/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.8247813]

What is it about prototypes that makes them so appealing to so many people? I don't really get it. There's the "what could have been" angle I guess, but they cut/changed things for a reason.

[Anonymous No.8247835]

If you have to ask you won't get it.

[Anonymous No.8247842]

>>8247813
>There's the "what could have been" angle I guess, but they cut/changed things for a reason.
exactly. when people prototype, they go all out with their ideas, then all of a sudden all that stuff they put couldnt fit in a cartridge

[Anonymous No.8247851]

>>8247813
>You have played the game, but not this game which is almost the game but not quite the game
It's not rocket science op

[Anonymous No.8247865]

People love what is inaccessible or mysterious, video games are everywhere now, over exposed, their data is mined on release and nothing holds any mystery now. Prototypes and unreleased games are off limits until their dumped so they are used as compensation

[Anonymous No.8247878]

We can no longer have pikablu or mew hidden beneath the truck so we have to obsess over prototype releases or unused Pokémon.

[Anonymous No.8247883]

Prototypes are rich in liminal spaces.

[Anonymous No.8247889]

>>8247883
There's extra soul in these you know

[Anonymous No.8247923]

>>8247883
>>8247889
Exhibit a and b, two zoomer a hypnotised by what they perceive to be concealed unlike their modern media which holds no mystery

[Anonymous No.8248080]

>>8247813
most people just want more content for a game they like
the occasional insane person fabricates ridiculous shit about SPOOKY WARIO 3D HEAD CHASES YOU THROUGH THE SECOND CASTLE INTO ISLE DELFINO and then that becomes a youtube video

[Anonymous No.8248116]

>>8247813
It's interesting to see how some games changed so much their original prototype versions were almost completely different games from retail.

[Anonymous No.8248289]

>>8247851
tpbp

[Anonymous No.8248302]

>>8247813
Your favorite game that you've known for years suddenly has things you were never meant to see, let alone have a chance to play. Unused levels, models, music, etc. You now have more insight on your favorite game and know it better.
It's not hard to get if you don't have aphantasia.

[Anonymous No.8248320]

>>8247813
In the resident evil 4 prototype there were killer dolls and a ghost, two enemies that in those times were new in the resident evil series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMBfgHLkIMo

[Anonymous No.8248659]

>>8248302
Yeah. Even playing a mostly complete prototype of a beloved game is the closest you will come to playing that game again for the first time. There's also something surreal knowing that you're playing a build of the game that's forever trapped in that period of time before the game was published - when you were getting excited for the game to came out, this is what it was, this is what developers were working on, what got sent to retailers to arrange wholesale deals, what magazines or merchandisers fiddled around with, what was shown at some gaming event, what some lucky kids got to play in focus groups or in some fancy toy store in Japan. Beyond that, a lot of them really shouldn't be played today, as they're far beyond the timeframe of their intended dev/promo use and oftentimes were supposed to be destroyed or at the very least returned to the company's vault. Of course prototypes are, in an objective sense, just unfinished games or (typically crappy) finished games that never made it to market, but it is easy to understand why they mean more to a certain group of people.

[Anonymous No.8248673]

>>8247813
It's purely for the novelty of getting to see content made at the same time and from the same source as the original game, often during their best days even. Even if not impressive by itself, it's fun thinking about it from a historical perspective.

>captcha: T0YSS

[Anonymous No.8248679]

>>8247813
It's a version of a massively popular game that had a big impact on the industry and on people personally. A version that only a small group ever got to fully experience. People are naturally going to want to know everything about the development of games like Mario 64 or Ocarina of time.

Plus it's mysterious and your imagination can go wild about what was cut or could've been. That's probably a big part of what makes prototypes interesting even for less important or good games.

