The Gardener? | Unused Items | Unused Objects

 

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.

	Coller was even depicted on early promotional shots. The cutout shot below was shown on Konami's European website.

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.

	~
Coller, the original design		Changed around, it becomes Frankenstein

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

Engagement Ring	Potpourri	Incandescence

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:

Back