Did you know? Many classic Nintendo 64 titles
were originally very different to what gamers ultimately got their hands on. Though some N64
games only had minor alterations in gameplay and visuals, as is the case with titles
like Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, some other games on the system would completely
switch genre, or even end up with an entirely different cast of characters. In this
video we're showcasing some of the most interesting and drastic examples of N64 games that
completely changed from concept to final product. So let’s kick things off with a title from one
of the most important developers on the platform. British developer Rare is behind some of the
most iconic and well-regarded games for the N64, including the third best-selling
title on the system — GoldenEye 007. Interestingly enough, GoldenEye didn’t start as
an N64 game at all. In early-1994, Rare co-founder Tim Stamper and designer Gregg Mayles arrived at
a Goldeneye press conference at Leavesden Studio in London. The two came to the set to meet with
the film’s art director, Andrew Ackland-Snow, and discuss an official tie-in game they were making
for the Super Nintendo. As reported in Nintendo Power magazine, Rare “had just begun” working on
a side-scrolling SNES prototype around February. We don’t know much about the SNES version of
Goldeneye: what it looked like, how it played, or if it even started full development. However, it’s
a safe bet that it would’ve been very different from the released version directed by Martin
Hollis. Having an interest in video games since the days of the BBC Microcomputer, Hollis applied
for a job at Rare in 1993. His first role at the company was as the junior programmer on the arcade
version of Killer Instinct, which was a one-year project by fewer than ten people. Following the
completion of Killer Instinct in March 1994, Hollis began tinkering with the new SGI
workstations, and wondered what he could do next. The SNES 007 project had petered out
by this point, and Hollis asked Tim Stamper if he could direct a new Goldeneye
game for the Ultra 64. Stamper said yes, and work began in early-1995 with a small
team of Hollis, programmer Mark Edmonds, and artists Karl Hilton and Bea Jones.The
original nine-page document for the game envisioned the title as an on-rails shooter à
la Sega’s Virtua Cop - except, in this case, there was no lightgun. At a certain point early
on, the team decided to do both an FPS mode and an on-rails shooter mode. In addition to Virtua Cop,
the team took heavy influence from DOOM, plus John Woo action flicks like Hard Boiled. According to
Martin Hollis in a 2007 interview with Gamasutra, Goldeneye was intended as a launch title for the
N64 in conjunction with the film's November 1995 release. But this did not go as planned. The
N64 got delayed in North America until April 1996 due to the chipset still being finalized
and major concerns about software quality. Making matters worse, the small team working
on Goldeneye repeatedly missed their deadlines. The first year was spent creating an engine and
designing art assets, with more staff being added later to help move development along. David Doak,
who assisted with AI scripting and the overall design, was the first new hire. Junior members
such as Doak helped give the game a slightly new vision, adding more of a Mario 64 influence rather
than Virtua Cop. Elements such as the multiplayer mode, added six months before release, were
being done as development sped up. Goldeneye’s multiplayer mode originally had ex-Bond actors
like Sean Connery and Roger Moore, a choice Nintendo’s legal team was not a fan of. Much to
the team’s dismay, it had to be removed. The legal team also did not appreciate the use of real-world
gun names, insisting that every gun be renamed by Rare. The Klobb, perhaps the most infamous gun
in the game, was named in honour of Nintendo producer Ken Lobb, who worked with Martin Hollis
years back on Killer Instinct. Goldeneye 007 would release in August 1997, roughly 22 months after
the film it was based on -- transitioning from a SNES game, to an on-rails shooter, and
eventually taking the form we know today. But before we get into more N64 games, a word
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description below. And now back to the N64 games. Released in North America in early 2001, the
original Paper Mario is widely considered one of the greatest RPGs - if not the greatest
- on the N64. Part of the game’s appeal had to do with its unique and timeless