[Anonymous No.8248682]

>>8247813
>but they cut/changed things for a reason
bad ones half the time

[Anonymous No.8248683]

>>8248320
>enter room
>blue tint on
>oh boy I wonder what will happen now

[Anonymous No.8248715]

>>8247813
I don't know, why do people watch commentary or behind the scenes clips and seek out other developmental material for movies? Why do people like to know what an author's thoughts are on their book and the influences behind it? Because they enjoy learning about how the final product developed and the work and thought that went it, and for video games prototypes are a way of looking into the development process.

What I wonder is how the fuck people get that for other media but can't comprehend others being interested in the same thing with video games; it's really not a big mystery.

[Anonymous No.8248721]

>>8248682
>couldn't afford it
>it wasn't fun
this accounts for the vast, vast majority of cuts

[Anonymous No.8248756]

>>8248320
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMBfgHLkIMo
badass. thanks for sharing

the dolls are fitting, because i can see the midget villian having a connection to them, but the ghost is pretty far out of RE ; more like a SH thing

[Anonymous No.8248806]

>>8247813
Forbidden fruit syndrome.
Even if the proto is just a beta that is basically the same game. People want it because its rare,unknown and forbidden.

[Anonymous No.8248842]

>>8247813
I find prototypes interesting because it's like a glimpse into another universe.
Take for example, Resident Evil 1.5. Honestly, it looks really shit, and the content that's there in the 40% build isn't that good, but it's interesting.
The Zelda 64 prototype is just generally really mysterious. The pictures we have seen of the actual "in game" are probably of very dull areas that were reworked for a reason (take for example, that image of Link in a large town), but because it's this thing with things we recognize and things we don't recognize, it's interesting.
Other prototypes I have interest in are
>the RE4 betas (mainly because they were also tied to Sugiyama's last work as a video game writer, and his story didn't make it to the finished RE4 build)
>Majora's Mask with the original 7 days (probably ridiculously unfinished, but would be neat)
Luigi's Mansion beta (probably not all that different)
>Resident Evil 1.5 80% build

[Anonymous No.8248898]

>>8247813
1. People want what they can't have
2. It's not exactly hard to grasp that someone might think that a change was for the worse

[Anonymous No.8248996]

Prototype Chrono Trigger looks pretty cool

[Anonymous No.8249229]

It's cool to see more of the stuff I only saw a few tiny screenshots of in a game magazine when I was a kid

[Anonymous No.8249493]

>>8247813
it's like dmt

[Anonymous No.8249604]

>>8248842
>Resident Evil 1.5
That's an example of a prototype that was basically an entirely different game altogether. There's a very good reason for people wanting to play that unlike most prototypes which are unrefined versions of final releases.

[Anonymous No.8249610]

[Anonymous No.8249637]

>>8249604
Resident Evil 1.5 was apparently so shitty that they scrapped it all together, so the mentality behind wanting to play it is minimally different from unrefined versions of good games.

[Anonymous No.8249671]

>>8249637
Well even if it was that bad, the modding community can still make something of it that could play very well. The fact it was so different from the final product gives it a brand new base to work off of. You could be playing a brand new classic RE very soon.

[Anonymous No.8251134]

[Anonymous No.8251180]

>>8248996
I really wonder how Singing Mountain would've played like. 65000000 BC really needed that extra dungeon.

[Anonymous No.8251253]

>>8247813
A lot of it is because of screenshots like that one. Before everything was online and there were sites like TCRF that analyzed everything, games were a lot more mysterious. There really are secrets and easter eggs hidden in games, so the idea of a room like that being in the castle isn't too weird. That's what makes people interested. It's not a creepypasta where Mario comes out of your TV, it's just a room probably leading to more levels you haven't played yet. The prototype is interesting because it lets you explore these places you were trying to find as a kid. It's like they're real even though they aren't actually in the released game anymore (as far as we know).

[Anonymous No.8251547]

>>8247813
It's a cool look into the creative process. It's the same as TV pilots or cut scenes from a movie

[Anonymous No.8251781]

>>8251253
I blame Nintendo with their US SMB3 box using old promo screenshots. At the time I was extremely interested in finding the Parabeetle grasslands level and the different World 1 map area. At the time I had no concept of promo screenshots, so of course I thought they were hidden somewhere in the game.

