The 6 Worst Ideas Nearly Included in Great Video Games
You don't think of video games as having "deleted scenes," but stuff gets cut from games at the last minute, the same as with movies. The difference is that once a scene is cut from a movie, you'll never see it unless they choose to throw it onto a DVD. Cutting scenes from games isn't so easy, so the code is usually lurking around in there for you to find, if it's not sitting right out in the open in some early or foreign edition of the game. This can lead to bizarre discoveries in games we thought we knew well, like ...
EarthBound Had a Naked Level
EarthBound is the gift that keeps on giving. We've talked before about how this cutesy-looking RPG for Super Nintendo is all about abortion, and how it murders the soul of whoever tries to pirate it, but there's one thing we haven't mentioned yet -- the hidden child nudity.
Americans would have given him a massive erection, twice the size of the rest of his body.
That's Ness, EarthBound's protagonist (who also appears in the Super Smash Bros. series), wearing his classic red hat and nothing else. This is from the Japanese version of the game, originally called Mother 2, and it's not some mistake with the colors where he's just supposed to be wearing a flesh-colored jumpsuit -- it's an area in the game known as Magicant, and whenever Ness goes there, his clothes instantly vanish. He just goes around showing his butt to everyone.
The U.S. version got around this by giving Ness some pajamas:
Notice how the voyeuristic rabbit quickly loses interest in the second scenario.
But why the hell would Japan do this in the first place, besides, you know, because it's Japan? Well, in both versions of the game, an old man explains to Ness that Magicant is actually a world he created inside his mind; apparently in Japan, nudity symbolizes purity, so Ness' soul self or whatever is always nude (even though all the other characters still have their clothes on).
There's something so unsettling about the shape of that snowman in this scene.
In the U.S., however, public nudity just symbolizes jail time, so they had to change the game.
The Legend of Zelda Could Be Played by Screaming
Yes, there were enemies in the original Legend of Zelda that required you to scream them to death. The removal of this feature is the only reason an entire generation of NES consoles were not bashed to pieces by angry dads wielding claw hammers.
You can still see the remnants of this feature in the final game. The original 8-bit Legend of Zelda included one of the most misleading enemies ever, called Pols Voice. They were a pain in the ass, but they had one huge weakness, according to the game. It hints that they have huge ears, they have "voice" in their name, and even the instruction manual says they hate loud noises ...
If the monsters in the game really looked like that, this would be an 8-bit Silent Hill.
So what killed them? Arrows. Making Link create noises doesn't do shit. You could play that goddamn flute thing until your "B" button fell off, but those things would still ... do whatever it is they're supposed to be doing that kills you. Poison or something.
Razor-sharp whiskers?
So what's the deal? As we've briefly mentioned before, the Japanese NES included a microphone built into the second controller. In that version of the game, Pols Voice were immune to arrows. Originally, to kill these enemies, you had to scream into that microphone, like an 8-bit version of a Skyrim dragon shout. In fact, one yell could wipe out a whole room of them, as demonstrated by this video:
Since no one else got those microphones, Nintendo had to drop the feature for international markets, and apparently didn't have time or didn't think of changing the instruction manual. You know, because those things were normally so accurate anyway.
And speaking of weird things cut from Zelda games ...
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Let You Destroy a Star Fox Spaceship
The big draw of the Super Smash Bros. series was that, for the first time ever, Nintendo's most famous characters finally got together and beat the shit out of one another (without karts). However, one year before the first Smash Bros. game came out, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time included this (deleted) cross-franchise battle:
That's an Arwing spaceship from the futuristic Star Fox game series flying around in the not-so-futuristic world of The Legend of Zelda. It even shoots lasers at you, complete with sci-fi sound effects ...
Something tells us a wooden shield ain't gonna cut it this time, Link.
... and, if you manage to hit it enough times with the slingshot or the boomerang, it comes crashing down and explodes.
"I stand erect, bathing in the flaming blood of my enemy."
This isn't something some hacker put there: The Arwing was in the game's programming all along. You just never saw it because the developers made sure it didn't spawn anywhere. However, you can still come across it through glitches or by using cheating devices, thus allowing you to pretend the Ocarina of Time is malfunctioning and transporting random stuff from a distant animal-ruled future.
So why did Nintendo put it there if they didn't want anyone to find it? As far as we can tell, the Arwing was added to test the physics for a flying dragon boss in the game -- they just lifted it straight out of Star Fox 64 and based the dragon's behavior on it, minus the part where it shoots lasers (for some reason). Or, you can make up your own story, about how Link and Fox McCloud had a beef over some old gambling debts, or perhaps a stripper they both knew.
Maybe those chickens were his to begin with?
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter Had a Pervert Character
Today's fighting games are mostly about throwing together characters from different fictional universes, settling once and for all those childhood debates we had about whether or not Wolverine could beat up Guile from Street Fighter. So, for instance, we have Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, which had a pool of 17 characters to choose from. Unless you played the Japanese version, that is, which had 18.