storybook art style, which combined 3D and 2D elements onto a single screen. But believe
it or not, the game wasn’t always going to look this way. According to a 2000 interview with
Nintendo technical support Hiroyasu Sasano, developers Intelligent Systems spent “close to a
year and a half” trying out different characters and aesthetics. At one point, the team tried
using polygons via Silicon Graphics technology, but scrapped it as they worried the style
would overlap the Zelda N64 games. They also tested pre-rendered graphics in the style of the
original Super Mario RPG, but this quickly got scrapped as well. On March 5, 1997, artist Naohiko
Aoyama proposed a new art direction utilizing a single rough piece of concept art he created - a
simplistic 3D world with paper-thin 2D sprites. The team approved the idea, and it stuck for the
rest of the development. It was decided early on that the game should be less of a sequel to
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, and more of its own thing. Despite this, the
game was previewed as “Super Mario RPG 2” as late as the Nintendo SpaceWorld presentation in
August 1999. The name “Super Mario Adventure” was also used for a moment, according
to a report by Nintendo Power Source. As for the game’s badge mechanic, the team did
not want the plumber to use actual weapons, so they opted to use an analogous customization
system instead. A few badges got scrapped during development. One example was the “Power of Rage”
badge, which put Mario into a berzerk state with an extremely high power level. In that same
2000 interview, Intelligent Systems director Ryota Kawade remarked: “For some reason, [Power
Of Rage] made him turn green when he was berserk. The programmer who created it was a Luigi fan, and
I guess the idea was that if Mario became Luigi, it could be very dangerous.”
[Translation: shmuplations.com] But the N64 was popular for more than just its
first and second party titles. Not much is known about the first version for Bomberman Hero, the
oft-forgotten entry in Hudson Soft’s strategic, and literally explosive series of titles.
Surprisingly, the first version of the game did not feature Bomberman at all, instead
starring Bonk -or “Genjin”- the caveman kid from Hudson’s 16-bit side-scrollers. I.A. Studio,
a Machida-based studio founded in July 1990, was contracted to help develop this “Ultra Genjin”
game. I.A. had previously worked on the Bonk games for the TurboGrafx-16, SNES, and NES, so the
decision to bring them on board made perfect sense. Production began in June 1995, and ended
after just six months. According to I.A. Studio planner Shouichi Yoshikawa in an interview
with CRV of Game Developer Research Institute, the team was inexperienced in creating 3D
platformers and struggled with turning the 2D elements of Bonk into 3D. The video game
industry was transitioning fast, and Hudson and I.A. were having trouble adapting. Although
Ultra Genjin got scrapped, the design lived on in the form of Bomberman Hero - released years later
in 1998 with some of the Bonk DNA still intact. The development of Nintendo’s off-beat Pokemon
spinoff, Pokemon Snap, is a strange one, as it started life as an entirely original game
franchise. In October 2010, Nintendo published an Iwata Asks regarding the then-newly-released
Kirby’s Epic Yarn for Nintendo Wii. The interview discussed the initial version of Epic Yarn pitched
to Nintendo, which starred an original character named Prince Fluff, who ended up in a supporting
role in the final game. The interview takes a quick shift as Satoru Iwata relates this change to
Pokemon Snap, a game that some key Epic Yarn staff were a part of. Iwata said: "Originally, Pokemon
Snap for the Nintendo 64 system was not a Pokemon game, but rather a normal game in which you took
photos, but the motivation for playing the game was not clear." It took three and a half years
until the completion and release of Pokemon Snap. In early-1995, Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto, and
Shigesato Itoi began assembling the "Jack and the Beanstalk" team - a group of Japanese developers
outside of Nintendo who could make Ultra 64 games with new and unique approaches. The trio realized
that some Japanese development houses provided miserable conditions and poor outlooks, leaving
many talented designers and programmers stuck in a rut. But Jack And Beans could get these struggling
developers out of their current positions and into a better job. The first day of Jack and Beans
