What Could've Been Moments: Video Games.

This is a place for your Imagine Spots for what could've been in video games had a different direction been taken.

One of the pokemon games had a But Thou Must! situation where you have to turn down the offer of Team Rocket to join their side. Now this makes sense from the developers point of view; its a kids game ultimately, even if there are plenty of teenage and adult pokemon fans out there. Letting the players avatar join an international criminal organisation... isn't exactly going to fly. Unless...

Not letting a player do something is a bit akin to Forbidden Fruit. They're going to want to do it. Now I doubt anyone became a crime lord because of a forced decision in pokemon, but "the game won't let you do this because its wrong" isn't as powerful a message as, say, letting you join Team Rocket, and then showing just how screwed up the world ends up because of it. Say you get missions from Team Rocket from time to time, and they get progressively more disturbing. Each time, you have a chance to say no, but if you do, you get Team Rocket agents sent out to attack you, and they get harder and harder to beat. (If you lose, you black out and then have to do the mission.) The only way out is to actually confront Giovanni again.

Thats a consequence. Rather than just getting the path barred arbitrarily to them, the player has to actually face the fact that their actions put them in a position between, ultimately, screwing the game world over as towns get overrun by the pokemon equivalent of the mafia, or having to fight their way out of a Deal with the Devil. And if you do just obey the instructions, without turning back?

The world just gets worse and worse. People have to get a certified "Pokemon Pass", essentially a team rocket protection racket, to be allowed to own pokemon. Rocket members begin blocking routes and demanding tolls. If it gets bad enough, Rocket members start taking over stores. Eventually, gyms start being toppled, having to pay protection money to stay open or be taken over by Rocket members. And the people who meet you, they know that you're responsible. That includes your mother (now thats an agonising conversation) and Oak, who both become more and more concerned, then angry, then disenchanted and finally they just give up on you. No one gets killed but you can keep ratcheting up the unsettling aspects until you've got a Crapsack World where Giovanni essentially reigns. Its up to the game designers whether or not you can repair the damage by making like a Face–Heel Revolving Door and confronting the situation, healing the world one battle at a time.

Now thats a pokemon game I'd play again. Rather than just block the option, show the kid the consequences of throwing your hand in with the bad guys.

edited 19th May '11 6:13:26 AM by GameChainsaw

Epic Mickey originally had a design change for Mickey, that would happen depending on how you play the game. The three designs were Hero mickey, Waste lander Mickey, and The Scrapper Mickey. This idea was put to a close due to a motorcycle punk complaining that he didn't want his childhood ruined. There were even people that disliked Scrapper Mickey, and boy the people weren't kidding. This idea was then scrapped by Warren and it was replaced it with fairy like guardians called Tints and Turps. I hope Warren considers using the design change for the sequel of Epic mickey though, there was also a rumor that Oswald was originally planned to be the main Big Bad before it was the blot.

Kirby's Epic Yarn(from what I've heard) wasn't a kirby game from the start. It was supposed to feature a new character, but Nintendo asked the people to change it because the character looked too similar to Kirby. A similar situation happened with Dinosaur Planet(that would later become a Star Fox game).

edited 19th May '11 6:43:20 AM by Theoriginalblader

Mario almost started his post-Donkey Kong career with a gun, you know...

Wonder how that would've turned out...

Sally Acorn was meant to be in Sonic The Hedgehog 2006, ...Or So I've Heard.

That was just an example that Warren Spector gave in the article to illustrate the kinds of reactions he was getting. That one person didn't decide the course of the game for the rest of us.

SNK. 2001 Bankruptcy. Nuff said.

Quest 64 has a lot of them. A full party, a monetary(money) system. You could ride the first Horse that came up! Key term being could. Besides that, the original character was named Jack, not Brian.

The list isn't too big in this case, but it's pretty much what it lacked. That's important.

As for Kingdom Hearts:

You know, despite how ridiculous it seems, chainsaw-wielding Lion-Sora◊ would have been pretty cool.

In before the Half Life 2 Beta.

WE'RE TOO LATE!!!

