I am a huge Ganbare Goemon Fan but i never saw any proto or beta Version of any Goemon Game. I however found out on that page there was a fundraiser for a Goemon 64 Prototype. http://www.unseen64.net/2009/07/18/would-you-like-to-play-the-goemon-64-or-earthworm-jim-2-proto/ This was quite a long time ago but has anybody any information on this?
I have one, It's a pal format. Never played it because I've never taken the time to buy a pal console so I'm unsure if there are any differences.
Well i cant think of many differences to the US verion except for the Logo in that case since that game was just in english available for all PAL Countrys. I mean it would be interesting to see how this version looks like but i think a NTSC Version would be more interesting. Oh in general i am also interested for Ganbare Goemon 2/Goemons Great Adventure on N64. The final US/Pal Version dont have the Intro Video because of licence Issues with the Singer so they cut it out. Maybe there is a english Version with Intro out there?
I'm a big Goemon fan myself. Would love to see a proto of the first N64 game. That unseen64 fundraiser cart was a bust. Someone ended up buying the cart itself some time ago and it turned out to just be a final version of the US localization.
Ah thanks for pointing that out. i always wondered about that. But somewehre out there must be something Goemon related i think.
I was wrong its NTSC, was thinking about my tonic trouble, it's pal. Not really played the commercial version so can't speak to any differences.
Best thing to do is just look at a Youtube playthrough(on mute if there's any lame commentary ) of the first few minutes and then checking out the beginning of your copy. The beginning of a game doesn't tell everything, but it at least gives you a good idea. I think for Goemon protos, if it's English it's not going to be anything special. Need to find Japanese builds.
Yeah I agree anything in English will be final builds minus any translation mistakes. It is in English so I highly doubt any differences exist.
Debug menus and other development stuff can still be left behind even in English translations. See Kingdom Hearts Re:CoM debug
Yes, some Debug Funtions are possible because the Goemon Game is a quite complex game... it would be interesting to have a look. Anyway, how does the logo looks like? Same as the final one?
Debug functions were found for the first game already, actually. http://tcrf.net/Mystical_Ninja_Starring_Goemon_(Nintendo_64) I'd love a proto from its earliest development phase. This is actually one of the first games in my childhood that made me realize content gets cut from games. If anyone's seen any "beta" shots of the game, you'll notice there's a ton of CGI renders that were likely used for concept, some remaining in my mind being Impact in a city and also approaching what looks like the Golden Gate Bridge. Lots of magazines had those shots, leaving me wondering why I couldn't find any of that stuff in the game, so I cut all prototype pics I could find and sent a letter to Nintendo. I still have that letter saved somewhere, but they basically just said content gets cut. Back then the concept was foreign to me. All those shots make you wonder how much of it was actually put in the game, or just 3D renders they made for ideas.
Yes i agree that it will be more intersting to have a japanese prototype/Beta since there is the chance to find something cool in it. There is also the possibility that some japanese collector does have such things but they mostly hord that stuff and it never sees the light of day. About that Debug Mode... well thats the first time i saw this, thx for the info. It could be that in willis82 version this can be enabled with some button combinations. In general the game was one of the more earlier N64 Games but quite big and was just 128 Mbit so i guess they had to cut it down. Back then 256 Mbit was not common even for Nintendo and most 3th party games never went over 128Mbit to save money. It would be very cool to see more from Goemon 64 or Goemon 64 2 What i find very interesting is that even for NES, SNES or PSX i never heard of any Prototype before... very strange.
I remember I had an issue of gamefan where they previewd the game at the tokyo game show, it looked very early and they said it crashed a lot due to it's early state (debug info was on screen) sadly I threw that issue out a long time ago. If anyone has that issue of gamefan where they went to the tokyo show that year and goemon was being demoed you'll see some early screens there.
There's an SNES Goemon 3 sample with some differences and a "walk through walls" mode that's been released last year: http://www.snescentral.com/review.php?id=1052&num=0&fancy=yes&article=proto But beyond that, I don't think I've heard of any Goemon prototypes to be dumped and released, either...
Ill dump the one I have and release it. You guys can tell me if there are any differences but I highly doubt it. It may take a few weeks to get around to it.
Wow, that sounds very cool willis, thank you. Looking forward to have a look @xdaniel, thank you for this info, still interesting.
