Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 2:46 am Post subject: Something some of you may find nice, about Metal Warriors
There's been a few e-rumors over time that the fun and excellent 'mech platformer' Metal Warriors was in fact an Assault Suit game before Nippon Computer Systems (the same folks who also brought us Langrisser) ran into troubles and passed it on to Konami, who had published Assault Suit Valken as Cybernator*.
Wondering about this, I sought out the co-designer and programmer of Metal Warriors, Dean Sharpe, head of BigApe, made up of former (?) Lucasarts employees, including those who worked on Metal Warrior and Zombies Ate My Neighbors, as well as less notable titles such as Simpsons Wrestling PSX, Herc's Adventures, and Celebrity Deathmatch. But I won't hold those against them.
Anyway, once I explained what NCS was, as well as the Assault Suit series, he gave the following info about the game:
From Dean Sharpe, the co-designer and programmer of the game:
Mike Ebert and myself made it from scratch after finishing ZAMN. So no, it was not a spin off of anything. As far as the idea, we just wanted to work on something head to head with a more serious note after doing ZAMN. The only other part of the story was that Nintendo was originally going to publish it. We even did about 3 months worth of changes by their request. Then at the last minute they decided that it was too much like Cybernator and the deal got nixed. It was then we went back to Konami whom had also published ZAMN. The only other name it ever went by was Battle Droids.
Its funny that you emailed me about this since I'm currently working on a GBA version of that game. It won't be called Metal Warriors however.
Great news, and another video gaming mystery laid to rest. (not that any of you care)
*For those who want to know more about the Assault Suit series by NCS, here is the rough list of the games:
Assault Suit Leynos/Target Earth for Genesis, lost quite a bit in translation
Assault Suit Valken/Cybernator for SNES, also lost some (AGTP has a re-translation patch)
Assault Suit Leynos II for Saturn, not translated
Assault Suit Valken II for PSX, also not translated, and a strategy game.
Assault Suit Valken "Zero", a remake of Cybernator that is being made for PS2 by X-nauts, who have some sort of incestous relationship with Psikyo.
Joined: 26 Aug 2003 Posts: 4192 Location: Oakland, CA
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 2:49 am Post subject:
This is all above my head, but cool info nevertheless. If you're still talking to the guy, wouldn't hurt to ask if he's worked on anything that didn't come out.
Joined: 02 Dec 2003 Posts: 166 Location: Boynton Beach, FL
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 10:09 am Post subject:
Jonnymaru wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, didn't Valken lose a scene in which a guy blows his brains out?
That was in Valken, but I haven't gotten that far in Cybernator.
Valken had little pics of the chara as they talked. I know those got pulled from Cybernator. I've honestly never sat down and seriously played Cybernator. I played Valken into the ground, then bought Cybernator so I've done my bit for roms and country.
Thanks for the info. I'd heard about the Battle Droids title before, but I never knew that Nintendo ever planned to publish the game.
That bit about a GBA version is good news as well. Metal Warriors is an old favorite of mine.
DavidDurica wrote:
Valken had little pics of the chara as they talked. I know those got pulled from Cybernator.
Nintendo Power's Cybernator review showed the game with character portraits and translated text, so I assume that the talking heads were excised at a late stage in the localization.
Joined: 02 Dec 2003 Posts: 166 Location: Boynton Beach, FL
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 4:05 am Post subject:
Kid Fenris wrote:
Nintendo Power's Cybernator review showed the game with character portraits and translated text, so I assume that the talking heads were excised at a late stage in the localization.
I was really surprised to see they got dropped. The chara designs were nothing outlandish, by any means.
Don't mean to dredge up a month-dead thread, but Cybernator definitely did have quite a lot cut out of it. The first mission literally had half of the text strings removed in the US version, a bunch of no-name Cybernator characters are actually developed in ASV, the portraits were removed, the said suicide scene was axed, even some of the names were changed in idiotic ways (Herman was changed to "Apollo", wtf? Was Herman too Japanese for us stupid gaijin or something?)
I released a translation patch for Valken some months ago; it may be worth playing side-by-side with the US release to see exactly the extent to which it got raped.
You know, there's actually a rom of Cybernator, I'm assuming from a beta, that uses the US script but still has the character portraits. It's also got a sound test that's absent from both the regular release and ASV. Dunno if it's still got the suicide scene or not. The rom's labeled "Cybernator (U) (With Sound Test)" in GoodSNES.
Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Posts: 576 Location: confirmed
Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2004 9:19 am Post subject:
Hey, another one that noticed this little fact and also decided to dig into it ^_^
I hope the re-release of Valken for PS2 means the others will get a re-release too (atleast Leynoss 2, as it looks friggin sweet and I never got the chance to try it out on a saturn)
Valken for PS2 isn't "that awesome" in my opinion... sure, new visuals and stuff... but there's something odd about the music :-/
atleast in the first couple of levels that I've played through so far.
(Haven't had much time to play games lately... dumb army)
Anyway,
It's another nice thing to point out that SquareSoft most likely had parts of the "Assault Suits" crew with them working on
"Front Mission - Gun Hazard"
(Which bears obvious similiarities both in the graphics design and gameplay...)
Also like to add that while Front Mission got a pseudo sequal (Gun Hazard) that plays like Assault Suits on the Snes, while Assault Suits Valken got a sequal that plays like Front Mission on the PSX.
As for "talking heads" in Cybernator...
Well.. I used to own the PAL version of that game (It wasn't released in my country, but we bought it at some 2nd hand store that often took in games from other parts of Europe + Australia)
I can clearly remember the character portraits + text in the game...
So taken out, they were not.
But the game was cut down somehow, but I dunno what was done to it, as I haven't played through it in years and I still haven't played through Valken (neither Snes nor PS2 version... I've noticed that the PS2 version however has a new "introduction" stage and stuff though... so I suppose that'll be a bad game to use for comparing...)
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