12-29-2018, 12:58 AM
Unreleased NES SimCity Gets Preserved, Publicly Released
<div><div class="media_block"><a href="http://images.nintendolife.com/87b950ba85ff3/large.jpg"><img src="http://images.nintendolife.com/87b950ba85ff3/small.jpg" class="media_thumbnail"></a></div>
<figure class="picture strip"><a title="Dr Wright To The Rescue" href="http://images.nintendolife.com/87b950ba85ff3/dr-wright-to-the-rescue.original.jpg"><img src="http://images.nintendolife.com/87b950ba85ff3/dr-wright-to-the-rescue.900x.jpg" alt="Dr Wright To The Rescue" /></a></figure>
<p>You may remember last year this humble NL scribe reported on the surprising discovery of <a href="http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/09/not_one_but_two_prototypes_for_nes_sim_city_are_discovered">two NES <strong>SimCity</strong> prototype cartridges</a> in the wild.</p>
<p>This unreleased, Nintendo-developed version was one the NES holy grails of prototypes but not many people got their hands on the content of those two cartridges… until Frank Cifaldi quietly <a href="https://gamehistory.org/simcity/">uploaded the complete findings within the ROM files</a> to The Video Game History Foundation during Christmas afternoon.</p>
<aside class="object object-tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p><span lang="en" dir="ltr">Merry Christmas everyone, let’s talk about SimCity on the NES. Today we published the results of about a year of research on this unreleased Nintendo work, and uploaded relevant files – including the game – to the Internet Archive. You should take a look! <a href="https://t.co/HmvWYy3sXy">https://t.co/HmvWYy3sXy</a> <a href="https://t.co/yhm6OJvqaw">pic.twitter.com/yhm6OJvqaw</a></span>— Frank Cifaldi (@frankcifaldi) <a href="https://twitter.com/frankcifaldi/status/1077614835477741568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 25, 2018</a></p></blockquote>
</aside>
<p>Even among the more optimistic of retro enthusiasts, no one would imagine the prototype to be in such excellent shape. The game is almost completely bug-free, graphics and sound are fully implemented and despite a few unfinished functionalities, it is fully playable on real hardware and most accuracy-intensive emulators.</p>
<p>It is also amazing to realize that pretty much every exclusive feature we know and love about <a href="http://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/2006/11/simcity_virtual_console"><strong>SimCity</strong> on the <strong>Super Nintendo</strong></a> began in this 8-bit counterpart, to the sprite of Dr. Wright and even the season’s colour palette rotation. No small feat for the humble <strong>NES</strong>, as you can witness from the gameplay session below.</p>
<aside class="object object-youtube">
<div class="youtube"><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='900' height='507' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/8t3zqhkSvDE?version=3&rel=0&fs=1&autohide=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=0&iv_load_policy=1&hd=1&wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></div>
</aside>
<p>Unlike most unreleased games, all the work that went into this version did not go to waste since it ended up being a very solid foundation for the Super Nintendo version. This is a video game industry artefact from decades long past that can now be enjoyed by everyone<em>.</em></p>
<p>What do you think about this finding? Do you think Nintendo was right to cancel this and move everything to 16-bit? Would you have bought this on the NES back in the day? Tell us in the comment section below or we will send Bowser over to wreck your industrial zones.</p>
</div>
<div><div class="media_block"><a href="http://images.nintendolife.com/87b950ba85ff3/large.jpg"><img src="http://images.nintendolife.com/87b950ba85ff3/small.jpg" class="media_thumbnail"></a></div>
<figure class="picture strip"><a title="Dr Wright To The Rescue" href="http://images.nintendolife.com/87b950ba85ff3/dr-wright-to-the-rescue.original.jpg"><img src="http://images.nintendolife.com/87b950ba85ff3/dr-wright-to-the-rescue.900x.jpg" alt="Dr Wright To The Rescue" /></a></figure>
<p>You may remember last year this humble NL scribe reported on the surprising discovery of <a href="http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/09/not_one_but_two_prototypes_for_nes_sim_city_are_discovered">two NES <strong>SimCity</strong> prototype cartridges</a> in the wild.</p>
<p>This unreleased, Nintendo-developed version was one the NES holy grails of prototypes but not many people got their hands on the content of those two cartridges… until Frank Cifaldi quietly <a href="https://gamehistory.org/simcity/">uploaded the complete findings within the ROM files</a> to The Video Game History Foundation during Christmas afternoon.</p>
<aside class="object object-tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p><span lang="en" dir="ltr">Merry Christmas everyone, let’s talk about SimCity on the NES. Today we published the results of about a year of research on this unreleased Nintendo work, and uploaded relevant files – including the game – to the Internet Archive. You should take a look! <a href="https://t.co/HmvWYy3sXy">https://t.co/HmvWYy3sXy</a> <a href="https://t.co/yhm6OJvqaw">pic.twitter.com/yhm6OJvqaw</a></span>— Frank Cifaldi (@frankcifaldi) <a href="https://twitter.com/frankcifaldi/status/1077614835477741568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 25, 2018</a></p></blockquote>
</aside>
<p>Even among the more optimistic of retro enthusiasts, no one would imagine the prototype to be in such excellent shape. The game is almost completely bug-free, graphics and sound are fully implemented and despite a few unfinished functionalities, it is fully playable on real hardware and most accuracy-intensive emulators.</p>
<p>It is also amazing to realize that pretty much every exclusive feature we know and love about <a href="http://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/2006/11/simcity_virtual_console"><strong>SimCity</strong> on the <strong>Super Nintendo</strong></a> began in this 8-bit counterpart, to the sprite of Dr. Wright and even the season’s colour palette rotation. No small feat for the humble <strong>NES</strong>, as you can witness from the gameplay session below.</p>
<aside class="object object-youtube">
<div class="youtube"><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='900' height='507' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/8t3zqhkSvDE?version=3&rel=0&fs=1&autohide=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=0&iv_load_policy=1&hd=1&wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></div>
</aside>
<p>Unlike most unreleased games, all the work that went into this version did not go to waste since it ended up being a very solid foundation for the Super Nintendo version. This is a video game industry artefact from decades long past that can now be enjoyed by everyone<em>.</em></p>
<p>What do you think about this finding? Do you think Nintendo was right to cancel this and move everything to 16-bit? Would you have bought this on the NES back in the day? Tell us in the comment section below or we will send Bowser over to wreck your industrial zones.</p>
</div>