YouTuber Diskman Presents revealed a never-before released Castlevania game for the Tiger Game.com handheld. He showed off a prototype port of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night developed for the obscure console. Development was never completed and the game was not released commercially. According to Diskman’s website, the prototype build was discovered in 2019 on an official cartridge with an authentic label.
Check out the gameplay footage below, captured from a Tiger Game.com Pocket Pro.
As is evident from the video, this port of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has been altered considerably from the original PlayStation game to fit the colorless, lower-resolution Game.com screen. It also lacks voice acting and has much lower-fidelity background music. That said, the general gist of Symphony of the Night‘s gameplay remains intact. Even the famed conversation between Richter Belmont and Dracula takes place, using the original dialog. The boss battle that ensues, however, does not happen. After a text-based description of events, players are put in control of Alucard and proceed with the game as normal.
As for the Tiger Game.com, the console was originally released in 1997. It was the first handheld game console to feature a touch screen and the first version of the machine could be connected to the internet via a 14.4 kbit/second modem. (Hence the “.com” name.) It was able to use email and browse the internet through a basic text-based onboard program. It also had exclusive games, such as natively adapted versions of popular home console titles like Duke Nukem 3D, Fighters Megamix, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, and Resident Evil 2. Ultimately, it was overshadowed the Game Boy and sold less than 300,000 units overall. Tiger Electronics released a smaller version called the Game.com Pocket Pro in 1999, but discontinued the whole line in 2000.
The Tiger Game.com is no longer available, but Castlevania: Symphony of the Night can be played on the PS1, Sega Saturn, Xbox 360, PSP, PS4, and Android and iOS devices.
