Prime Selection Vol.1 (CK2 JP Late Prototype) - Kids Room Stage 2 - Alt. Route (Usually Unplayable!)

Usually completely unplayable, the super cool Sega Saturn rom hacker "Bo" (aka @memory_fallen on Twitter/X... yes, the same person who found the cheat code to unlock CK1 in CK2!) started going to town on the data of the Clockwork Knight games, but especially the "Prime Selection" prototype. They actually found a way to let you play more than one level in the game. Most of the levels are not present due to their data not being included, but you are able to play from the Crazy TV mini boss, all the way up to the Kid's Room boss "Funky Snaky". The Level Select and Options Screens are also available!

This video demonstrates a slightly earlier version of Kids Room Stage 2's alt. route, aka the Barobaro/first Horse Riding stage. Usually this level is unplayable in this prototype and only exists in the demo/attract screen mode of the game. But, rom hacking finally made this possible!

Much like the demo/attract screen mode version of this level, there are some object placement/type/enemy differences, notably the lack of the "Heatman" enemies and their cars, replaced by extra "Katchin'" enemies. There is a lack of playing cards in the level, too. In addition, there is a small graphical glitch at 0:30 and 1:13 concerning Barobaro. No "LOADING" text is shown on the Loading screen. There may also be a few other other object placement differences, but I haven't managed to document everything just yet. This prototype is during a very transitional period in general it seems! I'll document it all for the site~

I'd like to give a huge thanks again to Bo for unlocking this otherwise lost level in the prototype.

If you would like to play this yourself, you can apply a patch to a Redump compliant rip of the game to have it always unlocked. This can be found at https://cwk.fyi/PSV1Patch.

To play this level, scroll the level select up to where it says "Last Boss" and press up JUST ONCE from there (Doing it more than once can cause the game to crash!). Simply then select this option. You'll have to beat the Mini Boss and Kid's Room Stage 1, but then you'll be able to play this stage. Perhaps the level select will be patched if any further versions are released to make this a bit easier, if that is at all possible... I'm not making promises on anyone's behalf here!

File dates and game header info are about 20 days before the final build date of the Japanese release of CK2.

Game and General Information:
"Prime Selection Vol. 1" is a very hard to find, obscure Japanese exclusive Sega Saturn Compilation demo disc, published by Sega Enterprises, Ltd.

Released on sometime in 1995, the relation to Clockwork Knight for this disc is that it contains a playable demo of Clockwork Knight 2 on the disc, and CK2 happens to be the ONLY playable game on the CD.

The exact release date of this CD is not known apart from it's year, but file dates on the CD give us a clue. The file burn dates are all "1995.06.15 at 07:48 AM", so it was probably very soon after that date. This would make sense, as the front cover/manual advertises Clockwork Knight 2's Japanese release date (1995.07.28), so assuming it was released around a month prior to this would put it about there. Sadly, as I have no information on how this disc was released or distributed, I can't give an exact date, but late June or VERY early July 1995 seems about right. CK2's Japanese final build date was 20 days after this version on 1995.07.05.

Join us on the Clockwork Knight.com Discord server: https://cwk.fyi/D

Sources:
Patch Release Tweet:   / 1740019722090058048