Battle Mania 3 NY: Gankutsujou (lost build of cancelled Dreamcast shoot'em up game; late 90s-early 2000s)

The game's cover art

Status: Lost

Battle Mania 3 NY: Gankutsujou is a cancelled Sega Dreamcast shoot'em up game that was developed by former employees of Vic Tokai as a sequel to the Battle Mania franchise on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. It is unknown when the project began development or when it was set to be released.

History

The pitch document was originally published in a book called Nazo no Game Makyou 4, which was scanned and translated shortly after. Takayan, the lead developer of Battle Mania (Localized as Trouble Shooters in western regions) and Battle Mania: Daiginjo for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, wanted to develop a third game for the arcade, but it was later moved onto the Dreamcast. Takayan also wanted to port the game to the Sega Saturn and PlayStation, but didn't get the approval. The game was quietly cancelled due to the team not being able to find any publishers that were interested in the game. ^[1]

Gameplay

It is said that the gameplay would have been similar to the previous Battle Mania games with a 2D side-scrolling shoot'em up, but it would have also featured levels with an overhead style similar to games like Touhou, and a 3D style view similar to the game Space Harrier.

Development

The design documents found within the Nazo no Game Makyou 4 say that every in-game screenshot is a mockup, but it is unclear if the game actually went into production and how much of the game was actually worked on before cancellation.