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He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
(02-25-2008,
04:51 AM)
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Over 1000 prototypes of Sega games leaked yesterday
#1
Last week, somebody managed to acquire over 1000 prototypes of Sega games that went through Sega of America's quality assurance department. Most of these date to around 1994-1995, and there are several different builds available for most of the games in this lot. The leaker shared these with others yesterday, and people have been combing the ROMs since then searching for any insight and details as to what changed during the development and localization of these games.
Sp0rsk gave me the go-ahead for this thread so long as no instructions whatsoever are given as to how to obtain these ROMs, so don't ask or PM me about it. Asking via PM is still ban-worthy. Since this lot came from Sega of America, that probably means that not a whole lot of interesting things will be found for games that originated from Japan. The development was mostly complete for those games, and only localization issues needed to be taken care of for the most part. Nevertheless, I think it'd be worth checking into some of them. Here's the entire list of games that have at least one prototype in this lot: MASTER SYSTEM Aladdin GAME GEAR Adventures of Batman & Robin Aladdin Asterix Berenstain Bears Bonkers Wax Up! Chicago Syndicate Dynamite Headdy GP Rider Legend of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse Lion King Mighty Morphin Power Rangers NBA Action Starring David Robinson NFL '95 NHL All-Star Hockey Ristar Shining Force II Sonic Blast Sonic Spinball Sonic The Hedgehog: Triple Trouble Speedy Gonzales Cheese Catastrophe Sports Trivia Super Columns Taz in Escape from Mars Tempo Jr. World Series Baseball '95 X-Men: Gamemaster's Legacy X-Men: Mojo World GENESIS Adventures of Batman & Robin Art of Fighting ATP Tour Championship Tennis Baby Boom Berenstain Bears' Camping Adventure Beyond Oasis / The Story of Thor Body Count Bonkers College Football's National Championship Comix Zone Crystal's Pony Tale Desert Demolition Dinosaurs for Hire Dynamite Headdy Escape From Mars Starring Taz Eternal Champions Jurassic Park Light Crusader Magic School Bus Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie NBA Action NBA Action '95 NFL '95 NHL All-Star Hockey '95 The Ooze Phantasy Star IV Richard Scarry's Busytown Ristar Shadowrun Shining Force II Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Sonic & Knuckles Sonic 3 & Knuckles Knuckles in Sonic 2 Sonic 3D Blast Star Trek: The Next Generation Streets of Rage 3 Sub-Terrania Vectorman Vectorman 2 Virtua Fighter 2 Wacky Worlds Creativity Studio World Championship Soccer II World Heroes World Series Baseball World Series Baseball '95 X-Men 2: Clone Wars Young Indiana Jones: Instrument of Chaos SEGA CD Adventures of Batman & Robin CD 32X 36 Great Holes starring Fred Couples Cosmic Carnage Doom Knuckles Chaotix Metal Head Motocross Championship Shadow Squadron Space Harrier Star Wars Arcade Tempo Virtua Fighter Virtua Racing Deluxe Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000 PICO 101 Dalmatians Berenstain Bears' A School Day Crayola Crayons Create a World Huckle and Lowly's Busiest Day Ever Lion King Adventure at Pride Rock Mickey's Blast Into the Past Musical Zoo Pepe's Puzzles Pico Sampler Sonic the Hedgehog's Gameworld Tails and the Music Maker Year at Pooh Corner SATURN Sonic 3D Blast Sonic R GAMECUBE Sonic Adventure 2 Battle Sonic Adventure DX Sonic Heroes Sonic Mega Collection And here's a handful of the changes found so far. Since this lot is being shared primarily between Sonic fans, the Sonic games are the ones receiving the most scrutiny at present. Most of the stuff found so far has been minor. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 / Sonic & Knuckles - Three editions of Sonic 3 are included in this collection; Sonic 3A, Sonic 3B, and Sonic 3C. Sonic 3A is the full retail version of Sonic 3 that was released to the public. Sonic 3B is the original code name for what became Sonic & Knuckles. Sonic 3C is apparently an unreleased version containing Sonic 3 & Knuckles all on one cartridge. - All of these Sonic 3 betas are dated after the retail release of Sonic 3 but before Sonic & Knuckles, unfortunately. I was hoping to see some pre-Sonic 3 information surface. - Versions of Sonic 3C contain a remixed verison of Sonic & Knuckles credits music medley containing Sonic 3 music. The final version only used the S&K themes, probably because this one was too long. - Versions of Sonic 3C seem to have been built off of an early version of Sonic & Knuckles; as such there are minor differences to the levels. Hidden Palace Zone is instead named Sky Sanctuary Zone Act 1, which explains why in the final version of Sonic & Knuckles, Sky Sanctuary Zone only has one act. Lava Reef Zone Act 2 never "cools down" to its blue palette, instead staying the usual orange and red color scheme it was in Act 1.  - Sonic 3C also contains what seems to be a normal "Super Tails" and a "Hyper Tails". In Sonic 3 & Knuckles you'd only get Super Tails by collecting all 14 Chaos Emeralds. In Sonic 3C, you just need 7 normal Chaos Emeralds, just like Super Sonic and Super Knuckles. However, 7 emerald "Super Tails" doesn't have the little birds flying around him - those are reserved for "Hyper Tails". - Bonus stages have different layouts, different palettes, and in the bumper bonus stage (where you're being chased by that stream of light or whatever), power-ups fall downwards instead of up when you touch them. There is also a weird power-up in that bonus stage that is a circle with an F in it; it doesn't seem to do anything. - Other minor graphics things; the stars that flash around Hyper Sonic function differently (and look much cooler). Knuckles Chaotix - Went through lots of changes. Lives Icons for Sonic and Tails have been found. Most people assume Mighty the Armadillo from the final game was once Sonic in earlier versions.  - In the final, the character roster is (in this exact order): Mighty, ******, Knuckles, Charmy, Vector, Bomb, Heavy, and Espio. Selecting ****** would normally give you a character with garbled Knuckles graphics that had Mighty's move set. In one of the betas, selecting ****** gives you the same garbled graphics character, but this one can fly like Tails does in Sonic 3. - At one point it starred Espio the Chameleon, not Knuckles. - At another point, it was named Knuckles RingStar. - In the Final game, instead of collecting Chaos Emeralds, you collected Chaos Rings. In an early beta, these were instead called "Holy Rings". - The Credits Sequence in one of the betas (119) mentions something called the "Cassablanca Projects". Were these development names for the 32x Hardware or Knuckles Chaotix itself? - Beta names for all the levels in the game: Botanic Garden (Final: Botanic Base), Amusement Park (Final: Speed Slider), Amazing Zone (Final: Amazing Arena), Resort Hotel (Final: Techno Tower), Marina Drive (Final: Marina Madness) - In the final, you can call player 2 to your location at the cost of 10 rings. Doing this repeatedly would give you negative rings (up to a max of -255 rings). In one of the betas, this can be done infinitely (well beyond -255). In addition, it is possible to get a negative score, too. Sonic 3D Blast - Travelers Tales takes a little bit of Artistic License rendering Sonic on an early version of the main menu  - Lazy Eye Sonic is even present in the Saturn Beta, despite the fact the Saturn beta was produced months after the Genesis version hit retail. Sonic Adventure DX (though not technically part of the set, it was released with it) - Contains a fully functional debug mode in line with the abilities and functions seen in the Sonic Genesis games. In other words it lets you spawn any object in a level at any coordinates you choose.  Ristar: The Shooting Star - Apparently Ristar went through many name changes; we know he was originally known as "Feel" (early magazine coverage), but the ROM headers in some of the betas refer to him as "Volt the Voltage" and there's one of the betas who identifies him as "DEXSTAR" on the titlescreen. What's interesting is that, going back to even the earliest betas, there's text contained in the ROM that says "CAUTION -RISTAR- IS NOT V O L T !!" Perhaps there was dispute over what to call him?  - The first level, Planet Flora, was originally called Planet Neer. Streets of Rage 3 - All of these protos seem to be close to the final US build. Axel has his BK3 sprites, but most of the other characters have been finished already. Not sure if the difficulty is closer to BK3 or SoR3 final yet. Phantasy Star IV I needed a good reason to replay Phantasy Star IV again. This Sega prototype nerd-splosion provides that very reason. Though, since this just concerns the American version, this isn't so much a "prototype" as it is an early and very rough translation. All of the following come from a May 30, 1994 pre-release version. The final game did not hit store shelves until February of 1995... As far as I can tell, the May 30 version is almost entirely complete translation-wise and just in need of some major revising. Why on earth did this take so long to come out? First off: character names. Several names are different. Some are Japanese originals (Rudy, Pike, Fal), others are slight mistranslations or approximations of the originals (Ryre, should be Lyla; Rena, should be Freyna), and others still are entirely different (Rein).        The whole thing is very rough. Some parts are Engrish-like and others are missing a lot of the characterization and emotion present in the final version. (I'm wondering how Raja and Rika's joke sessions on Dezoris stack up in this version...)  Was this in the final?  The translation in this version seems to be very literal. The intro:
