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Here's something you don't see every day: a previously unreleased Nintendo 64 title has just been found and preserved.
Right out of the gate, I should probably mention that it's not Mother 3 or the N64 build of Project Dream that's been preserved, but a little-known Go game, which was in development at the Japanese company SETA Corporation, called Kaminari no Gotoku: Choukousoku Igo. So, it's probably best that you temper your expectations a little if you don't happen to love obscure Japanese video games based on board games.
Nevertheless, it's still pretty amazing that this little-known piece of N64 history has been saved and documented after all these years. Especially when there's a real possibility this kind of stuff could end up in the hands of private collectors or simply rot away in some warehouse somewhere.
I first heard about the discovery yesterday, thanks to the 64DD ROM Hacker LuigiBlood sharing a link to a prototype page on the website NESWORLD. This article covered how the cartridge was found, noting that earlier this year, someone listed it on eBay for nearly $30000 before lowering the price to $9000. As the article on NESWORLD explained, no one seemed interested in the cartridge at first, but a deal was eventually struck (the exact price was not shared), and the ROM was subsequently dumped on the Internet Archive, with Team Carrot acting as the persons responsible.
"What we have here is a near-final build of the game," the article reads. "It's completely in Japanese; it's the game of Go with various options to play, like vs several CPU (AI) opponents, a tournament and finally a set of tutorials explaining the game of Go. No, this is not Mother 64, or even Rev Limit from Seta themselves, but it's nonetheless a piece of N64 history, no longer lost, but actually well preserved - Thanks to Team Carrot."
If you want to know more about Kaminari no Gotoku: Choukousoku Igo, NESWORLD previously put together an article, featuring some interesting research into the game. This details, among other things, how an American company called Toyogo Inc. was partly responsible for developing the game, with Seta licensing an existing Go engine created by Toyogo's David Fotland to wrap the remainder of the game around.
Believed to be scheduled for a 1997 release, Kaminari no Gotoku: Choukousoku Igo appeared in several Western magazines, including EDGE and Game Informer, typically listed under the translated title Like Thunder Go, but was quietly delisted from Seta's website later that same year and was pretty much forgotten after that.
Its abandonment is thought to have stemmed from financial issues brought on by low sales of Seta's games. Besides Kaminari no Gotoku: Choukousoku Igo, Seta was also the developer of two more cancelled games for the N64. This includes Gendai Dai-Senryaku: Ultimate War, which was originally envisioned as a game for the N64DD, and the racing title Rev Limit.