RPG

Battland [GBA – Cancelled]

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Battland was an action-strategy game developed by HAL Laboratory for the Game Boy Advance, first shown at Nintendo’s Space World 2001 and eventually cancelled in 2002. What was shown of its design suggests that it shared similarities with games such as Fire Emblem.

While there is little information available on this game, it is known that its main focus was action and combat, where victories in battles were less focused on pure strength, with an emphasis instead on strategy and planning. For example, the positions or location of party members in a battle had a large impact on the outcome, allowing weaker characters to beat stronger foes through superior strategy.

Description by Bryan

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Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire [GBA – Beta / Unused Sprite]

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Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire are the third installments of the Pocket Monsters series of RPG, developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance in 2002 / 2003. In the early screenshots we can see various beta differences:

  • Wynaut is green instead of blue Shroomish has a different sprite

  • more evil looking Sharpedo and different HP font hmm weird tornado

  • female sign should be red

  • different layout of trees different fisher bottom

  • the mart has a red roof and the sign should say mart

  • wow.. never seen a cave that hazy

Also, if you search in the codes of Ruby & Sapphire, you can find music from Generation 2 (Gold, Silver, Crystal). There was also two beta Pokemons: Shellos & Gastrodon. If you’ve played Pokemon Diamond/Pearl you sure know which these are, and they were actually going to be included in Ruby & Sapphire. Shellos & Gastrodon though were not supposed to look like they did in Diamond/Pearl. This how they were going to look like:

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Shellos’s beta back sprite

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Gastrodon’s beta back sprite

Thanks to FullMetalMC for the contribute!

More infos: Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire beta hacks

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Project Infinity [GBC – Cancelled]

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“The time spent searching for publishers closed our near shut window of opportunity for getting Infinity published. It seems very clear now that Infinity will not be published for GBC.

Even after all this time, we still get emails from people wondering what happened to the company or if Infinity will ever be released. Here’s the answer: the team has been disbanded since 2002, and there is a slim possibility that Infinity may one day be released as a ROM file for free on the website. A ROM file would allow the game to be played in emulators or be burned to your own cartridge.

The website continues to exist because our web hosting is essentially free. But make no mistake, Affinix as a game company is not operational. There is no planned date for release of a ROM. Infinity is completely obsolete by today’s standards and we have no plans to sell it, so there is very little incentive to work on the project. Who knows, though, maybe we’ll eventually finish the darn thing.” [Source: www.affinix.com]

For more infos:  Unseen Interviews – Eric Hache from Affinix

Thanks to Mathew Valente for the contribution!

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Mytrhi [GBC – Cancelled]

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Mythri was an upcoming American-developed, Japanese-style RPG for the Game Boy Advance. Originally for the Game Boy Color, development switched gears after the GBA was released. The game has been in development by Team XKalibur since around 2000

Message from Keith Martineau, Co-Owner of Team XKalibur: “Mythri was officially cancelled at the end of 2005. Team XKalibur has been disbanded, due to lack of resources. Most of our team is now scattered across the games industry working for various companies. Co-Owner Tomm Hulett and myself may one day make a new studio and attempt Mythri again, having learned many lessons from our first attempt at launching an independent games studio. So hopefully everyone who supported us in the early going will get to experience Mythri someday.” [info from Wikipedia]

For more info you can check this interesting ToastyFrog article: The (Almost) Making of Mythri

A playable prototype of the game was released online by a former member of the team in September 2016.

Thanks to Mr.Elephant for the contribution!

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Pokemon 2: Gold & Silver [GB – Beta / Concept]

In 1997, Nintendo put the first details and screenshots of their next Pocket Monsters game online. It was initially named “Pocket Monsters 2 Gold & Silver”, and was developed for Game Boy and Super Game Boy and was planned for release at the end of the same year.

One of the main points posted was the addition of a skateboard as a secondary transportation method besides the bicycle from the previous games. It was said that the skateboard would allow the player to go to unusual places. Also mentioned in the releases were the integrated RTC (Real Time Clock), additional evolutions for Red/Green/Blue Pokémon, breeding and Pokémon eggs, 100 new Pokémon boosting the total amount to 251, new technical and hidden machines, new attacks, and better in-battle graphics. The game’s communication abilities were also improved, adding trading and fighting between each version and backwards compatibility with R/G/B.

The Pokémon in Pokémon Gold and Silver were just a few of many different designs that Game Freak created. Only 100 new Pokémon were added, and even those often went through redesigns before making it into the final product.”

Info from: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

The original Starters were Kurusu, Honooguma and Happa (early design for Chikorita).

The Beta Safari Zone is an area programmed into Gold, Silver, and Crystal Versions, which the programmers attempted to remove from the rest of the in-game world by deleting the entrances. It was intended to be located in Fuchsia City, as its Pokemon Red & Blue counterpart was. Although the entrances to the Safari Zone were removed, the warps still exist, so it is possible to enter the area. However, players should not save within the area without a teleporting Pokémon because the exits were fully removed. It’s possible that this zone was not finished because the team did not have enough time.

Thanks to Enricothedark for the contribution! Info from: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net

You can also find a lot of information on the development of the games from Celebi23’s Poket Monsters 2 archive! Credit to “I am Christina Aguilera” from Lost Levels forums for the “Japanese Gameboy Magazine” scans!

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