Pinocchio 32x (Dec 6, 1995 prototype)

Discuss this release on the boards here!



An unreleased Sega 32x port of Pinocchio has been released for your enjoyment! A new release courtesy of Radar as part of his lot from Virgin.



Once upon a time after the release of The Lion King in 1994, Virgin began work on their next Disney adaptation for video game consoles. Their next project, Pinocchio, followed a similar pattern of utilizing the assistance of Disney themselves to create the animation for the project. Aside from their animation studios, Virgin also relied on Westwood Studios to create additional sprites and backgrounds and Disney Interactive for additional testing as well.



The game had a somewhat long development for it’s time - starting development in 1994 and supposedly ending late 1995. The game was originally planned to have three simultaneous releases on the Sega Mega Drive, the SNES, and the Sega 32x. The Sega 32x version was previewed to have a greater color palette and utilize additional background layers for parallax scrolling. Aside from that, this version of the game was mostly meant to be identical to the other versions.



However, the Sega 32x version was canceled for unknown reasons, presumably due to the failing sales of the hardware itself. The game did not do so favorably either, especially in comparison to the previous Disney adaptations from Virgin Interactive. Up until now, aside from small anecdotes during the game’s initial previews, this version remained relatively unknown. From our initial research, it seems that no media outlet previewed the 32x version of the game, possibly suggesting that this version was dropped shortly before the final game was meant to ship.



We are happy to preserve this version of the game for your enjoyment. While possibly unfinished, this prototype could have represented the best version of the game had it been released (aside from the sound track, if FM isn’t your thing).



With that said, until next time!

