looking for games that changed almost 100% over development

[tonyvortex]

the thread on virtua cop 3 got me to thinking about house of the dead 3.i remembered and found at least one screen caption of the original cell shaded version.im wondering if anyone else can think of some games that have changed greatly from when first shown up to when finally shipped.of course there is conker but im curious about other games.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/tonyvortex/hotd3.jpg

[soniko_karuto]

starcraft ghost LOL

[Nez]

Star Fox adventure changed a lot.

I'm not shure if this counts but Resident Evil 2 was going to be much like the first, but then was scrapped in favore of the version we all know and love.

[Mayhem]

Beyond Good and Evil. Supposedly about 85% complete before being competely changed around in its aims and gameplay.

[Avatard]

The next Duke Nukem that is still in progress. Its changed so much, mostly because every year they wait they have to update the graphics and whatnot again, hehe. Will we ever see it? Who knows. GOod thing they didn't try to compete with Doom3, UT2K4, and HL2. That would have been the death of DN.

[fishsandwich]

Two come to mind...

D2 for the Dreamcast is VERY different from the original D2 game that was planned for the aborted M2 console. The M2 D2 was supposed to be much more like D1, then got changed to a much different D2 for the DC. Make sense? @_@


Apocalypse (an older PSone shooter) contained A LOT of voiceover work courtesy of Bruce Willis, and he had allowed himself to be digitilized so his image could be shouwn for the in-game models. He was paid a BUNDLE for his efforts. The original game had Bruce playing a "buddy character" who shadowed you the whole game and would provide you will vocal hints and bullshit chatter. The game didn't come together AT ALL. The publisher switched developers (Neversoft?) and while the finished product isn't that great, it's pretty darmed impressive (from while I've heard) based on the pile of various unfinished code and Bruce's work that they had to sort through. In the revised game, Bruce provides the voiceover and character modeling for YOUR character and there is no "buddy system", a highly-touted feature in the original.

Cheers

:D

[it290]

Well, back to the RE series, RE4 was scrapped- twice, I think- before reaching its current state.

[banski83]

Halo 1; it was originally penned as a PC RTS game, much like W40,000 Dawn of War is now. I'd say thats changed a fair amount over development!

[Cmosfm]

Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Switched over from an E rated kiddy platformer romp to a M rated masterpiece.

:D

[TRM]

Police Academy on NES.

[Captain Wrong]

Apocalypse (an older PSone shooter) contained A LOT of voiceover work courtesy of Bruce Willis, and he had allowed himself to be digitilized so his image could be shouwn for the in-game models. He was paid a BUNDLE for his efforts. The original game had Bruce playing a "buddy character" who shadowed you the whole game and would provide you will vocal hints and bullshit chatter. The game didn't come together AT ALL. The publisher switched developers (Neversoft?) and while the finished product isn't that great, it's pretty darmed impressive (from while I've heard) based on the pile of various unfinished code and Bruce's work that they had to sort through. In the revised game, Bruce provides the voiceover and character modeling for YOUR character and there is no "buddy system", a highly-touted feature in the original.

I was going to mention this game as well. Not to derail the topic, but this game also provided the engine for Tony Hawk Pro Skater (in the mall level, you can find a secret area with boxes of Apocalypse piled up.) Personally, I think Apocalypse is highly under-rated, but I know I'm in the minority there. :D

[MegaDrive20XX]

Star Fox adventure changed a lot.

I'm not shure if this counts but Resident Evil 2 was going to be much like the first, but then was scrapped in favore of the version we all know and love.

Btw that verison of RE2 was dubbed "RE 1.5" Claire was blonde and Leon had black hair I believe. The notorius "Super Zombies" were removed as well. As well as the "Fat cops zombies"...which were finally used in RE3.

In the original RE1, in pictures from EGM back in 1995. You had the ability to have two player co-op, this was removed however in the final cut.

[Crush Crawfish]

I know Yoshi's Island was scrapped and restarted at least twice.

I also remember seeing screenshots of Chrono Trigger and Mario RPG that look incredibly different from the final version.

Oh and I think Resident evil 4 was restarted at least 4 times as well.

[Ed Oscuro]

D2 for the Dreamcast is VERY different from the original D2 game that was planned for the aborted M2 console. The M2 D2 was supposed to be much more like D1, then got changed to a much different D2 for the DC. Make sense? @_@
I've run across the name a number of times (recently as I was looking for M2 info, just got one anyhow), but I have no idea about it. Got any more information?


