Theres a prototype of the arcade version of Puyo Puyo Fever sitting on multiple ROM sites, and as far

as I know, the game itself hasn't been documented yet, so that's what I'm gonna do here! I'm gonna cover the

differences between the final arcade version and this prototype.

The origin of this isn't clear, acording to www.citylan.it it isn't known who dumped it, but it was dumped on January 28th, 2014. There's more information (like PCB pics and ROM Board Test screenshots) on that website.

I have a feeling it's either a preview version or a location test version

since parts of the game are blocked off and so are characters in VS mode.

UPDATE: it's not a location test version! the files in the ROM are dated 9/9/2003,

2 months before the actual location test on 11/1/2003. but theres a chance this was

used to test a tokyo game show build of the game, as SEGA was holding a

tournament there using a gamecube version that uses the same UI and music

as this prototype.

The ROM is still on emuparadise if you have the script and want to check it out.

Here

Full WakuWaku Course Playthrough

Intro

The music is pretty much the same, along with the character graphics, but the borders are simplified and don't have

the little icons sliding across them. The font is also different than the final version.

Endless Fever

The only other singleplayer option. Similar to the final but still a couple of differences.

The time you have left in fever is still displayed in the middle of the screen and isn't on the top.

The HUD isn't the same as final, and the music used is the regular fever music, and not

the one used for endless fever.

WakuWaku Course Intro

The text seems to be using a slightly different font, other than that it's the same as final.

WakuWaku Course

WakuWaku course cutscene voices and character art are all the same as final, the music remains

basically the same as final too. Cutscene backgrounds are all temporary ones. (You can actually

find some of these in the files of the final DC and PC versions of the game.)

The ending is the same as final as well, albeit having no credits sequence and skipping straight to the results screen.

In Game

This is where a lot of the differences seem to lie. The "Ready, Go!" Font is different and smaller

than final, and all of the Taisen music is slightly different. Popoi's theme is the one with the biggest changes.

When offsetting, the sound effect for getting another bar of fever is different, and also you have a small shield at the top of your

playfield when offsetting garbage. It also has a Puyo~n style effect while offsetting.

When taking damage, regardless of the size of garbage dropped on your field, the damage cut-in animation plays.

The AI is strange, it's fast dropping its first couple groups of puyos, but then it slows down and is also

not the best when it comes to offsetting it's way into fever mode. It's obvious it's not complete since mostly

every character shares the same AI.

Fever power is also reduced, it sends far less garbage and doesn't offset as much.

By the time you reach Arle in the WakuWaku course, you're given purple puyos, which is used exclusively

near the end of the HaruHaru course in the final game.

2P VS

When setting the difficulty to easy before starting a match you will still recieve yellow puyos.

There's also only 7 characters to choose from. Amitie, Raffina, Oshare Bones, Klug,

Dongurigaeru, Lidelle (Rider), and Frankenstiens are all playable in VS. Despite Arle appearing in the WakuWaku

Course, you can't play as her.

Results Screen and High Score Board

They are both simmilar to final, albeit using different fonts.

Continue Screen

The Continue screen is different, a different song and game over sound effect are used.

Other things to note

Strangely, in the ROM board test menu, all the ROMs come up as bad ROMs. This isn't an emulator fault.