Porting games between different console releases is nothing new for the games industry, as titles likeCommandos 2made it to PS2 and the original Xbox along with its PC release. However, it appears that anearly Game Boy Advance versionof the game may have finally come out of obscurity, although not quite in the form fans might have originally expected to see it.
Posted to Twitter by dedicated Nintendo preserver, Forest of Illusion, an early demo ofCommandos 2forGame Boy Advancehas made its way to PC. Forest of Illusion has previously posted these types of lost games, as well as development notes and datamines of older titles published by Nintendo, like an early title screen forYoshi’s Storylabelling the game asYoshi Island 64in early development.
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The game itself is a very limited demo of what was intended to become a version ofCommand 2that would be playable on handheld, however, it would seem that development never moved beyond the pitching phase. As a result, Forest of Illusion’s rom release is a bare-bones version of the game that really only seems to allow for players to move a simple character around a fairly empty map of a war camp. It’s unclear as to why the title never made its way to theGame Boy Advance or SP, but it may have been as simple as the more realistic war-strategy title not fitting in well on Nintendo hardware.
This particular build of the GBA version ofCommandos 2comes from as far back as November, 2002, having been developed by Toyonaka Studios before being set aside after being rejected. The studio itself doesn’t have any reported developed games, so this may have been the first and last attempt at development, with the failed pitch having either sunk the company or forced a rebranding. There doesn’t seem to be a connection withCommandos 2developer Pyro Studios orpublisher Kalypso Media, so this may have simply been an internal Nintendo studio that was contracted to explore the viability of this type of port.
The extremely limited nature of theCommandos 2demo doesn’t exactly put it at the top of the list ofthe best GBA gamesavailable, but this is the kind of interesting tidbit of gaming history that fans of Nintendo could be interested in. Seeing the early stages of development for this type of game isn’t something that players often get a look at, and may go a long way of explaining exactly how much work went into fans' favorite titles.
Commandos 2 HDis available now on PC.
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