Apocalypse (an older PSone shooter) contained A LOT of voiceover work courtesy of Bruce Willis, and he had allowed himself to be digitilized so his image could be shouwn for the in-game models. He was paid a BUNDLE for his efforts. The original game had Bruce playing a "buddy character" who shadowed you the whole game and would provide you will vocal hints and bullshit chatter. The game didn't come together AT ALL. ... In the revised game, Bruce provides the voiceover and character modeling for YOUR character and there is no "buddy system" ...
Yeah. It's fun at times (I've gotten to War Factory and gave up for a while), they just needed to lay off certain BS sections (Let's go platforming when we can't see where we're supposed to go! Yay). The CG movies actually add something to the game, as much as I hate to admit it. Now, the voice work isn't very good. Fun to hear Willis, but the lines suck. Odder still are the enemy voice clips - you hear enemies from a distance as clearly as if they were yourself speaking, and they also utter lame, poorly delivered lines ("I have a wife and kids!" when they see you, or "My arm!" from a dying soldier).

One amusing glitch I found at the beginning of the cavern level was that Willis just kept talking and talking - he'd repeat a line (out of his very small repertoire) every few seconds! Well, I honestly can't imagine how they would've gotten the buddy system to work out well enough - the game is a straight-up Smash TV clone with odd perspectives, and THAT is cool. Adding in a glitchy PlayStation-smart buddy throughout the entirety of the game (Bruce got stuck on the geometry again! lol) would've been a downer.

My own addition would be The Legend of Zelda 64. I've some old, old slides from 1995 of the game, back when Link was rather like a pointy Mario and his nemesis was a Metal Mario-styled knight in armor. Why the mention of Mario? They started out with the Mario 64 engine. Talk about not getting the most out of your console - Super Mario 64 was a wonderful game, but that engine really limited what they could do. Still puts out some great scenes though. There's a page floating somewhere about with tons of screenshots of the older versions - amusing to see how stuff in the HUD got shifted around (at some time or other they switched to a LttP style bar with rupee count up top, then back to the regular one eventually). Some of it looks cool, though.

Speaking of N64 games, there's the now-legendary work on Final Fantasy VII for the system. Don't know much at all about that one.

There's also screenshots (some believe these were faked by a magazine) of Final Fantasy IV for the Famicom (not Super Famicom, just plain ol' 1983-style Famicom). Square also had some other FF-like game underway on the FC that they abandoned, explaining to folks who had preordered in a letter (now probably worth hundreds of dollars!) that they had switched gears to work on a proper FF game.

A game that lots of folks here love would be Symphony of the Night. This game apparently started out for the Sega 32x; the final Saturn version ended up being an afterthought, a rather poor port of the PlayStation game, in fact. Later on the game would be ported to the Game.com, at least partially; I have it on good authority that the cartridge was spotted at some game show or other but seems to have disappeared. Too bad, that would've made the Game.com a much more interesting system (I for one would have liked to see a redone Gargoyle's Quest though).

Speaking of Castlevania, that series is notorious for putting out far-out screenshots that end up being totally unlike the final version. Early on, Super Castlevania IV's preview movie (dunno where this is from, but I remember it being on the Castlevania Dungeon) showed sections of the Entrance Hall that look familiar, but the well-known fence puzzle at the beginning of the game is shown here in a much bigger, rather primitive looking state, and given the look appears to be a later stage of the game. There's even a burrowing, Aliens-like critter that comes directly out of Getsu Fuu Ma Den.

Further along, we have way-out levels in the odd beta version of Castlevania: Bloodlines, one of which has you on top of a zeppelin..! A fellow from the north countries (Sweden?) owns it, and I believe he stopped by to post in one of our brag threads about it...sadly, that's as far as I can take that discussion as he seems to have abandoned our site.

That's not all, of course; a GBC port of Castlevania II was planned but never came into being, but most interesting is the work done on Castlevania: Resurrection. Some of it looks good, gameplay movies tend to look somewhat poor though. I've seen some renders of interior areas that are nice, though; parts of the game would've had a very polished, classical 17th Century look to them judging from one screenshot with dancing spectres in a period drawing room.

That's all for now.

[hydr0x]

next Star Fox game for the Gamecube...

and i recently read about one brilliant example for such a change, but i can't remember it :angry:

[Promophile]

Resident evil 0 was changed alot. It was orignally planned for release on N64, and they got at least 50 percen tdone, then remade the game for the Gamecube.

