Dando, Moon Dancer and other unreleased/released early MD/Gen previews

[parallaxscroll]

Unreleased

Dando (aka Vasum)


http://i30.tinypic.com/358dwy8.jpg
http://i31.tinypic.com/eufq4g.jpg
http://i29.tinypic.com/xb0kur.jpg
http://i29.tinypic.com/zjukhw.jpg
http://i30.tinypic.com/2cxukck.jpg

http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/1990/Vasum-101990.jpg


Moon Dancer
http://www.imagepup.com/up/1jf7_1208464020_moondancerA.jpg
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/%7Et-suzuki/sousyuhen/be_moond.jpg

Macress
http://www.imagepup.com/up/soCH_1206664410_Macress.jpg

Battle Mission
http://www.imagepup.com/up/BKil_1208463950_BattleMissionA1.jpg
http://www.imagepup.com/up/uIAR_1208463991_BattleMissionB1.jpg



Land Buster, Vette!
http://www.imagepup.com/up/3Qtn_1206664895_LandBusterVette1.jpg


Joe Montana (this version was horizontally scrolling)
http://www.imagepup.com/up/9AuU_1206665979_JoeMontana1.jpg


Phantasy Star IV ????
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb70/parallaxscroll/phantasystar6pn.jpg

Can't confirm this, but I believe that is a pic of the never-released Phantasy Star IV: The Return of Alis (1991-1992) which was completely different than the released Phantasy Star: The End of the Millennium released in late 1993 in Japan and early 1995 in the U.S.

[parallaxscroll]

released games - early previews

Strider, Sonic
http://www.imagepup.com/up/s7OZ_1206664194_StriderSonic2.jpg

Sonic
http://www.imagepup.com/up/ohLd_1206692655_SonicPre1.jpg

Shadow Dancer
http://www.imagepup.com/up/fca4_1206665127_ShadowDancer1.jpg

Phantasy Star II
http://www.imagepup.com/up/903M_1206723836_PSIIpre1.jpg
I think this is EGM's first actual preview, though not their first-ever pictures of the game. By this time, Phantasy Star II has already been out in Japan for about a year, if you can believe release dates listed on websites, which say it came out there in March of 1989, before we even got the Genesis itself! The U.S. did not get II until March 1990, one month before Japan got III.


Thunder Force III
http://www.imagepup.com/up/XRLJ_1206667240_ThunderForce3.jpg
If there was ever a preview that sold me on a game before I tried it, THIS was it!


Curse
http://www.imagepup.com/up/5Haj_1206669549_curse1.jpg

Spiderman ?? different title screen from released version ??
http://www.imagepup.com/up/YKWk_1206690893_Spiderman1.jpg

Blue Almanac - released in Japan only - was to be Star Odyssey in the west
http://www.imagepup.com/up/ifSk_1206693469_BlueAlmanac.jpg

F-15 Strike Eagle II
http://www.imagepup.com/up/3ZKd_1206717080_F15StrikeEagle2.jpg

I remember it was shown in early 1990. There was video of it at Toys R US! This preview is from mid 1990. I don't think this version came out, or at least not anytime that year or the following year. F-15 Strike Eagle II for Genesis seemed to disappear off the radar like Vette! but then in 1993 the game (perhaps the real Genesis port not footage of the computer version) showed up and was released.

[Joe Redifer]

I remember the videos of F-15 and especially 'Vette playing in game stores. I was blown away that the car was rotating and you could see all sides of it. Genesis power! I left the store that day with Target Earth, which was just released at the time.

I like how they show the final boss of Curse in the damn preview.

[Genesis Knight]

What happened to those games in the first post? Did they come out under different names and I just don't recognize them or have they been completely lost to the community?

[parallaxscroll]

What happened to those games in the first post? Did they come out under different names and I just don't recognize them or have they been completely lost to the community?


They didn't come out at all, anywhere. Not in Japan. Not under different names, and AFAIK, they were never released in recent years like some other ROMs have been.

edit: Macress may or may not have become Saint Sword, I'm not sure.

[Aarzak]

"Dando" definitely looks "Legendary Axe"-ish (which could've been a good thing), and the colllective heads of the online Sonic community would explode should those early versions of Sonic (if they still exist, which I doubt since it was the only Sonic console game developed and completely contained in Japan, to this day probably) were leaked.

[Smii]

I like that Sonic screenshot - like the ancestor of Mr Blue-Spiky (as I like to call him sometimes - well, just then, anyway) roaming around a sparse landscape. (Yes, I'm aware it's exactly that, being a proto, but.. meh!)

"Dando", despite its ridiculous name, looks quite good.

Battle Mission looks fun, too - if they'd released that, the MD would've had, ooh, three whole gun games!
Assuming you could use the gun.
Which you probably couldn't've.
(Still irritates me that Sega games aren't gun / mouse compatible more.)

[Joe Redifer]

Saint Sword was a Taito game, programmed by them from scratch.

[VinnyT]

The Sonic screen has obviously shopped (by the magazine in question) to remove the UFO's.

[Joe Redifer]

Huh?

