A collaboration between preservation sites, always ready to unpack a bit more of Nintendo history Forest of Illusion, @render_archive And @nintendo The long sought after Nintendo Company report from 1996 has been uploaded The edition contains a wealth of nostalgic gaming material, from sales reports to upcoming hardware features, and also takes a look at some exclusive early promo renders. And the best part? It’s free to read online!
Company reports, which you can download and read Forest of Illusion blog, including pictures of all the figureheads we’d expect to find in Nintendo’s annual round-up (we’re referring to Mario, Kirby, and Link, of course). But perhaps the most interesting nugget of rare retro goodness comes from a screenshot reel from the 1995 Nintendo 64 B-roll, which shows a small portion of Super Mario 64 in a stage that many of the game’s die-hard fans don’t recognize.
Don’t worry, you won’t lose your touch and have to play Super Mario 64 again (although, that’s never a bad idea), no no, this mysterious ghost stage never made it into the final game Many mysteries in Nintendo’s development history. @banavibhram Took these five separate scans and stuck them together in GIF form so we can see this mysterious, eyeball-filled phase in action:
It’s true that this is only a second of ‘reconstructed’ footage and hardly amounts to a full level run-down, but even this small peek at this cut level is enough to make us breathe a sigh of relief – for that nightmare-inducing Mr. I eyeball on an underwater stage? No, thanks!
A 1996 Nintendo company report contained more than a single-second snippet of gameplay, including the Virtual Boy (Dream People) taking a heartbreakingly optimistic tone in advertising for professionals. Of course, the entire report is in Japanese, so those of you who want to get a deeper understanding of the features and writing will have to settle for a “best try” by the translation software, we’re afraid. But hey, the pictures look good!
What do you make of this never-before-seen look at the Ghost Mario stage? Get your overalls and let us know your memories of the game in the comments!