[Anonymous No.8251863]

>>8247842
>they go all out with their ideas, then all of a sudden all that stuff they put couldnt fit in a cartridge
Or they realized some of those ideas were shit.

[Anonymous No.8251975]

>>8247813
>There's the "what could have been" angle
That and it's just interesting to see games in earlier stage especially well known games.

[Anonymous No.8252074]

>>8247813
In the case of this particular screenshot, what gets me is that I have it ingrained in my memory because it was one of the screenshots that magazines would publish around late 95/early 96, before the release of the N64.
It's hard to describe for people who weren't alive back then. The kind of hype back then was different, without internet and instant access to videos on youtube and what not.

[Anonymous No.8252136]

>>8247851
Sums it up almost perfectly.
Of course for some types of games there are tards who don't understand big creative collaborative productions wind up thinking that prototypes are what the game was actually supposed to be, but those are just the people who annoy you not everyone who finds prototypes interesting.

[Anonymous No.8252741]

>>8247813
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW9LvNVzB8c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S_X8XRAt7g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyo_AXQLIdI
TAKE ME BACK TO A BETTER TIME
alpha demotape recordings of the soundtrack

[Anonymous No.8252746]

[Anonymous No.8252756]

>>8252746
>>8248996
I want to visit the old world map

[Anonymous No.8252784]

I see the appeal in having a mysterious area in one of your favorite games that you'll never explore yourself, but people definitely go overboard when imagining how fun it would be to actually play those prototypes. People see the shitty beta forest in Ocarina of Time and their imagination runs wild with some hypothetical open world Zelda 64, when in reality it would probably just be part of Hyrule field but uglier.

[Anonymous No.8253785]

>>8247813
I want to play the early dark cloud with more advanced georama.

[Anonymous No.8254031]

>>8252784
When it came out that the leaked OoT MQ Debug ROM had beta stuff in it, I downloaded it to check it out. The best part was visiting pic related.

Of course, there's nothing to do in that room but stare at the pretty windows, and you can't go anywhere else. It was just neat being able to visit a room I saw in screenshots on IGN back in the day. Would have been nice to also have the old UI and Link model to go with it, though, for max "authenticity."

[Anonymous No.8254105]

>>8252784
>People see the shitty beta forest in Ocarina of Time and their imagination runs wild with some hypothetical open world Zelda 64, when in reality it would probably just be part of Hyrule field but uglier.
the beta oot maps to me feel like this
>"IT'S ZELDA IT'S GOTTA BE BIG BIG ADVENTURE LITTLE ELFS"
>make massive maps
>start testing and it seems ok, keep going with production
>eventually when they start populating them with objects it turns out they went too far
>"fuck ok we gotta make all the maps like 50% smaller or this will run at 3 fps"

[Anonymous No.8254138]

>>8254105
>OOT early assets dumped
>all the screenshots of these massive wide open areas turn out to be either test rooms or barren as hell
>screenshots were very likely just mock-ups of existing assets they had

I’m glad I don’t care about this cause I would’ve been heartbroken.

[Anonymous No.8255965]

>>8252074
This

[Anonymous No.8256227]

[Anonymous No.8256230]

[Anonymous No.8256241]

>>8256227
what program was used to render these?

[Anonymous No.8256271]

When you see footage of something that's clearly not in the final game, you wonder what else is in that build of the game. One thing being different implies everything else could be, and it gets one's curiosity going.
The prototype isn't necessarily a better version of the game, or anything like that; but if you show somebody a box, they're going to want to open it, you know?

[Anonymous No.8256278]

>>8248673
>that webm
WTF Sonic Team? The loops work just fine with the Adventure physics. So what was the point of these things?

[Anonymous No.8256279]

>>8251180
Honestly it drove me crazy how half the world map in that era has nothing in it. The eastern side of the world is basically blank aside from that island you put the moon stone in.

