Even though they were canceled, we have them!

Game development is a bumpy road. While in the end we have a nearly endless supply of truly great classics, these games we know and love went through a painstaking creation process. Not free from the reality of business though, it not only required the dedication of devoted artists and coders but deals with publishers were made, money was exchanged and licensing was agreed upon.

It's a very complex process, and one everyone interested in games should learn about. Whats even more interesting though, is to remember that not every game that enters this gauntlet makes it out alive. Often times a company may run out of funds for development, or a licensing deal may fall through, or a whole myriad of other things might occur... but the end result is the same. Many games just get canceled.

However, thanks to the wonders of emulation and the tireless efforts of preservationists, some of these lost games live on. In the world of emulation a "prototype" game is a copy of a game in an unfinished or unreleased state. The scope of this category of games is wide and beautifully varied. So this month at Emuparadise, we want to highlight some of these games that, even though they were canceled, you can still play.

Half-Life

Platform: Sega Dreamcast

Almost everyone is familiar with Half-Life, its influence on the FPS genre is legendary. With so much success it was naturally only a matter of time before ports to consoles were made, and in fact, we did get a PS2 port of the title. Prior to that, however, the game was being ported to the Sega Dreamcast. While this was never released due to licensing disagreements, the game was more-or-less finished and can be played all the way through.

Loading times are quite long, and the texture quality admittedly isn't great. However, it's an interesting piece of history for the Dreamcast, and for game development in general; showing us that the process is indeed quite fragile and everything must be in place for a game's creation to succeed.

Targa

Platform: Super Nintendo

Targa is an interesting example of a prototype. The game started life as a spiritual successor to the much-loved series "Turrican" and in fact, was released to Japan under the title "Rendering Ranger R2". However, the localization of the game was canceled before it could be released.

In recent years the "Targa" variation of the game was released online. It's an interesting look at how even a released game can still face obstacles in being released. Turrican fans have a lot to be excited for with this prototype, and the full release of "Super Turrican - Director's Cut", and uncut version of that original game, that was released with the SuperNT emulation console recently as well.

Star Fox 2

Platform: Super Nintendo

Star Fox 2 is one of a kind. When the first Star Fox game was released in 1993 it was a huge hit and a sequel seemed inevitable. In fact, a sequel was worked on and even completed. However, with the impending release of the Virtual Boy and the N64 Nintendo opted not to release the title.

For a very long time, this prototype existed only as a near-complete Japanese version of the game (albeit with a translation patch added). Over time, a few other builds of the title were unearthed, but it wasn't until last year in 2017 that something really special happened. Nintendo released the completed game.

Granted, this was released on the SNES classic mini emulation-console; though the ROM has been extracted from that device. However, it's a very rare occurrence of an unreleased game, especially one with such a high profile, eventually seeing the light of day - - Even if it was over 20 years later.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Platform: Sega Genesis

"Sonic 2 was already released!" Yes, obviously; however there's a lot of history in the development of Sonic 2 that we were exposed to with its legendary prototype builds. These prototypes gave us an amazing glimpse into the changes that game goes through during development. There are early builds that show tons of placeholder sprites and tons of elements taken directly from Sonic 1, while the last few builds show everything mostly together with plenty of variations on the special stage layouts.

The most interesting build though was one that landed somewhere in the middle; known as the Simon Wai prototype (Named for the individual who first found and uploaded it to the net). This build is truly special and fascinating. At this point in development, there are several levels that are completely absent from the final product. Levels like Wood Zone are broken but can be played with. While Genocide City is entirely empty. The most famous level of all though, Hidden Palace Zone, is present in this build.

While there have been several rom-hacks out there which set out to rebuild these lost levels over the years, Hidden Palace Zone was eventually rebuilt in the official Sonic 2 release for iOS & Android by the legendary Christian Whitehead. All in all, it's an amazing look at the progress a game makes over time.

Sonic X-treme

Platform: Sega Saturn

The infamous canceled Sonic game. If you're not familiar, X-treme was to be Sonic's first 3D outing developed for the Sega Saturn. It was shown off many many times to the press and at shows like E3. Ultimately though, the game was canceled and the closest we got to a Saturn Sonic game was the port of "Sonic 3D Blast" and the extra mode in the compilation "Sonic Jam".

For a long time, a prototype of this game seemed like an Urban myth, whispered about in the forums and chatrooms of the 90's internet. Rumors and hoaxes abound for someone having finally unearthed the holy grail of Sega prototypes. Eventually, though, we got not 1, but 3 builds of this game.

Admittedly, there's not much on the playable side of things for 2 of these builds; mostly working as early tech demos. However, taken as a whole alongside the history of Sonic's lost outing paints an interesting picture. Sonic X-treme spent a long time in what's called "development hell". During this time the game was rebuilt several times before being canceled. The first 2 prototype builds show what's known as the "Nights Engine" and "Fisheye Engine" respectively. The final build, however, is a late dev build showing that things were finally coming together... but also proving that even with an IP as strong as Sonic in the mid 90's - no game was safe from being cut.

Resident Evil 1.5

Platform: PlayStation

Resident Evil 2 is often viewed as the highlight of the franchise. It's eerie atmosphere and polished mechanics seemed to take everything the first game did right and improve upon it. Did you know though, that Resident Evil 2 was canceled?

It's an interesting story of game development. Almost immediately after Resident Evil's success, Capcom set out to work on a 2nd game. This Resident Evil 2, was very very different. Sure, it still had the protagonist Leon Kennedy, but Claire Redfield is nowhere to be found; instead, we have the character Elza Walker, who isn't just different by name. The most notable change though is the police station. Where the real Resident Evil 2 has us exploring an old and historic looking location, the building in 1.5 is a very sleek and modern looking Police HQ.

About 3/4 of the way through development though, Capcom scrapped this game and started over to make something 'better'. Being that far along though, there were countless screenshots and tidbits that the press and gamers had seen. Eventually, this led to the 'myth' of Resident Evil 1.5 - a fabled prototype that was almost infamous in the days of dial-up online. Some publications did April fools jokes about having the game, other people got scammed into buying a copy of it online.

It wasn't until the last few years, however, that a copy was uploaded to the internet. It's an interesting, but somewhat broken build of the game. Our community of gamers are resourceful ones though, and there is even a project out there that is dedicated to finishing the title, which they've released a prototype for - So you can now play the prototype of a prototype of a canceled game that was actually released, except not really. See how fun the world of prototypes can be?

There are tons of prototype builds out there on the internet, preserved as history for us thanks to preservationists and their contributions. Really, this list only represents the tip of a very large iceberg. In fact, there are many prototypes that have yet been undiscovered - Holy grails of lost gaming like Conker Twelve Tales for the N64 or Castlevania for the Dreamcast. You'd be surprised how often these are found at garage sales in boxes of 'old junk from when my dad worked at Nintendo' or on the hard drive of a console's devkit sold at auction on sites like eBay. Bottom line? If you find a mysterious looking cartridge or disc or console... contact someone who's into preservation. You never know what might be hiding on it - only to be erased should it be booted back up again incorrectly.