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Content that never made it into games
- Thread starter sarcoa
- Start date
Great thread!
Phantasy Star Edition:
Phantasy Star 1 was originally conceived as having four planets, but they had to cut it to three for space reasons.　Noah/Lutz was originally conceived as a hermaphrodite that would become either male or female later in the game. Obviously, this did not happen, but this is the reason his art is the way it is.
Phantasy Star 2 originally had a completely different story starring a reawakened Noah/Lutz, time travel to the era of Phantasy Star 1, and so on. It had roughly the same setting but the scenario was completely different. Yuji Naka lobbied to kill this version of the game because Noah/Lutz had been the weakest character of PS1. After cutting the time travel to PS1 scenario, both because Lutz/Noah was demoted and because they didn't want to change the history of PS1, they decided to have a direct descendent of each PS1 hero in the game. But Myau's descendent (who would have joined you in Dezoris) had to be cut when the torso-up battle graphics couldn't support a cat. Alis and Odin/Tyrone's descendents (Rolf/Eusis and Tyler) remain in the game, but little is made of their ancestry. Independent of that unused scenario, they had to cut a ton of stuff for time/space. A space exploration mode was cut, along with space stations, manned satellites, space pirates, asteroids, etc. (It's unclear how far along these were or if they were only in planning stages.)
Phantasy Star 3 was originally supposed to be good, but that was cut.
All the above info is from a book that predates PSIV, but here's what wikipedia has to say about PSIV:
Phantasy Star Edition:
Phantasy Star 1 was originally conceived as having four planets, but they had to cut it to three for space reasons.　Noah/Lutz was originally conceived as a hermaphrodite that would become either male or female later in the game. Obviously, this did not happen, but this is the reason his art is the way it is.
Phantasy Star 2 originally had a completely different story starring a reawakened Noah/Lutz, time travel to the era of Phantasy Star 1, and so on. It had roughly the same setting but the scenario was completely different. Yuji Naka lobbied to kill this version of the game because Noah/Lutz had been the weakest character of PS1. After cutting the time travel to PS1 scenario, both because Lutz/Noah was demoted and because they didn't want to change the history of PS1, they decided to have a direct descendent of each PS1 hero in the game. But Myau's descendent (who would have joined you in Dezoris) had to be cut when the torso-up battle graphics couldn't support a cat. Alis and Odin/Tyrone's descendents (Rolf/Eusis and Tyler) remain in the game, but little is made of their ancestry. Independent of that unused scenario, they had to cut a ton of stuff for time/space. A space exploration mode was cut, along with space stations, manned satellites, space pirates, asteroids, etc. (It's unclear how far along these were or if they were only in planning stages.)
Phantasy Star 3 was originally supposed to be good, but that was cut.
All the above info is from a book that predates PSIV, but here's what wikipedia has to say about PSIV:
randomlyrossy
Member
Halo 2
Flood Juggernaut: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76QTdEhLaBk
Never appears in the game (or any of the others) but it was still on the disk, complete with AI.
Also the Mongoose was originally going to be in Halo 2 but never made it, I remember reading about it way before the game came out by which time I'd forgotten all about them. When Halo 3 came round and they were in that I suddenly went "wait a minute...".
Flood Juggernaut: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76QTdEhLaBk
Never appears in the game (or any of the others) but it was still on the disk, complete with AI.
Also the Mongoose was originally going to be in Halo 2 but never made it, I remember reading about it way before the game came out by which time I'd forgotten all about them. When Halo 3 came round and they were in that I suddenly went "wait a minute...".
randomwab said:
Funny enough, you can still access that camera/map/whatever data in game and run through it and be at the RPD with a Gameshark (at least the original non-Dual Shock version. I haven't found a ported "RPD shortcut" code for CWCheat to check on the PSP/PS3 PSN Dual-Shock release...)
Versus Books (God rest their soul, hey... Shidoshi, if you're reading this: Someone should really talk to Des Barrs and get him to do strat guides like Versus again
) includes a section in their Biohazard/Resident Evil 2 guide for Gameshark codes with the demo. Some interesting things, like untextured area near the Police Chief's area that was on that very demo disc in memory but couldn't be accessed without the Gameshark.I could bring the codes out and dump them/list them for anyone interested and has the disc (which I sadly don't
)Edit:
You can see it running in the multiplayer maps (I think Blood Gluch, Coagulation?) in the limited Collector's Edition (which isn't that fucking limited) DVD of Halo 2, in fact. There is a few other things (like a "vomit seat"/backwards facing gunners seat on a Pelican) that were neat to see for Concept Art.
