Pre-release screenshots in magazines

[Adolf]

There are several early screenshots in one Japanese magazine Weekly Famitsu 08/05/1992 (Japanese game release 03.07.1992). The traps were initially very brutal, but over time they were replaced due to censorship.
Interesting, Is it possible to return these traps?

[David]

There are several early screenshots in one Japanese magazine Weekly Famitsu 08/05/1992 (Japanese game release 03.07.1992). The traps were initially very brutal, but over time they were replaced due to censorship.
Interesting, Is it possible to return these traps?

Thank you for the scans!

The prince's sprites for dying in these traps have been left in the final game, but I don't know if the code required for them is still there.
It's probably not.
(sprites here, discussion about the sprites here)

[Adolf]

Thank you for the scans!

Found on archive.org

Weekly Famitsu 10/01/1992

[Shauing]

Thank you for the scans!

The prince's sprites for dying in these traps have been left in the final game, but I don't know if the code required for them is still there.
It's probably not.
(sprites here, discussion about the sprites here)

And at least one of the spear frames was left as well in the final game. It seems that the log trap originally beheaded you, but most likely it was originally a sword (much like the similar PoP2's trap).
I'll say they could be restored in some sort of way.
The log could be coded to kill you instead of damaging and pushing you back, plus display these Prince graphics.
As for restoring the spear, it would probably have coding similar to the guillotine trap and display the other Prince graphics. But the spear's existing frame is just the spearhead and just a tiny bit of the shaft so it would need to be redrawn/add more frames.

[David]

Found on archive.org

Here are the sources of the scans:
Weekly Famitsu 08/05/1992: https://archive.org/details/weekly-fami ... 8/mode/1up
Weekly Famitsu 10/01/1992: https://archive.org/details/weekly-fami ... 2/mode/1up

Weekly Famitsu 10/01/1992

The screenshots on the latter scan show rooms which are not in the final game, but are similar to DOS rooms.
The upper room looks like a room from DOS level 1, but without the gate, the buttons, and the potion.
The lower room looks like a room from DOS level 5, but with the arches replaced with tall columns.

The wall pattern on the grey level is also different from the final game, but it's like the wall pattern on this cover: https://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/pri ... Id,316490/

[Shauing]

Here are the sources of the scans:
[...]
Weekly Famitsu 10/01/1992: https://archive.org/details/weekly-fami ... 2/mode/1up
The screenshots on the latter scan show rooms which are not in the final game, but are similar to DOS rooms.
The upper room looks like a room from DOS level 1, but without the gate, the buttons, and the potion.
The lower room looks like a room from DOS level 5, but with the arches replaced with tall columns.

Yeah, it seems those were the original DOS rooms before they were redone to (what I suspect) these rooms:

PoP1_US001.png (18.28 KiB) Viewed 23450 times

PoP1_US004.png (19.88 KiB) Viewed 23450 times

The second in particular is pretty much a match except for the walls and small columns/tiles that lead you up instead of left. Another change is that the windows background graphic are (semi)open in the earlier screenshot, but closed on the final game (with a different pattern of xxx instead of |||).

[Adolf]

Found another find. On the Japanese box of the game, for some reason, they used a pre-release image.

[David]

Here are the sources of the scans:
Weekly Famitsu 08/05/1992: https://archive.org/details/weekly-fami ... 8/mode/1up
Weekly Famitsu 10/01/1992: https://archive.org/details/weekly-fami ... 2/mode/1up

Both of these have disappeared.

The archive still has some 1992 issues, but not these two.
https://archive.org/details/videogamema ... mitsu+1992

[Shauing]

Both of these have disappeared.

The archive still has some 1992 issues, but not these two.
https://archive.org/details/videogamema ... mitsu+1992

Oh wow, that's odd. I think I did save those two to my old laptop, but I need to retrieve them from there to keep them safe.

[Adolf]

Both of these have disappeared.

Removed by the copyright holders, they suddenly became preoccupied with old thirty-year-old magazines, shame.

Try a torrent, I don't know if there will be seeders.
https://forestillusion.com/2022/bi-week ... 2-complete

More here
https://forestillusion.com/releases/

Someone created a new hack, Prince of Persia - Photosensitivity Patch. Mod includes: Removal of all color flashing and strobe effects
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7702/

[Adolf]

Japanese advertising

[Adolf]

Found a higher resolution

[Adolf]

Electronic Gaming Monthly 06.1992, the main screen seemed to be different



https://archive.org/details/ElectronicG ... 9/mode/1up

[David]

Electronic Gaming Monthly 06.1992, the main screen seemed to be different

Nice find, thank you!

The background seems to be exp0/81.bmp from snes_graphics.zip.

The main menu is different as well.
It didn't have TRAINING, instead it had STEREO.

I wonder why does the bottom left say you just escaped from a trap.
That picture shows the first room of the first level!

https://archive.org/details/ElectronicG ... 9/mode/1up

SNES PoP is on this page: https://archive.org/details/ElectronicG ... 8/mode/1up

And by the way, there is an ad(?) for NES PoP on this page: https://archive.org/details/ElectronicG ... 1/mode/1up

[Adolf]

On the site https://www.retromags.com/files/file/27 ... june-1992/ the magazine has been reloaded with higher quality and a size of almost 300mb.



I downloaded those two issues of Famitsu and these are the pages.

Famitsu 10/01/1992


Famitsu 08/05/1992