BETA F'N SOR!!!

Bumping this topic with a discovery not related to SOR but Revenge of Shinobi, which was developped by the same team as SoR anyway.
evilhamwizard from Sonic Retro managed to found an unused ending in a prototype of the game, in which Naoko actually survived but Joe didn't:

https://i.imgur.com/l4ry2yG.gifv

Not sure how this was supposed to occur and this was changed to Naoko dying if Joe wasn't fast enough anyway.
As a Revenge of Shinobi fanboy, this is huge!

iceweb38 wrote:Bumping this topic with a discovery not related to SOR but Revenge of Shinobi, which was developped by the same team as SoR anyway.
evilhamwizard from Sonic Retro managed to found an unused ending in a prototype of the game, in which Naoko actually survived but Joe didn't:

https://i.imgur.com/l4ry2yG.gifv

Not sure how this was supposed to occur and this was changed to Naoko dying if Joe wasn't fast enough anyway.
As a Revenge of Shinobi fanboy, this is huge!

The only way I think that could of happened, if you stop the ceiling coming down on Naoko and finish off Zed at the same time, but Zed get a last hit on you and you die at the same time. That would be the only I can think of for that ending to come up. Be pretty tricky to do I think.

Actually, this leaves plenty of room for imagination.
It could also be (for example) that they planned at first that Musashi dies instead of Naoko by sacrificing himself to destroy both the boss and the cell to save Naoko with Mijin, which would explain the remaining sword Naoko carries (when you perform Mijin, the sword remains still after Musashi explodes).

Disappoiting that the devs didn't mention any of this in the Megadrive Collected Works book.

Well it's not actually known if it's a real prototype tbh. There's information regarding Sega Channel. It's possible that the ROM was planned to be used for a Sega Channel port or something like that. Though It is strange that they're using such an old revision to build the game from if that's the case.

Regardless, I no longer have the prototype ROM to look at it. The downloads for it went down too.

Ripped from Official SEGA Magazine UK issue 3.
What they wrote is crazy! The gang was on chase by the police and Adam because of Axel getting framed for the kidnapping.
HOW DARE YOU ADAM!!!

https://2img.net/r/hpimg15/pics/270722OfficialSegaMagazine3001.jpg
https://2img.net/r/hpimg15/pics/972756OfficialSegaMagazine3002.jpg
https://2img.net/r/hpimg15/pics/583234OfficialSegaMagazine3003.jpg
https://2img.net/r/hpimg15/pics/843898OfficialSegaMagazine3004.jpg

Credits to meppi, an awesome dude who has an amazing collection of '90s magazines and works hard to upload them one by one.

Glisp wrote:Well it's not actually known if it's a real prototype tbh. There's information regarding Sega Channel. It's possible that the ROM was planned to be used for a Sega Channel port or something like that. Though It is strange that they're using such an old revision to build the game from if that's the case.

Regardless, I no longer have the prototype ROM to look at it. The downloads for it went down too.

Just your luck, Drx has uploaded those prototypes again:
http://hiddenpalace.org/News/10_years_of_Hidden_Palace_/_Final_ROM_Archive_Release_Part_1
And it was definitely a real prototype!

Sweet! thanks IceWeb you always come through with the goods

And I may have more in the near future!
I'm gonna order some japanese megadrive magazines from January-February 1994.

Now that's a plot you could use for a mod, hehe

iceweb38 wrote:Actually, this leaves plenty of room for imagination.
It could also be (for example) that they planned at first that Musashi dies instead of Naoko by sacrificing himself to destroy both the boss and the cell to save Naoko with Mijin, which would explain the remaining sword Naoko carries (when you perform Mijin, the sword remains still after Musashi explodes).

Disappoiting that the devs didn't mention any of this in the Megadrive Collected Works book.

Good thinking dude, I never thought of it that way. I wish there was some exploration to this.

