The Nintendo Gigaleak was a massive amount of data obtained from Nintendo that revealed numerous prototypes, cut content, and design documents for some of the industry giant’s biggest franchises. Whether fans preferred to catch ’em all or fight with the master sword, there was something of interest in the Nintendo Gigaleak. Now, while some information is still being exposed from the Nintendo Gigaleak, there are some discoveries that stand out from the rest in Nintendo’s biggest franchises like Super Mario, Pokemon, and The Legend of Zelda.
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Super Mario Content in the Nintendo Gigaleak
The Mario franchise is one of Nintendo’s oldest flagship series, so it is not too surprising that the Gigaleak had a lot to show fans. One of the biggest reveals found in the Gigaleak was a character model for Luigi in Super Mario 64. Luigi’s absence in the game has been the subject of fan speculation for some time, and his model being present but unused in the game brought some answers. Of course, Luigi has appeared in most Super Mario titles since, usually as an unlockable option. It could be that was the plan for Super Mario 64, but that the feature had to be cut before the game’s release.
The leak also contained a number of prototype games. Perhaps the most eye-catching of these was a prototype build for Super Mario Kart as well as Mario Kart 64 that featured placeholder assets, different UI designs, and even unused track concepts. The leak also found some beta visuals for Super Mario World. They included a look at Bowser outside of his clown car and shows an early design for everyone’s favorite dinosaur Yoshi. The leak also found code referencing cut power-ups such as a leaf and even some unused enemy types across a handful of Super Mario titles.
Pokemon Content in the Nintendo Gigaleak
One of the largest discoveries in the Gigaleak overall was the discovery of an unannounced Pokemon MMO. The Pokemon community has hoped for an MMO for many years, and the Gigaleak revealed that Nintendo was exploring the possibility in 2004. However, a presentation found in the Gigaleak from the game’s developer, China-based iQue, revealed that the game would have taken an interesting approach.
The game would have been released for the Game Boy Advance, built on FireRed and LeafGreen. It would have featured 30 Pokemon for players to catch offline with the option to connect their Game Boy to a PC in order to connect into the MMO and interact with other players. With how obtuse the MMO sounds from this presentation, it may have been better in the long run that Nintendo didn’t pursue the idea, especially now that fans can always jump into games like Temtem.
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Another big Pokemon discovery in the Gigaleak came in the form of beta builds for Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. The builds were not too different from the final product, but they did feature a couple of unreleased Pokemon as well as a number of prototype designs for some of the series’ biggest Pokemon. Some of them didn’t change much from their beta designs, but others changed dramatically. This is especially true for the Arceus, and it’s a bit difficult to imagine Pokemon Legends: Arceus with that design on the cover.
The Legend of Zelda Content in the Nintendo Gigaleak
The Legend of Zelda fans also got some interesting insights into the series’ history from the Gigaleak, including a look at some early maps from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Some of the unused areas have assets fully developed and include a wide variety of locations, from an early version of the Kokiri Forest to sections of what fans believe to be Ganon’s castle. The leak also included a look at some enemy types that never made it out of alpha, such as baby skeletons, octoroks, and alpha slimes. It will be interesting to see whether or not these enemies return in some form in the fan rebuild of Ocarina of Time that aims to take the game back to an early stage in its production.
The Gigaleak also included a large collection of sprites for a never-finished 2D Legend of Zelda title. At the time of the leak, fans were unsure if the sprites were for a cancelled Legend of Zelda 3, but the common theory now is that they were for a Legend of Zelda 2 remake for the Satellaview peripheral. The sprites have a lot of interesting details to them, including what looks to be blood on Link’s sword, which would have been odd to see pop up in the more child-friendly series. With how popular the original The Legend of Zelda games were, it would have been very interesting to see how the series would be different now if there had been another 2D entry at that point in the series.
It seems likely that more information will continue to come out of the Nintendo Gigaleak, and it will be interesting to see what forms this ends up taking. The leak is one of the biggest that the industry has ever seen, and likely will remain so for some time. Other links have pointed toward hidden Nintendo projects like a game featuring Sheik, so there are likely many other secret Nintendo projects just waiting to be discovered.
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