I'm back to dump some more scans.
First up is
The Super Famicom Sep 16 1994Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 5These aren't really new, as they were already scanned by VG Densetsu, but I scanned these myself in case we want our own copies here at the Compendium.
Next is
Game On Dec 1994Page 1I originally scanned this one a while ago, but never uploaded it for some reason. Just a little one-pager with some old screenshots.
Next is
Famimaga No. 24 from Dec. 2 1994
Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Page 7There are some nice shots here. Page 5 was particularly interesting to me, as it shows what appears to be the boss battle from Manoria Cathedral, but with a Goon (Papa Bat) instead of Yakra. We've seen at least one shot of this before, but these go into a bit more depth. I did one of my hack-job translations on it, which is enough to get the gist of what's going on.
Page 5 TranslatedBasically it's a demonstration of the "ATEL" event system, which is what they were calling the ability to wander around while a dialogue box is open. Apparently the Goon would actually react to you doing that during his monologue.
On the same page you can see an earlier gate key graphic. It shows up in at least one of the old VJump scans that are already on the Compendium, but I'd never noticed it before personally. Kinda looks like a weird gun or something.
On page 6 is an earlier version of Lucca's mom Lara. Just a generic old lady sprite. She appears to be standing, but since she's kinda half overlapping the bed maybe she was meant to be sitting on the edge of it. The door to the balcony area is blocked with pots for some reason. Looks like she and Taban were sleeping in separate beds too.
On page 7 you can get a look at Melchior's Millenial Fair inventory, and there's an old man selling accessories near the tent where you can exchange silver points in the final.
Silver points were apparently not a thing in this version, as you can also see that fighting Gato will win you 100 gold instead of 15 silver points.
There's a little blond boy where the old man sitting down to his lunch should be. Can't see if the lunch is there or not.
There's a barrel near the drinking contest guy. It's a sprite, which would sort of imply that it'd be interactable. Maybe it's the drinking contest guy's "keg", and you could opt to drain it or something, which would play into the trial later. Could also be a debug object, or just purely for decoration.
Next is
Famimaga No. 26 from Dec. 30 1994
Pages 1 & 2Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Page 7Page 8Page 9Page 10Page 11Page 12Page 13Page 14Page 15Page 16Page 17Page 18Page 19Page 20Page 21Page 22Page 23Page 24Page 25Page 26Most of the new shots in this one seem to come from the "Prerelease"/Sample ROM build, but there are a few insteresting older ones.
On page 5 theres a shot of an old 65,000,000 BC overworld that doesn't really seem to match up with anything that made it to the final build, and it features a couple of the unused overworld sprites. I don't think we've ever seen those in action before. Seems like it's a representation of the Ioka meeting site events.
Next to that are a couple of shots of the Dactyl Nest looking pretty Algetty-esque. I kinda suspect that the Algetty tileset was originally meant for 65,000,000 BC.
On page 13 at the bottom there are a few shots of the Fake Chancellor just before the Yakra battle, and it seems to indicate that the whole ATEL wandering around and getting a reaction thing was still in play at this point. I actually ended up trying it in both the "Prerelease" and the final version because I thought maybe I'd just forgotten or never tried it, but you're definitely locked in place during his monologue in those versions.
There are some relatively large early world maps in this one.
On page 21 you can see more clearly that the brown pyramid in 600 AD is in fact just a brown version of the pyramid and not some unique graphic. I think I know what happened there. In the "Prerelease" and the final game the pyramid has its own palette entries, but the values for the shades of blue are identical to the shades of blue used in 1000 AD roof tiles. I think the pyramid originally shared a palette with those roof tiles, and since the equivalent roof tiles in 600 AD are brown the pyramid turned brown as well. So basically just a technical oversight that was later corrected.
On page 23 you can see that the sewer access is missing from the 2300 AD map.
There are a bunch of tiny differences in the 65,000,000 BC overworld on page 24. For example, if you look at the top right screen shot on that same page and compare it to the world map at the bottom you can see that the little guard tower thingy was originally a bush.
Next is
Dengeki Super Famicom No. 3 from Feb 24 1995
Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Pages 7 & 8A real mishmash of screenshots from different builds in this one, and some more world maps.
The world maps seem to be mostly consistent with what's in Famimaga 26, except for the colliseum island in 2300 AD on page 4. It's near the middle of the map instead of in the bottom left corner. I kind of wonder if this was a mistake made when stitching the screenshots together to make the map. You can see the seams around the individual shots used, and that island is all by itself in its shot, so there wouldn't really be anything misaligned to give it away if they put it in the wrong spot. If it's legit I'd place it as slightly earlier than the one in Famimaga 26.
