“What if?” That's a question we ask ourselves a lot in our lives. It could pertain to real life questions. What if I asked her out? What if I got on the road just a minute earlier? You could go crazy thinking of scenarios like this. A less dire example can pertain to media. In today's case, we're going to be looking at cut content, or scrapped ideas in some of the best, most iconic video games of the 90s. That's when my heyday as a gamer was. I'm not saying everything has been downhill ever since, but I have a lot of nostalgia during this period. I'm, sigh, a 90s kid. Go ahead and laugh.

Anyway, I love to write about retro games. Discovering new games I never got to play, or even knew about is a wondrous treat even if those games turn out to be bad. The next best thing is expanding my knowledge with facts. These twenty-five entries go beyond mere trivia notes. Maybe you've heard some of these and maybe you haven't. My guess is a lot of these are going to be new to you unless you're an avid subscriber to Did You Know Gaming on YouTube too. Whether that's true, or not companies try to desperately hide a lot of stuff from the media surrounding a game's launch. Discussing cut content around that period may be detrimental. They also might be worried about others stealing their ideas. Thankfully lips get loosened as time goes on. However, these got revealed, or leaked doesn't matter. It's time to learn!

24 Final Fantasy VII Detective Agency

Last year, Polygon put out this amazing oral history on one of my favorite games of all time: Final Fantasy VII. Get this. Cloud wasn’t going to be the protagonist. Actually, the entire game was going to be quite different. It was originally imagined to take place in New York City and be about a detective agency. A detective RPG for Final Fantasy? That sounds pretty awesome to me. That said, I'm glad we got what we got instead.

23 Super Mario 64 Co-Op

Hold on to your wing shaped hats Mario fans because this is going to blow your mind. Super Mario 64 was planned to have a co-op split-screen option with, you guessed it, Luigi.

Luigi always gets left behind.

While this didn’t make it in, an Easter egg is still in the game's code, whether intentional, or not. If a second controller gets plugged in that player can control the camera. That's not exactly split-screen, but it gives more clout to this idea.

22 Cruel Mega Man Legends

There is a scrapped concept for a malicious mega man character that was going to be an antagonist of not only Mega Man but also the Bonne pirate family. It was cut due to time constraints and a small budget since Mega Man’s popularity, at the time, was declining. Mega Man was also going to have a human rival named Artillery that would even have shown interest in Roll and would have competed for her affection. Unlike the evil Mega Man, Artillery is still in the game as a very minor character and hangs out in the Digger shop.

21 Pokémon MissingNo. Mystery Solved

The original Pokémon games have a wealth of knowledge written about them and their cut content. For example, 190 Pokémon were planned for Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green in Japan. There's an easy way to test this out. If you look at the values corresponding to each Pokémon programmed into the game, the last one created was Victreebel at 190. The glitch of MissingNo. exists due to a rushed purging of the code. That is to say, MissingNo. takes up space of Pokémon that should be in the code.

20 A Link To The Past’s Lost Heroes

This game, my favorite in the series, almost got multiple party members similar to Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games at the time. Shigeru Miyamoto’s ideas revolved around a fighter similar to Link, a magic user, and a girl.

The missing Triforce trio of heroes.

It’s weird that he says just “a girl” considering that’s not a class, or description. Can you imagine playing Dungeons and Dragons and asking to play the "girl," and your DM looking at you like you're crazy?

19 Sonic The Hedgehog’s Replacement

Sonic was almost not even the star of his own game. When Sega was trying to come up with an idea for a mascot platformer, that doodle above came up. Yes, that's Dr. Eggman only he wasn't called that at the time. Another fun fact about Dr. Eggman, if it wasn't obvious, is that he's modeled after Teddy Roosevelt. The most obvious homage to him is that big bushy mustache. I have one more fact. According to the game's lore, the mustache is fake!

18 Resident Evil 2’s Prototype Concept

Resident Evil 2 was going to be vastly different, with these early builds now dubbed as 1.5 online. The biggest difference is Claire was not in it. Her role was given to a college student by the name of Elza Walker.

I hope Elza is in the remake somehow.

Capcom dropped Elza for Claire in order to give the first and second game a bigger connection. That is to say, they made her Chris' sister. Also of note, Elza and Leon would never have crossed paths in their separate campaigns.

17 Metal Gear Déja Vu

The concept for Metal Gear Solid was going to be just a remake of the second game, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which was never released outside of Japan for the obscure MSX2 computer. This was a chance to introduce an English audience to the game. However, it was revamped to be a new game although you can find a lot of similarities still in the game. For example, the base layout, the villain roster, and Cyber Ninja are all very familiar. If you played both you'd understand.

16 Crash Bandicoot Cut Levels

Three levels remain in the first game’s code. These are based on two rocky levels, one with a waterfall to make it more distinct, and a cave with an acid aesthetic. Even though enemies are absent along with some hit detection, all three look like they’re nearly complete. They were presumably cut due to time constraints, as is usually the case. A fourth is actually complete called Stormy Decent. It was only removed because playtesting said it was too hard and Naughty Dog didn't have time to adjust the challenge. It’s now in the PS4 remake though.

