Kira's photo unlocked at "Sweetheart" level was originally going to feature her holding a frothy mug of ale, but this was scrapped in favor of having her tug the player's shirt.
According to former Capcom illustrator Akira "Akiman" Yasuda, one of the game's promotional illustrations depicting Chun-Li performing her Spinning Bird Kick move was based on the first pencil drawing of the move made for the game.
In the files of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, one can find concept art graphics for NPCs and objects on the Sweet Dreams stage, including the walking food that would appear as enemies and in Garfield's super move in the sequel. The cotton candy sheep is pink in the concept art, but white like a real life sheep in the game. It is not known who illustrated these graphics, and whether they were from Paws Inc. or the NASB development team.
According to series co-creator Ed Boon in a video/interview on Mortal Kombat's YouTube channel on May 19, 2023, Liu Kang was chosen to be on the cover of Mortal Kombat 1 to signify a new story arc, in turn diverting from Scorpion and Sub-Zero, who were regularly chosen for the games' covers.
The infamous American Mega Man 2 box art, where Mega Man wields a pistol instead of his signature Mega Buster, was not an attempt to make Mega Man appear more "edgy", but was actually born from a misconception where Capcom's art director believed Mega Man was using a gun too small to be seen in sprite form rather than transforming his arm. Artist Marc Ericksen would say to Nintendo Age in 2012:
"So we're talking about the infamous Mega Man 2 where Mega Man is actually running around waving a pistol! Okay so, the question on everyone's mind is 'how could the illustrator be such a complete idiot that he didn't realize that Mega Man had a cannon for an arm, and why is he holding a pistol for God's sake.'
What happened was I had to go down to Capcom and do a game they just got in from Japan. They had a beta version; they were in a hurry to get this thing out. So I went down there. The gentlemen was the art director was there with the beta guy and they were waiting for me and I came with my pad and they started running the game. What we saw was this little pixelated figure of the famous Mega Man running around on the screen shooting. Bang, bang, bang, he's shooting obviously like this with his arm [Marc points his arm forward]. So I said to the art director, 'what is he shooting? What is he shooting with?' The art director said, 'he must have a pistol because I don't see that he's got a rifle so he must have a pistol.'
'So... a pistol? You want me to do a pistol?' And he said, 'yeah, let's put a pistol in there.' So I did what I was told and I put the pistol in there. Add to the fact that they only had, like, a day and a half for me to do the painting and what you wound up with was not the greatest result but certainly a result that was not my fault. It was one of those things. Here's my opportunity: I'm saying to everybody now that was not my fault! Talk to Capcom about the pistol."
According to former Clover CEO Atsushi Inaba, the series' trademark Celestial Brush mechanic was directly inspired by the ukiyo-e art style. In a 2006 interview with GameSpy, Inaba stated "Once we fixed ourselves on a graphical style and got down to the brushwork, we thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if we could somehow get the player involved and participate in this artwork instead of just watching it?'" These comments also explain why in both games, activating the Celestial Brush renders the current frame as a scroll of washi paper.
In a 1997 interview with Famimaga 64, Satoshi Tajiri said that the Pokémon Porygon was made due to people saying that he should develop a 3D game instead of a sprite-based game on the Game Boy:
"I wanted to add something real into the world of Pokémon, and thought it’d be interesting if the game had an artificial Pokémon. I made that decision specifically because it’s on Game Boy. Everyone kept telling me 'Tajiri, you need to start making polygon games for next generation consoles.' But I was designing Pokémon for Game Boy, where it’s impossible to use polygonal 3D graphics. But people kept hounding me about it, so I thought it would be ironic to include a Pokémon called Porygon."
The life bar icons for the SnowHorn and HighTop in Star Fox Adventures sport different, more cartoony designs from their respective in-game models. The reason for this is because they're clearly based upon their original N64 Dinosaur Planet models, which too are much more cartoonier than the final SFA models that go for a more semi-realistic look.
In Final Egg, two large stasis tubes can be found. One holds Metal Sonic, while the other holds an unknown Sonic-based robot, later referred to as Mecha Sonic Mark III by Ian Flynn. This robot has no importance in the story, however, it seems to be based heavily on the design of Mechagodzilla from the "Godzilla" franchise's Shōwa era, due to many similar parts and possible textures from the robot. This also seems to be a reference to Mecha Sonic Mark I, also known as Silver Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, whose concept art also shows similarities to Mechagodzilla.
