This one looks more complex than the bonus areas in the released game, and gives us Mario Sunshine vibes in all the most obvious ways.Įither way, onto picture 3 now! And this one… actually looks really cool.
The final version of the dragon, who looks as expectedįinally the picture also shows Mario in a secret level too. Based on the sand and the Power Moon colour it’s presumably a version of the Seaside Kingdom, but again, it doesn’t match the area in the final game at all. With the first picture showing the Odyssey landing in a sandy area in an unknown kingdom. So either this is one of his earlier incarnations, or another Broodal took his place earlier in development. Based on the background it’s with a character found in the Lake Kingdom, but the only person with a similar description is Rango, and he looks nothing like the character shown there. There’s also some dialogue shown to the right of this picture too. Like, what even is that white thing next to the Pokio here? Or to the left of the Lakitu on the top row? It’s too blurry to be sure, but they look nothing like any of the icons used in the final game, and seem to represent mechanics or gimmicks cut from said version. Yet many others don’t match the final game at all. Frogs, Paragoombas, Hammer/Fire Bros, Uproots and Yoshi were going to be capturable critters in all versions of the game…
Oh sure, we can make out some icons on both. While we can’t see what each character is very clearly, it’s 100% certain that the species we were going to capture were nothing like those in the final game. Which brings us to the other obvious difference. The icons are circular instead of rounded, they use screenshots with backgrounds rather than transparent concept art, and even the icons that do represent captures found in the final game are totally unlike those we actually got. The list of captures from the beta versionĪs you can see, the early version has a completely different style overall. No, that one shows the capture list, and it’s a… tad different to the one we’re used to. Neat, but pretty much the same as the final game.īut that’s not the case in the next screenshot. This one doesn’t have much to show, since it’s just highlighting the poison pond area where you ride into the ruins on a Jaxi. With the first one being another Sand Kingdom pic. And this one seems to be a gallery of pictures showing various other kingdoms and concepts. Presumably the structure of the Sand Kingdom was already worked out by this point in development, and the NPCs/enemies were some of the later models to get properly designed. Like, you think the final ones look uncanny? Try these doll like versions instead.Īs for the background? Well, we’re not sure if it’s just been used as an example, but it seems mostly the same as the finished game design wise.
Starting with the very first one, where Mario is shown encountering a very low poly musician! Yep, it seems like the musicians from New Donk City might have been meant for more kingdoms at one point, and had some very… unsettling designs earlier in the game’s development. So, let’s analyse it a bit shall we? Let’s see exactly what these intriguing screenshots and concept art pics have to offer!
Seems this art was taken from a Nintendo conference call…Īs you can see, they look pretty damn awesome really, with all kinds of interesting things to take note of.