Clockwork Knight 2 - 8.30 Review Beta #3 (US)

So, a niche one that probably won't be of much interest to many, but preserving history is cool.
I mainly ripped it for my CK fansite, but wanted to share it around, too.

I bought this disc from a private seller on eBay at the end of 2017 not knowing what it was, and it turned out the be a in production/review version of the English translation of the game. Curiously enough, this is actually a US version of the game, but is very much like what became the final PAL release.

The seller said they bought it from a "gentleman in Santa Cruz, Californa, who used to be a developer", along with a bunch of other games, including another Saturn production CD-R (I have no idea what that may be).

The date of this build appears to be 1995.08.30 (Based on the file dates), which would make this proto, 1 month after the JP release (1995.07.28), just under 2 months before the final PAL version release (1995.10.27) and 5/6 months before the final US version release (1996.01/02) which as we all know, ended up being based on the code for "Pepperouchau no Fukubukuro" instead by the time it came out, which had been released 1/2 months earlier (1995.12.15).

Just to be clear that this is not simply a conversion of the later dated PAL version, as mentioned above, the file creation dates for this builds burn are 1995.08.30, where as the final PAL version's files have a creation date of 1995.09.08, making this build around 10 days prior.
Quite a unique piece of history!

This seems to be a 95-98% copy (If not 99-100%), and is possibly the version shown in several Saturn VHS promo tapes around the time.

The game was burned to a blank Sega Saturn branded CD-R (Common at the time for proto builds), and has the following text written on the CD: JM CK2 #3 8.30
I have included images of the front, back and the CD itself for preservation purposes.

This rip was made using CloneCD, and as such it is of course a .CCD file.

Anyway, enjoy~
Download: https://mega.nz/#!AogGXaoI!RmblGgGnvDZ5xY2kITEAsWGxW9PhOkLCEsJv4VmB4fI

Update: Hidden Palace Mirror http://hiddenpalace.org/Clockwork_Knight_2_(Aug_30,_1995_prototype)

Images: https://imgur.com/a/FrTGh
01 - Front

02 - Back

03 - CD

 

Thank you for sharing!

 

It's my pleasure to share it~ ^^

Also, the cool dudes at Hidden Palace have mirrored my release on their site with it's own page, so I have updated the OP to reflect this. Thanks guys~ <3

 

Awesome! Thank you for sharing this. I love CW/CW2 so it's great to see prototypes.

 

No problem!

I'm sorry it's not an early prototype or something cool like that, but it's a (seemingly complete!) translated US build that ended up being used for the PAL region instead, while the US version was based off of an exclusive Japanese release containing both games, so this is cool in it's own right~ ^^

 

Any part of Clockwork Knight history being preserved is appreciated. Hoping we somehow find something even earlier someday, though I've never seen any prototype gameplay screenshots to know if anything really changed to begin with.

 

Ah, if you're interested in CK's prototype history then hopefully this video from my Youtube Channel will interest you~


This footage was shown in the August/September 94 edition of "Sega Video Magazine", and the part at the very beginning but I've actually very recently narrowed this one down to also being the same prototype used in the first true public showing of Clockwork Knight (Not the SG Workstation stuff shown in January of the same year tat magazines incorrectly named the "32X version") at Tokyo Toy Show in June 1994 (which, as above, is 2-3 months prior to this VHS release) based on Magazine screenshots perfectly lining up with footage shown in this video (I can provide examples, although a little crude), so I personally call this version the "Tokyo Toy Show '94 Prototype". It was said that the showing of Clockwork Knight that day was just a rolling video, like a few other Saturn games on the day.

The prototype shows the first stage looking a good bit different to the final version, and this prototype even features an unused enemy, which is a Cymbal-banging monkey toy named "Lubancy" who actually appears in the opening/curtain call of the first game, and is again shown in the cast of characters at the end of the second game.

In addition to the above, this footage even features a completely different version of the Clockwork Knight theme playing in the background, which is perhaps playing using the SCSP (just speculation), as opposed to the final version which was good ol' Red Book audio~

You can find more interesting stuff in my "Clockwork Knight 1/2/Fukubukuro - Promotional/Prototype/Preview Footage" playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoZEwZsFR_z_fvnf1CEnFt7wagPm6kuKN

There is a lot mere information I have on this series and my own detective work, but I think my wall of text is enough for today~

 

Wow thanks for sharing all of that. I saw one of those before and completely forgot about it, but haven't seen the rest. Besides what you mentioned, a couple things that stuck out to me wereI Stage 1-2's music in one of the CWK1 videos, so I guess they had the music done for that game by the time of part 1's release. I think the first boss in CWK2 has a different BG in one of those previews as well.

I've always wondered if an early proto of the game would possibly contain parts of the second game since it's no secret the game sort of ended up like what happened with Sonic 3 being split into a second half due to time constraints. Here's hoping somehow we can find out someday.

 

Ah yes, level 2-1 (Kevin's Room's 1) in the CK1 prototype shown below has a BGM at 1:08 used in Level 1-2 (Kid's Room 2) in Clockwork Knight 2, yes... which sort of blends in with the fact that the level right after (2-2) is the train ride level with a similar wild west music theme which is featured right after in said video:


I addition to that, the level shown just before it (1-2 / Betsy's Room 2) uses the music that is used in the final version of the above mentioned level (2-1 / Kevin's Room 1) at 0:49

The way the level looks at 0:50 matches a prototype screenshot of the level from a magazine I'll have to dig out, and is also shown on the back cover of the JP version of the game strangely enough!

And let's not forget the completely different title screen featured at the start of the video which I've also found a screenshot of previously in a Korean gaming magazine!
Cool stuff, right?

 

Ah right, I almost forgot that cool title screen. I can see you've probably obsessed over this like I have over early versions of my favorite games in the past I actually tried my hand at tracking down a prototype of the first game a year back or so by contacting anyone I could find in the credits. I only got a hold of one person on the US side who did QA testing, but they had nothing to really share and it sounded like it was just a job rather than an impressionable memory to them. We'll be lucky if more CD-Rs show up in the future. A TGS disc would be neat.