According to the game's motion artists, Tomoya Ohtsubo and Yuichiro Hiraki, the game was not going to feature the ability to jump early in development. Hideki Kamiya himself was against having the ability to jump and had to be convinced of its addition.
"We eventually wore him down with the argument that a 3D game with so much action simply had to include the ability to jump. He relented in the end, albeit bitterly. Maybe he was thinking about how much extra work it would add?
But once it was decided. Kamiya-san's mood picked up. After jumping was implemented, he didn't hold back. exclaiming. "How about a double jump?" The stage designers weren't so pleased. We didn't build these stages to be viewed from such a high perspective'. they said. (laughs) But they did their best to adjust everything, only to be blindsided again by the introduction of the flying Devil Trigger mode. (laughs) We were on the sidelines of all this, but I felt bad for the stage designers, who went from stages designed for no jumping. to jumping, to double-jumping, and finally Devil Trigger mode flying."
According to the motion artist, Yuichiro Hiraki, the shotgun "Coyote" was a leftover asset from Resident Evil 4's development. The idea of Dante wielding the shotgun one-handed was inspired by the use of shotguns in the Mad Max franchise.
"The shotgun was planned for "RE 4", so we already had its basic motions in place to some extent. But what can you do with a shotgun besides hold and fire it normally, with two hands? That's not stylish at all. But what if it's fired one-handed? That's how they did it in "Mad Max", after all. Given that the shotgun was a leftover asset from ''RE". I decided to do something even more unconventional with it; Dante would reload it with one hand. That touch really helped me break away from the shadow of "RE."
In the original version of the game, Kasumi was originally going to have a fighting style based on rapidly spinning. However, the hardware for the Model 2 engine could not handle the speed required for the technique. So the concept was scrapped. The idea was reintroduced when retooling the game for the PlayStation. Since the console was able to support a fast rotating character, a new character was added to the roster with the original idea for the fighting style. This character ultimately became Ayane, in the final game.
Lisa was originally going to be named Monica. However, because of the allegations surrounding then-United States President Bill Clinton, the name "Monica" would draw too much negative attention. So the name was abandoned and eventually changed to Lisa.
According to the series creator, Tomonobu Itagaki, Omega was originally planned to have Genra split into four and attack the player with different spells. The plan was abandoned when the process didn't work.
Within the data for Chapter 1 is an unused attack for Spoiler:Jevil that consists of multiple spades converging into the center of the Bullet Board in a cross pattern. This attack would eventually be repurposed for the rematch against Berdly in Cyber City during Chapter 2, albeit with tornados in place of spades.
Menat's moveset has some divergences between the Japanese and English names. Both the Japanese and English names are filled with references to Egyptian mythology:
•Overflowing Nile in the Japanese version is ナイルの氾濫 Nairu no hanran (“Flooding of the Nile”). Nile floodings have exceptional importance for both ancient and modern Egyptians.
•Wisdom of Thoth was ジェフティの知恵 Jefuti no chie, “Wisdom of Thoth”. This discrepancy in spelling is due to the Japanese using one of the most common of Thoth’s transliterations, from his ancient Egyptian name ḏḥwty, also pronounced as Jehuti amongst other spellings.
•Left Eye of the Lion is 獅子の左目 Shishi no hidarime (“Lion Left Eye”, or “the Left Eye who is a Lion”). This alludes to Sekhmet, the lion goddess of war and destruction.
•Judgement of Anubis is 黒犬の審判 Kuroinu no shinpan ("Judgement of the black dog"). The Japanese name comes from the fact that he has a jackal’s (or black dog) head.
•Divine Retribution is a generic adaptation of the original 罪人を喰らう顎 Zainin wo kurau ago (“The jaws that eat the sinner"), an allusion to the goddess Ammit, the monster who devours the dead whose heart ends up being heavier than the feather of Ma'at.
