When the cutting room floor swallows some amazing ideas.
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00:00It would be hard to play the hero if you had nothing to stand up against, wouldn't it?
00:03Here's to you, villains, scoundrels and general ne'er-do-wells
00:07for giving us, video game players, something to overcome in our journeys.
00:11Some enemies are just as, if not more, iconic than the heroes of their series,
00:15from the kingly Bowser to the lowest Goomba.
00:18You can't see it right now, but I'm pouring one out for every weird,
00:21walking, fanged mushroom thing that I've ever made Mario stomp on.
00:24Just like everything else behind the scenes in video game development,
00:27enemies get redesigned and reiterated until they fit.
00:30Out of all the initial ideas, it's best to focus on just a few at a time and bring them to life.
00:34As such, some bad guys get left behind, either considered no longer relevant
00:38or simply can't quite make it into the game before the klaxon calls and the product has to be shipped.
00:43And whilst many titles make the right choices, leaving their half-baked ideas off the printing line,
00:47sometimes a sneaky look at what could have been has you asking why on earth
00:51companies would let something so great not make the final cut.
00:54You can't help but wonder what could have been.
00:56I'm Cy for WhatCulture.com and these are 10 video game enemies we can't believe got cut.
01:01Number 10, Cuphead, Demon Bat.
01:04When games get announced to the public, they often contain trailers that use ideas that are unfinished
01:08or by the end of the project hit the famous cutting room floor.
01:11It's often pretty remarkable to watch the trailer of a game you've just finished
01:15and find yourself saying, wait, where was that?
01:17What makes Cuphead's cut boss, who has been named Demon Bat by fans so noticeably absent,
01:22is that he was a major part of the game's original 2014 reveal trailer.
01:26This is where gaming audiences were introduced to Cuphead's undeniably unique style,
01:30which was so fresh that the trailer went rather viral.
01:32As such, the Demon Bat was used in a lot of early pre-release material.
01:36Screenshots imply a flurry of Bat minions to contend with,
01:39as well as a form where the boss shields from attack by hiding in a coffin.
01:42Come the final game, however, and Cuphead and Mugman jump from fighting King Dice to the Devil,
01:47with no hellish flying middleman in sight.
01:49Not that Cuphead isn't stuffed with enough insanely hard boss fights as it is,
01:53but it certainly would have been great to have Demon Bat be a penultimate boss,
01:56a gatekeeper for hell, and a sign you were very nearly there.
01:59More than that, those following the project for the three years between reveal and release
02:02were keen to fight the winged creature and were left disappointed.
02:06Number nine, Shadow of the Colossus, Devil.
02:09Team Ico's Shadow of the Colossus remains a unique moment in gaming even today,
02:13forgoing the standard adventure game fare of side quests and NPCs,
02:17and instead presenting a quiet, vacant world inhabited only by the colossi.
02:21However, the 16 in the final game were originally meant to be joined by a lot more gigantic stone friends.
02:27Honestly, we could have picked any of them,
02:28but one of the things that makes the Devil particularly cool is that it wasn't giant.
02:33In fact, it's expected to have been similar in size to the Leo Colossus,
02:36making it perhaps the smallest colossus in the game.
02:38Devil can be seen in both designer sketches and in early screenshots,
02:42a tribal mask wearing gargoyle of sorts that was, according to the Shadow of the Colossus art book,
02:47designed to be drawn towards the player and then attacked from behind,
02:50with Wanda leaping out of the grass to jump on its back.
02:52Something else that makes it unique, at least in the design sketches,
02:55is that it seemed to be holding a bow and an arrow,
02:57which means that at one stage it had a perhaps single-use ranged attack.
03:01This theory would have made it an incredibly unique fight.
03:04As it stands, Devil and his forgotten brethren never got to see the light of day,
03:07due to time constraints and storage space limitations.
03:11Number eight, Silent Hill, The Grey Children.
03:13The opening of Silent Hill is iconic for being disorientating, frightening and overwhelming,
03:18which, come to think of it, sums up the vibe of the entire game.
03:21After finding himself searching down a dark alleyway of the eponymous town for his missing daughter,
03:26Harry Mason is surrounded by one of two things,
03:29grey children or mumblers.
03:31Those of you out there in the good old US of A may well be confused by this entry,
03:35as you were lucky enough to see the little grey buggers,
03:37but anywhere else in the world, we had to deal with the mumblers.
03:40Close enough counterparts in both this scene,
03:43and in the midwitch elementary school part of the game.
03:45Rejected by the censors many times,
03:47the grey children were seen as too close to being like real children,
03:51and the ratings boards outside of America
03:53were not happy with Harry pointing his weapon of choice at them.
03:56Which is a real shame, because they add so much more of an air of creepiness to the school,
04:00especially with their horrible little laughs when they grab you.