On a serious note, the original collaboration between Sony and Nintendo to have the "Playstation" be a CD add-on for the SNES, before the latter was stupid enough to call it off and make the CD-i with Phillips. Imagine, if the Big N and Sony were still united, with Nintendo handling the software and Sony lending its processing power and hardware, they would have become this unstoppable technological juggernaut dream team. In fact, the Xbox might not have even been created, as it was inspired by Sony's success with the PS1, and Sega might have still been an active participant in the Console Wars.

Also, the scrapped Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood Of Arms and Invasion concepts. The former would have had a realistic military setting and the latter was supposed to be an RTS-FPS hybrid.

What if Super Mario World (already one of the greatest games ever) wasn't rushed due to competition with Sega?

And the plot thickens...

What do u guys think would have happened if we had gotten Rayman 4 instead of a party game? I think we would have gotten something bad ass

Loads in Worldof Warcraft. Just a few off the top of my head:

The Spider Kingdom was supposed to be a full-fledged zone. The Path of the Titans

I could go on, but I can't think of anymore.

edited 20th May '11 10:21:22 PM by tclittle

• From what I've heard on an forum(thats not online anymore) that one of the stories for another Dr.Robotnik game(not a copy and paste like the fun Mean Bean Machine game). But however the plans for it were scrapped due to the show ending.

• Rayman 4 would have been a wild ride to play for video games, anyone know what the Executive Meddling of it was?

• Sonic's early design started out as a rabbit, here's a picture of it too◊. A bit odd to play Sonic as a rabbit. From what I've heard Sega of America wanted it as a hedgehog(probably to avoid copyright with Disney's Mickey Mouse). He looks more like an Oswald copycat like this.

• One of the stories for the Conker sequel(before bad fur day) focused on the Tediz and the squirrel army. Another story had Conker killing himself and he ended up in hell to find the soul of Berri. The second one sounded like it was going to parody the horror films as well as hell itself.

I just found out that Shadow The Hedgehog was supposed to be T but it was cut down for E10

edited 21st May '11 12:56:09 PM by Playedforkeeps

Having seen a faithful translation of the original Japanese version of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, I get the feeling that if it hadn't been toned down for the American release, we'd have avoided a lot of arguments over whether Marche's actions were morally wrong. On the other hand, I think the American version improves Mewt and Cid's characterization, so there's a tradeoff at work.

The whole thing about Sergei Gurlukovitch surviving until the end of Metal Gear Solid 2 before Ocelot kills him on Arsenal. It's followed by (Instead of the 25 Metal Gear RAY fight) all of Gurlukovitch's soldiers teaming up with you to fight two Metal Gear RAY's piloted by Solidus and Ocelot. Not to mentioned the planned final boss of Snake and Raiden Tag Teaming against Ocelot and Solidus in the middle of New York.

Megaman Battle Network II. The Kotobuki bit with radiation warping the real and cyber worlds together.

Come on, that was totally ripe for an Adventures of Cookie and Cream style teamwork section with Lan and Megaman jumping back and forth, then meeting in the middle for a last blitz at the boss. And Lan could smack Mettools with a mop or something.

There are several deleted lines in both Portal games that I think the games would have been improved for retaining.

Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 is the king of this trope.(argueably)

Let's see, there was a mode to play as the partner characters. In a way, it not appearing isn't bad. Anybody notice how much they don't play well, save Amy and Omega?

Super Sonic was an unlockable chip. Oh, and there was one to increase Silver's Running Speed. Yeah, Silver's Running Speed. Let that sink in for a moment.

Another is a multiplayer mode where it's somewhat similar to single player mode, where you had partners. Instead, it's nothing but the Hedgehogs.

I think that's it? There might be more.(oh, and the game might've had controls and glitches that don't break the game, and few load times)

From what I hear, Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts was originally planned out as a original IP. However, Microsoft "told Rare to change it to a Banjo title".

On an example that something that got made, Full Throttle originally had a story that had Ben traveling through Psychedelic areas. Lucasarts didn't approve of the story, but Tim saved that concept for Pyschonauts.

Knights of the Old Republic 2. If the game had been properly finished I would have forgiven its twisted sense of philosophy.

@Rational

And that is where restoration mods come in to save the day.

Really, the thing I do not understand most about the whole thing is why Lucas Arts denied the dev team's request to actually fix everything.