[ClassicGameTrader]

There's also screenshots (some believe these were faked by a magazine) of Final Fantasy IV for the Famicom (not Super Famicom, just plain ol' 1983-style Famicom). Square also had some other FF-like game underway on the FC that they abandoned, explaining to folks who had preordered in a letter (now probably worth hundreds of dollars!) that they had switched gears to work on a proper FF game.

Interestingly enough, there is an old issue of I believe nintendo power which shows a shot of a party that is not available in the final release. It has Cecil as a dark knight fighting at one of the later dungeons with rydia and I *believe* kain and maybe edgar. I just want to say for the record it was a super nes version.


I registered today after reading a few topics, I thought I was the only one :)

[-hellvin-]

I would say Warcraft III. I wish I still had the PC Gamer issue where they showed the game was going to be an adventure game. Yes, a point and click adventure game. Even worse, the main character was a loser orc who wasn't tough like the rest of his orc buddies and he walked around with a little pouch around his body where he stored his items which he would use to solve puzzles with orc intelligence and wit.

[GobopopRevisited]

Twelve Tales became Conker's Bad Furd Day. One of the biggest changes I've seen. We Still got the pocket sized version though... Who would have known Diddy hung arround with such trash?... Anyways thats been mentioned.

Conker: Live and Uncut. It used to be Online Deathmatch and such (Halo 2 in third person with Squirrels and Stuffed Bears) and a direct port of Conker's Bad Furday (without all the Bleeps).

Now Its a Mission Based Live Game (Regular Deathmatch, etc. included) and the "port" of Conker's Bad Fur Day has been "Reloaded". Total Audio / Visual Makeover. Now- Conker: Live and Reloaded.

Also- I really like the look of the Cel-Shaded HOTDIII, best looking "you can tell its cell shading" game I've seen.

[VACRMH]

Btw that verison of RE2 was dubbed "RE 1.5" Claire was blonde and Leon had black hair I believe. The notorius "Super Zombies" were removed as well. As well as the "Fat cops zombies"...which were finally used in RE3.

Actually that wasn't even Claire, it was a girl named Eliza Walker. I know she liked Motorcycles, she may have been a college student.

[ubersaurus]

There's also screenshots (some believe these were faked by a magazine) of Final Fantasy IV for the Famicom (not Super Famicom, just plain ol' 1983-style Famicom). Square also had some other FF-like game underway on the FC that they abandoned, explaining to folks who had preordered in a letter (now probably worth hundreds of dollars!) that they had switched gears to work on a proper FF game.


I believe lostlevels.com or whatever the site name was, asked the guy about that FF4 on Famicom, and he said it was just a mockup and no actual work was ever done.

[Ed Oscuro]

I believe lostlevels.com or whatever the site name was, asked the guy about that FF4 on Famicom, and he said it was just a mockup and no actual work was ever done.
Whatever they said - yeah, now that I think about it that should've been my source.

[crazyjackcsa]

How bout Shenmue and Sonic Adventure? Started out life on the Saturn and shifted to the DC. Amok switched from the 32x to the Saturn.

[fishsandwich]

How bout Shenmue and Sonic Adventure? Started out life on the Saturn and shifted to the DC. Amok switched from the 32x to the Saturn.

Indeed... several 32x games were moved over to the Saturn and/or Playstation. Why waste all that code and design work?

Cheers

:D

[Querjek]

I'm surprised to see no mention of Kirby Air Ride. Seriously... look at some screenshots of the N64 version and you'll know that the Gamecube version is most definitely NOT the same game.

[Aussie2B]

I'm surprised to see no mention of Kirby Air Ride. Seriously... look at some screenshots of the N64 version and you'll know that the Gamecube version is most definitely NOT the same game.

Mainly because they didn't know what the heck to make of the game for the N64. They couldn't decide if it should be a racer, adventure game, etc. The screenshots didn't show much more than Kirby riding a star in a big empty area. Once they got some direction for the GameCube game, it's only natural that it would end up a lot different from those very early, primitive concepts.

[Aussie2B]

My own addition would be The Legend of Zelda 64. I've some old, old slides from 1995 of the game, back when Link was rather like a pointy Mario and his nemesis was a Metal Mario-styled knight in armor. Why the mention of Mario? They started out with the Mario 64 engine. Talk about not getting the most out of your console - Super Mario 64 was a wonderful game, but that engine really limited what they could do.