Dreamwriter
Member
CamHostage said:
A lot of times stuff is cut due to the publisher messing things up for the developer - a non-gamer executive wants to "make his mark" on the game, they decide to shorten the schedule, make the team re-start the entire game from scratch halfway through because someone isn't quite happy with the art style... I've worked on games that were amazingly awesome a few months in, and then what was released was crap. Usually the cut content never sees the light of day, but sometimes it manages to make it into an entirely different game with none the wiser. It's actually the exception to the rule that information about cut content becomes widely known; only the biggest games tend to get screenshots and videos leaked early enough that the game design is still evolving (and Nintendo has stopped that practice for the most part).
I always find this stuff absolutely fascinating. Lots of cool info in this thread.
Although plenty of stuff has been mentioned, I didn't see anyone talk about the missing content from a bunch of mario games that are listed at The Mushroom Kingdom.
Some interesting stuff of note:
-There are a bunch of levels on the SMB3 cart that were never accessible in-game. Some of them look interesting, some not so much.
-Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door has updated sprites for all of the Paper Mario 1 party members, most of which were completely unused.
-In the first Mario and Luigi, various nintendo characters were intended to have cameos after making certain blends in the Starbeans Cafe, according to unused text on the cart. Wario, Link, Fox, and Samus are all mentioned.
-The Yoshi's Island cart has sprites for three unused Yoshi transformations: plane, mushroom, and tree. Yes, tree.
There's some other pretty cool stuff there too. Worth a look.
Although plenty of stuff has been mentioned, I didn't see anyone talk about the missing content from a bunch of mario games that are listed at The Mushroom Kingdom.
Some interesting stuff of note:
-There are a bunch of levels on the SMB3 cart that were never accessible in-game. Some of them look interesting, some not so much.
-Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door has updated sprites for all of the Paper Mario 1 party members, most of which were completely unused.
-In the first Mario and Luigi, various nintendo characters were intended to have cameos after making certain blends in the Starbeans Cafe, according to unused text on the cart. Wario, Link, Fox, and Samus are all mentioned.
-The Yoshi's Island cart has sprites for three unused Yoshi transformations: plane, mushroom, and tree. Yes, tree.
There's some other pretty cool stuff there too. Worth a look.
Zombie James
Banned
dragonflys545 said:
Holy shit at that prototype. I love stuff like this.
Green Mamba
Member
Not quite right--Vaan was always present, he just wasn't the main character. Penelo was probably added later, though.Talon- said:
Could have at least posted a picture:Johnas said:
The characters were:ShockingAlberto said:
Mewtwo
Dr. Mario
Roy
Dixie Kong
Toon Zelda
Toon Sheik
Plusle/Minun weren't listed, though--just a misinterpretation of the name of the Random button.
Minamu said:
You requested pictures, you get 1 picture!!
For anybody who is interested in the alpha/beta/prototype/whatever build of RE4.
Apparently Leon was supposed to be infected with a virus and would be turning into a mutant/zombie himself. This is the only known picture (afaik) of the infected Leon.
Yes Capcom made a spelling mistake ;p
BlazeHedgehog
Member
randomlyrossy said:
A lot of shit was cut out of Halo 2. I believe they said in the making-of DVD that basically after E3 they scrapped everything they had and started over again.
I remember reading about Halo 2 in EGM and all the crazy shit they were talking about, about how the AI would flip over tables to provide cover, how you could shoot out lights for stealth, even that there was going to be a level on the Moon, I think?
ResidentDante
Member
I remember Peter Molyneux telling about this on a documentary on tv. They let you kill children in the beta version, which they tested with a group of people. When they noticed a guy playing the game killing all the children around in the village, they decided to remove this "feature".Confidence Man said:
polyh3dron
Banned
Also large portions of the end, removed due to 9/11NIN90 said:
How About No
Member
I knew about the arm, but I never saw the pic. Holy shit =Otass0 said:You requested pictures, you get 1 picture!!
For anybody who is interested in the alpha/beta/prototype/whatever build of RE4.
Apparently Leon was supposed to be infected with a virus and would be turning into a mutant/zombie himself. This is the only known picture (afaik) of the infected Leon.
Yes Capcom made a spelling mistake ;p
Sega1991 said:
I remember the last bit. They mentioned that gravity would play a role in the moon level and that you could slow your descent by firing down. They even mentioned that there may be multiplayer maps in this environment.
Another thing they mentioned was a cover system for hiding around corners. You'd press yourself against the wall, the camera would move to third person so you could see down the hallway, so to speak, and you'd be able to throw grenades, and such.
And about that Juggernaut flood: there is a checkpoint in Halo 2 called Juggernaut which was supposed to be the place where you first encountered that flood type. Obviously, it was cut out, but the name for that section stayed the same.