•Khamun Kick is カーメンキック Kāmen Kikku, and derives from a common liberty the Japanese took with Ancient Egyptian language: coming from Tutankhamun's name, the most famous of all the pharaohs. His name in Ancient Egyptian is Twt ˁnḫ Jmn, "living" ˁnḫ, better known as ankh) "image" (twt) "of Amun" (Jmn). Amun's name was written first for respect towards the god, even if it was pronounced last. Given that Tut, Ankh and Amun are single words, "Khamun" doesn't make sense in context. Nevertheless, Japanese already popularised the use of カーメン kāmen as an ancient Egyptian reference, maybe prompted by the fact that the Japanese 仮面 kamen means "mask" and Tutankhamun's funerary mask is well known.
•Guardian of the Sun is in Japanese 太陽の守護者 Taiyō no shugosha, a direct translation. This references Khepri, the beetle Sun god. Khepri rolls the Sun across the sky, and he is visible on Menat's nape.
•The Nefertem is in Japanese ウン・ネフェル Un - Neferu. Nefertem is the lotus god of scent and good perfumes, as well as the son of Sekhmet. On the other hand, the Japanese name doesn't actually reference Nefertem, because the title wnn nfr, variously transliterated "Wenennefer", "Wenufer" or Unnefer, "The perfect one", "The happy one", is one of the epithets of Osiris.
There is an unused Game Modes tab on the disc that comes with data suggesting that there were other game modes planned like "Boss Mode" and "Explore Mode", however no further data exists on these modes.
There are a total of 21 unused Mini-Cons in the game's data, some of which appear as text strings while the rest appear to resemble JSON files. However, two were extensively worked on before being scrapped. The first one was called "Endgame" and would have summoned large "holes in the fabric of space" that would have sucked enemies and objects into them. The second dropped Mini-Con is called "Bug-Out" and would have called upon "Emergency Warp Gates". Although Endgame was scrapped, his model was reused for in-game Mini-Cons Discord, Twister, and Overwatch.
In a livestream of Chapter 1 conducted for Undertale's sixth anniversary, Toby Fox stated that the chapter was originally meant to include a number of branching options like in Undertale, such as Kris being able to partner with either Susie or Ralsei depending on their actions up to the first K. Round fight. However, much of these ideas were cut both to avoid dragging out development and to streamline the plot; the resulting linearity ended up being incorporated into the game's narrative, resulting in Chapter 1's heavy focus on a lack of agency.
There are cut Transmission logs in the game's data that took the form of Autobots frantically and intensely contacting Optimus and the crew from Iacon on Cybertron about the planet Junkion, a key planet from Transformers lore that contains a robotic race of technologically-adept robots. These logs would have featured Autobot characters not in the final game at all, including Scavenger, Jetfire, Smokescreen, Sideswipe, and Blurr. Another thing about the logs is that they also would have revealed the origin of the Decepticlones: Megatron took advantage of the Junkion's inventive prowess and their "Hyper Power" cloning technology to make his near unstoppable army. Spoiler:The off-world Autobots would have also warned Optimus and the Earth team about Unicron's arrival to Cybertron when the Earth team arrived at Pacific Island.
The game went through a number of early titles throughout development including "Transformers Armada" (which was the name shipped with review copies of the game), "Transformers Armada: The Battle for Energon" and "Transformers Armada: Prelude to Energon", all of which bear the name of the show and toy line that it's based upon. However, when the game was launched at retail, the name was changed to just "Transformers" for unknown reasons.
A Western version of the game was being planned, however with Pepsiman replaced with the WWE wreslter The Blue Meanie, alias of professional wrestler Brian Heffron. In 2000, Heffron was approached to have his character's likeness used, however due to then being under contract with the WWE, he was refused by them to take part and all plans were dropped. A few months later, Heffron was dropped from the WWE.