[Anonymous No.8256289]

1. People want access to what they don't have.
2. People like to see the development of things.

[Anonymous No.8256292]

>>8254105
A lot of the prototype areas, like that village in the middle of a field, honestly looked like they designed a map meant for a 2D overhead game that just happened to be in a 3D perspective. The way the buildings are evenly spaced like a square area, the paths only going in simple directions.
I'm guessing eventually they realized that what looks good in, say, Link's Awakening, doesn't necessarily look right from another view.

[Anonymous No.8256313]

>>8247878
>We can no longer have pikablu or mew hidden beneath the truck so we have to obsess over prototype releases or unused Pokémon.
Some level of this. Remember when video games had some sort of mystical thing about them? Remember believable rumours? Fuck, I think I tried all the believable Mew tricks back in the days
Just imagine for Pokémon, how easy it would be to program a single square somewhere with a 1/1000000 chance of encountering Mew or something else? How easy it would be to program some weird sort of event with invisible triggers for a special event?
However, we grew up. As we grew up, we became realistic about this. Why would the programmers put something major like this for nobody to find it? And then cheats and such stopped being a thing. And then finally, datamining became a thing so that we can finally put the rumours to rest
In a way, protos are basically the last bastion of "game secrets" anymore

[Anonymous No.8256318]

>>8256278
aren't they somewhat semi-automatics in the final game?

[Anonymous No.8256637]

>>8247813
They built game on more powerfully PC than the power of their console, so the alpha/beta games got many contents and ideas that wouldn’t work on the console and on the cartbridge.

[Anonymous No.8256650]

>>8249637
What actually happened with that is it was too ambitious, and the PS couldn't handle it, if I remember. Kamiya wanted crowds of zombies like an actual Romero movie, and the ability for zombies to follow you through doors, and it just wasn't coming together at all. I guess once you cut that idea, you also need to rethink a lot of level design, and then you may as well start the game over.

[Anonymous No.8256840]

What are some of your prototype "holy grails"?

I'm a huge Lufiafag so I've had a hardon for Lufia Ruins Chasers, the cancelled PSX entry, for the longest time. Pic related is concept art for the main characters that was found in an old warehouse some guy was cleaning out a few years back.

The game ended up getting canned and we got anotherg game on the GBC which people often confuse with the cancelled PSX entry - The official blurb for Ruins Chasers on the PSX was very different with the game taking place in a more futuristic world where humanity had long since forgotten the Doom Island wars and experienced an acceleration in technology from the medieval times of 1 and 2.

From the interviews I've read it sounds as if the PSX game never really got off the ground - There aren't even any pictures of it running, only concept art and some design docs from the warehouse guy. From descriptions, it sounds as if the game used an isometric perspective not unlike Energy breaker and some of Neverlands other titles on the SNES.

[Anonymous No.8256846]

>>8256840
Cion, the main character and ginger du jour of the game. You can see the more modern setting shining through in his gear which looks a lot more futuristic than the medieval weaponry used in 1 and 2.

Verring off into theories ofc, but just going off the name "Ruins chasers" I suspect part of the plot would had been that Cion and the rest of the cast would be investigating old ruins looking for lost knowledge of the forgotten Doom Island wars, hence the title of the game.

[Anonymous No.8256850]

>>8256846
Cecil, the main heroine. Definetely not related to Erim in any way.

On that note, what the fuck was Erims problem? She just wanted that sweet mortal dick?

[Anonymous No.8256857]

>>8256850
Another party member, Lily. tfw no tomboy gf

[Anonymous No.8256870]

>>8256857
Yu, a descendant of the Shaia family. Gonna go out on a limb and guess he would be the guy to invent shit for you throughout the game.

On a side note, I actually really dug Lexis's redesign in the DS game

[Anonymous No.8256878]

>>8247883
Your love life is a liminal space.

