Over the years, some canceled games have become "holy grails" for collectors and video game archaeologists. Castlevania: Resurrection on Dreamcast is one of them.
It is a title that we thought lost forever, a game that we have been fantasizing about for 20 years. We just knew it was shown to the press, in a tight circle, in a partially playable version.
A few days ago, I was sent a message with the photo of the prototype. I couldn't believe it, he was there in front of my eyes. I thought I had fallen from my chair, I was witnessing his resurrection !!!
This game would have taken place in 3D environments. A time travel would have brought Sonia Belmont and Victor Belmont to meet.
The story was set to take place in 1666. Victor Belmont was an 1800s vampire hunter who had abandoned his lineage and left the region in fear of his fate as a vampire slayer. The player would face a female vampire as the main opponent.
In addition to this, you need to know more about it.
According to art director Greg Orduyan , the game was canceled due to Konami's lack of trust in the Dreamcast.
The content of the prototype:
This prototype is a pre E3 demo.
There are 5 environments and a boss fight that correspond to a stage of the game. Most areas do not connect with each other. They are accessible from the Start menu. One of them does not charge. This beta is an early build.
Castlevania Resurrection dreamcast prototype
Conclusion:
Be careful, I don't know what my acquaintance intends to do with it. I do not wish to harbor false hopes. It may be necessary to be satisfied only with the photo and the video proving its existence.
The discovery of the prototype being major, with the agreement of its owner, I can disclose it and show it to you. We can also thank him!
It's a piece of the history of the series that certain people out there are holding onto rather than sharing.
It's not about whether it's good or bad. It's about preservation, and it's about sharing it with the community.
You may not be interested in playing it, but the thought of people out there being able to pop it in a dreamcast and play (despite it's incomplete state) while so many of us will never otherwise have that chance really sucks.
And if it was shared with the community perhaps something could be done with it to make it more playable.
With the state Castlevania is currently in we need to be preserving and holding on to every little piece we can. Not hording things away for money or youtube subscribers.
It's being bid on on EBay. The current price is $3,000.
Edit: This is probably a naive idea, but since there are still nine days left on the auction, couldn't we do a fundraiser and, if by some miracle it's enough to win, choose someone trustworthy here (Like Jorge, Crisis, Luxkiller) to receive the disc and make sure it gets dumped? It's a longshot, but it would be nice if we could prevent it from becoming part of another hoard.
There's been a lot of dumps of game prototypes lately, including Castlevania, and this would be the crown jewel of them regardless of how unpolished it is.
I haven't been keeping up with gaming news as much as I used to. Which other Castlevania photos have turned up recently?
On Apr-07-21 at 10:05:41 PDT, seller added the following information:
Hi Everyone! I’m getting a lot of questions about the disc being backed up. Rest assured I wouldn’t let this go without one. It will be released at some point.
Oh wow!
That would totally change everything. Hopefully he's a man of his word!
In light of that I'll revise my guess down to 10k. ????
Hi guys! My friend Mike Levy has the scoop on what happened! He shared this info with me earlier today and it's amazing! Mike is the host of the XVGM Radio podcast, a voice actor (he was actually in Wallachia) and he has a great youtube channel! Subscribe to Mike and show your support! He's a great guy!
https://youtu.be/1erfgaf1TwM
(https://i.imgur.com/YF3UFqk.png)
So, this lines up with what I'd heard through the grapevine about the listing being pulled. Through the CV wiki discord, someone posted a link to the GBAtemp forums topic regarding the disc listing. The post in question cites: "The item was sold outside of eBay to a private collector last night. The seller was fed up by attitudes from some people arguing and attacking him with false reports (copyright claims on parts of the code and music)." - https://gbatemp.net/threads/castlevania-resurrection-prototype-disk-listed-for-sale-online.586397/page-5
Sounds like what Mark said really ruffled the seller's feathers and the seller did take down the listing, but then turned around and sold it privately to a collector. I have no idea the validity of this information or post so take it with a grain of salt, but it sounds like the seller might have decided to circumvent legalities and just get their payday regardless. No idea what this means for releasing the ripped ISO to the public.
Cut the crap Crisis, you bought it, didn't you? >:(
Update to the last video with some positive news:
(https://i.imgur.com/sJdYTQq.png)
This is amazing. Did you shop this because it's genius.
I wonder if they had any cool ideas for implementing the VMU in the game.
Could have been useful for a map display, who knows. I used to love those little VMU's though. Such a cool feature.
Hey, what's this?(click to show/hide)
This demo is a curiosity, but nothing more than that really. I don’t think we missed out on something great or anything. It would’ve probably been only a couple notches above CV64/LoD. Those games were really frustrating to play through
I'm hearing the sentiment that it's a little better than CV64/LoD...but I'm not seeing it from this demo. The character animation/pacing is incredibly stilted, as are the attacks. The biggest improvements I see are perhaps in textures and the ability to generate more enemies on screen at once. The level design is slightly better than I expected, and I like that it has real platforming, but nothing suggests it's better overall than CV64/LoD to me. I don't even see the R-button-type camera fix and lock-on than CV64 had. There looks to be a lot of blind whipping in Resurrection.One thing in that video I agree with was the criticism of relying on heavy combo systems rather than non-combo gameplay, which adds more of a manual touch to combat rather than a scripted one. That's something I disliked about the more combo-heavy 3D CV games (LoI, CoD, the LoS games), and would love the series to return to something less combo-driven. As noted in the video, when you have to think on your feet as you attack, it's more akin to a "fight or flight" type thing. I know people bring up the Souls games or Bloodborne, those games also feature a similar style of gameplay. I wouldn't want a CV game to be as unforgiving, but perhaps allow the player to learn from the environment and obstacles, rather than combo their ways through enemies, might be a cool change of pace for this series 3D future. Enemies wouldn't be damage sponges either (I swear enemies in action games are made damage sponges you they give the player enough time to pull of long "kewl" looking combos), could be taken out in a couple of hits, but DO fight back, aren't chumps and still keep you on your feet.
Just a reminder on CV64's movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8br-fTGrErM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8br-fTGrErM)