Switchblade II (lost build of cancelled NES port of Amiga platformer; 1992)

Ads of the Switchblade II in Japan.

Status: Lost

Switchblade II (presented as Swithblade in Japan) is a 1991 platformer for the Amiga developed and published by Gremlin Graphics in Europe. In 1992, a Famicom or NES port was planned to be developed by Gremlin and published by Kemco, but was cancelled.

Incidentally, this game was presented simply as "Switchblade" when it was about to be released in Japan. This was probably because the original had never been released in Japan, or perhaps the Kemco side was unaware of the Roman numerals designed into the title logo. Scheduled for release in Japan in November 1992 (postponed to late January 1993), the title is listed on Kemco's official site^[1] even though it has not been released.

History

On June 11, 2016, in a reply to a page about the game on Unseen64, programmer Chris Harvey discussed the development process of the port. According to Harvey, the NES port has the same gameplay as the original Amiga, with some graphical differences, and took a full year to complete based on the original. However, it was cancelled due to an internal conflict with Gremlin^[2].

Availability

Harvey also mentioned in a reply that he had that finished ROM, but had no intention of selling it, and disparaged the person who offered him $1,000 to sell it. The ROM is still believed to be in Harvey's possession and has not yet surfaced online^[3].