A canceled version of one of the best-licensed games of the 16-bit era has surfaced online, as a prototype of Super Star Wars for the Sega Mega Drive has been found.
Super Star Wars is the first game in a trilogy of 16-bit Star Wars action games for the Super Nintendo, which mixed 2D run and gun stages with Mode 7 vehicle levels. Each game followed a different movie in the original Star Wars trilogy and allowed the player to step into the shoes of characters like Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo. The Super Star Wars games were highly-acclaimed at the time, even if they are remembered for some brutally difficult stages.
Super Star Wars was originally released for the Super Nintendo in 1992, but there were plans to port the game to the Sega Mega Drive in Europe. The Sega port of Super Star Wars was meant to be developed by Sega Interactive and was discussed in several gaming magazines of the era, but it was never released. A prototype of the Sega version of Super Star Wars has been released by Hidden Palace and The Cutting Room Floor as part of the former's holiday celebrations, which also led to prototypes of Akira for the Sega Genesis and Superman: Battle for Metropolis being released online.
The Sega Mega Drive port of Super Star Wars only has a few music tracks and none of the cutscenes have been implemented, but many of the stages from the Super Nintendo version of the game exist in incomplete forms. It's unclear how the game would have handled the vehicle stages, as the Sega Mega Drive would have had to use another faux 3D alternative other than Mode 7.
It's still unclear as to why the game was canceled, as it was based on one of the biggest movie licenses of all time and the Super Nintendo version was highly-acclaimed at launch. The people in Europe who were curious about the missing port of Super Star Wars can now try out an unfinished version of one of the most promising 16-bit ports from the '90s.
Source: The Hidden Palace/Twitter, Hidden Palace