[Anonymous No.8256885]

>>8256870
Albert. Continuing the Lufia tradition of Elf party members, except this time he's also the designated retard swordbro

My nigga Dekar would have mopped the floor with him

[Anonymous No.8256895]

>>8256885
Michelle. According to the blurb posted during announcement, she would have had a thing for Albert.

[Anonymous No.8256901]

>>8256241
Whatever was in those silicon graphics workstations they used, which were like souped up nintendo 64s.

[Anonymous No.8256905]

>>8256895
Low-res as shit, but unfortunately its the best I have. Part of the design docs found in the warehouse. These pics come from the Ebay auction where the guy tried to sell them for like 5000 USD or something. As far as I know, nobody paid up - the Lufia fanbase isn't numerous or autistic enough to rally together for a fundraiser.

[Anonymous No.8256912]

>>8256905
Last I have from the Ebay auction. No clue what the fuck it says, I think somebody looked it over and it may have been about Capsule monsters? Anyone speak moon?

[Anonymous No.8256961]

>>8256912
Pamphlet promoting the game at a Japanese con, also the source of most of the info I've got. That's about it as far my Ruins Chasers folder goes.

Last but not least, the composer released a track that was to be used in the game. Probably one of the few only concrete pieces of content we have regarding the game:

https://youtu.be/MX8LlNMRz9k

Anyway, story goes that Neverland dropped the game and developed a midquel in the form of the GBC game in order to tide people over until. Product manager at Natsume Graham Renn talked about this at an E3 how the team had decided to leave the "3" appendix for a later title, likely on the PS2. Reading between the lines and the bits of information we have regarding Ruins Chasers plot, I've always gotten the impression it was meant to be a fairly conclusive entry to the Sinistral storyline - The blurbs for Ruins Chasers mention how Arek would meet the party for a final confrontation and "answer all questions", whatever that meant.

Masahide Miyata, the series director, has off-handedly mentioned a kickstarter to bring the game to fruition might be possible since he still has the original script. Obviously not looking good since the rights are a mess, the team is scattered and the DS remake bombed, but w/e, it is what it is.

Thank you for reading my blog etc - Lufia 2 was one of the first games I really got genuinely invested in so I'm probably biased as fuck. To me Ruins Chasers is my Half-Life 3. Even if it came to fruition someday, I don't imagine it would be able to deliver on the ridiculous buildup I've given it over the years, but fuck me man I just want some sort of closure.

[Anonymous No.8257394]

meet: the deku brothers

[Anonymous No.8257591]

>>8248756
Yeah, the dolls could be hollow and have a Plaga inside or something. Straight up ghosts are a little too much for the established level of sci-fi.

[Anonymous No.8257735]

>>8254105
>>8254138
The first 16 MB of the cartridge was overwritten with F-Zero, so only about 9 MB was left over. All of the engine, menus, music, enemies, NPCs, items, exit locations, and some of the levels are missing. They had to be imported into the Debug ROM and modified to work with the newer engine. It's still amazing to walk around them and see the massive size of everything.

[Anonymous No.8257754]

>>8247813
It's how similar they are, gives the impression of an alternate world where all of those games came out instead of the major ones.

They are usually darker (why bother with complex lighting in a prototype) but with more interesting geometry, models, and sprite that haven't been hedged back to all fit in the same product (the illusion of mentally extrapolating a whole game from one image).

[Anonymous No.8257962]

>>8256878
Lol that's a good one

[Anonymous No.8258015]

>>8256230
This pic so eerie. This was probably taken very early on.

[Anonymous No.8258213]

>>8257735
>It's still amazing to walk around them and see the massive size of everything.

holy f, where? is it ready?

[Anonymous No.8258279]

>>8256840
Pokemon Red/Green

[Anonymous No.8258325]

Sometimes they just have weird shit

[Anonymous No.8258457]

>>8257735
Hnng, I still want a proper proto-build with all that stuff intact, especially the game engine. It's nice being able to see and walk around the prototype maps, but something feels off when you do so with the final build's engine. Maybe someday...