The 'dead' trees are not in the final game, the approach to hyrule castle is different
Hyrule field looks more open, compared to the 4 fields with the castle in the middle that we got in the final game.
Unknown dungeon.
The Ghoma is chasing Link in a forest environment. It ended up as a normal boss in the Temple of Time.
Creature, again unknown.
A beta forest not found in the final game.
Shown when they announced the 'delay' many speculated Nintendo just took some random development shots to show that the game wasn't finished to cover up the move to the Wii.
This is not in the game, not in Zora's Domain or anywhere else. It might've been Lake Hylia but the water level is higher there and the ground is covered in dirt. Might again have something to do with the mysterious river that leads somewhere.
Could be a beta fishing spot.
There was a plan to change camera angles for dungeons, as shown in these screenshots. It turned out to be troublesome so they cut it along with this dungeon.
This tree is not in the game but there's a dead tree somewhere on Hyrule Field that looks alot like it.
These creatures are in the game but not in this location and they're smaller.
Notice how the objects in the game could fall over, like there was some sort of physics system in place that is not in the final game(objects simply break). Also note the chairs which might indicate that A) a designer got lazy filling up the room, B) this location was more than just a dungeon/lair.
Beta Twilight creature
This and other shots fueled speculation that at one point Link could use the boat to travel to different places.
Beta enemy hacked in with AR
Gorons..
GORONATOR!
Again hacked in with the AR
Another Beta hyrule field.
Green Chu Jelly can be obtained in the game...
probably to fill the magic meter that is actually on the back of the PAL box of the shipped game. That must've been cut out at the last minute, maybe it wasn't magic at all but tied to Link's magic sword slashes?
The hauling scenes in the actual games are different and this might've been rendered just for the GDC trailer.
There's a river that leads somewhere. Possibly the Zora province.
Again the river
Beta entrance to Hyrule castle or a bridge? In any case these buildings were demolished and used at various bridges in the final game.
Beta forest with animals outside of the villages. Aonuma stated in an interview that animals would be an important part of the game.
Well hello there Beta dungeon!
Those enemies are found in the game but with a different style.
Seems to indicate that Hyrule was a vast and open landscape and not just a couple of areas connected with bridges and blurred textures.
Evil is approaching, in the final game the evil had already come and gone.
Final Fantasy X was supposed to have online capabilities at first. Stuff like entire help sections accessible through an in-game browser.
Some of this was displayed at a TGS before the release, but eventually everything got scrapped.
Many a gamer bought the PS2 HDD/modem adapter because of this.
Some of this was displayed at a TGS before the release, but eventually everything got scrapped.
Many a gamer bought the PS2 HDD/modem adapter because of this.
wow, that's really interesting stuff. Sonic 2 is like, my favorite game ever. Its surreal to see what it was originally planned to be, and what it could have been.Sega1991 said:
Its kind of funny all the crazy plans devs had for the biggest games back then but couldn't work, and how most of the biggest franchises today tend to play it somewhat safe.
AdawgDaFAB
Member
Minamu said:
I concur. This thread has been really fun to read through and more vids / pics would make it even better.
ToyMachine228
Member
How about the SIX nearly finished maps for Shadowrun that were never released as DLC, because Microsoft shut FASA down and sent Shadowrun to die? Still one of my favorite multiplayer games of the generation.
manueldelalas
Time Traveler
Don't know if this has been said, but in OOT they scrapped a part of the story in which Navi got jealous because Link saved too many girls (Saria, Ruto, ranch girl, Desert girl and Zelda). because Navi had feelings for Link.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
Some stuff that was advertised as being in WoW: Wrath of the Lich King - aerial combat, dance studios, etc.
I know they'll get around to it eventually, but this stuff was advertised on the box...
Confidence Man
Member
A selection of Fable pics dating from 2001 to mid 2003:
None of the above can be found in the final game, and in fact every piece of media prior to Oct. 2003 shows a world completely different to what we ended up with.
Now think about this, the game came out in fall 2004, and up until fall 2003 they were showing a completely different game. So all that content, the entire game they built and worked on for years and years left by the wayside only to throw something together to release in the last year or so.
None of the above can be found in the final game, and in fact every piece of media prior to Oct. 2003 shows a world completely different to what we ended up with.
Now think about this, the game came out in fall 2004, and up until fall 2003 they were showing a completely different game. So all that content, the entire game they built and worked on for years and years left by the wayside only to throw something together to release in the last year or so.
Green Mamba
Member
Good to see hideously modeled children were always part of the game.
Easy_D said:
I think it was Mac exclusive back when it was going to be an RTS. The FPS version was always going to be Mac + Windows before it became an Xbox exclusive AFIAK.
