Lost Kingdoms Ver 0.60 is a prototype version of Lost Kingdoms that was dumped and released on the Internet Archive in April 2019. It was first revealed with other Gamecube prototype disks in a Tweet on the Forest of Illusion Twitter, an account dedicated to video game preservation. While the original Internet Archive entry and Twitter Tweet have been removed, the ISO for the prototype version can still be found online.
Origin
A Reddit comment by SuperGameJoy details how they found and bought 9-10 Gamecube NR disks at a sale, to which they then worked with Forest of Illusion to dump online. According to the description on the Internet Archive, the disk may have been "used for review purposes," to which the debug functions would most likely assist greatly in. As written on the disk, this version of Lost Kingdoms was compiled on March 4th, 2002 - a month and a half before the game's North American release.
Version Differences
As a partially complete version of Lost Kingdoms, Ver 0.60 has many differences from the finished version that range from visual differences to game instability.
Lost Kingdoms/Rune naming discrepancies
While the disk is labelled as Lost Kingdoms, the logo at the start screen displays RUNE as taken from the Japanese version of the game. However, if a save file error box is prompted, the game is referred to as Lost Kingdoms. The discrepancy goes further with the game's file properties - while listed as Lost Kingdoms in the ISO's internal name, the RUNE logo is used. The Japanese name appears again in the .h4m movie files with the files rune_op and rune_ed.
Debug functions
The most significant gameplay differences in Ver 0.60 are the debug elements left in from testing. While in a stage, a persistent progress bar with various memory and scene counters appear at the bottom of the screen. A yellow spherical hitbox appears whenever a monster attacks, depending in size depending on the range. Beta footage of Lost Kingdoms shown in the Japanese gaming show GameWave indicate that these are both development elements that were kept in the prototype.
Enemy encounters also do not appear, unless scripted to occur after a cutscene. In enemy-heavy stages, a large message may appear in the middle of the screen stating "Memory Over!" The player can also induce this message by spawning a battle while another battle is taking place, crashing the game shortly afterwards. This does not go away until the player exits the stage.
When not in a battle, the player can press several buttons to enable hovering, increased speed, battle encounters, and blue fairy spawning. The combinations are as followed:
- B button - Spawns blue fairies up to a certain amount.
- Y button - Hover upwards. Katia will descend when the button is released.
- X button - Walking speed increases a significant amount.
- X + R button - Walking speed increases much more than X alone. Can clip through walls.
- L button - Spawns enemy encounter. Will also spawn the boss enemy of a stage if standing in the boss area.
The map screen also has debug elements. In addition to showing the x, y, and z coordinates of the cursor, there are also controls exclusive to the debug map. These include:
- Z button - Toggle debug mode on and off.
- Control stick - Move the cursor around at a significantly lower speed than in normal play.
- R + Control stick - Zoom in and out, unrestricted to set increments unlike normal play.
Once the z value of the coordinate reaches 1.00, the game crashes. There may be other coordinates that crash the game.
Game text and translation
Another significant difference between Ver 0.60 and the retail version of Lost Kingdoms is the partially completed script. Many proper nouns are transliterated from Japanese, with some lines and most card descriptions left entirely untranslated. Several portions of the script also differ from the finished version both in formatting and wording. An example is as follows:
– Story textbox after clearing Bernden Field
– Story textbox after clearing Bernden Field
Other gameplay changes
- Katia starts the game with 300 HP and 30 magic stones.
- The copyright screen when the game loads is different from the retail version. A separate line is given for Nintendo's copyright, dated 2001.
- When Katia is defeated, the screen fades to black without the "You have failed" textbox appearing.
- The four elemental doors at Ruh-Arok Temple reuse the same text when the player does not have sufficient amount of cards to open it.
- In VS mode, Katia's name is in all capitals.
Gallery
External Links
Hidden Palace's page on Lost Kingdoms Ver 0.60
Archived version of the original Internet Archive submission