The Gardener? | Unused
Items
The
Gardener?
If you know the history of Castlevania
64 and its direct follow-up, you know that Konami promised four playable
characters for its Nintendo 64 exclusive. Of course, that promise went unfulfilled,
and we were left with only Reinhardt and Carrie. It wasn't until the follow-up,
Legacy of Darkness, that we learned of Cornell and Henry Oldrey. However,
Henry wasn't meant to be one of the original four--it was instead meant to
be a hero named Coller. Screenshots from early in the development, such as
the one show above, reveal his mugshot. He also appears in early
artwork.
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Coller was even depicted
on early promotional shots. The cutout shot below was shown on Konami's
European website.
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This fearsome-looking "hero"commanded
a rifle and had transplanted onto his right arm a chainsaw. Following the
template, these would have been his long-range and in-close weapons. Naturally,
with such weaponry, this would be the most vicious and deadly of the heroes,
leading one to believe he was meant more as an antihero.
Like the three others, though, Coller
was also going to be assigned his own personal antagonist. Her name is unknown,
but there is artwork available:
Things would change: Rather than acting
as an antagonist against Coller, this was to become the new design for Coller,
itself--a red-haired woman who would act as a Carrie to Cornell's Reinhardt.
She was, in fact, to be named "Coller2," which works in a sense
that hers is a line of machines identified by model and number. As deadlines
quickly approached, Coller, in any form, was eliminated altogether.
While unused as a character, the ideas
present were harnessed and used in two other instances:
The original design of Coller was going to be used
as a regular enemy or more likely a boss. Instead, for whatever reason, they
transformed it into the Frankenstein Gardener, which appears in the Villa
Hedge Maze on the game's third stage. They changed the clothing, eliminated
the shotgun and supplanted the propensity for large speed bursts. This fact
was lost on even Konami's European counterpart, whose website showcased Coller
as "the Gardener" in place of Franky.
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Coller, the
original design
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Changed around,
it becomes Frankenstein
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The European site even displayed a
description, which I paraphrased elsewhere: "Franky is replaced by 'The
Gardener,' a zombie melded together from human skin, bone from sinew, bodies
of dead militia men and the brain of a serial killer. It guards the hedge
maze with a shotgun in one hand and the chainsaw that has replaced its other
arm. Like Franky, it's also a regular speed demon despite its past aptitude
for sloth."
So Coller was basically the Frankenstein
Gardener that we already knew furthermore armed with a shotgun. Yeah--as if
the Hedge Maze escape wasn't quite excruciating enough.
Otherwise, the original design for
Coller inspired the new fourth hero--Henry Oldrey, who arrived in Legacy
of Darkness. The shotgun mechanics were saved and recycled for his use.
So, in essence, their original design was barely lost--it instead served them
in the creation of two separate characters.
All information and some images were
sent in by JPCVFAN.
Unused
Items
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Engagement Ring
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Potpourri
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Incandescence
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Thanks to the GameShark, the
popular cheating device, you can store some items in your inventory that are
never used in the game but have for some reason been left in its memory. Well,
actually, remnants of their existence can be found--the text descriptions
remain, but the avatars have been replaced by different-sized money bags.
You can view them by going into your inventory and selecting an item even
though they'll have no use:
