Prototype of Nintendo's Dinosaur Planet released -

[The Jumping Dwarf]

https://twitter.com/forestillusion/status/1363090008916193282

For those who don't know, Dinosaur Planet was a Rare game that was in development during the N64 era. It looked pretty promising, but it was eventually scrapped and heavily retooled into Star Fox Adventures for the Gamecube, with Star Fox somewhat awkwardly tacked on. The original version has been sort of a white whale for Nintendo fans for a while, so this is an interesting find.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I hope this is real. I was a Starfox fan back in the day, and this is up there with Resident Evil 1.5 in terms of cancelled games I never thought I'd get to play.

Edit: I'm surprised to see that Fox was in the game pre-GameCube. I always thought the 64 build was Sabre, and then when Myamoto saw it demanded it be Fox instead, and be on the GameCube.

Edit: Fixed typo.

 

[The Jumping Dwarf]

I'm surprised to see that Fox was in the game pre-GameCube. I always thought the 64 build was Sabre, and then when Myamoto say it demanded it be Fox instead, and be on the GameCube.

This seems to be a very late prototype, maybe even the last before the game was junked altogether and remade as SFA. They had probably already been asked to add Star Fox elements at that point. We do know the original version was a completely stand-alone game.

Here's some gameplay:

 

[Judge Dredd]

I've got it. Have things to do so won't be able to try it myself until later today.

The post says it will require hacking to be 100% playable. That implies all the content is there. I hope someone with the know how does get it 100% playable. I don't have a clue about rom hacking otherwise I might consider helping out.

Archive link of the twitter post.

http://archive.md/PSvxg

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

I hope this is real. I was a Starfox fan back in the day, and this is up there with Resident Evil 1.5 in terms of cancelled games I never thought I'd get to play.

Edit: I'm surprised to see that Fox was in the game pre-GameCube. I always thought the 64 build was Sabre, and then when Myamoto say it demanded it be Fox instead, and be on the GameCube.

Did you try Star Fox Zero?
It looked great in videos and...wasn't.

 

[Rotollo]

At this rate an EarthBound 64 leak might actually happen

The post says it will require hacking to be 100% playable. That implies all the content is there. I hope someone with the know how does get it 100% playable. I don't have a clue about rom hacking otherwise I might consider helping out.

Wait does this mean techinlly the N64 will be getting it's first new game in 2 decades when hackers fix it up, holy fuck thats kinda amazing. People should send this shit to someone like Kaze Emanuar, that guy is like a master of N64 modding with his M64 and OoT stuff

 

[whatever I feel like]

Fuck yeah, its been a hell of a ten or so months for the retro beta community.

Now if only OG could unfuck itself and take out the trash....

 

[Judge Dredd]

Did you try Star Fox Zero?
It looked great in videos and...wasn't.

No.

I didn't own a WiiU, and since I heard nothing but bad things about the game I wasn't going to buy the console to play it. Never bothered emulating it either. I wouldn't say it looked great though. As soon as I saw the gyro FPS gimmick I had a bad feeling about it.

StarFox Command wasn't good, but it was my last StarFox game and what I consider to be the end of the series. 3DS and Zero were just remakes in my mind. Zero is technically a reboot, but they haven't done anything with the series since. Starfox 2 was already leaked years before the SNES mini so that doesn't count, but it is nice Nintendo gave it an official release.

At this rate an EarthBound 64 leak might actually happen

There are so many games that may or may not exist out there, anything is possible. I still think it's amazing that the Nintendo Playstation was found and that was years ago.

And the quote from the thread is

It seems to be quite a late build of the game which is great, but it will need some hacking to be fully playable to the end.

To me that implies it's all there, but that's just my interpretation of it.

 

[whatever I feel like]

I've got it. Have things to do so won't be able to try it myself until later today.

The post says it will require hacking to be 100% playable. That implies all the content is there. I hope someone with the know how does get it 100% playable. I don't have a clue about rom hacking otherwise I might consider helping out.

Archive link of the twitter post.

http://archive.md/PSvxg

I think what is immediately available will be an E3/TTS demo build. It certainly looks like it to me as the parts shown were in public demos and that "switch adventure" screen looks a whole lot like asking you to try different demo segments. A lot of the real game is probably locked off and the demo stuff will have to be hacked out to get a "close to release" version. It will take months to unfuck.

Wait does this mean techinlly the N64 will be getting it's first new game in 2 decades when hackers fix it up, holy fuck thats kinda amazing. send this shit to someone like Kaze Emanuar, that guy is like a master of N64 modding with his M64 and OoT stuff

If that is your standard, then no, as several complete but unreleased N64 games have been found and dumped over the years, including at least one (40 Winks) which went on to get an official commercial release.

 

[agility_]

Thousands of furries across america rejoiced.

 

[talk sh1t]

What a blast from the past.

the Nintendo Playstation was found and that was years ago.

Wait what? I've been out of the loop for a long time now.

 

[Dysnomia]

Thousands of furries across america rejoiced.

Anyway, I remember Dinosaur Planet from magazines. Was it really necessary to tack on Star Fox? Did they think the game wouldn't sell? It looked cool to me at least.

 

[The Jumping Dwarf]

Wait what? I've been out of the loop for a long time now.

I looked that up. A prototype of the Nintendo Playstation was apparently discovered recently, but it was bought by some jew who threw jewgold at it, and is currently probably catching dust in some shelf, much like this Dinosaur Planet proto did for many years.

It is a sad thing.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

Fuck yeah, its been a hell of a ten or so months for the retro beta community.

Now if only OG could unfuck itself and take out the trash....