[Anonymous No.8258571]

>>8258325
i wanna explore this beta isle

[Anonymous No.8258610]

>>8256840
I don't know if I'd say it's a Holy Grail, but I would love to see and play Project Berkley, the Shenmue prototype for Sega Saturn.
It's unusual that we got to see quite a lot of it through the bonuses in Shenmue II. Probably because they felt 'eh, this will likely be the last game, let's just throw it in'.
I find it amazing they seemingly made so much, and how good it looked for a Sega Saturn title. Would love see how the open world and fights looked with the 32bit graphics, or if anything major changed in terms of how it plays.

I guess also related would be Virtua Fighter 3 on the Saturn, I don't know how far that ever came along but it was supposedly in development. Again, this would mainly be to see just how they could do it on the Saturn which would have been grossly underpowered for what was probably one of/the most impressive games ever graphically.

[Anonymous No.8258782]

>>8247813
Beytah is bettah dan final

[Anonymous No.8258841]

>>8256840
Mother 64

[Anonymous No.8259053]

>>8256230
>behind the castle
My SM64 rumors days self would have shit if he ever saw these
Does anyone else have memories of going on old internet Geocities sites and the like and reading up on stuff like how to get on top of the castle with a triple jump and info on stupid shit like dying while in a cannon? SM64 was one of the original games where people just tore it apart looking into every possible detail just because they loved playing it so much and the 3D aspect to the game made it feel so much more possible for there to be weird secrets or things nobody had seen before. For all you know, there could be a wall you can break somewhere that unlocks a new cap. How would you really know? The other caps are unlocked in pretty weird ways.
It's really no wonder that SM64 became one of the earlier speedrun games considering how people playing the everloving fuck out of it just because they wanted to know every secret

[Anonymous No.8259064]

>>8247813
People read further into demo-tapes and prototypes because they're inherently flawed. Unfinished. Imperfect in nature. Sometimes, when your mom would make you a birthday cake, you'd sneak into the kitchen, 2:00a~, and eat some of the raw eggs out of the fridge. They taste better because you can compare it to the taste of the birthday cake. Birthday eggs. People crave imperfections. People crave to feel human again. The world is better with jank. Perfection destroys more lives than it saves.

[Anonymous No.8259072]

>>8259053

[Anonymous No.8259230]

>>8259064
>Sometimes, when your mom would make you a birthday cake, you'd sneak into the kitchen, 2:00a~, and eat some of the raw eggs out of the fridge. They taste better because you can compare it to the taste of the birthday cake. Birthday eggs.

[Anonymous No.8259325]

>>8258610
I would love to see Shenmue Saturn and whatever scraps of Saturn Sonic Adventure were made before it was folded into Sonic Jam. I'll admit there's probably not much of the latter, if anything at all, but I'm still curious.

[Anonymous No.8259343]

>>8259325

[Anonymous No.8259361]

>>8259343
I know this is only concept art, but god it looks so cool.

[Anonymous No.8259371]

some very early prototypes were different enough from the finished games that they can be considerent newly discovered, fabled new games in some your favourite series that very few had a chance to play until recently. prototypes like resident evil 1.5 and the pokemon spaceworld demo are the stuff of legends, and i'm not overexaggerating. and now we even have a n64 build of dinosaur planet, and a completed unreleased gbc build of the cancelled pokemon picross.
if you can't see the appeal in ANY of this, then you are probably a zoomer coomlector that needs official little plastic limited run boxes and achievements support to get excited about something

[Anonymous No.8259397]

>>8259371
>the pokemon spaceworld demo are the stuff of legends, and i'm not overexaggerating
the release of the spaceworld 97 roms was one of the most exciting moments of my life
i also remember the release of the sonic 2 nick arcade proto feeling massive at the time

[Anonymous No.8259435]

>>8247813
That reason?
Indecision. Anxiety. Aversion to risk taking.

What they lost?
Soul.

