Highlights
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was simultaneously released on the Wii U and the new Nintendo Switch.
- Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem was initially developed for the N64 before being moved to the GameCube.
- Star Fox Adventures started as a project called Dinosaur Planet on the N64 before eventually becoming a GameCube game.
The Wii U was not one of Nintendo’s most successful platforms. Fans of the system did hold out hope for one giant game via The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. With numerous delays, it was eventually revealed that the game would simultaneously be released on Wii U as well as the new Nintendo system, the Switch.
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That’s an example of a game that didn’t move systems entirely during development. However, it is an example of how things have changed during the cycle as a whole. Are there any examples of games switching development purely from one system to another like going from the Game Boy to the N64? Well, let’s jump in and have a look. Most of these Nintendo games can be found on Unseen64, which is a great resource for canceled or prototype games.
6 Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem was one of the GameCube’s most groundbreaking horror games at the time. Like Hideo Kojima and the Metal Gear series, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem was all about messing with the player from turning down the volume to switching things off. Funnily enough Silicon Knights, the developer, would go on to create a remake of Metal Gear Solid for the GameCube exclusively.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem was not always on the GameCube though because it started on N64. There are a ton of screenshots for it on Unseen64 from previews. Besides the more chunky assets, a lot of the scenes should look familiar to fans.
5 Kirby Air Ride
Nintendo has experimented with exclusive racing games many times over such as F-Zero and the best Mario Kart games. They even made a spinoff for Kirby via Kirby Air Ride on the GameCube. Like Super Mario Kart, it was a more relaxed racing game featuring powers and characters from the franchise.
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It wasn’t that weird at the time because Kirby had been in non-platformers before Kirby Air Ride including golf, pinball, and puzzle games. Like most of these entries, Kirby Air Ride began on the N64 and there are many screenshots cataloged on Unseen64. One of the odder things about its development was that at one time Kirby sported a backward baseball cap as if to say this was an extreme game for Tony HawkPro Skater fans. Whether that was Nintendo’s intentions or not is unknown, but it is funny to consider.
4 Mother 3
There are a lot of games from Nintendo’s past that fans would assuredly love to see get an official Western release someday. Mother 3 has to be at the top of that list which was released for the GBA in 2006. There is a fan translation, so fans have been enjoying it for years, but there is something comforting about an official release.
Fans would probably also like to play whatever build is out there at Nintendo for EarthBound 64. This was an N64 project announced in 1996, meaning that it took a decade for this vision to finally be realized. Unseen64 has early trailers and screenshots with Ness from EarthBound standing in for who would eventually be the star, Lucas. Other characters from Mother 3 can be seen such as Flint.
3 Resident Evil 0
Resident Evil 0 was another big horror game on GameCube which began on the N64. It was sort of a follow-up to the remake of the first game on GameCube, using the same engine to work backward in the storyline. It was even released in the same year, 2002, which was and still is odd. Rebecca Chambers was the star, and she got roped into a leech-infested mystery alongside her jailed partner, Billy.
It’s one of the weirder games in the series, but it still plays well. The N64 version was probably a bit more clunky, but fans are never going to know about that unless a prototype ROM surfaces online. Most of the screenshots on Unseen64 are from the early train section of the game. Rebecca looks slightly different in her costume, but otherwise, the train looks almost exactly the same as the final GameCube product.
2 Star Fox Adventures
Star Fox Adventures has one of the wilder transitions from N64 to GameCube. It wasn’t just the platform that was weird, it was the fact that it was never supposed to be a Star Fox game. The project was called Dinosaur Planet and Crystal, the kidnapped character from the start of Star Fox Adventures, is one of the co-stars. Another character, Saber, was also playable in this version.
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She had a whole adventure planned out, fully detailed through screenshots and video archived on Unseen64. Eventually, Rare would adhere to Nintendo’s wishes, cancel the project technically, and then restart it on GameCube. Most of the core concept remained the same as an action-adventure game set on a planet filled with dinosaurs. The inclusion of Star Fox characters was the biggest change. It’s safe to say that Krystal didn't make it.
1 Tomato Adventure
Tomato Adventure is probably a game most RPG fans have never heard of before. However, the developer, AlphaDream, should ring a bell. They went on to become the developers of the RPG games about Mario and Luigi which started with Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga on GBA.
Their first game was released in 2001 on the GBC, Koto Battle: Tengai no Moribito, which was sort of like a card-based RPG. It made sense then that their next game would also be on GBC, Gimmick Land, which did eventually shift to the GBA. It was also rebranded as Tomato Adventure and it too remains trapped in Japan. Unseen64 only has two screenshots from this early version, which is not that exciting compared to others on here but it is proof enough.