was on August 20, 1995, on the second floor of Nintendo’s Tokyo office dubbed "the table tennis
room." Yoichi Yamamoto would serve as director, and the group began working on a photography
game starring original characters designed by team member Shizu Higashiyama. It’s unknown
what these characters looked like, as they didn’t stay in the game for very long. According
to Iwata, Jack And Beans had trouble figuring out what players would enjoy taking pictures of, so
they made a "somewhat forced switch" around 1996, replacing the original characters with ones
from Nintendo’s new sleeper hit, Pokemon. Snap was first developed for the Nintendo 64 Disk
Drive - the Japanese-only add-on for the N64. However, due to long delays caused by poor N64
sales, Jack and Beans jumped ship and moved over to the regular N64. In addition, at least
two stages would not make it into the final cut of the game: a safari level featuring the unused
64th Pokémon Ekans, and a haunted stage presumably featuring Ghost Pokemon such as Gastly, Haunter,
and Gengar. The German edition of the Pokemon Snap Official Strategy Guide gives us a small glimpse
at what could have been, revealing concept art for both levels not seen in other guides. In 1999,
Jack And Beans composer Ikuko Mimori released two unused tracks from the haunted stage, proving that
the level got far enough to have music composed for it. The music you are hearing right now is
one of those tracks, which Mimiori curiously lists on her website as “a tune for the boss
of a stage that was cut for various reasons.” Keep in mind that, in the final release of Pokemon
Snap, there are no proper bosses. As of the writing of the video, this is the only evidence
we have that they ever planned for Pokémon Snap. Shortly after finishing Donkey Kong Country
2 circa October 1995, the game’s team at Rare split off into two. Half started on the 3rd entry
in the franchise starring Dixie and Kiddy Kong; the other began on a top-secret action-RPG game
planned as “Rare’s greatest SNES game.” Known as Project Dream, or Dream: Land of Giants,
the title was made by a ten-man group led by co-founder Tim Stamper. The game was kept secret
during its early stages, but the known staff includes designer Gregg Mayles; programmers
Will Bryan, Paul Machacek, Chris Sutherland; artists Ed Bryan and Steve Mayles; writer
Leigh Loveday and composers David Wise and Grant Kirkhope. Project Dream starred Edson, a
misfit child in a fairytale world entangled in a web of pirates in search of building
a flying pirate ship. On his journey, Edson discovers Dinger - a snarky dog sidekick
that helps the player dig out hidden items. The SNES version of Project Dream was a side-
scrolling game that took influence from Japanese RPGs and LucasArts point-and-click
adventure titles such as Monkey Island. However, realizing that the project was too
ambitious, Rare decided to move Dream to the N64 after just a few months of work. In a June
2016 interview with Official Xbox Magazine, Chris Sutherland recalls the conversion process, saying,
“[Rare’s] first approach was to create flat sprites which were pre-rendered, which looked fine
as long as you were going in a straight line. But as soon as you went in 3D, it didn’t work. Project
Dream was more limited 3D, so it would tend to be viewed from above for say, a troll race that
you’re running around in, or maybe you’re falling down a cavern. But there were certain sections
where you’re moving sideways that were tricky because as soon as you started to tilt the camera
around, the sprites started to all interweave with each other and didn’t quite work. We realized that
the right thing to do was to move to 3D. Although we had a lot fewer polygons, we could still imbue
some character into the characters and the world, even though that left us with a much smaller
polygon count. It was still a lot of learning because we didn’t know how to do cameras. It’s
fine when you’ve got a 2D camera, we knew what we were doing there as we’d just done a whole series
of games with it. But 3D was a new world for us.” Project Dream was now on the N64. The game
took a top-down route rather than isometric, and the fairytale setting was replaced with more
pirates. According to Gregg Mayles, this was done to make it less childish and give the game a
broader appeal. Sadly, the ambitiousness of the title came with some problems. Project Dream used
“an elaborate floor system” that stretched the polygons into previously impossible landscapes.