I doubt they made that decision because of limitations. They obviously had a lot more to work with than they ever had before. It was probably more an issue of convenience than anything else. I remember reading about Miyamoto's ideas for Zelda 64, and he made lots of references to Mario 64. He wanted Link to control like Mario in many ways, to be more active and almost like a platformer character, instead not doing much more than running around and attacking like in previous games. Mario 64 was a good starting point to build upon.


Speaking of N64 games, there's the now-legendary work on Final Fantasy VII for the system. Don't know much at all about that one.

There never was a FF7 for N64. Square was just testing out the 3D abilities of the N64 by rendering a few FF6 characters in 3D. That's about it. The fanboys totally blew it out of proportion by suggesting that Square was actually starting work on a Final Fantasy for N64.


That's not all, of course; a GBC port of Castlevania II was planned but never came into being

Wasn't there a GBC Konami collection of games released in Europe that had a Castlevania game on it? It probably was just one of the old Game Boy Castlevania games remade in color, but it seemed interesting nonetheless.

[Ed Oscuro]

My own addition would be The Legend of Zelda 64. I've some old, old slides from 1995 of the game, back when Link was rather like a pointy Mario and his nemesis was a Metal Mario-styled knight in armor. Why the mention of Mario? They started out with the Mario 64 engine. Talk about not getting the most out of your console - Super Mario 64 was a wonderful game, but that engine really limited what they could do.

I doubt they made that decision because of limitations. They obviously had a lot more to work with than they ever had before. It was probably more an issue of convenience than anything else. I remember reading about Miyamoto's ideas for Zelda 64, and he made lots of references to Mario 64. He wanted Link to control like Mario in many ways, to be more active and almost like a platformer character, instead not doing much more than running around and attacking like in previous games. Mario 64 was a good starting point to build upon.
Well, yes, but the resulting changes meant what we see in the final game is wildly different from what they started out with. I do see what you're getting at with this - character movement probably remained pretty constant throughout development, something that's never wholly obvious from a collection of screenies :) They definitely started with the SM64 engine as a matter of convenience, I wouldn't argue otherwise.



Speaking of N64 games, there's the now-legendary work on Final Fantasy VII for the system. Don't know much at all about that one.

There never was a FF7 for N64. Square was just testing out the 3D abilities of the N64 by rendering a few FF6 characters in 3D. That's about it. The fanboys totally blew it out of proportion by suggesting that Square was actually starting work on a Final Fantasy for N64.
I see. That would suggest Square was seriously considering the N64, though I'd expect any big company to do that...the question, then, is how did these shots find their way out into the public if they were for internal use only? Thanks for the correction, I've never heard otherwise on this issue.



That's not all, of course; a GBC port of Castlevania II was planned but never came into being

Wasn't there a GBC Konami collection of games released in Europe that had a Castlevania game on it? It probably was just one of the old Game Boy Castlevania games remade in color, but it seemed interesting nonetheless.
Yeah, I made a huge post about that a few weeks ago. You can find it pretty easily at the CV Dungeon, and the main version of the topic is here, probably a few pages back.

[SirDrexl]

Does Zelda: The Wind Waker count? Were they going to develop the game to look like the footage they first showed (in early 2001?), or was that just a demo?

[Ed Oscuro]

Ah, you mean the Spaceworld demo. Nah, that was unrelated work as far as I know...adult Link and all. Probably the next console Zelda will be something like that in terms of style...we'll see.

[Querjek]

Speaking of N64 games, there's the now-legendary work on Final Fantasy VII for the system. Don't know much at all about that one.

There never was a FF7 for N64. Square was just testing out the 3D abilities of the N64 by rendering a few FF6 characters in 3D. That's about it. The fanboys totally blew it out of proportion by suggesting that Square was actually starting work on a Final Fantasy for N64.
If I recall correctly, that tech demo in fact had 3D-rendered characters from FFVI, which would further explain why it was just a tech demo and nothing more.

Anyone know where the screenshots of it can be found online?

[SoulBlazer]

I've SEEN those shots -- and yes, it's just FF6 charcters done on the N64 to see how they would look -- but I'm not sure where you can still find it online.

[evildead2099]

Diablo (I). Blizzard Entertainment originally developed an RPG with a heavy emphasis on strategic, turn-based combat (think along the lines of Fallout). The game later ended up a hack-and-slash adventure game with heavy RPG elements.

