Rayman III (GBA, Prototype)

Today we present to you a prototype of Rayman 3 for the Game Boy Advance! This artifact was acquired by Gonz (Twitter/YouTube), who has allowed us to get it safely preserved. He acquired it from an Ebay auction and interestingly there are quite a few differences from the retail release which we will detail below. Thanks go out to TamB for dumping the cartridge and RayCarrot for playing through the prototype and documenting all the differences to be found. You can also download the prototype ROM if you want to try it out for yourself. Enjoy!

Download ROM File (External Link)

MENU:
– Pressing START during the opening of the game skips the logo entirely.
– Credits have a black background and the text transitions differently than the retail version.

STORY:
– Some cutscenes scroll horizontally rather than being static images.
– Cutscene vignettes have black borders and sometimes use different shots than the final version.
– Some text isn’t yet translated into English (such as Murfy’s text when entering the hub for the first time). Unsurprisingly this shows the game was first developed in French.
– The text that is translated differs here and there, though we haven’t documented all the changes.

HUB:
– Levels use names from Rayman 2, giving a solid connection in inspiration from that game rather than Rayman 3.
– Worlds don’t have names on world map.
– Pressing A on inactive curtains does nothing (no sound or animation).

SOUND:
– Murfy whispers like in Rayman 2.
– When continuing from a game over there’s no sound.
– A different sound plays when exiting a level from the entrance.
– Usually no sounds in dialogue.
– Various enemy sound effects differ.

BUGS:
– The color palette becomes broken when when you pause in the hub.
– Skipping a cutscene keeps playing the audio from it or restarts the cutscene entirely.
– Some in-level dialogue has broken formatting.
– The barrel in the first Ly power-up stage doesn’t move, causing Rayman’s auto-movements not to sync up correctly.
– Curtains are not red before unlocked if it’s the next level and you exit a stage from the entrance before finishing it.
– Pausing sometimes breaks HUD visually.
– Curtains in the second Hub are sometimes broken.
– The game will crash if pause on world map or if you attempt to enter the GameCube bonus world.
– Bad collision in Hub 4, sometimes you fall through the floor.
– The “3 2 1” doesn’t always show up in a 3D race level.
– The player can’t super charge fist while helicoptering – therefore the 1000th Lum Challenge is not possible.
– If you get a game over and continue during final boss phase 2 the game softlocks, not allowing you to progress.
– Some of the spiky balls in Razor Slide (The Pirate Ship) glitch out, go beyond their movement area, and then become invisible
– On the world select screen, while the first world selected you can press left and Rayman will be caught in an animation loop trying to walk to a world that doesn’t exist until the game crashes.

OTHER:
– Cage break animations take longer then the final version.
– Pirates don’t have invisible walls of collision, so you can skip them.
– Rayman doesn’t jump on the “Continue” text when you continue from a game over.
– Rayman’s body doesn’t turn yellow when Ly gives you a new power.
– You don’t keep your Lums and cages on a game over, even if you continue.

LEVELS:
– In Vertigo Wastes (The Echoeing Caves) phase 1 the entrance is reachable from the starting position.
– Vertigo Wastes phase 1 also has the switches being yellow when activated instead of green.
– In Void of Bones (Cave Of Bad Dreams) the floating skulls in the background are visible before they should be, and aren’t as translucent.
– The things you punch to go up in the Ly bonus levels look different.
– Slight level changes in Wicked Flow (Sanctuary Rock And Lava) – missing lava pools when black Lums come towards you after first checkpoint and the spiky balls are in different places in phase 2.
– No Murfy stone in River of Fire (Sanctuary Stone And Fire) to teach you about plums.
– River of Fire (Sanctuary Stone And Fire) 2 & 3 are almost entirely different – a lot easier with fewer jumps between plums.
– Creeping Chaos (Tomb Of The Ancient) has a very slight change in spiky objects at the very end of second phase.
– Some platforms in Razor Slide (The Pirate Ship) are placed incorrectly.
– Mega Havoc 3 (Bonus #3) has many minor differences both visually and gameplay wise.
– Final boss has health indicators on the bottom and only 3 hit points for first phase instead of 5.

LEVEL ORDER:
– Wicked Flow (Sanctuary Rock And Lava) is swapped with River of Fire (Sanctuary Stone And Fire).

CHEATS:
– L on Title Screen: Level select
– L + Select: Finish stage
– R + Select: Invincible (lasts until game reset)

MURFY HELP POP-UPS (appears after dying, maybe more in other levels?):
Swamp of Bégoniax (Marsh Awakening) – Murfy says to use B to avoid sand banks (despite A being the jump button).
Garish Gears (Boss Machine) – Murfy teaches you how to carry a barrel.

LEVELS (final name in brackets) :
The Wood Light (Wanderwood Forest)
Fairy Glade (Shining Glade)
Marsh Awakening (Swamp of Bégoniax)
Boss Machine (Garish Gears)
Sanctuary Of The Big Trees (Hoodlum Hideout)
Missile Sur Pattes (Magma Mayhem)
The Echoeing Caves (Vertigo Wastes)
Cave Of Bad Dreams (Void of Bones)
Boss Bad Dream (Jano’s Nest)
The Menhirs Hills (Prickly Passage)
Marsh Of Awakening (Swamp of Bégoniax 2)
Sanctuary Rock And Lava (Wicked Flow)
Beneath Sanctuary (The Underlands)
The Precipice (Boulder Brink)
Boss : Rock And Lava (Den of Rocky)
The Canopy (Wretched Ruins)
Sanctuary Stone And Fire (River of Fire)
Tomb Of The Ancient (Creeping Chaos)
Boss : Clark (Scaleman’s Keep)
The Iron Mountains (The Mettleworks)
Missile sur pattes (Magma Mayhem 2)
The Pirate Ship (Razor Slide)
Boss Final (Heart of the Ancients)
Bonus #1 (Mega Havoc 1)
Bonus #2 (Mega Havoc 2)
Bonus #3 (Mega Havoc 3)
Bonus #4 (Mega Havoc 4)
Challenge Ly #1 (Ly’s Punch Challenge 1)
Challenge Ly #2 (Ly’s Punch Challenge 2)
1000e Lums (Lum Challenge)