According to a 2003 interview with the game's producer Hideo Kojima published in the 4/03 issue of Nintendo Dream magazine, he was asked how the game's development started? He responded:
"I’ve been saying for a long time now that I want to make something weird. I had an idea, for example, for a CD game where if the player dies, the disc itself actually breaks. I want to make something *that* weird. Of course it sounds like a commercial disaster waiting to happen, right? Plus I had the Metal Gear series to contend with, which always got prioritized over other projects. But in my head all these game ideas have been piling up, being warehoused for future use, and one of them was a hazy idea for a game that used the sun somehow. Then the GBA came out, and it was more powerful than the Super Famicom. Wow—handheld hardware is starting to get really good, I thought."
"For a game that uses the sun, I knew a sensor would be the best choice. But I had absolutely no idea how to make that happen. As it happened, a little before that Konami had been designing some portable, handheld medical devices equipped with a variety of sensors. And so when that got released on the market, my previously vague concept of “catching the rays of the sun” came into clearer focus—if we attach this sensor to a GBA cart, it could work! That was the official start of everything. It was right around the end of the Metal Gear Solid 2 development.
"Originally, I thought we’d make a different type of game. It wasn’t going to be a sequel to Ghost Babel or anything, but I actually wanted to use the “hiding” (stealth) concept in Metal Gear 2 to create an entirely different kind of “escape game.” It would have begun with you being caught and imprisoned by the enemy… I thought a game like that could work really well on a portable system, but after a lot of planning, it turned out we just couldn’t work it into something satisfying. At that point, although it was quite a risk, we decided to challenge ourselves with an entirely new game."
In a Famitsu interview Sakurai revealed that he and his team wanted to introduce aerial Smash Attacks in this game in order to diversify the limited aerial combat of Smash Bros. However, they rejected this for various reasons, including the belief that such attacks were "too complicated" to implement and also that, in Sakurai's opinion, the system would also destroy the game and series' signature balance between casual and competitive gameplay.
There are a series of Transformers: Devastation PlayStation 4 faceplates that were only released in Japan and in a limited number, despite the game getting no Japanese release.
The game was originally going to have a much more dramatic, serious, and cinematic story than the simple one it has in the final game which would have also featured much more characters from the Transformers: Armada TV Show and toyline. Even show-exclusive human characters Rad, Carlos, and Alexis were going to appear in the storyline as well more Transformers on either side, different locations and wildly different scenarios among other things. This can all be seen hidden in a lengthy script in the game's data by a programmer who kept it in "for memory's sake".
In the Tatooine Jabba's Palace map there are two unused models out of bounds. The first one is outside one of the hallways and it is a figure in a robotic suit that looks to be bound by one hand and sitting immobile and in a voluptuous position. The model's suit is the only thing fully rendered and its unfinished "skin" and "body" just appear as a black mass. The second one is an unused Command Post that's "deactivated". Interestingly, in the level's reappearance in this game's sequel, the sitting figure is completely removed but the deactivated command post is not.
There is an unused Game Modes tab on the disc that comes with data suggesting that there were other game modes planned like "Boss Mode" and "Explore Mode", however no further data exists on these modes.
A Western version of the game was being planned, however with Pepsiman replaced with the WWE wreslter The Blue Meanie, alias of professional wrestler Brian Heffron. In 2000, Heffron was approached to have his character's likeness used, however due to then being under contract with the WWE, he was refused by them to take part and all plans were dropped. A few months later, Heffron was dropped from the WWE.
Decepticon Cassette Ratbat was going to appear in the game, but was cut prior to release. He has a full model rendered in the game's data.
In the Tatooine Jabba's Palace map there are two unused models out of bounds. The first one is outside one of the hallways and it is a figure in a robotic suit that looks to be bound by one hand and sitting immobile and in a voluptuous position. The model's suit is the only thing fully rendered and its unfinished "skin" and "body" just appear as a black mass. The second one is an unused Command Post that's "deactivated". Interestingly, in the level's reappearance in this game's sequel, the sitting figure is completely removed but the deactivated command post is not.