Macs don't count :lol
The video I am looking for was more of an in game demo or developer diary. It showed them demoing the game and AI, can't seem to find that video.
desertdroog
Member
Easy_D said:
IGN link on the history of Halo: Combat Evolved
http://retro.ign.com/articles/821/821618p1.html
BlazeHedgehog
Member
desertdroog said:
There's also these videos, with voice overs by Bungie members as they run through video of all the early versions of Halo 1, starting at the very first RTS tech demo and moving up to E3 2000.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN9vO_gRzoI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tqrfy4SR7I
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
If you consider that Halo was intended to be an RTS first, one has to wonder why Ensemble got the job for Halo Wars...
randomlyrossy
Member
Zeitgeister said:
.....because they were an RTS developer?
AtomskEater
Member
Xenogears had a few cut scenes stripped. And the second disc was meant to be less linear, but that was also cut. Think I read this in a translated version of the perfect works or a fansite, I'll link if I can find it again.
Edit: Here we go. http://www.xgam.org/xenogears/uncut/
Also, in Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter they planned to include a room where you could see vats filled with headless Ninas. It was decided that such a room was a bit too much for players to interact with, but Lin enters that room and you can still see one of the Ninas in a cut scene.
Edit: Here we go. http://www.xgam.org/xenogears/uncut/
Also, in Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter they planned to include a room where you could see vats filled with headless Ninas. It was decided that such a room was a bit too much for players to interact with, but Lin enters that room and you can still see one of the Ninas in a cut scene.
Sega1991 said:
yah the second half of the second video is like the stuff I remember. I realize it is early beta stuff, but it made the game seem more open ended. After seeing the original videos and playing games like Giants Citizen Kabuto and Delta Force I was disappointed when Halo finally released.
gamergirly
Member
Sky Temple in LOZ:OOT
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
randomlyrossy said:
Totally, but also "yet another external party" with no knowledge of the inner workings of halo or what might work among its fans. Vital knowledge that Bungie already would have had at that point, since they were thinking along that route at one time.
I realize that outsourcing is common in this industry, but I have the impression that the initial mismatch between studio and project might have been avoided by keeping it with the original studio. Maybe just my imagination though.
damn, seeing all the changed/scrapped/beta stuff from TP is crazy. now, it kinda makes sense why it took so long to develop but still didn't feel like it was in development for that long. it's like they made all the pieces first and then tried numerous ways to assemble a game out of them. kinda like Lego but with code instead of blocks.
also, that might be a reason why we aren't getting picks/vids/etc. from the new Zelda for Wii. they want to avoid having tons of content that isn't in the final game and lots of speculation leading to disappointment (i'd bet some people were disappointed when they didn't found most of the stuff present in the trailers)
also, that might be a reason why we aren't getting picks/vids/etc. from the new Zelda for Wii. they want to avoid having tons of content that isn't in the final game and lots of speculation leading to disappointment (i'd bet some people were disappointed when they didn't found most of the stuff present in the trailers)
CamHostage
Member
NIN90 said:
polyh3dron said:
I don't know that MGS2 ending necessarily had large portions removed. It for sure was edited, but there are lots of legends of stuff cut because of 9/11 and I am not sure that all of those rumors are documented.
The GameSpot profile of the final days of Metal Gear covers some of the edits, but because the article was posted so close to release (and I don't know that Konami or Kojima Pro would have been forthcoming anyway,) it's pretty vague. The Document of MGS2 covers it a bit as well. I believe the plan was to show the Arsenal Gear crash into NYC more clearly (it's fairly abrupt and without major landmarks in the final) and then there was also a plan for Snake to be doing something in the background while Raiden fought Solidus (though I don't know if that was ever in the final or where that fight was supposed to be staged.) The local of the final fight had changed at some point as well, but probably before 9/11. Wikipedia lists further changes but I really don't remember the Document going into anything close to that amount of detail about the changes. If anybody else has further details or corrections, please contribute.
No source I know of tells the full details, but a lot of fans (some still bitter about the Raiden rope-a-dope) have this idea that the ending was massively cut back because of 9/11, and that's probably a mislead assumption. The game had pretty much gone gold by 9/11 (according to GameSpot's inside feature on MGS2, the team was closing in on a Sept 14th release candidate signoff when 9/11 hit and yet they still made the date even with the changes, the lost materials would have had to have been in the ISO if it were such a quick change) the game was shipped just two months later so it's nearly impossible that there would have been drastic changes outside of FMV cinematics (which are rare in MGS.)
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Borman said:Ill just leave these here then
Might as well leave this here, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgKihi_CVss
