Prerelease:Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (GameCube)

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (GameCube).

To do: Add comparison screenshots with the final where applicable.

Pre-E3 Build

The following pre-release screenshots are from an unknown build before E3 2003. Various features, including the simple Egg Ring designs, enemy targeting icons, and presence of more levels from the final, indicates that it's between the prototype and the final.

Pirate's Island

The presence of Chicken Elder Uri-Uri indicates that this is Mission 1 of Pirate's Island. The Chicken Emblem isn't in this location in Mission 1 of Pirate's Island in either the prototype or final version.

Billy in Skull Cave with three large toad enemies. In the final, Skull Cave features toad enemies only in Mission 8, where only a single one exists and you play as Bantam, not Billy. In addition, they have the prototype's target icons and odd green boxes that have an unknown purpose.

Billy in the Captain's Room with two penguin enemies and a Chicken Emblem. The prototype target icons and green boxes are present. In the final, the only enemies in the Captain's Room are two toad enemies in Mission 8, where you play as Bantam instead of Billy.

Captain Glur's illicium is down instead of upright, and the outline around the boss icon and health bar is brown instead of white.

Neither pirate ship is ever this close to Skull Cave, and a snake enemy and Clippen egg never appear in this location in any Pirate's Island mission in the final.

Dino Mountain

Billy in his pose after completing a level and obtaining a Chicken Emblem. There is no Chicken Emblem at this location in the final game for Billy or any of the other characters.

Billy fighting two of the larger crow enemies on Dino Mountain. The target icons are the ones from the prototype, and the green boxes are shown once again.

An overview of Dino Mountain. There are four Egg nests right next to each other, three of which contain Cipher, Recky, and Peliwan; this type of egg formation is not found at all in the final game. In addition, in the distance there are several pink Egg Rings from the prototype that are used to help scale part of the mountain. In the final, there are a couple of green Egg Rings at the base that are used to scale that part of the mountain.

Mission 1 of Dino Mountain, at night. The environment looks less detailed, the Chicken Emblem symbol on the Elder's egg is drastically different, and the Egg Rings in the distance have the prototype's design.

(Source: ConsoleWars)

E3 2003 Trailer

The E3 2003 trailer has some differences from the final:

• The music featured is an earlier version of the game's main theme song, G.I.A.N.T.E.G.G!
• Dino Mountain looks very blue.
• At 0:20, you can see Captain Glur with his illicium down like in a pre-E3 screenshot.
• At 0:21, the environment and lighting is different in the boss battle against Topo. The cave appears to be purple instead of grey, and the texture for the cave wall is different. There is less light shining on the Bone Dragon, and there are no flames in its mouth.
• At 0:22, the sky and background behind Moles is different. There are no clouds, the sky looks darker, and there are mountains instead of large snowflakes. In addition, Moles' whiskers are more upright, his helmet looks wider and is a reddish color, and his necklace is thicker.
• At 0:24, the battle with Saltim appears to take place indoors rather than outdoors, and the lighting of the background inside the mirror is much brighter.
• At 0:30, you can see four egg animals around Billy on the sand, right next to a pirate ship. Pirate ships are never this close to land in the final. In addition, the starting slope in a couple of missions appears to be right next to the pirate ship.
• At 0:33, you can see a grand total of six toad enemies in Mission 5 of Pirate's Island outside of the Captain's Room. The final has only three toad enemies in this location, and they're more spread out.
• From 0:38 onwards, you can see some prototype Egg Ring designs.
• Sand Ruin at 0:44 looks very rough, with a unique color skybox not seen in the final. The Chicken Elder statues also look shinier.

Unknown Gameplay Videos

The following videos are possibly from E3 2003, as the game contains elements from both the prototype and the final, including a larger variety of levels featured in them.

This video features Pirate's Island:

• The music playing in this mission (Mission 1) is the same as the final's.
• At 0:13, you can see a mostly final HUD with the intro starting phrase from the prototype. The lives counter is on the left underneath the health, the life count is in a smaller, white font with the X in yellow, and there is no timer.
• At 0:48, the way to open Uri-Uri's cage is with a pad just like in the prototype.

This video features Forest Village:

• Enemies have the prototype's targeting icon.
• At 0:11 there are two stacks of crates instead of one. The wooden crates are underneath the metal crates, where the final has it reversed. The left crate stack in the video has an additional metal crate.

This build features Pirate's Island and looks earlier than the previous ones featured:

• The main theme present here sounds like the earlier version except much higher pitched.
• At 0:24, you can see a standard egg by one of the cannon gates instead of a butterfly egg.
• At 0:26, you can see Billy spinning extremely fast around the egg.
• At 0:31, there are two switches stacked on top of each other in Skull Cave.
• At 0:37, you can see the prototype Egg Ring designs. There's also only one blue Egg Ring instead of six, and the yellow Egg Ring is in a different location and spins in the opposite direction.
• At 0:41, there's a Clippen egg instead of a standard egg.
• Starting from 0:43, the thrown eggs reset their momentum upon hitting enemies and have no visual effects when hitting the ground.