Summary
The Wii U was not one ofNintendo’s most successful platforms. Fans of the system did hold out hope for one giant game viaThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. With numerous delays, it was eventually revealed that the game would simultaneously be released on Wii U as well as the newNintendosystem, the Switch.
That’s an example of a game that didn’t move systems entirely during development. However, it is an example of how things have changed during the cycle as a whole. Are there any examples of games switching development purely from one system to another like going from the Game Boy to the N64? Well, let’s jump in and have a look. Most of these Nintendo games can be found on Unseen64, which is a great resource for canceled or prototype games.
6Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiemwas one of the GameCube’s most groundbreaking horror games at the time.Like Hideo Kojimaand theMetal Gearseries,Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiemwas all about messing with the player from turning down the volume to switching things off. Funnily enough Silicon Knights, the developer, would go on to create a remake ofMetal Gear Solidfor the GameCube exclusively.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiemwas not always on the GameCube though because it started on N64. There are a ton of screenshots for it onUnseen64 from previews. Besides the more chunky assets, a lot of the scenes should look familiar to fans.
5Kirby Air Ride
Nintendo has experimented with exclusive racing games many times over such asF-Zeroandthe best Mario Kart games. They even made a spinoff forKirbyviaKirby Air Rideon the GameCube. LikeSuper Mario Kart, it was a more relaxed racing game featuring powers and characters from the franchise.
It wasn’t that weird at the time because Kirby had been in non-platformers beforeKirby Air Rideincluding golf, pinball, and puzzle games. Like most of these entries,Kirby Air Ridebegan on the N64 and there are many screenshotscataloged on Unseen64. One of the odder things about its development was that at one time Kirby sported a backward baseball cap as if to say this was anextreme game forTony HawkPro Skaterfans. Whether that was Nintendo’s intentions or not is unknown, but it is funny to consider.
4Mother 3
There are a lot of games from Nintendo’s past that fans would assuredly love to see get an official Western release someday.Mother 3hasto be at the top of that list which was released for the GBA in 2006. There is a fan translation, so fans have been enjoying it for years, but there is something comforting about an official release.
Fans would probably also like to play whatever build is out there at Nintendo forEarthBound 64. This was an N64 project announced in 1996, meaning that it took a decade for this vision to finally be realized.Unseen64 has early trailers and screenshotswith Ness fromEarthBoundstanding in for who would eventually be the star, Lucas. Other characters fromMother 3can be seen such as Flint.
Resident Evil 0was another big horror game on GameCube which began on the N64. It was sort of a follow-up to the remake of the first game on GameCube, using the same engine to work backward in the storyline. It was even released in the same year, 2002, which was and still is odd.Rebecca Chambers wasthe star, and she got roped into a leech-infested mystery alongside her jailed partner, Billy.
It’s one of the weirder games in the series, but it still plays well. The N64 version was probably a bit more clunky, but fans are never going to know about that unless a prototype ROM surfaces online. Most of thescreenshots on Unseen64are from the early train section of the game. Rebecca looks slightly different in her costume, but otherwise, the train looks almost exactly the same as the final GameCube product.
2Star Fox Adventures
Star Fox Adventureshas one of the wilder transitions from N64 to GameCube. It wasn’t just the platform that was weird, it was the fact that it was never supposed to be a Star Fox game. The project wascalledDinosaur Planetand Crystal, the kidnapped character from the start ofStar Fox Adventures, is one of the co-stars. Another character, Saber, was also playable in this version.
She had a whole adventure planned out, fully detailed through screenshots and videoarchived on Unseen64. Eventually, Rare would adhere to Nintendo’s wishes, cancel the project technically, and then restart it on GameCube. Most of the core concept remained the same as an action-adventure game set on a planet filled with dinosaurs. The inclusion ofStar Foxcharacters was the biggest change. It’s safe to say that Krystal didn’t make it.
1Tomato Adventure
Tomato Adventureis probably a game most RPG fans have never heard of before. However, the developer, AlphaDream, should ring a bell. They went on to become the developers of the RPG games about Mario and Luigi which started withMario and Luigi: Superstar Sagaon GBA.
Their first game was released in 2001 on the GBC,Koto Battle: Tengai no Moribito, which was sort of likea card-based RPG. It made sense then that their next game would also be on GBC,Gimmick Land, which did eventually shift to the GBA. It was also rebranded as Tomato Adventure and it too remains trapped in Japan.Unseen64 only has two screenshotsfrom this early version, which is not that exciting compared to others on here but it is proof enough.