Got the japanese magazines! Unfortunately, nothing that we don't know of about BKIII but we have clearer screens for some beta stuff at least!

https://2img.net/r/hpimg15/pics/422701BKIIIBeepMegadriveJanuary19941.jpg

https://2img.net/r/hpimg15/pics/159368BKIIIBeepMegadriveJanuary19942.jpg

https://2img.net/r/hpimg15/pics/760574BKIIIBeepMegadriveJanuary19943.jpg

https://2img.net/r/hpimg15/pics/698004BKIIIBeepMegadriveFebruary19941.jpg


https://2img.net/r/hpimg15/pics/294550MegadriveFanJanuary19941.jpg

https://2img.net/r/hpimg15/pics/972560MegadriveFanJanuary19942.jpg

https://2img.net/r/hpimg15/pics/353147MegadriveFanJanuary19943.jpg

https://2img.net/r/hpimg15/pics/612573MegadriveFanJanuary19944.jpg


I'll put a pack with bigger resolutions of those scans later.
EDIT: here https://mega.nz/#!wAUEASxK!dKIlEf2d7_kImgt8YY4drjd5-d5Sx9lTLFWmPNQYipo

Nice!

Also interesting to note that it's from January/February 1994 magazines. Wonder if they were playing an older beta or a current beta at that time considering the final ROM has a stamp date of JAN. 1994. If so, there were some last minute changes like the bikes in Stage 2-1ish, and fighting Ash in Stage 4-1. I guess he either was to be a recurring story mid-boss to annoy the player like a Mr. X from RE2 since he has the same palette in the dock area, or to just become another regular enemy to fight later on in the game like Jack or Electra from SOR2 eventually did.

Also noticed it has a pic of the kinda unused lightning bolt on the title screen. I wonder if the screen was longer in later betas before it goes to the letter demo. I wish we got betas of these and not a detailed look at how SoA eventually bastardized the game when it came to the west.

You can only find stuff about BKIII in Jan-March 1994 magazines, with Jan and Feb having the more prototype stuff.
Remember these SEGA VHS videos about BKIII? They were both dated Jan and Feb 1994, with January 1994 having Beta Zan and the beta sunset stage.

Unfortunately, I think that's all you can find in magazines about BKIII betas. The BKIII beta Blaze portrait in HQ I found earlier was pure luck. The only magazine interesting enough to check is this one:
http://www.soronline.net/bk3_top_magazine_argentina_special_version.jpg

These screens are apparently from the earliest build ever shown and I never saw them elsewhere. I couldn't determine which magazine it was (from Argentina apparently) but it probably has some more thing left to find.

I wish someone make beta sprites of Zan for BK3 hack :U

Magazines tend to be dated a month after they're actually released, so a proto BK3 would have to date from November-December 1993.

Seems that way since January magazines mixes screens from different builds.

In other news, New scan thanks to VGDensentsu! More proof of beta Nora and beta Jack, Wolf and Hawk beta names and Abedede holding an Axe!!!!

Ooooh great find!
Am I the only one who actually prefers the older look of the jugglers?

hi guys. long time no see you.

i really would like to know, if there exist possibilities of see this betas somedays... the time pass... and i think that maybe not... ;( a pity. but those betas must be somewhere!...

Courtesy of Criss, new BK3 beta pic found:
https://2img.net/image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2019/03/5/1547809276-beepmd-jp-1994-03-3-3-1.png

There's a 3rd pic of the BKIII streets bike stage on the cover of the VHS that contains the prototype build video of BKIII:
https://segaretro.org/images/0/0c/SegaVideoMagazine_1994-01_JP_Box.jpg



Poor quality unfortunately, gotta wait for a higher quality scan of that VHS cover.

Hey peeps, found this this pic in an old issue of Beep!



Thought to myself "Hmmm wonder if anything of that side elevator door is left over?" Dug through the VDP, and...



Ladies and gentlemen, cut content found. There seems to be evidence along these tiles that the elevator door opened. Can't be certain though.

awesome find criss! this should be quite useful for some.. things.

In this australian magazine, reviewers apparently played with a near final beta of BKIII (they even had to play the motorbike stages, which actually worked almost exactly like in the final version of BKIII) and so we got some new stuff:
https://retrocdn.net/File:Hyper_AU_007.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0YK673ztXdKZmoc5W_C7B4TNpP0dqi32rl_XnBZzsQ7VxOGOC2fgPdXts



Half open doors in stage 6


Never noticed before those beta barrels in stage 1-3

8 mins in. Enjoy.

Xillatem wrote:

8 mins in.  Enjoy.

Beta signal!!! probably known as football dude (whatever they called) but made them look punk. His thowing very glitching and no attack, just grab and toss similar Axel's.