1993 Enigma Variations
Platform: Super Nintendo
Our next entry into the Games That Weren’t archives is a very early and neat side-scrolling mech fighter called Mechanoids 2 – The Final Conflict. We’re not aware of there being a prequal though!
During some preservation work, we were asked to keep an eye out for the title for the SNES by Darren Melbourne, and a few nights later we managed to find two builds that had been compiled up and which worked right away in SNES 9X.
The first build was from 1992 and coded by Mark Greenshields. This initial build isn’t playable, and features two large mech droids walking along a road with futuristic buildings behind them. They will perform punch and kick moves as they go along, and before the demo resets back to the title screen.
The second build produced a few months later is much more advance, and now features playable mech characters who can fight against other enemies. The characters are much smaller now and very different in design. After fighting off a few waves, the game just allows you to scroll to the end before nothing else happens.
It seems that the game was pitched to potential publishers, but unfortunately no-one would pick it up – and so the game was assigned to the scrapheap very early on. The second playable build is believed to be the very final version.
Check it out for yourself, and for another SNES title which sadly was never to see full completion or the light of day. As we learn more about its development, we will continue to update this page.
With a huge thank you to Mark Greenshields and Darren Melbourne for arranging the recovery.
Download
Video with commentary
Gallery
