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King Arthur & the Knights of Justice
Developer: Manley & Associates

Publisher: Enix

Released: 1994, Super Nintendo

Much like how Squaresoft created Square USA to develop Secret of Evermore completely in America, Enix had a game of their own made in the states by developer Manley & Associates, then located in Seattle, Washington. A game based on King Arthur would make sense, since Americans are very familiar with the legend, but Enix took it one step further and based the game on a cartoon about football players who travel back in time to Camelot called King Arthur & the Knights of Justice.

The cartoon only lasted two seasons, and the game was met with much criticism. Not all of it was undeserved, though: it's notoriously glitchy, has an awkward password-based saving system, and uses some rather shallow and repetitive design, all of which suggest it was released in an unfinished state.

However, because so much was cut from the game for whatever reasons (budget and time constraints being most likely), it has turned out to be a real treasure trove of unused graphics, dialogue, items, and other content. Some elements (such as an unused cutscene) reveal how much more ambitious the project originally was, while others (mainly unused "fetch quest" items) were most likely removed to make the game less tedious than it already is.

While nobody (probably not even the developers) would argue that King Arthur & the Knights of Justice is a great game, it is an undeniably interesting little page in SNES history.

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