It's video game history time again, but this time it's something a bit different, as the game we're talking about today was never released (As you can probably infer from the title of this post).
But first, let me ask you a question. Have you ever looked around and found something really valuable or interesting in a place you never thought it would be?
Well the game we're talking about today is one of those cases. That game is The Fairyland Story for the Nintendo Famicom. A presumed lost, unreleased port of an arcade title of the same name that was recently rediscovered.
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But in order to understand this game we need to look at the game its a port of. The game was released in 1985 by Taito. Now Taito were and still are a famous Japanese video game company who created many many classic arcade games such as Jungle Hunt (Also known as Jungle King), Qix (pronounced Kicks), Elevator Action, Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid, and most notably they made Space Invaders back in the late 70s.
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However, Taito made thousands of games throughout the 80's and not all of them got the same amount of wide recognition as there more famous works. The Fairyland Story was one of those titles, The Fairyland Story is considered by many gamers to be a predecessor to Taito’s other platforming games like Bubble Bobble and The New Zealand Story and that claim certainly isn't that far off.
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Despite its name, The game actually has nothing to do with fairies. You play as a young witch named Ptolemy, who's on a quest to find the holy diamond stolen by the evil dragon Dracolisk. The only catch is Ptolemy's still a witch in training, so the only spell she can do is one that can turn enemies into cakes for a limited amount of time. The object of the game is to defeat all of the enemies in each level by either repeatedly casting the spell on the enemies until they disappear or push off a ledge in cake form, squashing other enemies below if they happen to be there.
It looks and sounds bizarre, but it's actually a pretty good puzzle platforming game. Though some reviewers have criticized it's simple level designs and gameplay mechanics, and while I can say it is very simple I certainly don't think it's that bad. In fact I think the game's a little underrated, but that's just me.
The game was created by Hiroshi Tsujino (often going by the nickname “Onijust”), a game designer who worked for both Taito in Japan and Taito America. Like many classic Japanese game designers, He had quite humble beginnings.
Born in Takaoka City, Toyama Japan in 1965, he grew up on the television watching anime such as Ultraman and Mazinger Z. As a teen of the late-70s, Tsujino witnessed the Space Invaders boom and became enamored with video games. He spent hours playing Space Invaders at a local supermarket, often hung out at nearby arcades and computer stores, and he even won several game design contests in high school.
He began his career at Taito in 1983 in their home division, doing ports of arcade games like Elevator Action and Chack’n Pop for the MSX computer.
Shortly after the release of an original title called XYZOLOG, Taito decided to slow down MSX production in favor of the newly-released Nintendo Famicom (also known internationally as the Nintendo Entertainment System), and Tsujino got transferred to their arcade division in Yokohama. While working there, Tsujino drafted an idea for a game where the player had to defeat enemies by crushing them under large cakes.
According to Tsujino, he claims the concept was inspired by his addiction to Namco's Dig Dug, and looking at how the mechanics in the game work, I can certainly see the resemblance. The way how you can kill an enemy by squashing it with cake does resemble the way how you can kill enemies in Dig Dug with the rocks in each level.
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Not only that, but one of the enemies is a dragon-like creature that can breathe fire called a Salamander, which does look and act like the Fygar enemy in Dig Dug.
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He also took inspiration from Broderbund's Lode Runner for the Apple II, giving the game a larger emphasis on strategy and memorization as well as reworked stage designs and a mechanic where you can stand on top of enemies rather than them just killing you like they would touching them on the ground.
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As previously mentioned The Fairyland Story is not generally regarded as a great game to critics and it seems that it wasn't even considered a popular game when it was released back in 1985, So it never got many ports to the various video game console and home computers prevalent at the time.
However, it did get a few ports only released in Japan for the Sharp X68000 and the MSX. With Hot-B publishing the MSX port under the GAċ¤˘ brand in 1987, and with the company SPS publishing the X68000 port in 1991.
The Nintendo Famicom port was announced in 1986 as a forthcoming title for the system, and had a preview shown in Family Computer Magazine in March of that year alongside ports of Great Swordsman and Pitstop II, which were also never released.
The port was thought to be lost or, at best, in the hands of a Japanese collector until 2022, when avid console modder FenrisWolfRetro found a copy of the in an eBay lot of untested Famicom games. So he bought it, alerted the folks at the Forest of Illusion group, dumped the rom, and spread the info to other video game historians.
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The cart itself is dated April 25th, 1986, and seems to be a debug build. The level layouts only rarely resemble the arcade game (even when they match, the enemies are often swapped). It also has less levels then the arcade version, with 50 levels instead of Level 101 with a boss fight. The Famicom port is also never-ending, looping after Level 50. You can skip levels by Pressing Select (though if overused, can result in breaking the game).
Who developed the Famicom port of The Fairyland Story is unknown. Nobody knows if it was Taito, Hot-B, or even an unknown contractor. In 2003, there was a claim from an anonymous user going by “kiwi” on the 2chan imageboard, claiming to be one of the people behind both the Famicom and MSX conversions and that the Famicom port of The Fairyland Story was scrapped due to quality concerns and that the team moved on to the MSX version shortly after. While this cannot be verified, if that's true then that means that either Taito or Hot-B handled the conversion.
Further evidence is in the the games ROM. Comparing title screens, both ports have an identical font, copyrights, HUDs, and sound drivers, the game bares resemblance to the Famicom port of Chack’n Pop by TOSE. Although not a perfect match, both reference the same RAM addresses when writing to sound registers for SFX. So it's very possible that the developer that converted Chack’n Pop to the Famicom is the same developer that would would have done The Fairyland Story.
So it's very possible that the developer that converted Chack’n Pop to the Famicom is the same developer that would have done The Fairyland Story. So, with the history and explanation out of the way, why don't we have a quick look at the game shall we?
While the game may not be complete, it is still playable. Everything runs as expected without crashing, at least from my brief playthrough and every feature implemented works, Even the 2 player mode!
Judging from the facts stated above, this build of the game appears to be about 80% done. If this build had a more exact layout to the arcade game, some tweaks to some of the gameplay code, the color, graphics and sound, and had the select button skip replaced with a password system or a continue feature after a game over or something like that, You would probably have a pretty good port of the arcade game. but as it stands, its more or less as playable as its arcade counter part. Will a full build of the game ever be discovered? We may never know.
But until then, This prototype build of The Fairyland Story for the Famicom is a reminder that sometimes the greatest discoveries can be found hidden in the most unlikely of places.