04:02It's sometimes surprising where the line is with these things,
04:05especially considering most of Silent Hill's enemy roster are twisted human forms,
04:08but it's fairly understandable when it comes to tiny twisted forms roaming a school.
04:12More than anything, it's a shame that this legendary game can't be a uniform experience,
04:16no matter which region you play it in.
04:18Number 7, Final Fantasy VI, The Saar Dragon.
04:21If your classic medieval fantasy doesn't end with facing down against an all-powerful dragon,
04:26you certainly better make sure you put one in there somewhere that players can seek out.
04:30Nothing says Destined Warrior better than slaying these legendary creatures,
04:33and Final Fantasy has had plenty of dragons in its tenure.
04:36The sixth entry is no different, but it sadly got its ultimate one shaved off from the final release.
04:41It would have been a choice made really rather late into development too,
04:44as not only does the Saar Dragon have a full set of stats,
04:46it also has a line of dialogue that got translated into English.
04:49The only things it doesn't have is more than a basic attack and a way to encounter it,
04:53at least without hacking anyway.
04:54After facing the eight legendary dragons in Final Fantasy VI,
04:57the side quest sort of just stops.
04:59As such, Storm Dragon, who is just one of the eight that can be slain in any order,
05:04is made to be arbitrarily the most powerful.
05:06It makes a lot more sense that he plays second fiddle as intended to the king of dragons.
05:10This one ends on a happier note though, as Square Enix quite rightfully restored our scaly friend,
05:14who got his own dungeon and a fancy new name as the Kaiser Dragon,
05:18in the Final Fantasy VI Game Boy Advance port.
05:21Number six, Persona 2, Devil Joker.
05:23The major plot drive of Persona 2 Innocent Sin is the idea of words transforming the real world.
05:29It's used by the game's main antagonist, Joker, and then is half used against him
05:33when it comes time to face off with him.
05:35With different NPCs calling the character both an Angel and a Devil,
05:39thus begins a rumour which can change reality.
05:41As players get set to stand off against him, he takes an Angel form.
05:45The Devil form, however, never comes, and defeating him just moves the story onwards.
05:49So, uh, what gives?
05:51Artwork for the Devil form does exist, and rather uncomfortably seems to imply that
05:55such a thing would have split Angel, Joker in half to appear.
05:58Furthermore, existing in the data for Persona 2 is indeed a Devil Joker sprite,
06:02set of stats, and even more unfortunately, some really cool unique skills.
06:06Considering that turning rumours into reality is such a core part of not just Persona 2,
06:10but Joker's character specifically, it feels like an incredible shame that the devil side
06:14of this rumour didn't come to fruition.
06:16It's not just an awesome and gnarly boss design that we didn't get to go up against,
06:19it's integral for the overall arc of the character.
06:22Be it time, money, or storage-based demands, Persona 2 is still a beloved title,
06:26but it's hard to believe that such an important part of the game got shelved for whatever reason.
06:30Number 5, Metal Gear Solid 2, China Man.
06:33When it comes to unique characters that push the boundaries in video games,
06:36the early Metal Gear Solid titles have some of the best.
06:39Hideo Kojima laughs in the face of those who say,
06:41that's maybe a bit too much, don't you think?
06:43China Man, once planned for Metal Gear Solid 2, is as bombastic as you'd expect from any game in the franchise.
06:48A Vietnamese man who, after being abducted as a child, grew up in the Chinatown district of New York,
06:53and would claim he was more Chinese than the Chinese.
06:56That's already a little bit of an eccentric setup, but it gets weirder when you start looking at his skillset.
07:01Not only did he have the world record for holding one's breath underwater, but he could also summon sharks.
07:07Oh, and his four-bodied dragon tattoo would apparently come to life when it touched water.
07:11Because Kojima.
07:12With his boss battle taking place underwater, it certainly would have added not just another
07:16memorable twist on the MGS gameplay formula, but considering the game was released in 2001,
07:21it would have been mighty impressive to behold.
07:23Vamp's boss fight that ultimately replaced China Man's was fun,
07:26but fighting sharks and a dragon made out of tattoos?
07:29Who can say no to that level of madness?
07:31Needless to say, had this happened,
07:33China Man would have been remembered right up there as one of the most memorable bosses in the MGS franchise.
07:38Number 4, Pokemon Gold and Silver, Misty in the Elite Four.
07:41One of the most treasured things about Pokemon Gold and Silver is the moment where you beat the Elite Four
07:46and are told you can now head east and return to Kanto, the region from Pokemon Red and Blue,
07:50to revisit old haunts and catch yet even more of your favourite battling buddies.
07:54It blew many young Pokemon trainers' minds that even after what felt like the final battle,
07:59there were eight more gym leaders to fight, most of which felt like old friends from your previous journey.
08:03Before this was the case, however, in what is dubbed the Space World 1997 demo of the game,
08:08there were plans to make Johto big enough to represent all of Japan,
08:12and familiar faces would have been dotted all around.
08:14It was decided early on that Misty was to ascend from her post as Cerulean City Gym Leader to the Elite Four.
08:20This selection makes sense because of the popularity of the Pokemon anime that Misty was a large part of,
08:25and it would have been an absolute joy to see.
08:27Compared to the show, her appearance in Red and Blue felt very minimal,
08:30so it would have been a really good nod to her importance in the wider Pokemon series.
08:34When the project changed, Misty was once again relegated to the gym leader spot.
08:38Number three, Sonic Adventure, Sky Chase Dragon.
08:41Whether or not Sonic Adventure's roster of characters and playstyles are a high or a low for the game
08:46is at the eye of the beholder. Personally, I'm a fan of just how many different ideas Sega managed to
08:51fit into the Blue Hedgehog's first real 3D adventure, although some are definitely stronger than others.
08:56Looking at you, Big the Cat and your Sega Bassmaster bull****.
08:59Twice during the story, Sonic and Tails give nod to both Sega's Panzer Dragoon series,
09:04and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, by flying their biplane towards Robotnik's egg carrier.
09:08The stages themselves are certainly some of the weakest in the game,
09:11as they don't really amount to much beyond locking onto targets and firing over and over.
09:15It turns out that's because something was missing, and that something was a robotic dragon.
09:19Eggman's most ambitious machine to that point, if hacked into the game, will follow the plane breathing fire.
09:25Even though it wasn't finished and therefore can't hurt you,
09:27it's a sight to see and certainly adds some much needed drama and wow factor to the stages of
09:32Sonic Adventure that drag the most. When you realise that the original concept for the Skychase
09:37stages was to include a set of boss fights, it all starts to make a lot more sense as to why they feel
09:41so empty. Number 2, Resident Evil 2, Man Spider. The Resident Evil series has enough cut content in
09:47its history that it could fill an oversized spooky mansion with it. There's no better example of this
09:52than what is now referred to as Resident Evil 1.5, the scrapped version of RE2 that got dropped about 80%
09:58of the way into its production. Such a strange gem is this version that allows us to see early takes on
10:03classic Resident Evil 2 characters, themes and enemies. Specifically, there's a selection of the
10:08latter that got left behind completely when the project was restarted. Chiefly among them is the
10:12absolutely horrific Man Spider. As legendary as the liquor is, the Man Spider called back to the
10:18scientific mishmash of creatures in the first game by being a man-sized arachnid that ran around at
10:23quite considerable speed on a pair of additional human legs. Good luck sleeping tonight arachnophobes.
10:29In the final version of Resident Evil 2, the laboratory does include some plant enemies but
10:33being static they pose very little threat when you've got a backpack full of ammunition. With a Man Spider not
10:38cast aside in the project's reboot and included in the lab where they were planned, it would have
10:42given Resident Evil 2 even more variety and made the final act of the game pants-wettingly scary.
10:48I don't care how many shotgun shells you've got, if that thing runs at you it's not a good day.
10:52Forget first aid sprays, we might need some bug sprays up in here. Number one, The Legend of Zelda
10:57Twilight Princess, Armos Titan. The Zelda series is so vast and sprawling that it's got no shortage of
11:02ideas that have hit the cutting room floor at different points in development. Many of these don't
11:07get past the concept stage and we can only wonder if we'll see them re-evaluated for later entries.
11:12Some however seem like pretty much the finished article and yet can only be dragged out of the
11:16code by passionate fans. This is true of the Armos Titan, a unique enemy type from Link's adventure
11:21through the Twilight Realm on Gamecube and Wii. It was impervious to melee attacks and needed to be
11:26taken down with a bow and arrow, stopping dead in its tracks when Link finally got the upper hand on it.
11:30What makes this exclusion a shame is that the normal Armos enemy actually has a long history in the Zelda
11:35franchise appearing in the vast majority of mainline games, so it was an inspired choice to have a
11:40spin-off or a more souped-up version appear in Twilight Princess. You always love to see people or
11:46living statues get their dues for putting the time and work in. The Armos Titan's design is excellent
11:51and feels very at home with the Twilight Princess overall aesthetic, considering it has a full set
11:55of animations we expect it got pretty far along before it was rather unceremoniously dropped.
12:00And that's the list! Head down to the comments to let us know what you thought of this video,
12:04which of these video game cut enemies are you the most broken-hearted about, and additionally other
12:09cut enemies that we didn't include. Make sure to hit that like button, the subscribe button,
12:13and the notification bell. I've been Cy for WhatCulture.com, and have a good week!