Trivia / Pipeworks ''Godzilla'' Trilogy

aka: Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee

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• Dummied Out: Biollante was going to be in Save the Earth and was actually finished, but licensing issues meant she couldn't appear in the final product, instead being delayed for Unleashed. Similarly Hedorah was planned to be in Unleashed and there are still references to him (there is a purchasable monster unlock hint that is clearly intended for him, one mission in the toxic Osaka says there is an opportunity to unlock a monster with the cutscene beforehand saying a new monster has spawned as a result of said toxicity, and his skeleton and sound files are actually in the game), but he was ultimately left out because they couldn't make his transformations and cel-shaded blob body work.
• God Never Said That: Simon Strange, the games' developer, has debunked a number of popular rumours regarding the series on the Colossal Kaiju Combat! forum, including the one that Bagan, Monster X, Hedorah, and Zilla were "scrapped" from Unleashed. They were considered very early in development as possible additions to the roster, but dismissed for a variety of reasons. Biollante is the only monster to have genuinely been scrapped from any of the games. Many of these rumours were misunderstandings of comments Strange had made in podcasts.
• No Export for You: The Xbox versions of Destroy All Monsters Melee and Save The Earth didn't make their way to Japan, and Unleashed wasn't released there at all.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Save The Earth's story mode had an actual plot that was cut during development, with the green barriers being set up by the Vortaak and Vorticia posing as a reporter. The story had to be scrapped because Atari rushed the game so they could release it to coincide with Godzilla: Final Wars. Concept art also exists for an Arctic stage, a Las Vegas stage (showing Godzilla 90's wielding the guitar on the Hard Rock Hotel as a club), and a Rodan rail-shooter taking place in the desert. Biollante was to be playable, but was removed from the console versions due to Pipeworks not getting the green light from Toho. A handful of the challenges were originally developed for the original story mode, such as Undersea Battle.
    • Biollante's data was actually left in the game, but made inaccessible. In 2014, though, hackers utilizing the PCSX 2 emulator (a PlayStation 2 emulator for PC) actually managed to unlock her data, revealing that her entire moveset was recycled for Unleashed.
  • Bagan, Monster X/Kaiser Ghidorah, Hedorah, Zilla, and King Kong were briefly considered for Unleashed early in development, but not included for various reasons:
    • Bagan was mentioned in an interview and was seriously considered, but was replaced by Varan due to the latter being a favorite of the head dev, coupled with Bagan being too obscure.
    • Monster X/Kaiser Ghidorah would have too complex a transformation sequence, and having two players play as Kaiser Ghidorah would essentially destroy the console.
    • Hedorah's various transformations and blob-like form were too complex for the game engine. Despite this, his skeleton and sound files were left in the game.
    • Zilla was The Scrappy at the time of the game's release, though his popularity has risen since.
    • King Kong was a case of Screwed by the Lawyers, as Universal was charging far more money for his use than Toho was.
    • Other monsters mentioned in interviews included Gamera, the monster from Cloverfield, Mechani-Kong from King Kong Escapes, and others. Gamera was another case of Screwed by the Lawyers, Cloverfield wasn't even out yet (that and J. J. Abrams was extremely secretive regarding the film, so nobody even knew what the monster looked like), and Mechani-Kong encountered the same issues Toho experienced in 1991 when making the film that ultimately became Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah.
    • Engine limitations also put the kibosh on Kamacuras, Kumonga, and the Giant Octopus from King Kong vs Godzilla.
  • The developer diary for Unleashed mentioned a lot of features that ultimately didn't make it into the final version of the game.
  • Among the cities meant to appear in the game included Los Angeles, Toronto, and Washington DC. Los Angeles was replaced by Sydney when it was determined that there were too many American cities in the game.
  • There was to be a PSP port of Unleashed, with a single screenshot showing Gigan and Godzilla fighting being released (a few sources claim it was Zilla), but this never came to pass. Also cancelled was a Japanese release of the game.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Toho initially claimed "licensing issues" could not allow Jet Jaguar to appear in the games, and later the same for Titanosaurus, but they both appeared in the very next installment respectively.

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