Next is
Dengeki Super Famicom No. 4 from Mar 10 1995
Pages 1 & 2Pages 3 & 4Pages 5 & 6Pages 7 & 8Pages 9 & 10This would be nice to have translated as it seems to be mostly developer interviews (including a whole "CD-ROM" section, which could prove interesting), but I don't really trust my DeepL machine translation hackery with this much text.
Finally, here's a foldout from the
VJump Jan 1995 issue
FoldoutThere are already scans for this issue up on the site, but this foldout was apparently skipped (probably because it was a pain to scan, or maybe it was just missing since there's a poster on the other side). Features a big ol' 1000 AD map and some old Millenial Fair shots. One interesting thing about this map is that there's no bridge to Lucca's place. It's just a strip of beach.
BONUS: Foldout PostersHeckran BattleDactyl RideMedina BattleMagic CavePendantCastForest CampMagus BattleThese are mostly from VJump issues, with the last two being from the VJump Strategy Guide. Those two were already scanned by someone else, but I figured i might as well do them while i'm at it. I cleaned these up and tried to get them as close to the quality of the Heritage Auctions "Resting at Lucca's" scan as I could, but they're all old magazine-quality prints so there's only so much you can do. The Medina Battle one came out the best in my opinion.
Comparison ImagesI put together some comparison shots of different versions of the game. I've been sort of roughly categorizing the different builds we've seen evidence of as follows:
V-Fes 94 The most ancient version. "Flat" overworlds, floating crystal islands, rough character sprites, etc. I suspect these actually represent various incremental builds, but there isn't really anything to distinguish them as the shots pretty much all came out at once. The only difference I can point to is that there are two shots of the earliest version of the telepod exhibit, one where the telepod is all black and white, and one where color has been added.
This build is mostly unrepresented in these new comparison shots.
Pre-Spaceworld Gradientless dialogue windows.
All Millenial Fair tents are closed.
All Millenial Fair tents are purple.
Taban wears a purple shirt and has blond hair.
Gold chests in Manorial Cathedral.
Manoria Cathedral Goon battle instead of Yakra.
Spaceworld This is the build that was shown off at Spaceworld 1994, as seen in the Brut Press video coverage.
Gradientless dialogue windows.
All Millenial Fair tents are closed.
Some Millenial Fair tents are now blue.
Taban wears a yellow shirt and has green hair.
Purple chests in Manoria Cathedral.
Yakra battle added.
Post-Spaceworld This one shows up in the second VJump promotional video.
Gradient added to dialogue windows.
Font still matches the Spaceworld build.
Basically a build right between the Spaceworld build and the "Prerelease" build.
"Prerelease"/Sample ROM Font changed to near-final state.
We all have access to this one so we're pretty familiar with it.
Final Build Dialogue window gradient refined.
Gray pixels removed from font.
Additional minor font changes.
Obviously the build most people know best.
That's not an exhaustive list of differences, and obviously I have no way of knowing exactly how many builds there actually were. Certainly in-house there would have been many more incremental builds, but this categorization is at least giving me a point of reference when looking for differences.
Here are the images:
Millenial Fair GifI tried to cobble together as much of the Millenial Fair map as I could using old screenshots, and then made this comparison gif of the different versions I've identified.
Millenial Fair Pre-SpaceworldMillenial Fair SpaceworldThe gif is super busy and kind of hard to take in, so I also made these png files of just the two builds cobbled together from magazine shots.
1000 AD ShotsJust a bunch of various scenes from 1000 AD.
Chrono's RoomGate SceneLucca's HouseThere are some notable differences here, in addition to the obvious changes to Lara. The earliest screenshots show a vertically oriented wrench on the table in the main room that I don't think appears anywhere else. The black cylindrical things on the floor aren't as tall in the oldest shots. There seems to be something wrong with the red palette used for the chair cushions and books on the bookshelf. It looks like the darkest red shade was set to a light gray instead.
Manoria Cathedral 1These are largely the reason I think the build in the second VJump promo video fits between the Spaceworld build and the "Prerelease" build. If you look at the first screenshot in the "Post-Spaceworld" column, the map and the font match the earlier build, but the dialogue window has the gradient from the later build.
Manoria Cathedral 2Manoria Cathedral 3
