Escape from Mars - Starring Taz

This page details one or more prototype versions of Escape from Mars - Starring Taz.

This page is rather stubbly and could use some expansion. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue this article?

All sorts of prototypes were leaked onto the Internet on February 23, 2008 by drx. These prototypes, among many other, originated from one of Sega of America's QA archives.

To do: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/xm21o8jpn7z13/Taz A lot of work.

March 9, 1994 Prototype#

This prototype is documented on Hidden Palace.

This prototype is in a very primitive state.

General#

• No Sega logo, copyright, or title screens.
• No intermission screen pictures.
• Some of the levels are devoid of music.
• No sound effects.
• Most of the levels do not have a HUD visible.
• Pressing Up and Down do not move the camera up and down.

Aesthetic Differences#

• The HUD is recycled from Taz-Mania, and they haven't been remapped to a proper fitting palette.
• Most palettes are marginally desaturated compared to the final game (most notably with Taz himself).

Level Differences#

Test#

The prototype starts here and the frame rate is not limited to 30 frames per second in this level. You cannot get too far, because of Taz's limitations.

Mars 1#

March 4, 1994 Prototype	Final

The breakable bricks are absent and the palette was brightened up.

Mexico 1#

March 4, 1994 Prototype	Final

Wile E. Coyote's sprite is different.

Mole World 3#

The boss is glitched up.

Megapolis 2#

This particular level did not make the final cut, probably because the game is on a 16-megabit cartridge. There is not much to speak of, since the level is very barren.

Debugging#

A detailed debug system can be found within this prototype. However, several menus are buggy and crash the game.

• RESUME GAME - It returns you to the level.
• RESTART LEVEL - Restarts the level.
  • Both of these options have unique features. Pressing the A button returns you to the game, but pressing B shows a list of NPCs and pressing C turns up a menu that can't really be used.
• DEBUG FUNCTION - Unknown; crashes the game.
• RESTORE HP - Restore the player's health bar back to full health.
• LEVEL SELECT - Brings up a level select screen, as seen here:

This level selection menu is unreadable due to some VRAM issues. It is supposed to read:

Test 1
Mars 1
Mars 2
Mars 3
Mexico 1
Mexico 2
Mexico 3
Mole World 1
Mole World 2
Mole World 3
Planet X 1
Planet X 2
Planet X 3
Haunted Castle 1
Haunted Castle 2
Haunted Castle 3
Haunted Castle 4
Megapolis 2
Marvins House 1
Marvins House 2
Marvins House 3