On September 21, 2020, as part of his podcast BumbleKast, writer Ian Flynn expressed interest in adapting Cosmo and the Metarex from the animated series "Sonic X" into IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog comics, which would effectively incorporate them into the mainline Sonic canon. A year later, he would reveal that said arc would not happen anytime soon, as fellow writer Evan Stanley had more stories that needed to be finished. In January 2024, however, Flynn revealed that most content that comes from the show is off the table, including characters such as Cosmo, the Metarex, Topaz, Mr. Tanaka, and Ella.
However, there may be an exception to this in the form of the "Next Show", a fictional children's show featuring a purple mascot character named Next that Cream and Cheese are shown to be fans of during Sonic X. The show was first referenced in Cream's Sonic Channel profile, where it was listed as one of her likes. Later, 2023 would feature two seperate instances of the show being referenced: first during the "Otherworld Comedy" series of wallpapers posted on Sonic Channel, where it was mentioned in the story for the May 2023 wallpaper ("Story Act 5: My Vector Man"), then later as part of the official Christmas 2023 picture, where a toy based on Next appears amongst the pile of gifts.
The final designs for the new Kremling characters, such as Kip, Kass, Kalypso, and Kludge, were designed internally by Nintendo. Paon were the ones who originally proposed the creation of new Kremling characters, but Nintendo's in-house character management team handled the rest.
Paon's initial proposal also includes Kopter, a Kremling enemy who first appeared in Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!. While he would appear in the final game, his initial concept design is notably more closer to the original DKC3 look. The concept art also shows a redesigned Krusha, another Kremling type from the first Donkey Kong Country, who in the final game was replaced by the aforementioned Kludge.
After clearing Chapter 22 of Lostbelt 5: Olympus, Spoiler:Miyamoto Musashi will be removed from the Spirit Origin List in the Material (Servant) list under My Room. In the place of her original Saber and Summer Berserker form is a dimmed, glitched-out icon reading "DATA LOST". This reflects the story events as Musashi sacrificed her existence in order to seal away Chaos. This change is purely cosmetic; Spoiler:both forms of Miyamoto Musashi can still be used in regular gameplay, rolled for in rate-up banners, and otherwise interacted with via Servant Inventory and as the selected Favorite in My Room.
A concept document for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 shows that Knuckles was originally going to be able to walk up walls and ceilings instead of just climbing walls, and break down walls with a whirlwind attack rather than his fists. The McDonald's Happy Meal toy of Knuckles included in their Sonic 3 promotion, which is a wheeled toy that pilots a cloud, may be a leftover of this unused character trait.
Concept artwork for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 shows that before Knuckles was an echidna, he was conceived as a hedgehog, cat, and eventually mole. During the period in which he was a mole, he was known as "Stealth the Mole", could dig, and had a shovel to attack with. Additionally, a dropped plotline from when Knuckles was a hedgehog revolved around Tails admiring him due to his resemblance to Sonic.
Concept art reveals that at one point, Jenny from "My Life as a Teenage Robot" was planned to appear in the game, but was scrapped for unknown reasons. She would become a playable character in the next game, Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots.
According to T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger game design lead Noah Hughes and assistant character designer Dan Panosian's official biographies on certain websites, the Kung Fu Panda movies were inspired by concept art for the game, which was developed at the interactive subsidiary of DreamWorks. However, these claims are somewhat dubious, as nobody who worked on the Kung Fu Panda movies has come forward claiming any inspiration from the game, and none of T'ai Fu's character designers are credited anywhere in the movie's credits.
Christopher Near, the artist who painted the box art for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, posted an image to his Instagram of concept art for the game which predates the game's development and was intended to excite Nickelodeon executives over the concept of a Nicktoons fighting game as opposed to influence the product itself - this poster featured a few characters who would not appear in the final game:
•Jenny Wakeman and Rocko, who would appear in the DLC. •Jimmy Neutron and Raphael, who would appear in the sequel. •Casey Jones, Krumm, and Angelica Pickles, who have not appeared in a NASB game. •Wanda from The Fairly OddParents and Reggie from Rocket Power, two shows that have never been in a NASB game. •Stimpy as a solo character instead of a team with Ren.
Manga artist Sui Ishida (most famous for his work on manga series "Tokyo Ghoul" and "Choujin X") was responsible for the game's lyrics, character designs, in-game illustrations, and helped work on the worldbuilding. He decided to personally write the game's lyrics because he wanted the character's songs to better reflect them. To that end, he convinced composer Akira Kosemura to work on the game after being inspired by his songs.
According to a 2005 Nintendo Dream interview regarding Star Fox: Assault, this particular poster was created by Takaya Imamura, the creator and character designer of Fox McCloud and the Star Fox universe.