[evildead2099]

I have an issue of EGM which dates back to sometime in 2000-2001. The issue in question features screenshots of the Zelda game that Nintendo was supposedly developing as a killer app for the Gamecube (known at that time as the Nintendo Dolphin). Although no text indicated HOW the game would play, the screenshots, which featured a duel between Link and a wizard, looked like they could very well have come out of Soul Calibur II. I was very disappointed to see what the finished product of the game looked like, which is terribly kiddie looking compared to the said demo screenshots.

[JJNova]

I have an issue of EGM which dates back to sometime in 2000-2001. The issue in question features screenshots of the Zelda game that Nintendo was supposedly developing .. I was very disappointed to see what the finished product of the game looked like, which is terribly kiddie looking compared to the said demo screenshots.

But the emphasis on emotion made for a more realistic interaction than polygonal characters would have been able to perform.

[evildead2099]

I have an issue of EGM which dates back to sometime in 2000-2001. The issue in question features screenshots of the Zelda game that Nintendo was supposedly developing .. I was very disappointed to see what the finished product of the game looked like, which is terribly kiddie looking compared to the said demo screenshots.

But the emphasis on emotion made for a more realistic interaction than polygonal characters would have been able to perform.

The GC Zelda's graphics look overly simplistic from what I've seen. The original graphical engine showcased in that demo seemed more than capable of portraying moving facial expressions. Have you played Soul Calibur 2? It's texture mapping is so tight and its polygons are so well arranged that its easy to forget that the game is in fact a polygonal fighter.

[tonyvortex]

does anyone else have screenshots of some of these examples as well?i tried looking everywhere for a example of the final fantasy 7 demo for N64.

[Ed Oscuro]

i tried looking everywhere for a example of the final fantasy 7 demo for N64.
Apparently you're having difficulty because, as Aussie and some others have said ("allege" LOL ), it's not Final Fantasy VII, rather FFVI characters rendered in a 3D tech demo.

Now, I will commence the breakdancing.

[Aussie2B]

Most people found out about the 3D FF screen shots from Nintendo Power. It was around issue 70/80-something. Back when they had Epic Center, they were usually desperate for any kind of news to fill the section up with since US-released RPGs to cover were few and far between. This was the time of Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG, so I imagine Nintendo had no idea that their relationship with Square would go sour so soon. They probably simply assumed that whatever Square was cooking up would be on the N64.

[Dahne]

A while back, I turned up some ancient public service announcement. The theme was "Don't Copy That Floppy." It was about the evils of copying computer games, as told to schoolchildren by some sort of magic rapping computer genie thing. It positively oozes oldness. At one point, they go to talk to the developers of games that were being made at the time. One says;

"Well, we're working on this game called Neverwinter Nights."

As I cracked up, they showed 2D screenshots of some zombies in a dungeon. It sort of resembled Final Fantasy 1.

[Famidrive-16]

Goldeneye 007 began as either an SNES or Game Boy game, then went t Virtual Boy, then the N64.

I also read that Pokemon was originally planned as an NES game.

[Ed Oscuro]

Game Boy? For the Game Boy I remember their being some sort of top down James Bond game (to give you an idea how clueless I was at the time, I thought it looked like it would be some really sweet action) released after Goldeneye with a short Game Boy sized Bond running about sandbags and buildings while shooting at short enemies and collecting keys. Hmm. Wonder if that's at all related.

[yoursisterspretty]

Game Boy? For the Game Boy I remember their being some sort of top down James Bond game (to give you an idea how clueless I was at the time, I thought it looked like it would be some really sweet action) released after Goldeneye with a short Game Boy sized Bond running about sandbags and buildings while shooting at short enemies and collecting keys. Hmm. Wonder if that's at all related.

007 for the GB was developed my Saffire, plublished by Nintendo. It was obvious Nintendo was just cashing in on Goldeneye 007's popularity on the 64. I figure you've never played that pile of crap. It was short, easy and retarted. I promptly beat the game and then headed back to EB to return it ;). Man those where the days.

[tonyvortex]

Goldeneye 007 began as either an SNES or Game Boy game, then went t Virtual Boy, then the N64.
the virtua boy one was a seperate game.

[Push Upstairs]

does anyone else have screenshots of some of these examples as well?i tried looking everywhere for a example of the final fantasy 7 demo for N64.

I have some "screenshots" from "FF7" for the N64 in a magazine. I had scanned them once before but if you want i will scan them again and post them later tonight.

Nothing (to me) groundbreaking. The characters look rather child-like and bear no actual resembelance to what came out on the PSX

[Push Upstairs]

Final Fantasy 7

http://members.aol.com/piku94/FF7.jpg*







*Fulgore not included.