Developing video games can be hard. There are a lot of development engines out there with a lot of code to tweak, assets to make and arrange, and then keep the whole thing together without it bugging out. Then it all has to be done within set deadlines. The bigger the game, the more imperative it is to get it out in one quarter or another.
Some companies devolve into crunch time, which burns out everyone, doesn't necessarily lead to a solid product, and wouldn't be worth the pain it causes either way. Others cut a few corners here and there. Why reinvent the wheel when the old one will do fine? It just means, when some people delve into the game’s files, they’ll find some interesting surprises.
8 Sonic 3 Has Leftovers from Sonic 2
Sonic 3’s development is almost as interesting as the game itself. First, it was split in half to tie in with a McDonald's’ campaign, leaving the remains of Sonic & Knuckles in Sonic 3 and vice-versa. Then there was the drama over Michael Jackson’s involvement in the soundtrack.
After all that, it makes remnants of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 turning up in the game feel mundane by comparison. If people fiddled with the code, they’d get the menu from Sonic 2! It's functional as well, complete with a working level select code. So, that's one way to avoid fiddling with Sonic 3's own ridiculously tight code.
7 Jun Kazama Almost Made It into Tekken 3
Tekken 3 was a departure from its predecessors. It had better animation, sidesteps, and a whole new cast of characters to play with. Even characters freshly introduced in Tekken 2 like Bruce Irvin and Baek Doo San got replaced with new faces Bryan Fury and Hwoarang respectively. At least for a few games anyway. However, the developers seemed unsure on whether to remove Jun Kazama, mother of new lead Jin.
She was another fresh face from the previous game and had an ambiguous fate at the hands of Ogre. Plus, the arcade game has data for her tucked within it. She has a character slot, complete with a portrait and voice clips reused from Tekken 2. However, picking her will just give the player Nina's model with Jin's moves. Jin's deadly dad Kazuya also has a mention, but it's little more than his name written in text.
6 Shin Akuma Hides in Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
Street Fighter 3: Second Impact brought Akuma back into the game as a secret character. Just like Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, if players did particularly well, they’d face off against him as a special boss. If he wasn’t difficult enough, beating him would just turn him into the more powerful (and cheap) Shin Akuma.
Only his regular version appears in Street Fighter 3: Third Strike by default. However, if players tweaked the code a little, they could actually play as Akuma’s ‘true’ self. He’s exactly the same as his Second Impact counterpart, except he’s prone to freezing in midair during certain moves. But it’s entirely possible to beat the game with him and get his ending…provided players don’t mind fighting Gill twice in a row.
5 WWF Smackdown 1 & 2 Have A Tutorial Video from Evil Zone
The PlayStation’s wrestling games paled in comparison to N64 games like WWFWrestleMania 2000 and WWF No Mercy. However, thanks to Yuke’s, the console got a fine swansong with the first two WWF Smackdown games. They were more basic compared the N64 games, though that just made it easier to pick up and play.
They were certainly more playable than Yuke’s ambitious but stodgy 3D fighter Evil Zone. Nonetheless, it had a nice tutorial video that came in handy as dummy data to pad out a PlayStation disc. Yuke’s certainly thought so, as it appears in both Smackdown games, and two Japan-only Simple 1500 wrestling games for the budget market. One of which had its own secrets.
4 The Pro Wrestling 2 Has Portraits of Unused Secret Characters for WWF Smackdown 2
If any of the Simple series’ wrestling games were worth tracking down, it would have to be The Pro Wrestling 2. Aside from playing largely like Smackdown 2, it features a lot of options that the WWE games would either not use for years, like the Inferno Matches, or would ever use like cement rings and electrified, barbed wire rings. It also reuses a lot of assets from the Smackdown games, like the HUDs.
But what’s more interesting is the stuff under the surface. For example, it has unused character select portraits for WWE legends Andre the Giant, Bob Backlund, Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler, and Sergeant Slaughter. They never even made it into the final version of Smackdown 2 (not without a Gameshark or Action Replay anyway), yet The Pro Wrestling 2 has proof they came close to inclusion.
3 Metal Gear Solid 3 May Have Had Zone of the Enders 3 Content in Plain Sight
This mini-game didn’t make it to the Metal Gear SolidHD Collection, but if players saved in the prison cell in the original MGS3 and Subsistence games, things would get odd. Instead of going back to Snake in jail, they’d find themselves in a dreary gray world, playing a duel sword-wielding character fighting monsters in police gear. They'd hack them up for a while, occasionally going into overdrive, before finally cutting to Snake waking up.
According to series creator Hideo Kojima, this was a work-in-progress level from a canceled game. The end credits refer to it as ‘Guy Savage’, but that was about it for new info, until the Tokyo Game Show in 2011. At a presentation for the Zone of the Enders HD Collection, they revealed Guy Savage was connected to a project called ‘Anubis’, which would’ve been part of the ZOE series. Possibly even a potential 3rd entry, or more likely a spin-off from it.
2 CastleVania: Portrait of Ruin Reuses Previously Unused Richter Belmont Moves
As CastleVania’s 3D efforts floundered, their 2D entries continued to wow players on the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS. The second DS game, Portrait of Ruin, followed Bloodlines protagonist John Morris’ son Jonathan and CastleVania 3's Sypha Belnades’ descendant Charlotte into Dracula’s castle. As a sequel to Dawn of Sorrow, it has a lot of leftovers from that game, like its Ax Armor and Soma’s Bat-Morph.
There are even graphics from the PC Engine CD game Rondo of Blood, like its version of the Carmilla boss. What’s more surprising is that it takes unused data from Symphony of the Night and finally uses it. Richter’s spin kicks, sweeps, and super jumps in Portrait of Ruin all originally came from its PlayStation predecessor. They were either going to be attacks for his boss fight, or for the player to use during his campaign.
1 Judgment’s Light Yagami is in Yakuza Kiwami 2
The PS4 remake of Yakuza 2 was an upgrade from Yakuza 6, giving players more to do as the series’ perennial lead Kazuma Kiryu. Since both games were made in the Dragon Engine, it’s not a surprise that it had a few leftovers from the earlier game. Though much more curiously, it has a lot more data for what would become Judgment. The Japanese HUD icons from the detective-based spin-off can be found in the game, from the style-switching icons to the Drone controls.
Best of all, there’s a prototype model of Takayuki Yagami with his old look made prior to Takuya Kimura’s involvement in the game. He has nearly all his moves from the final game, along with some early Skill Unlock portraits. Some of them resemble those for his Snake Style in Lost Judgment as well. Either Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio was that forward-thinking, or it's a coincidence.