High-end SNES console getting its own unreleased classic

That headline deserves an asterisk: While Super Turrican was released by Factor 5 in 1993, it had to be cut down from a 6 Mb cartridge to a 4 Mb cartridge to accommodate the publisher. Somewhere, that original Super Turrican existed, waiting for a chance to be released in its entirety. When Analogue’s Super NT is released early next year, the unedited game — now dubbed Super Turrican: Director’s Cut — will be included with every console, along with an SNES-style cartridge box.

What’s included in Super Turrican: Director’s Cut? “It features a new level with new music, more enemies, better sound effects and graphics and even a new way to use the beam weapon,” Analogue’s Christoper Taber tells Polygon. Here’s a video trailer:

Factor 5’s Julian Eggebrecht discussed this unreleased version on a Twitch stream last year; while that stream is gone, this Nintendo Life writeup survives:

That was not the end of Eggebrecht's revelations. This definitive 6Mbit Super Turrican ROM was set to be released back in 2008 when both Super Turrican and Mega Turrican arrived on Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service, as a special bonus download for people who purchased both titles. However, this never came to be due to Nintendo's refusal to publish anything that wasn't commercially available previously - something which was company policy back then.

The Super NT, along with Super Turrican: Director’s Cut, is available for pre-order now for $190, and is expected to ship in February 2018.