NEOGEO BETA GAMES

(early protos of released games)

While the primary focus of this website has always been and always will be the accumulation of pics and info about the UNRELEASED proto games, over the years I have had many questions and inquiries about the protos of the RELEASED games as well. And while that subject matter is not as interesting to me, I decided that perhaps it was indeed time to discuss it at length and to cover it in more detail.

FACT FILE:

ORIGINAL TITLE: Super Volley '94

SECONDARY TITLE: POWER SPIKES II

-- VIDEO SYSTEM -- 1994

Video System released the original Super Volleyball in 1989 as a jamma board. The Sega Genesis and the Turbografx both received ports of this game in 1990. The second title in the series, also on jamma, was called Super Volley '91 (aka Power Spikes) in 1991. And in 1993, the Super NES saw the release of Hyper V-Ball. The final game in the series was initially called Super Volley '94, but was quickly changed to Power Spikes II.

The first advertisement and promo flyers as well as the initial run of MVS cartridges which were manufactured actually went out with this earlier version of the game. It is uncertain exactly when, but at some point in the process, they changed out some of the games rom data. (specifically the P rom and the C roms were changed)

The known differences are the obvious title screen change and subsequent attract mode title logo of the game. In addition, it has a completely different introduction sequence opening. (video and BGM are altered) And finally the league selection screen has the men, women, and hyper choices in different order and with different icons.
BREAKERS -- VISCO -- 1996

Viscos Breakers fighting games which were released in 1996 and 1998, actually began development as far back as 1994! Originally entitled Crystal Legacy, the game centered around fighters searching for the "Tenrin no syo" master scroll and 8 crystals. It was initially given an earlier NGH product number which was reassigned after the game underwent a 2 year delay before releasing at position NGM-230. But at least the game was apparently successful since a sequel soon followed.

Additional NEO-GEO BETA Title Screens

An early beta version NGM-041

Baseball Stars 2 was originally referred to in SNK documents as "Baseball Stars Professional II". It was also stated that the player could play in leagues and tournaments. Baseball Stars 2 originally had solid black letters for its title as well as different colors utilized for the stars, the uniforms, etc. The US title screen was also altered prior to release from crediting SNK Corporation to the newly reformed SNK Home Entertainment. Even some debug code can be seen on the top right corner of the title as well.

An early beta version NGM-039
An early beta version NGM-040

King of the Monsters 2, which has the subtitle of "The Next Thing" was originally called The Next Thing, with the subtitle of King of the Monsters II" The same thing with regards to Sengoku 2. It was originally titled "Sengoku II". The first big "sequel" push by SNK came to us during this time with these three games, as well as the Japanese Quiz Detective 2 game. Someone in the marketing department must have been debating these last minute changes to the titles of these games.

Robo Army Beta Title Screen NGM-032
Here we can see that Robo Army originally used different colors for the title text and originally kept the forward marching army from the introduction sequence in the background behind it.