Why the disparity? The Japanese versions of the game included an exclusive character called Norimaro, a skeevy older man dressed like a schoolboy, created and played by Japanese comedian Noritake Kinashi.
We're still trying to unlock Borat in Mortal Kombat.
His entire backstory is that he accidentally ended up at the tournament and now he's there to take Chun-Li's picture. That's seriously it. If you beat the game with him, he steals her panties. No, really.
His moves include grabbing random junk out of his bag and throwing it (rulers, pencils, books, etc.), desperately spinning his arms around like a windmill, Bart Simpson style, slipping on banana peels (which then fly toward the opponent) and begging for autographs.
An advanced technique taught only by TMZ masters.
Apparently, Capcom actually considered including him in the American release, because his files are still in the game and some of his lines have been translated into English. He's just not available to be selected (without hacking).
And in a bit of cut-material Inception, the insane deleted character has an insane deleted super move. Hackers have discovered animations for a move where Norimaro dreams of a random female character in a seductive pose and then spurts blood from his nose. Opponents hit by the blood are damaged.
Norimaro's "finishing" move.
Every female character in the game could have shown up in Norimaro's dream bubbles, including one named Anita, who's only 10 years old ...
... and, um, Zangief.
Maybe he got the wrong idea when he heard that Zangief was a bear wrestler.
Mega Man Legends Included Animal Abuse
The original Mega Man was kind of a cyborg boy scout. The robot next door. Apparently, no one passed that message on to the Japanese team behind Mega Man Legends, an open-world RPG for the Sony PlayStation.
The game runs like a standard RPG. You do typical good-guy stuff, like helping people and running errands. In one mission, you assist a girl who has been chased up a pole by a dog. In the American version, you can talk the dog out of mauling this little girl.
"Hey, that's a great point. Too bad I'm a fucking dog and can't understand you."
In the Japanese version, however, you have the alternate choice of kicking the ever-loving shit out of it. Damn, Mega Man. When did you absorb Michael Vick's powers?
But hey, man, that dog was nuts. Did you see that? Even a robot has gotta make split decisions. Except in later parts of the game, you encounter other dogs and can punt them like footballs, too. This was even present in the American version, but you can only kick them once. In the Japanese version, you can actually kick them to death, if you're OK with Mega Man being a sociopath.
"Fuck you, Sarah McLachlan!"
To be fair, those dogs are also trying to kill you ... but that still doesn't explain why the Japanese version allows you to kick harmless cats. Oh, and wantonly shoot down birds. You don't get anything from them. It doesn't help you. You just can. Because you have an arm cannon, and what good is it if not for senseless animal cruelty?
"Somebody point me toward the zoo. I gots to make a zebra pay."
Atomic Bomberman Dropped Literal F-Bombs
Atomic Bomberman is a 1997 edition of the classic Bomberman series: You know, those puzzle games where you go around planting bombs and pissing off your friends.
Terrorism has rarely been this fun.
As a PC game, Atomic Bomberman's main innovation over the Bomberman games for Nintendo consoles was the addition of voice acting. As you knocked out or blew up the other players, your character would say things like "gotcha," "toasted" ... or (originally) "Time for a fuckin' dirtnap, you shitfuck."
That's right; the disc contains an audio file with a hilarious, profane audio track, and it's not just the programmers screwing around -- they had the actual voice talent record profane lines for every in-game situation. You can hear it for yourself, though you might want to keep the volume down if you're at work:
If the voices sound familiar, that's because the voice actors are none other than Billy West (Fry from Futurama) and Charles Adler (Buster Bunny in Tiny Toon Adventures). Some highlights:
"Aw, shit."
"Come on, biatch."
"I'll break your fuckin' head with a ratchet."
"Right there, sweet tits." (This one's for the bonus Strip Joint level.)
"Fuck me, I'm so fucking proud of you I could just shit." (Actually, we don't wanna know what this one is from.)
Probably from the fact that he hasn't committed suicide even though he looks like that.
The actors repeat the lines in the voice of each character, so it's not like they were just shooting the shit and someone recorded it. That means they were planning to include those lines in the game at some point, back when video game profanity was still a big deal. Think about it: Mario 64 had only come out the year before, and Atomic Bomberman almost sounded like a bunch of teens fighting on Xbox Live.
Maxwell Yezpitelok lives in Chile and writes things. You can bother him on Twitter. For more from Ashe, check out Weird Shit Blog on Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter.
Special thanks to The Cutting Room Floor and Unseen64.
For more disturbing things in games we wish didn't exist, check out 8 Creepy Video Game Urban Legends (That Happen to Be True) and 7 Creepy Video Game Easter Eggs You'll Wish Were Never Found.
If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out Why Peyton Manning Is the Steve Jobs of the NFL.
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