List of Mario Party 9 pre-release and unused content

This is a list of pre-release and unused content for the game Mario Party 9.

Stages

An early image of Toad Road.

Toad Road had a much simpler design. There are no Green Spaces or Mini Star/Mini Ztar Spaces, but there are instead Blue Spaces. Mini Stars and Mini Ztars were only seen in one number, rather than three, five and ten. The unbroken bridge seen in the image is broken in the final game, yet there are still spaces underneath the bridge; it is possible that the spaces on the bridge were event spaces that would cause the bridge to collapse if landed on. The vine is placed near the upper-left corner of the mountain instead of the spiral hill in front of the fort. A Lakitu is seen above the fort, possibly to symbolize that he is the board's mid-boss. Additionally, on the final board, there are two rock formations on the tops of the mountains that form the letters "MP"; no such rock formations are seen on the original board.

The center of the stage has a circular island that was later moved to the forest part of the stage in the final game, and was replaced with an island in the shape of a "9". It is unclear how one would get there, although a Warp Cannon can be seen near a Lucky Space, indicating that the island (including the rocky mountain with a water slide) can be reached through the cannon. The Bowser Gate is not at the end of the stage. There is also no Green Toad near the end of the stage, indicating that the early game did not have an "Almost There!" event. Also, Unlucky Spaces were more common in the early version.

An early model of Toad Road before the E3 design.

Another earlier design of Toad Road has been found in the game's files. It features three mountains and a different route that the players would take. It has different textures to the final, and at the end, where Wiggler is fought, the artwork of Wiggler from Super Mario World is shown.

Minigames

A Bowser Jr. minigame.

A minigame involving two players attempting to capture Bowser Jr. in a mountain-like maze did not make it into the final game. This minigame was most likely replaced by Zoom Room, which has a similar objective.

In Goomba Bowling, the players' tally increased when they hit a Goomba. In the final version, the tally only increases when the turn ends.

In Growing Up, the bar that displays the round numbers is different from the one in the final version.

Spaces

Early spaces designs

Some spaces were left in the game's files. One file includes several early versions of the final game's spaces, all using a different design. These include a Blue Space, a red Back Space, a Lucky Space, a Dry Bones space, a Dice Block space, a Happening Space, a swirling space, a blue arrow space, a VS Space, a Bowser Space (using its final design), a Shuffle Space, a space with two hands coming together, a Star Space, a Ztar Space, and an orange space. These spaces are stored in one large texture image.

Spaces that were never used, although they resemble the game's final spaces.

There is another file that includes more unused spaces, which more closely resemble the final designs. These spaces include a Red Space, a +3 Jackpot Space, a +5 Magma Space, a Stop Space (its filename is "stop"), a +10 Mini Stars Space, and a +10 Mini Ztars Space. The +10 Mini Stars Space and +10 Mini Ztars Space also have bigger variations, but they have been scaled down here to fit in a single image.

Characters

Bowser Jr.'s unused vehicle animations

Bowser Jr. could have possibly been a playable character or a rival in Solo Mode, as there are unused vehicle animations in his motion file. The animations may also have been used during testing.

Other

The HUD only displayed how many Mini Stars a player had, instead of a Dice Block. The characters' faces also faced right, while in the final version they are facing forward. Spaces were also brighter in color in the pre-release version. The Dice Block was designed a bit differently; it lacked the aesthetic effects of the final Dice Block. The up-right corner of the screen showed how many spaces were left until a group of Mini Stars. The tallies, space warnings and the Dice Blocks used the Super Mario Galaxy tallies typeface, but this was changed in the final version.

Peach taking an alternative route

In early footage, Princess Peach takes a route that is not seen in the final game. Only Green Spaces are seen here.

Gallery

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  An earlier version of the North American box art. Note that Luigi is not on the cover.

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  Original logo shown at E3 2011

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  The spinning dice tells players how many moves they get when they hit the box

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  The characters in the car are moving the amount of spaces they received

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  Characters in the car

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  Moving forward after rolling the dice block

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  The original version of Growing Up

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  An early version of Bumper Sparks. Note that Bowser Jr.'s icon looks different from that in the final game.

External links

E3 2011 Trailer