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Early Debug Build of PlayStation All-Stars found! - 11 month debug build reveals planned characters, and many changes


Ryannumber1gamer

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A big find that was recently unveiled, someone who bought a PS3 debug console found a early debug build of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale on said console. The build, still named "Title Fight" is dated about roughly 11 months before the official release of the game, and a good way before the official announcement of the game in early 2012. PSASBR is infamous for having a lot of design changes and content cut before we eventually got the final release of the game, meaning a lot of the beta builds of the game showcase many interesting changes from the original version of the game.

In the uncovered build, there was many things found that reveals how far in development certain aspects were, how long certain things were planned, what was in the pipeline at certain points of development, and more. We don't know the full extent of things as of yet, as Beta64 got a peak at a lot of the stuff, but not all, and someone called Kuriatsu who found the debug PS3, and the build is doing her own extensive look through the files. Because of this, it's worth looking at both, and keeping up with the series of videos that will come out, showcasing more and more stuff about the early version of the game. 

The biggest question I'm sure on everyone's mind is which cut characters does the build reveal? Well, that's interesting, because it reveals in no short order that Dr. Nefarious, Buzz (from the quiz game), Blasto, a dog guard from Sly Cooper, two characters from Warhawk, as well as a Chimera was planned for the initial set of characters. On top of that, Snake was apparently planned until it was decided that Raiden was the better choice due to Revengearance releasing that next year. There's also a character from LocoRoco, although this is a placeholder for Good Cole, who found himself in a unfinished state at this point. Many more icons were found in the game files of the debug that are too many to count. It's also possible that these character icons are there for the "game changers", so it's up in the air. The files also make reference to characters who weren't in the build yet, such as Sir Dan, one of Fat Princess' minions, Nariko, and most importantly - Zeus (who was the final DLC character in the end).

There's also a host of different gameplay changes, with more hazards that you could use to kill enemies, instead of having to rely on supers all the time, stage transitions were planned to be manual by defeating a "game changer" character, who would then drop an item and allow you to transition the stage, and use said transition hazard against your opponents. The title screen was vastly different, and honestly, was better, showing off your stats, and giving you a constant feed to show what your friends was doing online, and what they'd accomplished in-game. There's really too much to describe here, so I'll post the videos and let them speak for themselves. Highly recommend giving them a look, as it's one of the most interesting early versions of a game found in a long time. There's also 13 segments to the full overview of the debug build, so I'll be posting them as they release.

Beta 64's video: 

Kuriatsu's Title Fight Investigations Ep 1 (the person who found the debug build in the first place):

 

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This could've been a great(er) to be completely honest. Sony always had a good balance between white-angry-dudes (a joke used to describe the roster back then) and anthropomorphic cartoonish characters. SuperBot managed to get the license to a few dormant, but beloved IPs, such as PaRappa, MediEvil, Twisted Metal and Ape Escape, which certainly helped to get people's attention. And yet, they not getting the license to some other IPs was also what hold the game back. No Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, OddWorld (it was planned tho'), Gran Turismo, Chrono Cross, Resident Evil, Klonoa, Castlevania and, of course, Crash and Spyro reps (not to mention the whole 2 Coles, Raiden instead of Snake and Donte instead of Dante controversy) really threw a lot of people off, myself included, and yet, I still got the game and had a blast. Besides the otherwise weak roster... The game was actually really fun to play with friends and online. 

The marketing and development cycle of this game was ALL over the place IIRC, but you could see in every interview that SuperBot really wanted to make this a fun game with as much PS history they could pay for, and I still think the last boss being the reject original PlayStation mascot is a genius fan-service, if a weak fight overall.

I would love a sequel, especially since now Sony at least seems to be more "in peace" with it's third party studios.

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1 minute ago, Jango said:

No Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, OddWorld (it was planned tho'), Gran Turismo, Chrono Cross, Resident Evil, Klonoa, Castlevania and, of course, Crash and Spyro reps really threw a lot of people off, myself included, and yet, I still got the game and had a blast. Besides the otherwise weak roster... The game was actually really fun to play with friends and online. 

The problem with all of this, as mentioned in the video, is just really awful timing on Sony's part. Tomb Raider was due for a reboot the following year, Castlevania had no ties to PlayStation, beyond Sympathy of the Night, you really can't have a rep for Gran Turismo, Square was extremely tight-fisted with their characters, even to this day, considering Cloud is still regularly screwed over in Smash, same for Chrono. 

If stories are to be believed, since it floated around on the PSASBR forums back in the day, an attempt was at least made to get Crash and Spyro into the game, but Activision hard-balled them by making the price of both characters extremely high to the point it wasn't worth it on their budgets, supposedly because they wanted to push both as "multiplatform heroes". 

I really don't think it can be stated enough, the roster problem is not a fault of Superbot. They had to work within the budget they were given, and the constraints they were under. It's not their fault that several companies like Capcom and Konami lowballed them into using promotional characters instead of the ones they actually wanted to, nor is it Superbot's fault that Activision screwed them on the license to Crash/Spyro. They tried their best with the situation they were in, and was stopped before they could finish off more of the fan-favourite characters people wanted like Dart and Abe. 

This is a particularly big reason why they should try again, because these roster problems wouldn't be as much of an issue, especially in an era like this. Back then, several companies like Capcom were failing, Activision was working with Xbox, and classic characters were seen as unpopular. We're in an era now where Capcom have a business relationship with Sony due to Street Fighter V, Activision regularly partners with Sony for COD and such, the era of "edgy reboots" have more or less died, and PS1 games are seen as massively nostalgic, especially with Reignited and N Sane. 

There's a much heavier chance that if a second PSASBR happened now, we'd see Crash and Spyro absolutely locked as choices due to the partnership with Activision, possibly another SF/Resi rep for PSASBR, while Smash gets Mega Man, Ryu, and Ken, Lara Craft since her reboot series is now officially done and dusted, Classic Dante, etc. The gaming landscape has changed a lot since the original PSASBR, and the changes are positive ones that should hypothetically allow Sony to get a lot more people on board this time around.

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Exactly, that's what I said! It's not SuperBot's fault at all, the game they ended up shipping was in fact really fun to play, if a little unbalanced (looking at you Kratos). But a bunch of timing issues hold some important characters' inclusion. Activision's dick move doesn't even surprise me TBH, they were literally sitting on Crash and yet felt right about asking a bunch of money for it, like seriously, fuck off Activision...

Like I said, the ties with third party studios are cool now, and on top of more first party reps, like Abe, Joel and Ellie (maybe?), Knack (someone's gotta be the punching bag :P), Atreus (because why not?), Aloy, we could finally get fucking Crash and Spyro, the real Dante, Leon or Claire, Chun-li (since Ryu is busy in Smash), good old Lara Croft and even freaking Spider-man FFS.

Also:

39 minutes ago, Ryannumber1Scarer said:

you really can't have a rep for Gran Turismo

hornet-fighters-megamix-animation.gif

If SEGA could do it, so can Sony. Gimme my Nissan Skyline as a fighter >:V Also, the original game had a WipeOut rep, sooooo....

Looking at the videos, I gotta say the menus, especially the character select screen, look much cooler.

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Part 3 of the investigations is out, covering a full look and side-by-side comparsion of the original stages to the final build!

 

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Part 5 is here, it discusses cut characters, character changes, placeholder lines, and much more!

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On 10/21/2019 at 1:54 PM, Ryannumber1Scarer said:

Part 5 is here, it discusses cut characters, character changes, placeholder lines, and much more!

That's really cool! Thanks :)

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