15 GoldenEye SNES

The acclaimed GoldenEye movie tie-in for the Nintendo 64 went through several changes that could fill a book. For one, it began as a 2D side-scroller on the Super Nintendo similar to Donkey Kong Country, which Rare had also developed for Nintendo.

I'm still waiting for James Bond Country.

After that idea was scrapped, development moved onto creating an on-rails type shooter, or light gun game, reminiscent of Virtua Cop. Rare took all of these ideas to heart and eventually landed on the first-person shooter concept.

14 Final Fight Was Street Fighter II

Final Fight began as a sequel to Street Fighter 1 in arcades, called Street Fighter ’89. Eventually, it became the beat ‘em up we all know and love today. It was successful, so the team was approved to make a sequel. However, in a reverse effect of the first game, the developers instead made a true sequel to Street Fighter aka Street Fighter II. What a weird turn of events. That's why fighters from Final Fight have made it into Street Fighter from time to time.

13 Yoshi’s Island Was Almost 3D

The game was going to feature similar graphics to Donkey Kong Country. That is to say, it would use pre-rendered character models to make the game look more modern in the face of upcoming 3D based systems like the Sega Saturn and PlayStation. Even though Shigeru Miyamoto liked Donkey Kong Country, he wanted to give Yoshi's Island a more inviting crayon aesthetic. That’s the game we know today, however, you can still see concepts of this faux 3D game in the intro cutscene.

12 Conker’s Peaceful Origins

Yes, this game was released in 2001 for the Nintendo 64. However, concepts and even video were shown off way before that in 1997, which predates when Banjo-Kazooie was officially unveiled. It was called Conker’s Quest and was a more traditional 3D platformer like Super Mario 64. It was so far along that magazines even printed guides.

What if Banjo-Kazooie became the violent one?

However, it was delayed to make room for Diddy Kong Racing, was then renamed Twelve Tales: Conker 64 in 1998, but was delayed once again for Banjo-Kazooie. Rare retooled it once more to make it edgy.

11 Banjo-Kazooie The RPG

Speaking of Banjo-Kazooie, it was technically being made by another Rare team during the same time as Conker’s Quest. It was an action RPG for the Super Nintendo called Project Dream. It would not star the plucky bear and bird until several iterations later wherein it was ported to the Nintendo 64 and instead became a platformer. The human lead was given to Banjo and Kazooie was later added in. Like Conker's Quest, there's actually quite a bit of footage out there for the SNES game.

10 The Game Boy Color Touchscreen

This is technically not a game, but still could have been huge for the industry. So the Game Boy Color was planned to have a touch panel accessory. It was scrapped because it needed light to work. That’s why it was tried again with the Game Boy Advance SP since it had a backlit screen. It worked okay, but wasn’t fully supported by all of Nintendo so it was scrapped again. The touchscreen would later influence the design of the DS.

9 Killer Instinct’s Port History

Killer Instinct on the Super Nintendo almost never happened. The first game was supposed to be a launch game on the N64, or Ultra 64 at the time. Because it was delayed they instead ported their arcade game to the SNES. The game for the N64 was then made into a fully-fledged sequel aka Killer Instinct Gold.

It's the way you move to the killer groove.

Since they made the SNES port, they also planned to make the second for that system as well, but Nintendo dismissed the idea. It was full steam ahead for their new console.

8 Kirby 64 Was Four Games In One

This is technically another 2000’s fact, but since it started in the 90’s I’m adding it. So Kirby 64 began as Kirby Bowl 64, a direct sequel to Kirby’s Dream Course on SNES. Kirby’s Bowl was the name in Japan. It then morphed into Kirby’s Air Ride 64. This too was then canceled, or at least set aside until the GameCube came around. Since it was put on hold the director, Masahiro Sakurai, instead went on to create Super Smash Bros.

7 Super Smash Bros. The Pepsi Fighter

The game began as a generic fighter, using Pepsi Man like models for testing out the game with the name instead being Dragon King: The Fighting Game. Pepsi Man, for those unaware, was the Japanese mascot for Pepsi. Anyway Sakurai eventually had the idea to feature Nintendo characters, but figured he’d get rejected if he just asked. So he made the prototype in secret, showed it off for the first time with Donkey Kong, Mario, Samus, and Star Fox, which thankfully got approved.

6 EarthBound’s Lost Prequel

This is more of a cut game rather than cut content. Anyway EarthBound Zero was the name given to the prototype that was found for the prequel to EarthBound aka Mother. Mother was released for the Famicom in Japan in 1989.

Mama, I'm coming home.

In the 90s, at some point, Nintendo fully translated the game into English for the NES, but scrapped it because they didn’t think it would sell now that the Super Nintendo was out. The game was officially released on the Wii U eShop under the name EarthBound Beginnings in 2015. Better late than never.

5 Super Mario Bros. 3 Missing Suits

There were talks of a centaur suit being implemented in Super Mario Bros. 3 though no concept art, or data in the game can be found to see what this would have looked like. However, you can find data in the code to see a Toad suit. There is no sprite with Mario wearing it though. Another, crazier fact is that Super Mario Bros. 3 was originally planned to feature a top-down perspective, though again, no art or data of this exists.