I know right?! First it was found out that Luigi WAS supposed to be in Mario 64, then the Zelda OoT beta, and now this. It's a damn good time to be a retro game beta fan right now.

Wait what? I've been out of the loop for a long time now.

Yeah, dude. Last time it was in the news, the Nintendo Playstation was sold fof $360K to the founder of Pets.com.
Fortunately it looks like he's not just gonna let it sit under his ass forever. He's actually going to show it off at a few museums, then possibly either open up his own video game museum, or give it to another one.

 

[X Pac Heat]

Anyway, I remember Dinosaur Planet from magazines. Was it really necessary to tack on Star Fox? Did they think the game wouldn't sell? It looked cool to me at least.

It was a weird Miyamoto mandate IIRC, kind of like no story in Paper Mario and don't make an F-Zero until we have a dedicated controller for it. (okay that last one wasn't a mandate but just a stupid thing he said)

I also think it may have had something to do with Jet Force Gemini not meeting sales projections or something, although I think that game probably would have been better suited for Star Fox tbqh

 

[Judge Dredd]

Wait what? I've been out of the loop for a long time now.

There was a series on some YouTube electronics DIY channel where they opened it up, fixed it (it was already a mess of bodges) and got it booted. There's no games for it (that we have) so it was just some system tests but still fascinating.

I think the story of how it was unearthed was the guy's family business was buying junk in bulk from closing businesses, and his dad had got the Nintendo Playstation in a lot of office cafeteria furniture or some shit and had it just sitting in storage. I remember because my first instinct would be to scour that storage top to bottom for anything electronic or computer related, and try and track similar lots from that same sale to see if anything else survived. It would be the longest of long shots, but for something that important, why not?

I know right?! First it was found out that Luigi WAS supposed to be in Mario 64, then the Zelda OoT beta, and now this.

Superman for PS1 was released as well. So much stuff it's hard to keep up.

It's great that this stuff is just being released instead of it being held back with private collectors trying to out drama each other.

 

[whatever I feel like]

I think the story of how it was unearthed was the guy's family business was buying junk in bulk from closing businesses, and his dad had got the Nintendo Playstation in a lot of office cafeteria furniture or some shit and had it just sitting in storage.

I think you are confusing this with something else. The Nintendo Playstation came from the son of a former Sony executive who kept the thing as a work momento.

Other big proto finds were the Nick Arcade Sonic 1 build and the mid-development Duck Tales build.

It was a weird Miyamoto mandate IIRC, kind of like no story in Paper Mario and don't make an F-Zero until we have a dedicated controller for it. (okay that last one wasn't a mandate but just a stupid thing he said)

I also think it may have had something to do with Jet Force Gemini not meeting sales projections or something, although I think that game probably would have been better suited for Star Fox tbqh

It wasn't a mandate, Nintendo couldn't mandate anything since they only owned 49 percent of Rare. It was a recommendation in an era when people didn't know well enough to not always take Miyamoto's advice. They could have said no, like the Goldeneye/PD team did when Nintendo recommended they have all of the characters shake hands and be friends at the end.

However, having said that, there were a lot of reasons to actually take Miyamoto's advice, setting aside his reputation and Nintendo's clout as minority owner and publisher. Star Fox was a big IP that had a good reputation and always sold a million units back when that meant you were a hit. The foxes in DP did look a lot like Star Fox characters, being two legged walking foxes in an era when there were only so many ways to portray a two legged walking fox in a video game. The N64 was viewed as less successful than need have been, with the Dolphon/GCN being full of promise. DP was shaping up to be a massive game, which meant more expensive carts with bigger boards and possible mandating of a memory pack, aka it would have cost more to product than even normal cart games (with potential limited audience) versus being put on a normal GCN mini-disc. The N64 was nearing the end of its life and game sales were declining (compare the sales of, for example BK vs BT or GE vs PD, JFG versus BC or KI:G, etc.) There were a whole lot of reasons to port the game and change the IP. We ended up the poorer for it, but on the other hand got a good deal on them reworking Conker*, got a much better version of Banjo Kazooie than we ever would have on SNES, got a much better version of Animal Crossing, etc.

 

[FAQnews Correspondent]

Nick Arcade Sonic 1 build

The Nick Arcade one was Sonic 2. But it was hilarious looking back at how people were dissecting low quality footage of Chemical Plant Zone behind the host and the contestant. The Sonic 1 build with Green Hill Zone and the Welcome sign and checker ball is the holy grail of Sonic protos.

 

[whatever I feel like]

on the other hand got a good deal on them reworking Conker*

Ahh shit, I never actually put in my notation, and a certain webmaster has disabled my editing privileges (hence the unfixed spelling errors too.) What I meant to note at the bottom was, in spite of the good jokes, the transfer/remake into BFD saw a load of content getting cut and from a purely gameplay perspective, we would have probably been better off getting Conker's Quest/Twelve Tails.

The Nick Arcade one was Sonic 2. But it was hilarious looking back at how people were dissecting low quality footage of Chemical Plant Zone behind the host and the contestant. The Sonic 1 build with Green Hill Zone and the Welcome sign and checker ball is the holy grail of Sonic protos.

Yeah, and its what was released on New Years, sorry for using the wrong name. Turns out that ball was a real physics mess.

All we need now is TTS Sonic 1 and we'd be basically done.

 

[Coolio55]

Damn. This looks really good! I can definitely see Nintendo sweating about comparisons to OOT.
This is so crazy, I think we might actually find Mother 3 protos someday.

Anyway, time to go ogle E621 for the incoming flood.