In JAEPO 2020, Konami unveiled two new rhythm arcade titles that were never released:
• "NEW pop'n music Welcome to Wonderland!" was created as a reboot to the long standing "pop'n music" series. The game used a different arcade cabinet with smaller buttons and a touch panel meant for new slide notes. Aesthetically, the game also utilized 3D models for the characters as opposed to 2D sprites. Both licensed songs exclusive to this cabinet, "Phantom Joke" and "少年よ我に帰れ", were added to "pop'n music peace" on August 3rd, 2020.
• "jubeat (2020)" was also meant to be a reboot, this time to the identically-named "jubeat" series. Unlike "Welcome to Wonderland", the gameplay remained identical between it and previous entries. The arcade cabinet itself was roughly 1.2X the size of previous iterations and ran at 60 fps, as opposed to 30fps. The cabinets also supported music videos and would have come in several colors. In 2021, a mobile version of jubeat released utilizing similar aesthetics to this cancelled version. 2022 saw the release of a new iteration, "jubeat Ave.", which utilized the previous arcade technology.
According to former Capcom illustrator Akira "Akiman" Yasuda, one of the game's promotional illustrations depicting Chun-Li performing her Spinning Bird Kick move was based on the first pencil drawing of the move made for the game.
In the files of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, one can find concept art graphics for NPCs and objects on the Sweet Dreams stage, including the walking food that would appear as enemies and in Garfield's super move in the sequel. The cotton candy sheep is pink in the concept art, but white like a real life sheep in the game. It is not known who illustrated these graphics, and whether they were from Paws Inc. or the NASB development team.
The life bar icons for the SnowHorn and HighTop in Star Fox Adventures sport different, more cartoony designs from their respective in-game models. The reason for this is because they're clearly based upon their original N64 Dinosaur Planet models, which too are much more cartoonier than the final SFA models that go for a more semi-realistic look.
In Final Egg, two large stasis tubes can be found. One holds Metal Sonic, while the other holds an unknown Sonic-based robot, later referred to as Mecha Sonic Mark III by Ian Flynn. This robot has no importance in the story, however, it seems to be based heavily on the design of Mechagodzilla from the "Godzilla" franchise's Shōwa era, due to many similar parts and possible textures from the robot. This also seems to be a reference to Mecha Sonic Mark I, also known as Silver Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, whose concept art also shows similarities to Mechagodzilla.
The final designs for the new Kremling characters, such as Kip, Kass, Kalypso, and Kludge, were designed internally by Nintendo. Paon were the ones who originally proposed the creation of new Kremling characters, but Nintendo's in-house character management team handled the rest.
A concept document for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 shows that Knuckles was originally going to be able to walk up walls and ceilings instead of just climbing walls, and break down walls with a whirlwind attack rather than his fists. The McDonald's Happy Meal toy of Knuckles included in their Sonic 3 promotion, which is a wheeled toy that pilots a cloud, may be a leftover of this unused character trait.
Concept artwork for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 shows that before Knuckles was an echidna, he was conceived as a hedgehog, cat, and eventually mole. During the period in which he was a mole, he was known as "Stealth the Mole", could dig, and had a shovel to attack with. Additionally, a dropped plotline from when Knuckles was a hedgehog revolved around Tails admiring him due to his resemblance to Sonic.
Concept art reveals that at one point, Jenny from "My Life as a Teenage Robot" was planned to appear in the game, but was scrapped for unknown reasons. She would become a playable character in the next game, Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots.
According to T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger game design lead Noah Hughes and assistant character designer Dan Panosian's official biographies on certain websites, the Kung Fu Panda movies were inspired by concept art for the game, which was developed at the interactive subsidiary of DreamWorks. However, these claims are somewhat dubious, as nobody who worked on the Kung Fu Panda movies has come forward claiming any inspiration from the game, and none of T'ai Fu's character designers are credited anywhere in the movie's credits.
Christopher Near, the artist who painted the box art for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, posted an image to his Instagram of concept art for the game which predates the game's development and was intended to excite Nickelodeon executives over the concept of a Nicktoons fighting game as opposed to influence the product itself - this poster featured a few characters who would not appear in the final game:
When Star Fox: Assault was first informally announced to be in development back in early 2002, Nintendo released a promotional poster for it featuring the Star Fox team in their Arwings (which utilized their more rounded look from Star Fox Adventures), with Fox in a communication box saying 全機、報告せよ! (which in English translates to "All aircraft, report!").