Originally Posted by May 30 Prototype:
Originally Posted by Final Version:
Also:  Lulz. Might be posting more later... I need a short break. Most of this is combed from other sources, and I can't keep up with all of it to find all the major changes. Personally, I find the acqusition of these prototypes a lot more interesting than the content. Has there ever been a leak of this scale in the video game industry before? |
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(02-25-2008,
04:56 AM)
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#11
Wow.
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Member
(02-25-2008,
04:59 AM)
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#17
You... you found the motherload! :O
By the way, what's the name being bleeped here, I'm too stupid to figure it out:
Quote:
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(02-25-2008,
05:01 AM)
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#20
Originally Posted by disappeared:
Dear god help us! |
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He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
(02-25-2008,
05:01 AM)
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#21
Originally Posted by batbeg:
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He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
(02-25-2008,
05:03 AM)
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#24
Originally Posted by virusOprstu:
I'm not sure anything of note will be found. Probably just a bunch of mid-localization oddness like PSIV. |
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(02-25-2008,
05:04 AM)
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#25
Damn this all sounds so interesting.
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He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
(02-25-2008,
05:08 AM)
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#31
Originally Posted by grandjedi6:
And I'm not so sure that's true. I don't think there's a point in looking into something like this if you're not fascinated by the development process and want to see the changes between the betas and final versions. |
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Little Big NeoContra
(02-25-2008,
05:09 AM)
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#33
Originally Posted by Sixfortyfive:
If it delivers something that can be a GAF staple like the terd PSIV, then I hope they hurry and explore. |
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Just so you know, I have the best avatars ever.
(02-25-2008,
05:11 AM)
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#38
Originally Posted by Teknoman:
I don't know why that made me laugh so much, but my laptop keyboard is a more coffee flavoured after that post. This is cool stuff, anyway. Thanks for the great post, OP. |
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Member
(02-25-2008,
05:13 AM)
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#43
Originally Posted by grandjedi6:
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Member
(02-25-2008,
05:14 AM)
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#45
Originally Posted by BishopLamont:
Other than the Gamecube games and perhaps the Pico stuff, roms/isos of all of that stuff have been available for years. Nobody who wanted them would have been waiting for roms of earlier beta versions... Anyway, interesting stuff... I wonder what else will be found. |
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He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
(02-25-2008,
05:16 AM)
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#48
Few things I forgot to mention:
- There are some early alphas: Taz 2 apparently has an engine-only build with no content at all. - Some final versions are dated right down to the day when the code was officially finalized and the game went into production. Sonic 2's title screen was finished like a week before its release date. - On Sonic 2: Robotnik can actually be outrun in Death Egg Zone. To quote the person who found this, "that's like a childhood dream right there." - There are apparently more games that this guy has obtained but isn't ready to release quite yet for one reason or another. |
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He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
(02-25-2008,
05:19 AM)
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#50
Originally Posted by firex:
- May 30, 1994 - Jun 8, 1994 - Aug 15, 1994 - Oct 27, 1994 - Nov 7, 1994 All five have noticeable changes to the script, though I'm only particularly interested in the earliest one for now. |
