayer mode:
There were interesting multiplayer modes where the player could shoot cannons and control Pancho, but unfortunately due to time constraints we weren’t able to implement them into the game. I’m really sad we couldn’t have that in the game.
Milestones:
2006 June: Game Concept 2006 November: Evaluation of the prototype 2007 March: Full development start End of February 2009: European master submission End of April 2009: US and Japanese master submission April 26, 2009, European release July 21st, 2009, US release September 3rd, 2009, Japanese release
Felicia is a cancelled RPG that was in development by Tonkin House for the Super Famicom / Super Nintendo in 1995. From the few screenshots preserved in the gallery below (found by Celine in Super Power magazine issue #28) it seems that Felicia was going to have traditional turn-based combats and a nice side-scrolling view for exploring the buildings. It’s possible that Tonkin House decided to cancel Felicia to concentrate their efforts in developing new games for the Playstation.
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