DF Retro: Cooly Skunk - The Lost SNES Platformer Miraculously Recovered Via Satellite Download!

A Super NES/Super Famicom game thought lost forever has been miraculously recovered. Cooly Skunk may never have received a physical release on 16-bit, but it did get a PlayStation 1 revamp. It's the most fascinating example of a cross-gen game we've seen to date. Learn about the Super Famicom's satellite gaming download system, how it made recovering Cooly Skunk possible and - of course - how the completed but never released SNES game compared to the actual PS1 release.

Link to Gaming Alexandria's report:

[SatoshiMatrix]

I'm glad that this was preserved. Completed projects that went unreleased are extremely sad cases. All that work, for nothing.

[thiagovidal]

This gives me the idea of a future DF Retro episode focusing on cases like this... Games that were almost done in one generation but ended up cancelled and completely redone for the next generation. Some famous cases comes to mind. Eternal Darkness had an incredibly looking version running on the N64 before being remade for GC. Same goes for Dinosaur Planet, the most ambitious N64 game that turned into Star Fox Adventures on GC. Kameo from Xbox to Xbox360... Too Human from PS1 to GC to Xbox360... Some of those have plenty of videos out there.. others might be trickier.. but with some digging it would be fascinating to learn more about what was going on with those titles and comparing them.

[djukor]

The mostly negative reviews people gave this game back in the day feel like they are mostly due to people just thinking that 2d is no longer relative in the age of the PS1.
That you game has to be 3d out not come out at all. I can certainly confirm that 2d was looked down upon by a lot of gamers during the ps1/n64 era.

[yinepuiwhite]

This is the kind of DF Retro I love seeing. Not trying to sell anything, not made only because it promotes something, just cool, in-depth looks at retro games and their history like the early days. Love it. <3

[justsignmeup]

I remember people on Usenet saying the PS1 version looked like a SNES game when it was released. Today I think the look has aged well.

[RobertoVillegas-vincent]

Satellaview is still one of the stranger and interesting parts of Nintendo history. Probably my favorite thing to poke around on my SD2SNES pro. Really cool to see some coverage on it in DF Retro.

[mementoa]

Man, the spritework for this game is gorgeous! I really love DF Retro for episodes like this, where it shows ports/original games I never knew about.

[johnsimon]

It’s freaky how ephemeral satallaview games are. It’s like - here’s a version of Excitebike featuring Mario characters in 1997 that might have only been available for a few months and when it’s gone, it is GONE.

[SnowyNowak]

Kinda hilarious how the PS1 version was criticized for being "outdated" graphically when it released in North America in 1998 but its graphics have aged better than a lot of 3D PS1 games

[alopexau]

This is great, I can't wait to add it to my collection.

I'm glad Nintendo was smart enough to use a writable memory cart for their first foray into "online" gaming... too bad Sega didn't, with many Sega Channel exclusives simply gone forever. I still want to know what content was lost in the appropriately named Garfield: Lost Levels...

[sergeleon]

Looks like a nice game that aged well, to me personally 2D games like this aged way better then the early 3D games.

[PFBM]

I remember seeing a preview for Punky Skunk when I was like 12 and I thought it looked like a game for babies and never gave it much thought... now seeing it for the first time in 20+ years it looks like a solid game that I would totally enjoy. Funny how that works out!

[OKeijiDragon]

Glad to have dropped $20 for the SNES preservation.

[johnsimon]

Eeee! I was on twitter when Forest of Illusion announced this!
Thanks for the video and the additional context.

Re: Skunk - I’ll say it before I’ll say it again
“1995 is like Hey check out all the neat 2d sprite games we can make with 32 bit hardware! Okay now throw that in the trash it’s time for the whole industry to figure out how polygons work and make something compelling with that...” suddenly the bar is much much higher and it gets compounded with Sony apparently not wanting sprite based games on their system.

[RetroBreak]

I was following the preservation effort of this game on Twitter and it's amazing what the community can do to find and preserve these very rare games!

[B.E..R]

19:54 "It also highlights the dangers of a purely digital marketplace"
>Cries in PC gaming

[felman]

It'd be interesting to get an interview with the developers. Hearing what got changed because of publisher demand, because they wanted to do something and the PS1 hardware offered hardware power that the SNES just didn't have and what got changed because, after implementing and testing it on the SNES, they realized it didn't work as well as they thought but were late in development on that version to change too much.

[HybridAngelZero]

Dooood, this is so cool! Punky Skunk is one of those PSone games I've always been interested in, but it always felt like it was from an earlier era, even when it was new. That's just some fascinating history

[MapleMilk]

Weird how Earthbound got the "This Game Stinks" marketing when this existed at some point

[KingofDMC]

I figured my mom was the only person in Earth who bought Punky Skunk.

I still remember playing the hell outta this game ass a kid.