[Melf]

I made some of the pics in the initial post into attachments so they don't break the formatting. :)

Also, I've said it before: somone needs to find a ROM of Battle Mission pronto. I really would like to play that.

[Joe Redifer]

What formatting? Or do you mean so that they are archived?

[Melf]

It made it so you had to scroll the page right to see the whole images. That's really annoying.

And this way they're archived too. Hmm, he should attach them all so they're saved for posterity!

[CRV]

Saint Sword was a Taito game, programmed by them from scratch.

I talked to former game auteur Shouichi Yoshikawa (http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Interview:Shouichi_Yoshikawa) and he said Saint Sword was the US version of Macress. Then I pointed out Saint Sword came out in Japan. Then he said the main character's graphic was different in Macress.

Anyway, Yoshikawa did one of the stage maps on Macress (don't know if it's still in Saint Sword). The game was developed by Cyclone System (http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Cyclone_System) (which also did the Genesis version of Cadash).

[sonicwatcher6969]

This is an awesome site for prototype Sonic stuff, shame its not updated anymore:

http://sost.emulationzone.org/

I wish someone could find a rom of the earliest Sonic 1.

[GameUser-16-32-128]

Those scans look like they came from Mega Play magazine. Oh I so want to play Dando/Vasum, Moon Dancer, Land Buster and Battle Mission! Shadow Dancer's early title screen looks so much better than the current one!

[Elusive]

The Sonic screen has obviously shopped (by the magazine in question) to remove the UFO's.

The UFOs were in the Marble Zone, not Green Hill. The strange thing is how Sonic is standing Egyptian-style.


'Vette looks peculiar. Is the entire bottom half of the screen the HUD?

[Zebbe]

Sonic is really a great Wonder Boy-style action-adventure.

[parallaxscroll]

Those scans look like they came from Mega Play magazine. Oh I so want to play Dando/Vasum, Moon Dancer, Land Buster and Battle Mission! Shadow Dancer's early title screen looks so much better than the current one!


Most of them are from EGM.
Two are from VG&CE: Vasum preview, and 2nd Battle Mission preview .
one is from MegaPlay: the pic of the unreleased version of Phantasy Star IV.

I really do like that Shadow Dancer title screen. When I got the game, I was like WTF they changed it. lol.

[parallaxscroll]

I made some of the pics in the initial post into attachments so they don't break the formatting. :)

Also, I've said it before: somone needs to find a ROM of Battle Mission pronto. I really would like to play that.

Cool. I resized the ones that were breaking the formatting, hopefully it's good now :)

[tomaitheous]

Oh man- I remember waiting for Dando for a long time. It would be great to find a proto rom of that game:o

[parallaxscroll]

Oh man- I remember waiting for Dando for a long time. It would be great to find a proto rom of that game:o


Me too. I wanted Dando really bad. I also hope the ROM turns up sometime.

[sonicwatcher6969]

All the lost games and ideas, Sonic 2, Sonic adventure and Sonic 2006 are some of the most 'cut' games ever.

I think someone here though needs to do a few features on lost mega drive games.

[Smii]

What's going on in the second screenshot? Can't make it out.

Shame they never implemented the blue-slug powerup. It could've worked like the flickies around Super Tails. Except slower, and slimier.

[Mr. Ksoft]

Blue slug? It's a pair of goggles. It worked like the bubble shield in Sonic 3.

[Genesis Knight]

The second screen looks like a fancy signpost.

[Elusive]

Blue slug? It's a pair of goggles. It worked like the bubble shield in Sonic 3.

That's the theory. All that anyone knows is that the goggle sprites fit over Sonic's eyes, and that there's an icon with similar goggles that fits in an item box. There's no code linked to either item as far as I know.


The second screen looks like a fancy signpost. It says 'WELCOME', then there's some Japanese text...? Thing is, there's so much speculation and 'what-if'ing and misinformation about what Sonic 1 was or could have been, pretty much everything about the pre-release media is all, well, speculation. Which means you get people earnestly believing that Tails was really supposed to be a girl. Which is stupid. He wasn't. But who cares, this Internet Research Authority says so right there on their GeoCities page! Who knows if the screenshot is even legit in the first place? Is MACROCOSM a magazine? A release group? Some thirteen-year-old's BBS handle?

There are the fan archive sites, of course, but there's no real dedication to sourcing, or even accuracy, without spilling over into 'SONIC 3 AND KUNCKLES IS AWESUM!!'. Major credit to the SMS preservation scene in that regard.

And Sega-16's contributors ;)

[0x15e]

I remember thinking how cool Vette would've been on the Genesis. The whole concept of driving around a relatively accurate (for the time) polygon rendering of San Francisco seemed like a great idea. They probably canned it when they realized the Genesis couldn't do all the polys right.

[Smii]

Hmm.. well. I like my idea better. And it makes more sense - hedgehogs, slugs, that whole connection there.

Not much more sense, but.. work with me, here! :p

[parallaxscroll]

I don't see much of interest in the Sonic preview, and actually, I wasn't planning to include it, I just kinda threw it in there as an extra. The unreleased games are much, MUCH more interesting to me.