However, due to the N64’s hardware limitations, the system struggled to run at an
acceptable frame rate. In addition, work on the recently-started Conker’s Bad Fur Day
(then known as Twelve Tales: Conker 64) made Rare realize that the tried and true Mario 64 route
was the way to go — RPGs weren’t the answer. Despite multiple playable prototypes getting
made with over 100 tracks composed for them, Project Dream was being redone from the
ground up. The first step was to remove the character of Edson, as Tim Stamper
believed he was too generic. At first, the team used a rabbit character that ran on two
feet. This concept only lasted for a few days before being scrapped — Gregg Mayles recalls
the rabbit looking like “a man in a suit.” Another character, a big skater-inspired bear with
a magic backpack designed by Tim Stamper, was met with a much better response. Rare immediately fell
in love with the bear and decided to make him the new star of the game. Here was the creation of
Banjo. Banjo’s sidekick Kazooie was implemented a little later, as Rare needed something to
justify Banjo’s double-jump animation. At first, a pair of wings sprouted from his backpack, which
didn’t make sense. Within one week, the first level of Banjo-Kazooie was made, and it took
another 16 months for the game to be complete. Banjo-Kazooie was released in June 1998, and
became the tenth best-selling title on the N64. In May 2015, Tim Stamper began posting old
game material on his brand-new Twitter account. Among the Tweets was an ongoing thread, teasing
at the idea of a Project Dream prototype for SNES, believed to be the only one still in existence.
On July 25th, Stamper posted a single image of the game’s title screen, proof that his prototype
still worked. It was soon donated to Microsoft, where footage of the game was shown on Rare's
YouTube channel. The current whereabouts of the prototype are unknown. Another Rare title that
was significantly changed was Diddy Kong Racing. At least four other versions of the game existed
before Diddy was even attached. After Killer Instinct 2 got released in the arcade in February
1996, the development team split off to work on two N64 games simultaneously. Half started on
the upgraded console port Killer Instinct Gold; the other began on a real-time strategy game
similar to the Command & Conquer series. The game, starring a caveman travelling through
time, was conceived by a group of four: Rob Harrison and co-founder Chris Stamper
on programming; Lee Musgrave on art; Lee Schuneman on design. This idea did not last
long. The RTS concept got scrapped after a month, and only a few 3D renders done by Musgrave,
such as a few catapults and a woolly mammoth, were done. Shortly after, the
team experimented on a “fun racer” à la Super Mario Kart inspired by
the adventure elements of Walt Disney World. Going under the name Wild Cartoon Kingdom,
the racing game reused 3D assets from the RTS prototype; Musgrave’s woolly mammoth render was
now riding in a tiny, star-spangled moped. Two more characters, a donkey and a crab, were also
included. Much like the production of Goldeneye, more hires from Rare helped bring things up to
speed. Wild Cartoon Kingdom got renamed to the much blunter title Adventure Racers, and once
again to Pro-Am 64 - a reference to Rare’s 1988 NES game R.C. Pro-Am. This version of the
game had tricycle-style vehicles and starred a new character named Timber the Tiger. It went
relatively far into production, and in June 1997, a playable demo was privately shown to Shigeru
Miyamoto at E3. Miyamoto was impressed with Rare’s work,and offered the company a Nintendo
IP to use for the game’s characters and setting. While picking Donkey Kong was tempting,
Rare chose to focus the game on Diddy Kong, as the character was their creation --
a choice which again impressed Nintendo. The development team initially hated
the idea, but eventually accepted it, as Diddy’s inclusion would help boost marketing.
Keep in mind that, until this moment, Nintendo had no involvement in the project whatsoever.
In a 2014 interview with Nintendo Life, Lee Musgrave said, “Nintendo enjoyed the fact that
we chose Diddy Kong over Donkey Kong; I think that it was us trying to build on the fact that Diddy
was ours, and Donkey Kong was theirs.” Diddy Kong Racing would release in November 1997 worldwide.
In addition to Diddy Kong, several familiar faces would make an appearance. Banjo from Banjo-Kazooie
and Conker from Conker’s Bad Fur Day made their respective cameos. Timber the Tiger, the scrapped
star of Pro-Am 64, remained playable but got pushed off as a side character. And the nameless
woolly mammoth created by Musgrave back during the RTS prototype became Taj the Genie; and
their patriotic moped became Taj’s magic carpet. Did you also know that Nintendo 64 games
like Banjo-Tooie and Ocarina of Time had serious anti-piracy measures? Or that there
was at least one Mario game for the N64 to never release? If you want more N64
game facts, check out the videos on screen. And if you’re interested in seeing more videos
like this, please let us know in the comment section below -- and subscribe for more facts
from Did You Know Gaming. See you next time!