[Anonymous No.8259442]

>>8259371
This

You've never gotten really into a music artist/film director etc enough to start digging into their demos and unreleased work, OP? It's cool to see the development process of the game through a prototype, and it can be like an entirely new game from that time period

[Anonymous No.8261062]

>>8256840
Super Mario 128. Not the tech demo nor Sunshine but the GameCube game Miyamoto worked on for years until cancelled it for Galaxy.

[Anonymous No.8261234]

>>8259325
>>8259343
Oh wow, I had no idea this was even in the works. I always thought that Sonic Xtreme was the only Saturn Sonic platformer they had a concept of.

[Anonymous No.8261253]

>>8259064
lmao

[Anonymous No.8261470]

>>8256857
I love her

[Anonymous No.8262032]

>>8258325
this guy was so integral to the e3 demo trailer, it's honestly shocking he was cut.

[Anonymous No.8263870]

>>8258325
>>8258571
Didn't the sunshine beta also have human characters?

[Anonymous No.8263958]

>>8261234
After Xtreme was canceled, the plan was to simply try and develop a new Sonic from scratch; everything from Xtreme was thrown out. Saturn Adventure was in development for a VERY short time, before they realized the Saturn was bombing and decided to move what little they had over to the upcoming Dreamcast.
Do you remember that Sonic World minigame in Sonic Jam? That was made out of the scraps of Adventure's Saturn build. Sonic's model in that game has several unused animations, many of them were recycled for different abilities and interactions in Adventure.
https://tcrf.net/Sonic_Jam_(Sega_Saturn)

[Anonymous No.8264034]

>>8263870
yes

[Anonymous No.8264041]

>>8259064
>inherently flawed
I get you're making a shitpost, but there is something intriguing about playing games that were generally only experienced as manufactured retail products when they were still being tinkered with and, as such, still felt like some human creation as they were often rougher around the edges. A lot of this charm is lost now with early access demos and broken retail games that are effectively mid-stage betas before getting patched to hell and back, but seeing older games (especially quality games) in this state was typically a rarity for anybody outside of the press or people lucky enough to go to conventions or public demos.

[Anonymous No.8264201]

>>8256840
Cave Story Beta and (not retro) Gero Blaster. Pixel has said several times that CS beta was shit but seeing also those early assets and scrapped weapons is fascinating. Gero Blaster is on a similar boat. https://youtu.be/463Tl2uJM3g

[Anonymous No.8264316]

https://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/SFC_1988Q4.html
https://www.chrismcovell.com/secret/SFC_1989Q3.html

[Anonymous No.8264819]

>>8259064
BIRTHDAY EGG
TOO BAD NO BON APPETITE

[Anonymous No.8265061]

>>8252784
>I see the appeal in having a mysterious area in one of your favorite games that you'll never explore yourself, but people definitely go overboard when imagining how fun it would be to actually play those prototypes. People see the shitty beta forest in Ocarina of Time and their imagination runs wild with some hypothetical open world Zelda 64, when in reality it would probably just be part of Hyrule field but uglier.
In this case, it's that I remember laying on the floor in my bedroom re-reading and re-reading the articles in my Nintendo Power magazines about "Zelda 64". I remember staring at those screen shots and imagining the game beyond the borders of each picture. When I got older I understood there wasn't much there BUT my imagination. Still, that feeling was fun and its always interesting to me to see how things could have been different.

I remember when I was a bit older wondering at the inaccessible areas in Half Life. Finally I no-clipped over there and I saw how the illusion was put together. Still, a small part of me retains that sense of wonder and can't help but speculate where those fake doors and dead-end hallways would lead to in "reality".

[Anonymous No.8265103]

>>8247813
since PS2 & SOTC is retro now I've always wanted to see the beta colossi in action. There was originally 16-20 colossi and they got pretty far into development. Im especially interested in seeing the spider.

[Anonymous No.8265207]

>>8264041
>shitpost

[Anonymous No.8265542]

>>8265103
Still disappointed that SotC had both a rerelease and a remake and neither of them put the cut colossi back in.

