We've all seen the picture of Clockwork Knight where he's fighting a jack in the box and read that this was from the so called 32X version. Turns out to be BS after all It was in fact from an early demo to show off the Saturn's hardware. Here are a load of shots taken from this work in progress game that turned out to be completely different in the end. This also looks more like Clockwork Knight 2 that 1. Here's that 1 picture that you can always find on the net. Yakumo
Yakumo, you've done it again! These are without any doubt, the best quality shots of the CES '94 prototype "Knights" footage so far - well, they're brilliant in terms of their resolution. However, since the final name is mentioned (albeit as a working title only) then it's safe to say that earlier reports were slightly inaccurate. Also, it's interesting to see what looks very much like playable content that was later incorporated into the second Clockwork Knight. P.S. Although we all know that Clockwork Knight started off as a 32X development, I've always been aware that version shown here is from the CES demonstration. What's still to be determined is whether this was actually running on incomplete Saturn hardware (or what I'd presume to be unfinished, considering the overall timeline) or Silicon Graphics workstations as suggested elsewhere. After all, if we've been misled for a decade regarding something as trivial as a working title then who's to say that other so-called facts aren't wrong as well? Thankfully there are people like Yakumo on our side who know better...
This is 100% not running on Saturn Hardware or at least notthe hardware that the final Saturn became. I can post more pictures that show that this is far beyond what the Saturn could do at that time. I'd say its running on a Silicon Graphics work station or something due to the smothness of the textures and polygons. Yakumo
The view I've developed (based on several magazine reports from the time) is that two of the three CS titles previewed at the Winter '94 CES - specifically Panzer Dragoon and Clockwork Knight - were playable tech demos running on either Silicon Graphics workstations or very early Saturn hardware. Thanks to the exceptional quality of Yakumo's new pictures, I'm now certain we can at least conclude that Clockwork Knight was far too advanced for the final specifications, making the former option seem the more feasible. On the other hand, considering that parts of the original Victory Goal presentation were included in the final version's pre-rendered intro sequence, this game was almost certainly not powered by even an early variation of the Saturn. At the time of their unveiling, it seems that Clockwork Knight was a long way ahead of Panzer Dragoon and Victory Goal in terms of production, as some of these early production images - whether from actual Saturn code or not - look very much like the end product. Meanwhile, in another thread we can all see that Panzer Dragoon (or "Saturn Shooting Game" and "Dragon" as it has been referred to elsewhere) suffered a radical overhaul from its CES appearance to what ultimately made the shelves at retail. I've not really seen enough of the prototype Victory Goal to form a proper conclusion, though the finished game is little more than a rough-looking polygonal stadium packed with SGI player sprites, so there's not much to describe in this case. It has been very interesting as a Saturn fanatic to finally see one of the CES tech demos in high quality, and judging from those pictures it looks as if they were taken directly from a video - now if only these were leaked, as I'm sure we're all tired of looking at low resolution magazine scans and the minimal footage available so far...
I've seen that Victory Goal you speak of. I remember the goal looking like a triangle. You know, just a net sloping back to the ground. Here are some more early Clockwork Knight pictures for you to drool over Just who is this little guy on the far right? Yakumo
These newest screenshots give me the impression that Team Aquila was forced to slim down their ideas drastically for Clockwork Knight, though most people will already know that there was only ever a sequel because of the development schedule being reduced following Sega's last-minute decision to bring forward the Saturn's release date. Apart from the obvious visual downgrade, it's a shame that some of the background interaction was taken out of the finished games, as from what I can tell it's likely that Clockwork Knight in its original form would have been a lot more than just plenty of running around, killing enemies and the occasional solving of a puzzle in order to progress. Sadly, it's not the first (or last!) time Sega has forced a production into late compromises purely for the sake of making deadlines - Sonic 3 & Knuckles, anyone? P.S. The small character in that first picture was replaced with something a little more practical, later evolving into the horse-like bottle/brush design that was only ever used in the second game.
In the early version that those shots are from the main hero can kick as well which he couldn't do in the final games. Yakumo
If there's one thing I can say about the final Saturn version of Clockwork Knight it's that Aquila at least maintained the prototype's overall style, so perhaps some of the original character sprites are hidden away? Then again, it's not as if Tongara de Pepperouchau and his friends ever had much of a following, so it's not like a huge group of people will be hacking away at their copies of either game to see if they can find something... unlike another more popular Sega platforming franchise I could think of!
...Seeing this post bought back happy memories, I remember spending far too much time playing CK when it was first released
