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.

[soniko_karuto]

starcraft ghost

[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

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.