[Anonymous No.8265557]

>>8264041
hey anon. It's not retro, but are you familiar with Magic Wand? An indie creator attempted to make a game that captures that "badly translated, strange, confusing, but charming" approach that a ton of early era jank PSX games had. I found it very endearing, when it could have easily been complete shit.

[Anonymous No.8267207]

>>8252741
These are really cool anon, thanks for posting.

[Anonymous No.8267208]

>>8265542
It's better that they're as close to the originals as possible, lack of restored content or no. The shitty remake is artistically divorced the original as is, and worse off for it

[Anonymous No.8267271]

>>8258015
>black and white
No shit Sherlock

[Anonymous No.8267921]

>>8256961
Thanks for sharing, anon. That's really cool, and it's a bummer how there's no real info. Hope you get some answers someday, one way or another.

[Anonymous No.8268096]

>>8247813
Lots of 5th-6th gen prototype images look unintentionally dark or gloomy because that's 90% what happens from incomplete lighting. So kids who see that the game doesn't look like a creepy haunted house when it wasn't intended to, after building it up in their head, think they're being sold something kiddy like themselves instead of adult like they want to be.

[Anonymous No.8268210]

>>8267271
>black and white
Not just that but the unfinished castle and overview shots give it a ominous vibe.

[Anonymous No.8268220]

>>8265542
>>8267271

[Anonymous No.8268225]

[Anonymous No.8268227]

[Anonymous No.8268238]

Why is Shantae GBA rom not released yet?

[Anonymous No.8268358]

i always dreamed about more levels in Mario 64

[Anonymous No.8268441]

is there any other footage of mario 64 levels with major differences?

[Anonymous No.8268509]

>>8267271
are you implying the image is in black and white because of how early in development it was

[Anonymous No.8268527]

>>8268441
I think this level has the most changes, Lethal Lava Land and Whomp's Fortress are different but still more-or-less finished in terms of general layout and so is Tall Tall Mountain's slide. This stage clearly became Cool Cool Mountain, but the layout and level design is totally different.
In all honesty, getting the SW95 rom would basically just mean getting to play this version of Cool Cool Mountain, I really doubt there's much of interest outside of that (I suspect the levels in the demo were the only ones even close to finished)

Speaking of SM64 and mysteries, this image and the tiny 2 second clip that went with it mystified me for years. Nobody had any idea what this could possibly be. Miraculously, it turned out to be from a test map that we actually got in the Gigaleak. That was pretty insane. Kind of reminds me of Giant's Castle in Banjo-Kazooie where for years fans speculated over this awesome looking temple area that never made the final game. Rare themselves ended up showing footage demonstrating that it was just a test level all along (https://youtu.be/w72kj20YNA0?t=424).). Game devs need to stop cockteasing people 20 years ago with test levels, it's deeply confusing.

[Anonymous No.8268531]

will we ever see beta dorry?

[Anonymous No.8268540]

>>8268531
any image like this makes me wish this game didn't have a fanbase

[Anonymous No.8268890]

>>8268540
it's just one severely autistic poster who makes them for every nintendo game remake

[Anonymous No.8269105]

>>8247813
>There's the "what could have been" angle I guess, but they cut/changed things for a reason.
That's the point. It's all about the journey to the final state of the game we know and love. Sonic Adventure maybe dropped it's RPG-focused gameplay, but it didn't stop Sonic Team from implementing Adventure Fields, which could have been something else before the reset of the game's development. GTA III and Postal 2 wouldn't be gloomy and cynical if 9/11 didn't happen.

[Anonymous No.8269534]

>>8269105
>Sonic Adventure maybe dropped it's RPG-focused gameplay, but it didn't stop Sonic Team from implementing Adventure Fields, which could have been something else before the reset of the game's development.
It was never going to be an RPG, that's just the buzzword of the time they used to communicate that it'll be more involved (especially in terms of story) and not just "a bunch of levels in a row: the game"